There are four chief spirits: “Tapa,” who created men and women, and preserves them in life; “Tenabi,” who made the earth, and, except the human race, all things therein, and still causes it to flourish; “Iang,” or “Iing,” who first instructed the Dayaks in the mysteries of their religion, and who superintends its performance; “Jirong,” who looks after the propagation of the human species, and also causes them to die of sickness or accident. “Iang” is frequently associated with “Tapa,” and “Tapa Iang” often stands for the Supreme Being.
An intelligent man of the tribe Setang, gave another account. He says that “Tapa” and “Tenabi” are but different names for the same Great Being, and that with Him is associated “Jirong,” the Lord of birth and death. That when Tapa made the world, he first created “Iang,” then the spirits “Triu” and “Komang,” and then man. That man and the spirits were at first equal, and fought on fair terms, but that on one woful occasion, the spirits got the better of man, and rubbed charcoal in his eyes, which made him no longer able to see his spirit foes, except in the case of certain gifted persons, as the priest, and so placed him at their mercy.
With respect to a future state, the common Dayak story is that when a man dies, he becomes a spirit, and lives in the jungle, or (this Mr. Chalmers heard in one of the dead body burning tribes) that as the smoke of the funeral pile of a good man rises, the soul ascends with it to the sky, and that the smoke from the pile of a wicked man descends, and his soul with it is borne down to the earth, and through it to the regions below. Another version is, that when a man dies a natural death, his soul on leaving the body becomes a spirit, and haunts the place of burial or burning. When a spirit dies, for spirits too, it would seem, are subject unto death, it enters the hole of Hades, and coming out thence again becomes a Bejawi. In course of time the “Bejawi” dies, and lives once more as a “Begutur;” but when a “Begutur” dies, the spiritual essence of which it consists, enters the trunks of trees, and may be seen there damp and blood-like in appearance, and has a personal and sentient existence no longer.
I have introduced this account, and it is curious to trace in it a similarity to the Budhist religion professed in Siam. There, they believe that after passing through many and various transmigrations, they will, as the last and best existence, sink into “neiban” and be lost to all sense, and fade away without retaining personality any longer.
With regard to a future state, the Dayaks point to the highest mountain in sight as the abode of their departed friends.
The spirits are divided into two classes, “Umot,” spirits by nature, and “Mino,” as I understood it to be, ghosts of departed men.
Umot.—The “Trui” and “Komang” live amid the noble old forest on the tops of lofty hills. They delight in war and bloodshed, and always come down to be present at the Dayak “head feasts.” They are described as of a fierce and wild appearance, being covered with coarse red hair like an orang-utan. By some the “Komang” are said to be the spirits of departed heroes, associated after death for their valour with the war-loving “Trui.” “Umot Sisi” is a harmless kind of spirit which follows the Dayak, to look for the fragments of food which have fallen through the open flooring of their houses, and who is heard at night munching away below. “Umot Perubak” cause scarcity among the Dayaks, by coming invisibly and eating the rice from the pot at mealtime; their appetite is insatiable. “Umot Perusong” and “Tibong” come slily and devour the rice which is stored within a receptacle made of the bark of some gigantic tree, and is in the form of a vat. It is kept in the garrets of the houses, and a large one will contain a hundred and fifty bushels, and the family live in constant fear that these voracious spirits will visit their store and entirely consume it.
“Mino Buau” are the ghosts of those who have been killed in war. These are very vicious and inimical to the living;—they dwell in the jungle, and have the power of assuming the form of beasts or headless men. A Quop Dayak declared he met with one. He was walking through the jungle, and saw what he thought was a squirrel sitting on the large roots of a tree which overhung a small stream. He had a spear in his hand, this he threw at the squirrel, and thought he had struck it; he ran towards the spot at which it had apparently fallen, when to his horror it faced him, rose up, and was transformed into a dog. The dog walked on a few paces, and then turning into a human shape, sat slowly down on the trunk of a fallen tree—head there was none. The spectre body was parti-coloured, and at the top drawn up to a point. The Dayak was smitten with a great fear, and away he rushed home and fell into a violent fever; the priest was called, and he pronounced that the patient’s soul had been summoned away from its corporeal abiding place by the spirit; so he went to seek it, armed with his magic charms. Midway between the village and place where the “Buau” had appeared, the fugitive soul was overtaken and induced to pause, and having been captured by the priest, was brought back to its body, and poked into its place through an invisible hole in the head: the next day the fever was gone.
This shows how the priests practise on the ignorance and superstition of the people. Mr. Gomez, aware of it, used his utmost efforts to convert the principal “Manang” or priest of the Lundu branch of the “Sibuyaus,” and succeeded; since then there have been many baptized. This, however, is not the principal effect; he has enlisted the learned man on his side instead of against him, and I have little doubt of his ultimately winning over the whole tribe of that section of Sea Dayaks.
Some accuse the Buau of being occasionally guilty of running off with women. In former times, a wife named Temunyan was, in her husband’s absence, carried off. On his return he searched for, and found the spirit, slew him by a trick and recovered his wife; not, however, until she had suffered violation. She was pregnant by the Buau, and in due time she brought forth a son—a horrible monster, which her enraged husband chopped up into small pieces; and these immediately turned into leeches, with which the jungles are to this day unpleasantly infested.