Numerous guests now began to arrive to participate in the ceremonies; they came so quietly, and so little commotion followed their arrival, that we were hardly aware of their presence until we noticed the large groups outside of Tama Bulan’s door.
On the morning of the appointed day, alternate blows on two large gongs gave notice that the ceremony was about to begin. We filed into the Chief’s room with the others, and, passing through the narrow and dark little entry with its very ramshackle floor, we found the family and the guests sitting cross-legged about a large mat in the middle of the room. In the centre of this mat was a heap about a foot high of white husked rice; at one side of this heap sat the proud mother, holding the pale little son and heir. When we were all seated, the gongs redoubled and trebled their din, to drown all sounds of evil portent while the rites take place.
It is the first duty of the Dayong, or priestess, (on this occasion Tama Bulan’s first wife, the mother of Bulan,) to drive away all evil Spirits which may be perchance still lurking near the child. Old age is seldom, if ever, beautiful in Borneo, and as old Tina Bulan stood up to officiate, with her straggly hanks of swarthy hair, her blackened snags of teeth, her shrivelled, bony arms and corded neck, she looked the supreme incarnation of a witch, straight from the ‘pit of Acheron.’ But ugliness, as well as beauty, is only skin deep; and we learned to know this Tina Bulan as a dear old soul, as kind and good-natured as mortal can be.
She held by its legs a young chicken, which, with excited gesticulations, she waved above and about the little stark-naked, bawling baby, struggling in its mother’s lap, and as she waved she dipped water from a bowl, and, sprinkling it upon the fowl, exhorted it, as follows:
‘Misau balli yap!
Balli Isit! balli Sakit!
Misau balli Mibang nelatang,
Balli nupi jiat, iya malat!
Ja! dua! talu! pat!
Pat porat petat, peti pasi balli jiat!’