FOLK-LORE IN BORNEO A SKETCH BY WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS 3D, M. D. , F. R. G. S. MEMBRE DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DE GÉOGRAPHIE À PARISMEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETYMEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY [_PRIVATELY PRINTED_] WALLINGFORDDELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA1899 [Illustration: A KAYAN CHIEF. ] A SKETCH OF THE FOLK-LORE OF BORNEO. In this short monograph I do not pretend to give anything more than aSketch of the Folk-lore to be found among the Borneans. The island islarge, and the people, scattered and isolated by constant inter-tribalwarfare, differ one tribe from another, in language, customs andappearance almost more than do Germans, French, or English; to say thatany tradition or custom is common to all the tribes, or even to all ofone tribe, of Borneans, would be far too sweeping. A still greaterdrawback to any universality, in legend or custom, is that there is nowritten language, not even so much as picture-drawings on rocks to giveus a clue to ancient myths or traditions. The natives of Borneo are in acertain sense savages, but yet they are savages of a high order, possessed of a civilization far above what is usually implied by theterm; they live together in what almost might be called coöperativecommunities, they practise the art of weaving, they forge roughimplements of iron, they cultivate rice and esculent plants, and in alltheir work, such as house-building, boat-building, manufacture of clothand weapons of warfare, they show an ambitious desire, and a skilfulability, to ornament their work and add, to its usefulness, pleasure tothe eye. One of their gravest faults, however, is their embarrassingtenacity to the _fad_ of head-hunting, and a strict adherence to theprinciple of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This keeps thedifferent households, even of the same tribe, at constant war and makesinevitable an uncomfortable yet pleasing interchange of heads during thetedious months of the rainy season, when time hangs heavy on thewarriors' hands, and disused swords might get rusty. So little is known of the social and anthropological position of thesepeople, to others than those who make Malaysia and the South Sea islandstheir study, that it may not be out of place to give a short descriptionof the people themselves before entering on the subject of theirFolk-lore. The remote origin of the Borneans, as well as of the greater part of allof the inhabitants of the Polynesian islands, is an ethnologicalproblem; they are not Malay, neither are they Mongolian nor Negrito;they bear resemblances here and there to all of these races, but notmarked enough to claim any one as the parent stock. Furthermore, thereis some evidence in favor of the theory that they are the result ofsuccessive migrations of tribes from northern India and from Anam. [Illustration: A KAYAN LONG-HOUSE. ] The inland tribes of Borneo, by which I include all the natives exceptthe Malays settled along the coast, are without any definite forms ofreligious worship; they make idols of wood, but I have never seen anyoffering made to them, nor do they regard them apparently as anythingmore than as scarecrows to frighten off evil spirits. They are thechildren of Dame Nature and as such have inherited their mother'sdisregard for life, and this feature of their temperament has kept themin a constant turmoil of warfare, which in turn compels them for mutualprotection to band together in communities of several families and buildfor themselves a common house wherein to live, ever ready to turn out inforce and resist the attacks of hostile tribes. In not a few instancesthese houses are as much as a quarter of a mile in length and shelter asmany as four hundred people. Every household is presided over by ahead-man known as the elder, or _Orang Tuah_, and he in turn is governedin a measure by the chief of the tribe, known as the _Penghulu_. Thegovernment of the household seems to be conducted in the quietestmanner; I have lived on several occasions in these houses for three orfour weeks at a time, and have never seen anything that could be calleda violent quarrel between two members of the household, nor have I seenthe Orang Tuah or the Penghulu submit any of the members to what mightbe considered harsh treatment. I have also been with them when they wereout on the warpath, to use a North-American Indian term, when everynerve was at high tension on the look-out for enemies and every thoughtwas turned to slaughter, but I have never seen the counsel of the Chiefdisregarded. Of course, some Chiefs are weak and fail to give commandsbecause they are afraid to act, but a command once given is carried out, or at least not disregarded, and I could never detect any means whichwere taken to enforce an authority thus implicitly obeyed. As a people, they are not active-minded nor industrious, but yield tothe influence of climate, and, following the example offered to them bythe vast, dense jungle on every side, accept life as easily as it comes. They are no exception to the rule that all untutored minds, living inconstant communion with any awful aspect of Nature, be it giganticmountains, a waste of waters, or an illimitable jungle, are saturatedwith superstitions; every pool, every tree, every rock is the home of anevil spirit, and all mysterious noises in the forest are ghostlywhisperings. Everywhere are signs and omens to warn man of danger ordirect his course; theirs is a life where no schooling is so vital asthe ability to read aright the "sermons in stones, books in the runningbrooks. " For them the world is the patch of jungle covering the fewsquare miles that they know, and bounded by the hills in the distance;seldom do they get an extended view of the surrounding country; treeshem them in on all sides and the mountains are so difficult of ascent, and furthermore so infested with demons or "antu, " that the summits canbe gained only at the risk of body, and, still worse, of soul. Many natives of the interior live and die with never a glimpse of thesea, and the tales which the Malay and Chinese traders tell of landsbeyond the horizon where white men live, are as incomprehensible to themas are to us the conjectural accounts which astronomers give of thecanals on the planet Mars. Naturally enough, of course, creation began on the island of Borneo, orKalamantan, as they call it, and the first people were Borneans andspoke the language of the tribe that tells the story. Every tribe has adifferent account of creation, and claims that its people sprang fromthe first created mortals. The following account is the story of Genesisaccording to the Kayans of Northwestern Borneo:-- In the old, old days, when there was nothing but water and sky, therefell from the heavens an enormous rock; that part of it which protrudedfrom the water was hard, slippery, and quite bare, with no soil norplants upon it of any kind. After a long time, however, the rainsproduced slime upon the rock, and little worms, called _halang_, werebred in this slime, and they bored into the rock and left fine sandoutside of their burrows; this sand eventually became soil and coveredthe rock. Again years passed and the rock remained barren of all otherlife until suddenly there dropped from the Sun a huge wooden handle of a_Parang_ (or sword) known as _Haup Malat_. This parang-handle sank deepinto the rock and taking root in the soil it sprouted and grew into agreat tree, named _Batang Utar Tatei_, whose branches stretched out overthe new land in every direction. When this tree was fully grown, theredropped from the Moon a long rope-like vine known as the _Jikwan Tali_. This vine quickly clung to the tree and took root in the rock. Now thevine, Jikwan Tali, from the Moon became the husband of the tree, BatangUtar Tatei, from the Sun, and Batang Utar Tatei gave birth to twins, amale and a female, not of the nature of a tree, but more or less likehuman beings. The male child was called _Klobeh Angei_, and the femalewas called _Klubangei_. These two children married and then gave birthto two more children, who were named _Pengok N'gai_, and _KatirahMurai_. Katirah Murai was married to old man _Ajai Avai_, who comeswithout pedigree into the narration. From Katirah Murai and Ajai Avaiare descended many of the chiefs who were founders of the various tribesinhabiting the land of Kalamantan; their names are Sejau Laho, OdingLahang, from whom the Kayans spring, Tabalan, Pliban, and, finally, Tokong, the father of head-hunting. As time went on, that which formerly had been merely slime on the rock, became moss, and little by little small plants were produced. The twigsand leaf-like appendages of the tree, evidently the female principle innature, as they fell to the ground, became birds, beasts, and fishes. (Let me mention here that the endowment of leaves with life andlocomotion is no more than natural; while in the jungle I haverepeatedly seen what, in every respect, appeared to be a leaf fall tothe ground and then miraculously put out legs and walk away; it was oneof those remarkable insects of the _Mantis_ family, or "walkingleaves. ") The inhabitants of the rock had no need of fire in those days, for the sun beat down on them strongly, and there was no night; it wasnot until many, many years had elapsed that an old man named _Laki Oi_invented a method of obtaining fire by means of friction produced bypulling a strip of rattan rapidly back and forth beneath a piece of drywood. This process of making fire he called _Musa_, and it is still theonly method used in obtaining fire for ceremonials, such as the namingof a child, or when communicating with the omen-birds. Laki Oi alsotaught them the use of the fire-drill, which he called the _Nalika_. On the main trunk of Batang Utar Tatei was a large excrescence, fromwhich exuded a resinous gum called _Lutong_, which, as it dropped to theground beneath, was immediately transformed into chickens and swine; andit is because they were thus formed out of the very heart and substanceof the tree that they are always used in the reading of auguries. Fromthis same cause, there was innate in them an insight into the innermostworkings of Nature and a knowledge of the future. The first beings with any resemblance to man had neither legs, norbreasts, and consisted merely of a head, chest, arms, and a fragment ofa body which hung down in shreds and rags, having the appearance oftwisted snakes. When they moved they dragged themselves along the groundby their arms. (From this description and from native carvings, I aminclined to believe that a large cuttle-fish or octopus must havesuggested this idea to the original narrator of this tradition. ) Littleby little, the body was brought into more compact form, and, in a latergeneration, legs appeared, but it was a long time before they becameaccustomed to legs and able to use them in moving about. A survival ofthis awkwardness, so say the Kayans, is still noticeable in the way inwhich children crawl about the floor, and in their clumsy walk whenfirst they learn to stand upright. The heads of these first people were, furthermore, much larger than the heads of the present generation, and, since it was the first part formed, it is the oldest part of the body, and on this account the most important member, and valued accordinglywhether dead or alive. This account is, as far as I know, purely Bornean, inasmuch as had therebeen any admixture from a foreign source (as we shall see further on wasprobably the case with the Dyaks) there would have been possibly somereference to a Supreme Creator rather than to this union of a vine and atree as the original source of life. The Kayans from whom I obtainedthis account have had exceedingly little communication with the outsideworld, except through occasional Malay or Chinese traders. There is justa possibility that the idea of the wooden sword-handle being theultimate _fons et origo_ of all life comes from the fact that the wordfor chief--"penghulu"--is derived from "hulu, " meaning a sword-handle, and the prefix "peng" denoting agency, so that the whole word meansliterally "the master of the sword, " and thus the ruler or chief. Fromassociation of ideas, the sword-handle, without which the blade isineffective and useless, may have been suggested to them as the chiefof all beings. The sudden appearance of Ajai Avai on the scene as thehusband of Katirah Murai, is not at all at variance with the accountsfrom many other sources of the populating of the world. In Laki Oi, werecognize the Kayan "Prometheus, " whose memory is revered by sanctifyingthe fire procured after his manner of teaching, and from this traditionit is probable that the procuring of fire by means of the "fire-saw" isthe aboriginal method. Should all of the fires in a Kayan house becomeextinguished and no spark be left, new fires may be started by thismethod, and by this method alone; even the fire-drill, and flint andsteel, which are not unknown to them, are tabooed. The Dayaks, who are closely akin in every respect to the Malays, and nodoubt adopted the traditions which were rife among the Malays bothbefore and after the latter became converted to Mohammedanism, give anaccount of the creation of the world differing in every particular fromthe foregoing Kayan story. One of the Dayak versions of the creation which I heard from the peopleof that tribe, living in the Baram district of Sarawak, is that in thebeginning there were two large birds, --the _Burong Iri_ and the _BurongRinggong_ (Burong meaning _bird_), who made all the rivers, the greatsea, the earth, and the sky. The first things to have life were plantsand trees. When trees were first made, the winds blew them down, andagain and again the Iri and the Ringgong had to set them up, until intheir great wisdom they realized the necessity of props and stays, sothey fashioned the strong vines and creepers. Then these two creatorssaw what pleasant places the boughs and branches of these trees wouldmake for other beings; whereupon they created birds and all flyinganimals, like bats and flying squirrels. Then for a long while theyconsulted together, and, finally, decided that they would make a man whoshould walk about on the earth; at first, they made him of clay, butwhen he was dried he could neither speak nor move, which provoked them, and they ran at him angrily; so frightened was he that he fell backwardand broke all to pieces. The next man that they made was of hard wood, but he, also, was utterly stupid, and absolutely good for nothing. Thenthe two birds searched carefully for a good material, and eventuallyselected the wood of a tree known as the _Kumpong_, which has a strongfibre and exudes a quantity of deep red sap, whenever it is cut. Out ofthis tree they fashioned a man and a woman, and were so well pleasedwith this achievement that they rested for a long while and admiredtheir handiwork. Then they decided to continue creating more men; theyreturned to the Kumpong tree, but they had entirely forgotten theiroriginal pattern, and how they had executed it, and they were thereforeable to make only very inferior creatures, which became the ancestors ofthe _Maias_ (the Orang Utan) and monkeys. The man and the woman were very helpless and hardly knew how to obtainthe simplest necessities of life, so the Iri and the Ringgong devisedthe _Ubi_--a wild sweetpotato--the wild Tapioca, the Kaladi, or, as weknow it, the Kaladium, and other edible roots, whereof the man and womansoon learned to eat; fire, however, was unknown to these first peopleand they had to eat all of their food raw. Contemporaneously with the Maias and the monkeys many other animals cameinto being, among them the dog. For a long time all living things werefriendly to one another and lived in the land of Kaburau, which liesnear a branch of the great Kapuas river, and is, even to this day, considered by the Dayaks as the garden-spot of the world. The dog, however, because he cleaned himself with his tongue, soon came to bedespised by all other animals, and although a bully he was yetsubservient to man. Then the deer and many of the other animals tauntedthe dog, saying that he was so mean-spirited and servile that althoughman thrashed him, nevertheless he fawned upon him and followed afterhim; which they would never do, so they went off to the jungle to live. But the dog comforted himself by saying that "When the man is about tostrike me I crouch down and sometimes this keeps his hand off;furthermore, I cannot live on the poor food that these others must eat. "Hence, the dog follows and obeys man. One day when the man and the dog were in the jungle together, and gotdrenched by rain, the man noticed that the dog warmed himself by rubbingagainst a huge creeper, called the _Aka Rarah_, whereupon the man took astick and rubbed it rapidly against the Aka Rarah, and to his surpriseobtained fire. This was the origin of the _Sukan_, or fire drill, andever after the man had fire in his house. Not long after, inaccidentally dropping an Ubi near the fire, he found that it became muchmore pleasant to the taste; by this accident cooking was discovered. [Illustration: MAKING FIRE WITH A FIRE-DRILL. ] In the course of time, the dog and other animals began to multiply, andman imitated their example; the woman brought forth a male child, whosename was _Machan Buntu_. After many years, the woman gave birth to afemale child who, when she was well grown, married her brother MachanBuntu and gave birth to seventy children at one time. These childrenleft their home and scattered all over the world. Some became woodsprites and mountain gnomes, living in the trees, in the rivers, andunder ground. The tradition of the manufacture of man out of wood instead of clay isthoroughly in keeping with an origin purely Dayak. The Dayaks never havebeen proficient in pottery, and to this day they carve their bowls anddishes out of hard wood, otherwise it seems to me that clay would havesuggested itself to them as the most suitable substance whereof to havemade man. Another item looks as if part of the story were aninterpolation, namely, where it is related that the two birds were sopleased with their work after making man, that they rested; this lookslike a suggestion due to the first chapter of Genesis. Again, in thatland of Kaburau, where all animals lived in perfect harmony, and whichwas the garden of the world, we may recognize the garden of Eden. Owingto the lack of writing, as I said before, it is impossible to say howold this tradition is, or to what extent it is known to Dayaks in otherparts of the country; I have heard that very much the same story is toldby the natives in the Rejang district several hundred miles south of theBaram; where the chiefest difference in the accounts is that earlier andhigher than the birds there was a Supreme Being called _Rajah Gantalla_, who after creating the two birds, committed the rest of the work tothem. I think in the _-allah_ of this name (I speak under correction) wemay discern a strong indication of Mohammedan influence. The first man, instead of being carved entirely of Kumpong wood, was made, in thislatter account, of clay and then filled with the sap of the Kumpongtree. A tradition (I do not say "legend, " for this implies writing) which allthe Kayans seem to know and to take pleasure in relating, is connectedwith the origin of their rite of head-hunting, for, although everypossible means is employed by the European rulers of the island to stopthis custom, it is still, nevertheless the one ruling passion of thepeople. Nay, it is part of their Religion; no house is blest which isnot sanctified by a row of human skulls, and no man can hope to attainto the happy region of Apo Leggan unless he, or some near relative ofhis, has added a head to the household collection. Let me correct, however, with regard to head-hunting, what is probably the prevalentidea that the heads are hung up in the houses bleeding and raw, just asthey are severed from the body. This is quite wrong; whether or not theywould tolerate in their homes such horrid objects I cannot say, butcertain it is that the heads are first subjected to fire and smoke untilthe flesh has dropped away, and what is then hung up is merely a skull;unpleasant enough, but not so bad as is generally supposed. [Illustration: A KAYAN YOUTH. ] The tradition is that the great chief Tokong, when out on a warexpedition, was told by Kop, the frog, that he should always take, instead of only the hair, the whole head of his enemies; Tokong wasangry, at first, at the frog, but his followers at length persuaded himto let them try the experiment on their next attack. After taking thewhole heads, the war party retreated quickly to the river down whichthey had come, and came to the spot where they had left their boats andwere surprised to find that everything was exactly as they had left it. When they embarked, lo, and behold! the current of the stream was, fortheir sakes, reversed and like a flash they were carried up-stream andreached their home in a miraculously short time. During the fifteen daysthat they had been absent the crop of rice had not only sprouted, buthad grown, had ripened, and was almost ready to be harvested; themembers of their family who had been sick when they left, were now allwell, the lame could walk and the blind see. The wise men waggled theirheads, and one and all declared (and who can blame them?) that everafter they would stick to the custom that Kop had taught them. It is not unfair to infer from this tradition that they have a crude, germinal sense of the barbarity of their actions, in so far as theythink it necessary to invent an excuse to palliate that savage love oftrophy-hunting which seems inborn in mankind. The rite of head-huntingis by no means confined to Borneo; the Formosans, and also many of ournew fellow-citizens, among the tribes of the Philippines, areenthusiastic head-hunters, and our own cherished Indians within our ownborders have not yet given up their love for a scalp; it would beperilous to assert that it is not a United States custom. The idea that the taking of a head is necessary in order to obtainentrance to the pleasant regions of the land of departed spirits, is adoctrine taught by the chiefs in order to make men brave in battle, anddo all in their power to avoid the punishment which awaits the coward. The Kayan Hades is believed to be under ground, and like the Hades ofthe ancient Greeks there is a guide to the entrance who corresponds to acertain extent to Charon. But their river Styx is not a stream, but adeep and wide ditch, through which flow ooze and slime swarming withworms and maggots; the souls of the departed must cross over this ditchnot by a ferry, but by means of a fallen tree-trunk, guarded by thegreat demon _Maligang_, who challenges all comers, and if they have norecord of bravery, he shakes the tree-trunk until they fall into theditch below and are eternally tortured by the devouring worm that diethnot. Over the land of spirits presides the great demon _Laki Tenangan_, who assigns the souls to their proper place, and sees that they gettheir deserts, whether good or bad. In this shadowy world, APO LEGGAN is one of the principal regions, andis the abode of the spirits of those who die from sickness or from oldage. The souls in _Apo Leggan_ have much the same lot as they had inthis world; the poor remain poor, and the rich maintain their richestate, and even the soul that has been harassed in life in the upperair must none the less expect to find misfortune and perplexity in theworld to come. In the absence of any definite code of morals, this is, perhaps, the most suitable belief that a savage tribe could have; itstimulates them to a constant endeavor to better their condition in thislife and make their mark in some way, so that the life to come, in whichthey have a firm belief, may not be a continuation of the hardships theyhave endured here. Their methods of gaining wealth may not conform toour ideas of propriety, but then all is fair in love and war, and asthey have very little idea of love, their motto has to be "all is fairin war;" life in the jungle is little else than a ceaseless struggle forthe survival of the fittest. LONG JULAN, a second division, is where live the souls of those who havedied a violent or sudden death, either on the battlefield, or in theirown clearings by the accidental fall of a tree; and there also dwell theyoung mothers who have died in childbirth; they become the wives ofyoung warriors who likewise have been cut off in the bloom of youth andare therefore proper mates for unfortunate little mothers. Such beliefsnaturally tend to the taking of life; a young man, for instance, wholoses his wife in childbirth wishes to meet her again in the next world, and his ambition to go on the warpath is doubly strong. Is he fortunateenough to take a head, he gains high rank among warriors; should he bekilled, he has the comfortable assurance that he will again meet hiswife in _Long Julan_. The souls in _Long Julan_ have an easy time andare always fairly well off, whatever their circumstances were in thislife. TAN TEKKAN, a third division, is the place to which Laki Tenanganconsigns suicides; wretched and woe begone in appearance, their soulswander about in the jungle and in the clearings trying to pick up aliving by eating what roots and fruits they can find. This joylessHereafter is calculated to make those who contemplate suicide, ratherperform some self-sacrificing act of bravery whereby they will not onlybenefit those whom they leave behind, but also gain for themselves amore pleasant position in the world to come; therefore suicide is not atall common. TENYU LALU, a fourth region, is assigned to the spirits of still-bornchildren. These little souls are said to be exceedingly brave and needno other weapon wherewith to defend themselves than a stick of wood;they have never felt pain nor experienced danger in this world, and aretherefore totally ignorant of such emotions. Whether or not theyincrease in size in _Tenyu Lalu_ is not known, but it is generallysupposed that they live together in a little world of their own. Finally, LING YANG is the abode of those who have died by drowning; itlies below the beds of rivers, and here the spirits soon becomeexceedingly rich. All the goods lost in rivers by the capsizing of boatsin the rapids, or when they run foul of a snag in deep water, go intothe coffers of the dwellers in _Ling Yang_. Such are the main divisions of the _Dali Matei_, or country of thedead; there are, however, many sacred hills, rivers, and lakes whereindwell certain powerful demons who govern the spirits. In this netherworld, some say that there are trees and plants and animals much thesame as in this; this point, however, seemed open to considerable doubtin the minds of some whom I questioned, while others had so definite anidea of it that they drew maps to show the positions of the differentregions. They seemed to regard it as a large river, along whosetributaries dwelt the various classes of departed spirits. The Dayongs, or medicine men, are the only ones who are supposed really to know;these all maintain that, while acquiring their power over sickness, theyhad visited the land of spirits. In the mythology of all countries thereis sure to be a hero who has made the descent to Hades and returned totell the tale, and the Kayans are no exceptions; they have theirOrpheus, only his name is Gamong. Gamong, during an attack of fever, realized that he was at the point ofdeath, but was loath to resign his spirit, so he called his friendsaround him and begged them to dress him up, after death, in all hiswar-clothes, and not to bury him for three days, but to place him in asitting posture with his sword and spear in his hands. He comforted themby saying that he had an inner assurance that he had a terribleencounter before him, but that he would actually return to this world inabout three days. Shortly after this, his breath ceased and his friendsperformed all the rites of burial, just as he had requested. For threedays his body remained rigid; at the end of that time, he came back tolife and told his open-eyed friends his adventures as follows: "When myspirit left you, I went directly down the path which leads to the greattree-trunk, _Bintang Sikopa_, where Maligang stands; according to hiswont, he hailed me and told me to halt, which I would not do. ThenMaligang, whose arm is enormous, many times bigger than his body, beganto shake the tree, calling out 'who are you?' I replied 'I am Gamong, abrave warrior, and you must not shake the tree while I cross. ' Maligangthen said, consulting the pegs with which he records the deeds of men, 'What proof have I that you have been brave?' At this I was furious, Idrew my parang, uplifted my spear and ran amok, rushing into Maligang'shouse, smashing everything and overturning the great jars of rice-toddy, of which there is an abundance, but whereof no one ever drinks. Maligangwas frightened and bolted from the house, shouting as he fled, 'I havenot got you now, but in seven years' time you must return. ' Finding thatMaligang had fled, and that there were other obstacles to prevent mefrom going on, I returned to this world and its trials. " The story goesthat Gamong lived seven years after this, and then succumbed body andsoul to the great Maligang; and as there is no record of his bravery, hewas probably shaken off of the tree-trunk and disappeared in the deeppit seething with maggots. All this veracious history I got by word of mouth from a Kayan of theTinjar valley. Almost every medicine man has been down among the spirits of the dead, and in proof of his assertions, a curiously shaped stone, or a knot ofwood, is displayed, which has been given by the spirits and is endowedwith all sorts of marvellous properties. I have in my possession aDayong's whole outfit of charms which I bought from his relatives afterhis death; they were afraid to touch it, and for another Dayong to useit is taboo of the worst kind. Such charms are usually buried with thepractitioner, but this old fellow evidently did not have a very largepractice, and, at his death, he was somewhat neglected. One of thecharms is a stone in which an active imagination might trace aresemblance to the hand or foot of an animal; the sorrowing relativestold me, with awe and bated breath, that it was given to their uncle bya spirit on the top of a mountain, and that it was the foot of a dragon, one of the most powerful resources of the Dayong pharmacopoeia. [Illustration: KAYAN WOMEN. ] Companions to the stories of visits to the regions below the earth arestories of visits to the world above the skies, to which adventurousheroes climb either by vines or ropes, which dangle suddenly in front ofthem, or by means of lofty trees. "Jack and the Bean Stalk" is aparallel story in our own folklore. Sir Spencer St. John[1] gives aDayak account of the introduction of rice among the Orang Iban, as theycall themselves, which states that "when mankind had nothing to eat butfruit and a species of fungus which grows round the roots of trees, aparty of Ibans, among whom was a man named _Si Jura_ (whose descendantslive to this day in the village of Simpok) went forth to sea. Theysailed on for a long time until they came to a place where they heardthe distant roar of a large whirlpool, and, to their amazement, sawbefore them a huge fruit tree rooted in the sky and thence hanging down, with its branches touching the waves. At the request of his companions, Si Jura climbed among its boughs to collect the fruit, which was inabundance; when he got among the boughs, he was tempted to ascend thetrunk and find how the tree grew in that position. On looking down hesaw his companions making off with the boat loaded with fruit; therewas nothing for him to do but go on climbing. At length he reached theroots of the tree and found himself in the country of the Pleiades[which the Dayaks call 'the seven chained-stars']; when he stood uponthe ground he met a man-like being, whose name was Si Kira, and he wentwith him to his house. For food Si Kira offered to him a mess of softwhite grains, and told him to eat. 'What, eat those little maggots?'said Si Jura. 'They are not maggots, that is boiled rice, ' replied SiKira, and he forthwith instructed him in the art of planting, weeding, reaping, husking, and boiling rice. "While Si Kira's wife was out, getting some water, Si Jura peeped intoone of the tall jars that were standing near by, and looking straightthrough the bottom of it, he could see his father's house and all hisbrothers and sisters sitting around talking. His spirits were muchdepressed at the remembrance of the home that perhaps he should neversee again, and instead of eating he wept. Si Kira at once saw what wasthe matter, and assured him that he would arrange everythingsatisfactorily for him; then Si Jura fell to and ate a hearty meal, andafterwards he was given three kinds of rice, and Si Kira furtherinstructed him how to fell the jungle, burn it, then take the omens fromthe birds before planting, and when he harvested to hold a feast. Bymeans of a long rope Si Jura was lowered down to the earth again, closeto his father's house. From his visit to the Pleiades the Dayaks learnedall that they know about farming, and, what is more, to this day thePleiades themselves tell them when to begin farming, for, according totheir position in the sky in the morning and evening, they cut down thejungle, burn, plant, and reap. " I think there can be no doubt that Si Kira bestowed a great blessing onthe Dayaks when he gave them rice; but I am very sure that he saddledthem with a dire affliction when he introduced to them the omen-birds;more procrastination, failure of expeditions, and exasperation of soulcan be laid to the score of these birds than to anything else on earth. There is hardly an undertaking, however slight, that can be begunwithout first consulting these wretched birds. Yet it is hardly to bewondered at, that all tribes should hold the birds to be little prophetsof the jungle, dashing across man's path, at critical moments, to blessor to ban. In the deep jungle, which at high noon is as silent as"sunless retreats of the ocean, " gay-plumaged birds are not sitting onevery bough singing plaintive, melodious notes; such lovely picturesexist solely in the mind of the poet or of him who has never visited thetropics. In the thick tangle of leaves and branches overhead, the largerbirds are seen with difficulty, even after considerable practice, andthe smaller birds appear as but a flash of light, as they dart throughthe interlacing palms and vines; the apparition, with its sudden gleamand instant disappearance, starts the impulse to make a wish, as when wesee a star shoot across the heavens. This same natural and almostirresistible impulse, which we have all experienced, I suggest as one ofthe explanations of the tendency of the Bornean mind to accept the birdsas the intelligent forerunners of good or ill. These unsophisticatednatives wander forth with some wish in their hearts, and should a birdof the right species (for not all birds are omen-birds) cross theirpath, the fulfilment of their wishes is established beyond a doubt byits mere appearance, and it is to be feared (for they are mortal) thatif they do not want to see the bird--well, there are none so blind asthose who won't see. When it comes to taking omens for such an importantevent as the planting of rice, or for going on the warpath, then theceremony extends over ten days or two weeks, and the opinion of thesmall barking deer also must be consulted; furthermore, the wholehousehold is under the ban of a taboo, or _permantang_, as they call it, and the people must all stay indoors while the three men who areappointed as searchers are abroad on their omen-seeking errand. So firmis their trust in the wisdom of the birds that even if they have workedfor months at a clearing they will abandon it and never plant it, if theomens at the time of sowing be unfavorable. Certain birds must be seenon the right hand to be favorable, while others are most propitious whenthey soar overhead, or give a shrill cry on the left; on more than oneoccasion, when traveling in native canoes, a bird which ought to haveappeared on the right has been seen on the left, and, to my utterbewilderment, without a word the boat has been swung round in the streamso as to bring to the right what was on the left, thus slyly fabricatinga bad omen into a good one, and for some distance we have gone in theopposite direction, but now with highly favorable omens. When theyconclude that the bird has forgotten his warning or lost sight of us, the boat has been again turned, fate has been deceived, and we journeyon as before. Once our whole party of eight or ten boats had to pull upat the bank and walk through the jungle for a quarter of a mile or so tomake a bothersome white-headed hawk think that he had mistaken theobject of our expedition. When a favorable bird has been seen, a fire ofchips is at once built on the bank of the river, thereby letting thebird know that his kind attention has been appreciated, Fire is alwaysthe go-between of man and the birds, or any of the spirits; it forms animportant part in the ceremonies of consecration and absolution, and bymeans of fire a man may break through a taboo, or _permantang_. Shoulda man have a fruit-tree, for instance, which he wishes to protect, heplaces about it several cleft sticks with stones thrust in the clefts, and the stones are told to guard the tree and afflict with dire diseasesany pilferer of the fruit. Now, should a friend of the owner see thissign of _permantang_ and yet wish some of the fruit, let him but build afire and commission the fire to tell the stones that he is a friend ofthe owner, and that it is all right if he takes the fruit; then, whenthe fire is burnt out, the fruit may be taken with impunity. In theceremony of naming a child, the sacrificial pig is touched with a firebrand before it is harangued by the Dayong, or medicine man; and todetermine whether or not the chosen name be propitious, the strip ofrattan which has been used on the fire-saw to obtain the sacred fire, isbent into a loop until its ends just meet; it is then set on fire in themiddle and allowed to burn through. If the two pieces thus made are ofuneven length the name is good; if they are both the same length anothername must be selected. The ashes from this burning are made into a pasteand smeared on the child's forehead just before it is deluged with abowl of cold water, and the name is made public for the first time. Itis strange what a similarity exists in different races relative to thisceremony of giving a name. Why water should be used to confirm the rite, they cannot themselves explain, except by saying that it is a customhanded down to them from their grandfathers and theirgreat-great-grandfathers. It can hardly have suggested itself to theminds of the Borneans as an element of purification and cleansing; totheir mind water does not possess these properties. Water is good todrink when you are thirsty, and refreshing to bathe in when you arehot, that is all; dirt has no horrors to the Bornean mind, and after aplunge in the river has refreshed the body, the Kayan, Dayak, Kenyah, Sibop, or whatever the tribe, will put on the same dirty waist-cloth orcotton jacket that has never known soap, and has seldom if ever beennearer the water than when on the back of its owner. Perhaps it is thatwater is symbolic of life and motion; the river is always moving, itmurmurs and talks to itself, a draft of its coolness and a plunge intoits embrace adds new life to man; why should it not be the giver oflife? In almost all the native languages of Borneo the word for waterand river is the same; even when water is brought up into the house itis still the river, and when they drink, they drink the river; when theyboil their rice they boil in the river, and when they name theirchildren they pour the river over them. Many subtribes or householdstake their name from the river on which they live, as, for instance, theLong Patas who live, or used to live, at the mouth of the Pata river(Long meaning junction of one river with another), the Long Kiputs, theLong Lamas, and many others that might be named, including the wholetribe of the Kayans, who take their name from the great Kayan riverwhich empties into the sea on the East coast. If a river that is new tothem be visited, the spirits of that stream must be always propitiatedlest they resent the intrusion and drown the visitor. It is the customamong the Bukits, one of the most primitive tribes, for the youths, whenthey reach the bank of a new river, to divest themselves of everyarticle of clothing, save a chaplet of leaves, which they twist from thevines near at hand; then crouching at the edge of the water, they tosssome personal ornament, such as a brass ear-ring or a bright bead, farout into mid-stream, and at the same instant scoop up a handful of thewater; gazing earnestly into the few drops which they hold in theirpalm, they invoke the spirits of the river to protect them, and implorepermission to enter the new territory. Not until this rite is completedwould they dare to bathe in the stream. [Illustration: A SCENE ON THE DAPOI RIVER. ] To revert to the subject of names; from all that I have read, and frompersonal observation, it seems that all Borneans recognize the sanctityof names; of this we may find traces among all the primitive people ofthe earth. Before the formal ceremony of naming a child, for instance, has been performed, the child has no recognized place in the community, and a mother in enumerating her children would never think of mentioningone that had died before it was named, even though it had lived a year. Before the ceremony, the intended name is known to no one except theparents, and, for them to mention it, is strictly _permantang_ until theriver water has been poured on the child's head. A Kayan will never tellyou his name, but when asked he invariably turns to some one sittingnear him and asks him to pronounce the name which to the owner isineffable. For a man to mention the name of his dead father or mother isa reckless flying in the face of providence. After a serious illness thename should be changed and never uttered again, lest the evil spiritsrevisit their victim; under a new name they will be likely to pass himby. On one occasion, recognizing a man that I had seen on a formervisit, but, at the moment forgetting his name, I enquired what it was;the name, however, struck me as entirely unfamiliar. He afterwardacknowledged that he had been very sick since I last saw him and nowbore a new name; only the assurance that the spirits could not harm himthrough a white man induced him at last to whisper to me his formername. This change of name to deceive the fates extends even to inanimateobjects, and to animals which are to be caught or trapped. When huntingfor camphor, the name of the object of their search must be nevermentioned; it is always spoken of as "the thing that smells. " Even allthe instruments, which they use in collecting the valuable drug, havefanciful names, while the searchers talk in a language invented solelyfor those who collect camphor. Unless they conform to all theserequirements, the camphor crystals, which in this particular variety arefound only in the crevices of the wood, will elude them and their searchbe fruitless. When the people go _Tuba fishing_, which consists ofpoisoning the stream with the juice of the Tuba root, and thusstupefying the fish and making them rise to the surface, where they canbe easily caught in nets or speared, they never say that they are goingafter fish, but after the leaves which float down stream. These and many other customs relative to the naming of things are allfounded on the same idea of the potency and mysticism inherent in aname, which may be found in the legends of the old Egyptians, whereinthe power of the great king and god _Ra_ depended on the fact that noone knew his real name, until Isis by stratagem got it from him; andforthwith his power left him. It was this same idea that prevented theHebrew from ever speaking the name of the Most High; it is probably thesame thought which prompts the Japanese to change a person's name afterdeath lest by mentioning the one known during life the spirit of thedead should be recalled from the other world. The downfall of the god _Ra_ brings to mind another superstition ofwhich I have noticed a remnant among the Borneans also, the power ofworking charms with the saliva. When the great god Ra became so old thathe no longer had control of his lower jaw, Isis collected some of hissaliva which dropped upon the ground below his throne, and mixing itwith clay, made a snake of it. (I quote from the "Turin Papyrus, " ofwhich Mr. EDWARD CLODD gives a translation in his recent and valuablelittle book called "Tom Tit Tot. ") This snake Isis left in Ra's path; ashe passed by, it bit him, and to relieve him of his agony Isis persuadedhim that the only thing to be done was to tell her his true name thatshe might drive out the pain from his bones. This he finally did, andwith disastrous results. I instance this to show the antiquity of thesuperstition that the saliva is potent as an ingredient of charms; theKayans illustrate this, in the manner whereby they elude an evil spiritwhich may have been following them on a journey on the river. They builda small archway of boughs on the bank just before they arrive at theirdestination. Underneath this arch, they build a fire and, in singlefile, all pass under, stepping over the fire and spitting into it asthey pass; by this act they thoroughly exorcise the evil spirits andemerge on the other side free from all baleful influence. Anotherinstance, is where they are throwing aside the signs of mourning for thedead; during the period of mourning they may not cut their hair norshave their temples, but as soon as the mourning is ended by theceremony of bringing home a newly-taken head, the barber's knife is keptbusy enough. As every man leaves the barber's hands, he gathers up thehair, and, spitting on it, murmurs a prayer to the evil spirits not toharm him. He then blows the hair out of the verandah of the house. All these parallelisms, in the modes of thinking, among men in farremoved quarters of the earth, do not, I think, necessarily imply thatthere has been a transmission of thought from one race to the other, butthat there is a certain round of thought through which the brain leadsus, and in development we must all have followed along the same path. Some races have made more rapid strides than others, possibly owing tonatural surroundings, and in their strides have left the otherscenturies behind. Almost within the memory of our grandfathers, in thiscountry, witches were burned, and from this there is only a step back tothe Dayong of Borneo. Indeed, whosoever sees these people and lives withthem their everyday life, must regard them, after a not very long time, merely as backward pupils in the school of life. Let me say inconclusion, that he would have an unresponsive heart that could not feellinked in a bond of fellowship with these people, and that God has madeof only one blood all nations of the earth, when he hears a Borneanmother crooning her child to sleep with words identical in sentimentwith "Rock-a-bye Baby, "--what though the mother's earlobes are elongatedmany an inch by heavy copper rings, her arms tattooed to the elbow, andher blackened teeth filed to points. Once upon a time I heard a Kayanmother soothing her little baby to sleep, and the words of the lullabywhich I learned are as follows:-- From the River's mouth the birds are straying, And the Baiyo's topmost leaves are swaying; The little chicks cheep, Now my little one sleep, For the black house-lizard, with glittering eye, And the gray-haired Laki Laieng are nigh! Sleep, dear little one, sleep! For those philologically inclined I append the original:-- Lung koh madang Manoh Migieong ujong Baiyo Mensip anak Yap Lamate Telyap, Telyap abing, Lamate Laki Laieng oban! Ara we we ara! FOOTNOTE: [1] "Forests of the Far East, " vol. I, p. 213.