The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

io8 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
length of the shadow are arrived at, purely empirically,
by marking off the length of the mid-day
shadow every three days.
The clerk of the weather measures the shadow of
the pole at mid-day whenever the sun is unclouded.
As the shadow grows shorter after reaching its
maximal length, he observes it with special care, and
announces to the village that the time for preparing
the land is near at hand. When the shadow reaches
the notch made opposite the middle of the arm, the
best time for sowing the grain is considered to have
arrived ; the land is therefore cleared, and made
ready before this time arrives. Sowing at times
when the shadow reaches other notches is held to
involve various disadvantages, such as liability to
more than the usual number of pests—monkeys,
insects, rats, or sparrows. In the case of each
successful harvest, the date of the sowing is recorded
by driving a peg of ironwood into the ground at the
point denoting the length of the mid-day shadow at
that date. The weather prophet has other marks
and notches whose meaning is known only to himself;
his procedures are surrounded with mystery
and kept something of a secret, even from the chief
as well as from all the rest of the village, and his
advice is always followed.
The method of observing the sun described above
is universal among the Kenyahs, but some of the
Kayans practise a different method. A hole is
made in the roof of the weather-prophet's chamber
in the long-house, and the altitude of the mid-day
sun and its direction, north or south of the meridian,
are observed by measuring along a plank fixed on
the floor the distance of the patch of sunlight (falling
through the hole on to the plank) from the point
vertically below the hole. The horizontal position
of the plank is secured by placing upon it smooth
spherical stones and noting any inclination to roll.