The pagan tribes of Borneo - Get a Free Blog Here

no PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap.
of both sexes. If the omens observed are considered
to be bad, or of doubtful import, the men go out for
a second period ; but if they are favourable, the
women of each room perform the private rites over
their stores of seed padi, which are kept in their
rooms. After the pros and cons have been fullydiscussed,
the chief names the day for the beginning
of the clearing operations.
At the beginning of the sowing the house is
again subject to malan for one day. During the
growth of the padi various charms and superstitious
practices are brought into use to promote its
growth and health, and to keep the pests from it.
The padi charms are a miscellaneous collection or
bundle of small articles, such as curious pebbles
and bits of wood, pigs' tusks of unusual size or
shape, beads, feathers, crystals of quartz. Kayans
as a rule object to pebbles and stones as charms.
Such charms are generally acquired in the first
instance through indications afforded by dreams,
and are handed down from mother to daughter.
Such charms contained in a basket are usually kept
in 2ipadi barn, from which they are taken to the field
by the woman and waved over it, usually with a
live fowl in the hand, while she addresses th^ padi
seed in some such terms as the following : " May
you have a good stem and a good top, let all parts
of you grow in harmony, etc. etc." Then she
rapidly repeats a
exhortation to the
long customary formula of
pests, saying, " O rats, run
O away down river, don't trouble us ;
sparrows and
noxious insects, go feed on the padi of the people
down river." If the pests are very persistent, the
woman may kill a fowl and scatter its blood over
the growing padi, while she charges the pests to
disappear, and calls upon Laki Ivong (the god of
harvests) to drive them out.
Women alone will gather the first ears of the