Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Making Brothers.
This curious ceremony of “making brothers” is not confined to
Borneo; it is practised in Western and Eastern Africa. In the latter
region the ceremony is invested with much importance, especially
when the individuals concerned are two chiefs who have long been
at variance. Squatting before each other in the presence of the
chiefs and elders with their implements of war on their laps, and
having each in his hands a sharp knife and a small cup, the would-
be brothers make a slight gash in each other’s breast and, catching
the blood in the cup, drink it to their eternal friendship, the oldest
man of the tribe standing over them to witness the reconciliation and
waving his sword over them.
The Sea Dayaks, whose customs differ widely in many respects
from those of the Land Dayaks, have a clear idea of one omnipotent
being who created and now rules over the world. They call him
Batara. Beneath him are many good and innumerable bad spirits,
and the fear of the latter causes them to make greater and more
frequent offerings to them than to the good spirits. The awe with
which many of them are named has induced a few, among others
Mr. Chambers, to imagine that their religion is a species of
polytheism. But this, according to Mr. St. John’s way of thinking, is a
mistake; and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gomez, who have much
knowledge of the Sea Dayaks, agree with the gentleman formerly
mentioned.
The Sea Dayaks pay homage to evil spirits of various kinds, who
reside in the jungles, in the mountains, and in the earth; all
sicknesses, misfortunes, or death, proceed from them; while to
Batara is attributed every blessing. When they make offerings,
however, both are propitiated and, as usual, the wicked ones have
the larger share. The priests offer a long prayer and supplicate them
to depart from the afflicted house or from the sick man. Of the seven
platesful of food, four are given to the evil spirits and cast forth or
exposed in the forest, while the others are offered to the good spirits,
who are implored to protect and bless them. The food offered to the
latter is not considered to be interdicted, but may be, and always is
eaten.
The Lingga Dayaks, besides Batara, have various good spirits—
as Stampandei, who superintends the propagation of mankind;
Pulang Ganah, who inhabits the earth and gives fertility to it, and to
him are addressed the offerings at the feasts given whilst preparing
the rice for cultivation: Singallong Burong, the god of war, excites
their utmost reverence, and to him are offered the Head feasts. On
these occasions he comes down and hovers in the form of a kite
over the house, and guns are fired and gongs beaten in his honour.
His brave followers married to his daughters appear in the form of
his omen birds. No wonder he is honoured; he gives success in war
and delights in their acquisitions of the heads of their enemies.
Nattiang inhabits the summits of the hills and is one of their
demigods. The Linggas tell many stories of his exploits. The most
famous was his expedition to the skies to recover his wife who had
been caught in a noose and hoisted up there by an old enemy of his.
To dream of him is to receive the gift of bravery.
When the small-pox was committing dreadful havoc among the
Sakarangs the villagers would not allow themselves to be
innoculated; they ran into the jungle in every direction, caring for no
one but themselves, leaving their houses empty and dwelling far
away in the most silent spots in parties of two and three and
sheltered only by a few leaves. When these calamities come upon
them they utterly lose all command over themselves and become as
timid as children. When the fugitives become short of provisions a
few of the old men who have already had the complaint creep back
to the houses at night and take a supply of rice. In the daytime they
do not dare to stir or speak above a whisper for fear the spirits
should see or hear them. They do not call the small-pox by its name,
but are in the habit of saying, “Has he left you?” at other times they
call it jungle-leaves or fruit; at other places the Datu or chief.
Their priests frequently use the names of invisible spirits, and are
supposed to be able to interpret their language as well as to hold
communion with them; and in ordinary times they pretend to work
the cure of the sick by means of incantations, and after blinding the
patient’s eyes pretend, by the aid of the spirits, to draw the bones of
fish or fowl out of their flesh. When the Dayaks are questioned as to
their belief in these easily-exposed deceits, they say, No; but the
custom has descended to them from their ancestors, and they still
pay their priests heavy sums to perform the ancient rites.
They believe in a future state—considering that the Simaūgat or
spiritual part of man lives for ever; that they awake shortly after
death in the Sabayan or future abode, and that there they find those
of their relatives and friends who have departed before them. Some
tribes divide their Sabayan into seven distinct stories which are
occupied by the souls of the departed according to their rank and
position in life. The really wicked occupy the lowest, but whether
happy or miserable they acknowledge ignorance.
The Kayans of Baram have some singular ideas concerning a
future state. The name of their god is Totadungan and he reigns over
all; they say he has a wife but no children, and beneath him are
many gods of inferior power. They believe in a future state with
separate places for the souls of the good and the bad, and that both
heaven and hell are divided into many distinct residences—that
those who die from wounds, or sickness, or drowning, go to separate
places. If a woman dies before her husband they hold that she goes
to heaven and marries again; but that if when her earthly husband
dies he goes to heaven the celestial match is broken off and the old
husband claims his partner.
Among both Land and Sea Dayaks dreams are regarded as
actual occurrences. They think that in sleep the soul sometimes
remains in the body and sometimes leaves it and travels far away,
and that both when in and out of the body it sees and hears and
talks and altogether has a presence given it which when the body is
in a natural state it does not enjoy. Fainting fits or a state of coma
are thought to be caused by the departure of the soul on some
expedition of its own. Elders and priestesses often assert that in their
dreams they have visited the mansion of the blessed and seen the
Creator dwelling in a house like that of a Malay, the interior of which
was adorned with guns and gongs and jars innumerable, Himself
being clothed like a Dayak.
A dream of sickness to any member of a family always ensures a
ceremony; and no one presumes to enter the priesthood, or to learn
the art of a blacksmith, without being or pretending to be warned in a
dream that he should undertake to learn it. A man has been known
to give one of his two children to another who has no children
because he dreamed that unless he did so the child would die.
In dreams also, “Tapa” and the spirits bestow gifts on men in the
shape of magic stones, which being washed in cocoa milk the water
forms one of the ingredients in the mass of blood and tumeric which
is considered sacred and is used to anoint the people at the harvest-
feasts. They are ordinary black pebbles, and there is nothing in their
appearance to give a notion of their magic power and value.
On the banks of one of the rivers Mr. St. John discovered the
effigy of a bull cut in a sort of stone said to be unknown in the
country; its legs and part of its head had been knocked off. Its history
is as follows:—Many years ago on being discovered in the jungle the
Malays and Dayaks removed it to the banks of the river preparatory
to its being conveyed to the town, but before it could be put into a
prahu they say a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, wind
and rain, arose, which lasted thirty days. Fearing that the bull was
angry at being disturbed in his forest home they left him in the mud,
and there Sir James Brooke found it and had it removed to his own
house. Several of the Dayak tribes sent deputations to him to
express their fears of the evil consequences that would be sure to
ensue—everything would go wrong, storms would arise, their crops
would be blighted, and famine would desolate the land. Humouring
their prejudices, he answered that they were mistaken, that the bull
on the contrary would be pleased to be removed from the dirty place
in which the Malays had left him, and that now he was kept dry and
comfortable there would be no show of his anger. This reply satisfied
them. Occasionally the Dayaks would come and wash the stone bull,
taking away the precious water to fertilize their fields.
Amongst some of the Bornean aborigines there is a superstition
that they must not laugh at a dog or a snake crossing their path.
Should they do so they would become stones. These Dayaks always
refer with respect and awe to some rocks scattered over the summit
of a hill in Sadong, saying that they were originally men. The place
was a very likely one to be haunted—a noble old forest but seldom
visited. Many years ago they say a great chief gave a feast there, in
the midst of which his lovely daughter came in; she was a spoilt child
who did nothing but annoy the guests. They at first tried to get rid of
her by mixing dirt with her food: finding she still teazed them, they
gave her poison. Her father in his anger went back to his house,
shaved his dog and painted him with alternate streaks of black and
white. Then giving him some intoxicating drink he carried him in his
arms into the midst of the assembly and set him on the ground. The
dog began to caper about in the most ludicrous manner which set
them all off laughing, the host as well as the guests, and they were
immediately turned into stone.
With one giant stride of our any-number-of-league boots we step
from Borneo into North America and among the many semi-savage
tribes that there reside. As a rule the North-American savage
believes in one Supreme Being whom he knows as the Great Spirit,
and whose abode is Paradise, or the “happy hunting ground.” This
Supreme Being, however, they regard as much too exalted to trouble
himself about the petty businesses of the world, and therefore
governs by deputy. There are, according to Indian belief, numerous
subordinate deities, the business of each of whom it is to govern and
control the earth, the forests and the game there abounding, the
winds, the air, and the water, together with its finny denizens.
Besides those—at least in the case of the Ojibbeway, who may fairly
be taken as the type of the North-American Indian—they have a host
of evil spirits or munedoos, or manitou, headed by one arch Matchi-
munedoo, and who, it is to be feared on account of their predilection
for mischief, occupy a greater portion of the Indian’s time and
attention in the way of propitiation and friendly peace-offering, than
ever is devoted to Kitchi-manitou, the Great Spirit to whom, if the
Indian’s religion is worth a straw, it should be sufficient to obey to
render one self-defiant of Matchi-munedoo and all his works.
As might be expected the Indian language is rich in mythological
lore, and is often found to be a curious tangle of what we
acknowledge as Biblical truth, and nonsense, remarkable chiefly for
its quaint grotesqueness. Take the following narrative of the Deluge:
“Before the general deluge there lived two enormous creatures,
each possessed of vast power. One was an animal with a great horn
on his head; the other was a huge toad. The latter had the whole
management of the waters, keeping them secure in its own body,
and emitting only a certain quantity for the watering of the earth.