But to return to Tama Bulan’s house. As soon as New Fire had been kindled, the gongs, as on the day before, began their deafening clangour; the parents, looking very grave, slowly emerged from their ‘Lamin,’ or private room. The mother carried the baby, who, for a wonder, was not crying,—but I could see by his expression that he was well primed for a vigorous bawl on the slightest provocation. Solemnly they marched and took their places on the large mat close to the hearth. Some strong youths now seized the big black pig, Tama Bulan’s prime selection, and partly lifting it, and partly swinging it about by the ears and tail, not without squealings which would have been ear-piercing but for the gongs, they hauled it up close beside the Chief. Across the swine’s body and over its neck were wreathed the mother’s most prized and costly strings of beads; according to Kenyah computation, the value of these beads amounted to the price of several slaves, or probably to the cost of two whole houses. I suppose that this was not merely for the sake of decorating the victim, but was designed to flatter and cajole it into having a beautiful liver, overspread with bright omens for her boy.
MAKING FIRE WITH A ‘FIRE-DRILL.’
THE PIECE OF WOOD WHICH IS HELD UPON THE GROUND MUST BE SOFT, FIBROUS, AND DRY; THE STICK WHICH IS DRILLED INTO IT IS HARD. FIRE CAN BE THUS STARTED IN ABOUT FORTY SECONDS. THIS METHOD OF PRODUCING FIRE IS NOT HELD TO BE SACRED, AS IS THAT OF CREATING FIRE WITH THE ‘MUSA’ OR FIRE-SAW.
The relatives and the guests disposed themselves in a large circle around the solemn parents, the infant, and the pig; directly in front, and facing them, the Dayong sat cross-legged, a very tall and skinny old man, whose lower jaw was furnished with but one tooth, which, when he omitted to suck it in, stuck out at right angles. He did not wear, as far as I could see, any peculiar costume or badge of office; he was clad in nothing but an ordinary loin-cloth.
When the assemblage had settled themselves in their places, some sitting on the floor, others standing on the large rice mortars so that they could look into the centre of the circle, the old Dayong arose, and grasping in his right hand a parang and a stick, the latter cut into a brush of splinters at one end, with his left hand he sprinkled water upon them from a bowl held by an assistant. The dripping stick and the parang he waved over the child’s head and muttered words, which Tama Talun, again my kind interpreter, said expressed the desire that the life of the child might be as ‘laram,’ cool, as the water he was sprinkling over it.[6]
To insure protection to the child against evil Spirits, a young chicken was waved above and around it, as on the previous day; and then at once the chicken’s head was chopped off and some of its blood smeared on the baby’s hand. This indignity supplied the provocation, which, from the first, I had anticipated, and instantly stirred up all the depravity of the infant, who had been thus far just as quiet as a lamb; the gongs now stopped their din, but the bonnie babe proved an excellent substitute, and awoke every echo in the smoky rafters overhead. He kicked, and roared, and wriggled in his mother’s lap, bent himself backward, and beat with his little fists at the fluttering chicken every time it was waved near his face; I was really afraid he would burst a blood-vessel so scarlet did his little body become with the exertion of expelling those piercing shrieks; not a tear issued from his eyes, and the bunches of pewter rings in his stringy little ears kept flapping against his cheeks as he shook his head and thrashed about in violent contortions. He never once stopped bawling throughout all the rest of the ceremony.
All evil Spirits having been now effectually dispelled, the Dayong squatted down by the pig, and taking from the fire a small stick of wood with a glowing end he touched it to the pig’s side, by way of calling the poor beast’s attention to what he was about to say. When the pig’s struggles had calmed down, the old man laid his hands on its side and soothingly addressed it as ‘Balli Boin Akán, Balli Boin Akán,’ and begged it to intercede with Penylong and Perbungan, and to tell unerringly whether or not the name now about to be given to the child had been auspiciously chosen. The name had never yet been divulged; even the old Dayong knew not what it was. It was an absolute secret between Tama Bulan and the mother of the child. Some days before, not knowing that the name was thus sacredly secret, I had asked what it was to be, but Tama Bulan courteously told me that it was utterly impossible for him to reveal it. All through this ceremony, Tama Bulan sat cross-legged beside his wife quietly, every feature wearing a very serious expression, keenly watching the Dayong.
Most of the time, the mother sat with her legs straight out in front of her, and with her squirming baby wriggling on her knees from side to side; she kept her eyes cast down, watching the child, but never attempting to stop its bawling, to which, indeed, no one seemed to pay the slightest attention.
Little Adom had a view better, of course, than any body except the principals; there he was lying flat on his face on a beam directly above the naming-party, his legs and arms dangling down on either side. When I caught sight of him his little, black eyes danced with mischief, and from his lofty perch he defied us with that impudent gesture which, in an unhappy hour, I had taught him: putting his thumb to his nose, twirling his fingers, and winking and blinking his eyes and lolling his tongue out like a veritable little goblin. All the solemnity in the world could never impress him.