One day, an unfortunate, feeble-minded epileptic, of decidedly negroid type, with thick lips and wild-staring, restless eyes, came with others of the people to Friedlander’s house to hear a phonograph recital; the excitement evidently brought on an attack, and he suddenly gave the symptomatic wild shriek of epileptics and fell to the ground with violent contortions. The bystanders made not the least attempt to help him, but stood about shouting with laughter at his writhings. The fit soon passed off, and he was again on his feet, walking about with a dazed air, and a following of heartless, jeering little boys. I asked Fatumak if he knew what was the matter with the poor fellow, and, in a tone implying that it was a childish question, he answered, “Oh, yes, he is just a foolish sort of a fellow who has a wandering tafenai which floats around with the wind, and when it strikes him he falls to the ground and struggles with it.”
When a man sleeps, his tafenai escapes and wanders about playing all manner of queer pranks; in the morning when he awakes, it is the tafenai creeping back into his body through the nostrils that rouses him, wherefore a man so often wakes up sneezing or coughing. “A wise man has his tafenai in his head; a fool has it in his belly,” said Fatumak.
Yalafath, who is the supreme deity and has the general supervision of mankind, has attributes benignant indeed, but of a lukewarm character, negative rather than positive; herein, however, in this benignity, feeble though it be, he is unparalleled in the theology of the Borneans or of the Naga Hill tribes of Upper India, where all deities are malevolent. Of the numerous lesser deities, there is Luk, the god of the tsuru, or dance; Nagadamang is bold and aids the athegiths in their vengeance; Marapou, who sends the wind and rain and causes storms at sea; Begbalel, who looks after the taro fields and makes or mars the crops; Kanepai is always present at dances to make men so giddy that they must have water poured on their heads before they recover and can go on with the dance, but Bak is the real god of the Tsuru; Nagadamang is the god of war, and when he is heard growling, war is sure to follow; if he knocks at a house-post, sickness results. Muibab is also a god of war; the frigate-bird, sacred to him, bears his name. Boradaileng punishes the tafenai of bad men by thrusting them into a pit of fire. To be bad enough to deserve this punishment, a man must have been guilty of cutting down trees or coconut palms on another man’s land. Of course, the sea, sky, and earth teem with invisible demons who are accountable for every natural phenomenon or misfortune.
Fire came to the people of Uap through the god Derra (lightning), who came down and struck a large hibiscus tree at Ugutam, a slave village at the northern end of the island. A woman, whose name is unrecorded, begged the god for the fire; he gave her some and showed her how to bake an earthen pot. When the fire died out, he taught her how to obtain more by means of the fire-drill, and told her that fire in a new house must always be started in this manner, and for it only the wood of the hibiscus tree should be used, moreover this wood must be cut with shell knives or shell axes, neither iron nor steel must touch it.
Lusarer taught them, in days gone by, how to make the sacred mats or umbul, of which I have already spoken; they are never used, nor even unwrapped, but pass from father to son as sacred heirlooms hanging from the rafters to attest the wealth and respectability of the family.
I could not discover that sacrifices or offerings were ever made to the gods, but in the enclosures about the houses I frequently noticed a palm-leaf basket hanging to one of the trees or bushes in front of the house; in these baskets there were invariably pieces of coconut that appeared to have been scorched or partly roasted, also some broken egg-shells and some dried leaves, probably of the wild pepper. Repeated questioning failed to bring out an explanation of these baskets, further than that they were hung out merely in sport; often the house-owners professed absolute ignorance of their existence, and said it was no doubt some childish game. They were, however, so universal that I am convinced they bore a meaning that the people did not wish to disclose.
While uttering incantations to cure sickness or to drive away the athegiths, the wizard waves a wand of palm-leaves, with which from time to time he touches the sick person. When wind and waves are to be lulled at sea, he uses as a talisman the sharp, barbed spine from the tail of the stingray; standing in the bow of the canoe he flourishes this dagger-like talisman above his head as he shouts out the mystic words, stabbing at the invisible god who has brought on the bad weather, “shooing” him off, as if he were a chicken or a trespassing dog. This incantation is known as momok nu flaifang.
Another occasion on which the services of the mach-mach are invoked, is the naming of a child, which takes place ten days after its birth, when for the first time it is brought to its father’s house from the tapal, or small secluded house in the “bush,” whereto prospective mothers retire on the first symptoms of labour. On the ninth day after birth, a carrying basket is made for it, and the mother carries it to a small house adjoining the family house; here the mother and child must remain over night. On the following day the mach-mach receives it in its father’s house, and, touching it on the head with leaves from the heart of a coconut palm, he exhorts Yalafath to protect the child and see that it is never hungry and never sick, and, by waving the leaves of the life-giving coconut over it, chases away evil demons of misfortune. The chosen name, usually that of some near relative, either living or dead, is then given to the child, which up to this time has been called sugau, if a boy, or ligau, if a girl. The ceremony of naming a child is known as momok nu sumpau.
For all these services the mach-mach, who is apparently in no way regarded as a priest, but merely as a wise man and an exorcist, is paid either in shell money, or coconuts, and baskets of yams or taro.
It is in this fashion that good old Fatumak makes his comfortable living and is enabled to trade so lavishly with Friedlander for products from the white man’s country where the barnacle woman and her daughter deposited the sand in heaps.