The above are personal names; when young the parents often change them, especially if the child be sickly, there being an idea that they will deceive the inimical spirits by following this practice. As the children grow up they are dignified further by a change of name: thus, “Si Mara” becomes “Ma Kari,” i.e. the father of Kari, being the name of a child of his father’s or mother’s younger brother or sister. If this younger brother or sister have no children, whose names are to spare, “Si Mara” must wait until he gets a child of his own, and then he takes his child’s name with “Ma” prefixed. The same custom holds good with women;—“Si Risi,” a personal name, being changed into “Nu Sangut,” i.e. the mother of Sangut. So, again, if the younger brother or sister (and this is a most comprehensive relationship) of a person’s father or mother have grandchildren, then the “Ma” and “Nu” are abandoned for “Bai” and “Muk,” the grandfather or grandmother: thus, “Ma Kari” might become “Bai Kinyum,” and “Nu Sangut” be metamorphosed into “Muk Weit.”
Marriage.—The prohibited degrees seem to be the same as adopted among ourselves: marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, it is said, is prohibited, as well as that between first cousins; and second cousins are only permitted after the exchange of a fine of a jar, the woman paying it to the relation of her lover, and he to her relations. Among the Sibuyaus, however, I have known an uncle marry his niece.
Heights.—Male Adults: 4 ft. 10 in. (short); 5 ft. 1 in.; 5 ft. 3 in.; 5 ft. 4 in.; 5 ft. 5½ in.; 5 ft. 7 in. Female Adults: 4 ft. 6 in. (short); 4 ft. 8 in.; 4ft. 9 in.; 4ft. 10½ in.; 5 ft.; 5 ft. 2 in. (tall).
They have little or no knowledge of medicine, though they sometimes collect pepper and onions with which to make physic, a kind of stomachic. The grated flesh of old cocoa-nut is occasionally applied to wounds and bruises, but there is no general knowledge even of the powers of rice poultices. Blue-stone they eagerly inquire for, and they have learnt its properties. Their most common physic is to get a friend to chew up a mass of sirih-leaves, areca and lime, until it is reduced to a thick red juice, which is then squirted from the mouth over the part affected. If this physic be thus administered by a regular doctor it will be more efficacious, but any one may do it. This mess is used indiscriminately for all diseases: stomach ache, sore eyes, ulcers, wounds, boils, rheumatism, as well as fever. When it is squirted on to the forehead it is supposed to be efficacious in relieving the accompanying headache. This is very much practised by the Malays, who thus render their sick, objects of disgust. I have often thought it necessary to insist upon the patient being washed carefully before administering European medicines.
I have already spoken of a mixture of blood and turmeric being plastered on the head at the regular ceremonies. On these occasions also the cheek and forehead of those who take part in them are marked with blood. I have also spoken of bathing the patient in cocoa-nut water, and these comprise all the medical applications of which I am aware.
In most tribes, there are five or six priests, and in some districts half the female population are included under the denomination of priestesses.
In Western Sarawak they are not so numerous. The power of these women consists chiefly in their chanting, which is supposed to be most effectual in driving away spirits. Strange to say, some of the sentences they chant are not in their own language, but in Malay. These women are not necessarily impostors; they but practise the ways and recite the songs which they received from their predecessors, and the dignity and importance of the office enable them to enjoy some intervals of pleasurable excitement during their laborious lives. Their dress is very gay; over their heads they throw a red cloth, on the top of which they place a cylindrical cap, worked in red, white, and black beads, and their short petticoats are fringed with hundreds of small, tinkling hawk-bells. Around their neck is hung a heavy bead necklace, consisting of five or six rows of black, red, and white opaque beads strongly bound together. In addition, they hang over their shoulders, belt-fashion, a string of teeth, large hawk-bells and opaque beads. There are several stories concerning the origin of the priestesses. That which is current in the Quop district is as follows:—
Long ago, when the Dayaks were quite ignorant of religion, a certain man and his wife had two daughters. Both of them fell ill; the parents knew of no remedy, so they took a pig’s trough, placed the children within it, and sent them floating down the river towards the sea. The great “Iang,” from his lofty seat, saw them in this pitiful situation and crying helplessly, he had compassion on them and took them to his dwelling on the mountain of Santubong.
There he cured them himself, and then taught them the mysteries of religion, the formulas they were to chant, the taboo they were to observe, and the rites and ceremonies they were to perform. This done, he transported them back to their own village, where they were welcomed and reverenced, and it was they who founded the sacred order of priestesses, as it now exists throughout these countries.
The priests must in many respects be regarded as impostors, though, of course, even with their deceitful practices is mixed much superstitious credulity. They pretend to meet and to converse with spirits, to receive warnings, and sometimes presents from them, to have the power of seeing and capturing the departed soul of a sick man, and to be able to find and secure for the Dayaks that vital principle of the rice which “Tapa” sends down from above at their two chief harvest feasts. To increase their authority, they do not hesitate to declare that they have predicted every event. No accident happens to man or goods of which they do not say that they had previous warning; and a sick man scarcely ever calls upon them for their aid when they do not tell him that for some time previously they had known he was going to have an attack. One of their commonest practices is to pretend to extract from a sick man’s body, stones and splinters, which they declare are spirits; they wave charms over the part affected, and jingle them upon it for a moment, then bring them to the floor with a crash, and out of them falls a stone, or piece of wood, or small roll of rag. At least half a dozen of these evil spirits are occasionally brought out of a man’s stomach, one after the other, and great is the influence, and not small the profit, of a successful priest. For getting back a man’s soul he receives six gallons of uncleaned rice; for extracting a spirit from a man’s body, the same fee, and for getting the soul of the rice at harvest feasts he receives three cups from every family in whose apartment he obtains it. The value of six gallons of uncleaned rice is not very great, but it is the sixtieth part of the amount obtained by an able-bodied man for his annual farm labour.