CHAPTER XII

OMENS AND DREAMS

Seven omen birds—Other omen animals—Omens sought before beginning rice-farming—House-building omens—Substitutions for omens—Good and bad omens in farming—A dead animal—Means of avoiding bad effects—Omens obeyed at all times—Bird flying through a house—A drop of blood—Killing an omen bird or insect—Origin of the system of omens—Augury—Dreams.

The Dyak is conscious of his ignorance of the natural laws which govern the world in which he lives. He longs for some guidance in his precarious farming, in his work in the lonely depths of the jungle, in his boating over the dangerous rapids or treacherous tides of the swift rivers. He is aware that injury or death may suddenly confront him from many an unexpected source. He knows that Nature has voices, many and varied, and he is convinced that if he could only understand those voices aright, he would know when to advance and when to recede. He feels the need of guidance, and he has devised for himself a system of omens.

Like the ancient Romans, who took auguries from the flight or notes of certain birds—the raven, the owl, the magpie, the eagle, and the vulture—the Dyak has his sacred birds, whose flight or calls are supposed to intimate to him the will of unseen powers. They are seven in number, and their native names are: _Katupong_, _Beragai_, _Kutok_, _Embuas_, _Nendak_, _Papau_, and _Bejampong_. They are beautiful in plumage, but, like most tropical birds, they have little song, and their calls are shrill and piercing. They are supposed to be manifestations of the seven spirit sons of the great god Singalang Burong (see the “Story of Siu,” p. 278).

The system, as carried out by the Dyaks, is most elaborate and complicated, and the younger men have constantly to ask the older ones how to act in unexpected combinations of apparently contradictory omens. The law and observance of omens occupy a greater share of the thoughts of the Dyak than any other part of his religion.

It is not only to the cry of birds that the Dyaks pay heed. There are certain animals—the deer, the armadillo, the lizard, the bat, the python, the cobra, even the rat, as well as certain insects—which all may give omens under special circumstances. But these other creatures are subordinate to the birds, from which alone augury is sought at the beginning of any important undertaking.

Some idea of the method in which the Dyaks carry out their system of omens may be gathered from what is done at the commencement of the yearly rice-farming. Some man who has the reputation of being fortunate, and has had large paddy crops, will be the augur, and undertake to obtain omens for a large area of land on which he and others intend to plant. The Dyaks begin clearing the ground of jungle and high grass when the Pleiades appear at a certain height above the horizon at sunset. Some little time before this the augur sets about his work. He will have to hear the cry of the _nendak_, the _katupong_, and the _beragai_, all on his left. If these cries come from birds on his right, they are not propitious. The cries of the other sacred birds must sound on his right. He goes forth in the early morning, and wanders about the jungle till the cry of the _nendak_ is heard on his left. He will then break off a twig of anything growing near, and take it home and put it in a safe place. But it may happen that some other omen bird or animal is first to be seen or heard. In that case he must give the matter up, return, and try his chance another day. Thus, sometimes several days pass before he has obtained his first omen. When he has heard the _nendak_, he will then listen for the _katupong_ and the other birds in the necessary order. There is always the liability of delays caused by the wrong birds being heard, and it may possibly be a month or more before he obtains all those augural predictions, which will give him confidence that his farming for the year will be successful. When the augur has collected a twig for each bird he has heard, he takes these to the land selected for farming, buries them in the ground, and with a short form of address to the birds and to Pulang Gana—the god of the Earth—clears a small portion of the ground of grass or jungle, and then returns home. The magic virtues of the birds have been conveyed to the land, and the work of clearing it for planting may be begun at any time.

The sacred birds can be bad omens as well as good. If heard on the wrong side, or in the wrong order, the matter in hand must be postponed or altogether abandoned, unless a subsequent conjunction of good omens occurs, which in the judgment of old experts more than counterbalances the bad omens.

I have mentioned the omens necessary before planting the seed. In a similar manner, before beginning to build a house, or starting on a war expedition, or undertaking any new line of action, certain omens are required if good fortune is to attend them and the Fates be propitious.

For house-building, the cries of the same birds are required, and in the same order as before planting the seed. But for a war expedition, birds heard on the right hand are best, except in the case of the _nendak_, which may be heard either on the right or on the left hand side.

There are, I believe, certain substitutions for this tedious process of seeking the omens of birds. It is said that for farming, if a piece of gold be hidden in the ground, the hearing of the proper omen birds may be dispensed with. If a fowl be sacrificed, and the blood made to drop in a hole in the earth in which the fowl is afterwards buried, it is said the gods will be satisfied, and a good harvest ensue. And on the occasion of a war expedition, if an offering is made with beating of gongs and drums on starting from the house, it is said that no cries of birds need be obeyed afterwards. But none of these methods are ever used, the Dyaks preferring to submit to the tedious procedure of listening to the cries of the birds.

It is in regard to farming that the practice is most conspicuous. And if any of these omen birds are heard or seen by the Dyak on his way to his work on his paddy land, it foretells either good or evil to himself or to his farm—if good, then all is well, and he goes on his way rejoicing; if evil, he will at once turn back and wait for the following day before going to his work again. The _nendak_ foretells good, whether heard on the right hand or the left; so does the _katupong_; but the _papau_ is of evil omen, and, if heard, the man must at once beat a retreat. A _beragai_ heard occasionally does not matter, but if heard frequently, no work must be done for one day. The _embuas_ heard on the right hand is very bad, and in order to insure a good harvest, the unlucky man must not work on his farm for five days. The cry of the _beragai_ acts as an antidote, and destroys the bad effects of the cries of birds of bad omen. For instance, the _kutok_ and _katupong_ are both birds of bad omen, but if after hearing them the cry of a _beragai_ is heard, no evil effects need be dreaded. If the cry of a deer, a gazelle, or a mouse-deer be heard, or if a rat crosses the path of a man on his way to his farm, a day’s rest is necessary, or he will either cut himself, or become ill, or suffer by failure of his crop.

When a remarkably good omen is heard—one which foretells a plentiful harvest—the man must go to his farm at once, and do some trifling work there, and then return, and in this way clench the foreshadowed luck and at the same time reverence the spirit who promises it. Should a deer, a gazelle, or a mouse-deer come out of the jungle to the farm when a man is at work there, it is an exceptionally good omen. It means that customers will come to buy the paddy, and that therefore the crop will be very good in order that there may be paddy to sell. They honour this omen by resting from work for three days.

But the worst of all omens is to find anywhere on the farm the dead body of any animal, especially if it be that of any animal included in the omen list. It infuses a deadly poison into the whole crop, and one or other of the owner’s family will certainly die within the year. When such a terrible thing happens, the omen is tested by killing a pig, and divining from the appearance of its liver directly after death. If the liver be pronounced to be of good omen, then all is well, but if not, then all the rice grown on that ground must be sold or given away. Other people may eat it, for the omen affects only those who own the crops.

A way of escaping from the bad effects of omens is sometimes resorted to. Certain men, who by some peculiar magic influence are credited with possessing in themselves some occult power which can overcome bad omens, are able by eating some little thing of the produce of the farm to turn away the evil prognostication and render it ineffectual. Something grown on the farm—a little Indian corn or a few cucumber-shoots—is taken to the man. For a small consideration he eats it raw. By this means he appropriates to himself the evil omen, which can do him no harm, and thus delivers the owner of the farm from any possible evil in the future.

The Dyak pays heed to these ominous creatures not only in his farming, but in all his journeyings and in any kind of work he may be engaged in. If he be going to visit a friend, the cry of a bird of ill omen will send him back. If he be engaged in carrying beams from the jungle for his house, and hear a _kutok_, or _bejampong_, or an _embuas_, he will at once throw down the piece of timber, and it will be left there for a day or two, or perhaps abandoned altogether. If at night the inhabitants of a long Dyak house hear an owl make a peculiar noise called _sabut_, they will all hastily leave the house in the early morning, and remain away, living in temporary sheds, for some weeks, and return to the house only when they hear a _nendak_ or _beragai_ cry on their left. There are many omens which make a place unfit for habitation—for example, a _beragai_ flying over the house or an armadillo crawling up into it.

So great is the Dyak belief in omens that a man will sometimes abandon a nearly finished boat simply because a bird of ill omen flies across its bows. The labour of weeks will thus be wasted. I have myself seen wooden beams and posts left half finished in the jungle, and have learned on inquiry that some bird of ill omen was heard while the man was at work on them, and so they had to be abandoned.

If a _katupong_ flies in at one end of the house and flies out at the other, it is a bad omen, and the house is often abandoned. On one of my visits to Sebetan there was great excitement at the Dyak house near mine because on the previous night a _katupong_ had flown through the house. Opinions were divided. Some thought the house ought to be abandoned; others said that if sacrifices were offered, there was no need to desert the house. My opinion was asked. At that time of the year the Dyak house was very empty, as most of the families, if not all, would be living on their farms, and I said: “You have fruit-trees growing thickly all round your houses, and as you leave your houses empty, I am not surprised at any bird flying through the house.” My matter-of-fact ideas were not much approved. As usual in doubtful cases, they sacrificed a pig and examined its liver. Luckily, the omen was good, so they continued to live in the house; otherwise, they would have had to leave that house and build another.

To see a drop of blood on a mat or on the floor of a Dyak house is considered a bad omen, which sometimes necessitates the abandoning of the house altogether. I remember hearing a woman of this same house in Sebetan relate that, after she and the children had had their evening meal, she was putting away the plates on the rack in the wall, when she saw a drop of fresh blood on the mat. The Dyaks considered it a most terrible thing to happen. I was asked what I thought about it. I said that probably one of the children had a cut finger, and the blood was from that. The mother was positive the blood was not that of any of her children. I said that perhaps there was a wounded rat in the roof, and the blood was from it. I could see that the Dyaks considered me very ignorant. They told me that they were sure the blood must be that of some spirit who chose that method of showing his displeasure. It was useless for me to argue that if the spirit was invisible, his blood must be invisible, too.

To kill one of these omen creatures, be it bird or insect, is a crime which will certainly be punished by sickness or death. But this sacredness of life, it may be noticed, does not apply to the deer, the gazelle, the mouse-deer, the armadillo, and the iguana, all of which they freely kill for food. Rats also are killed, as they are great pests. It would seem that physical requirements are stronger than religious theory.

This is the merest outline of the practice of interpreting omens among the Dyaks, but it will give some idea of the tediousness of the process. And the intricacies of the subject are great. The different combinations of these voices of Nature are endless, and it is difficult to know in each special case whether the spirits intend to foretell good or bad fortune. It is not an unusual thing to see old men, industrious and sensible in ordinary matters of life, sitting down for hours discussing the probable effect on their destiny of some special combination of omens.

The full Dyak explanation of the origin of this system of listening to the cries of certain birds is contained in the “Story of Siu” (see p. 278).

Another story tells how some Dyaks in the Batang Lupar made a great feast, and invited many guests. When everything was ready, and the arrival of the guests expected, the sound of a great company of people was heard near the village. The hosts, thinking they were the invited friends, went to meet them, but to their surprise found they were all utter strangers. However, they received them with due honour, and entertained them in a manner suitable to the occasion. When the time of departure came, they asked the strange visitors who they were, and from whence they came. Their Chief replied: “I am _Singalang Burong_, and these are my sons-in-law and their friends. When you hear the voices of the following birds [giving their names] you must pay heed to them. They are our deputies in this lower world.” And then the Dyaks understood that they had been entertaining guests from the Spirit World, who rewarded their hospitality by giving them the guidance of the omen system.

A favourite way of auguring good or evil among the Dyaks is the old classical method of examining the entrails of some animal offered in sacrifice. A pig is killed, and the heart and liver taken out and placed upon leaves. These organs are handed round to the old men present, who closely examine them, and pronounce them to augur either good or evil. This method of augury is often resorted to when the interpretation of the cries of birds is doubtful.

A study of the subject of omens and augury shows the need the Dyak feels, in common with all mankind, of some guidance from higher and unseen powers. What is the principle which underlies this system of omens? There is no doubt a morbid anxiety to know the secrets of the future. But that is not all. Surely in addition to this there is the hidden conviction that the gods have some way of revealing their wishes to mankind, and that obedience to the will of the higher powers is the only way to insure success and happiness.

The Dyaks place implicit confidence in dreams. Their theory is that during sleep the soul can hear, see, and understand, and so what is dreamt is really what the soul sees. When anyone dreams of a distant land, they believe that his soul has paid a flying visit to that land. They interpret their dreams literally. The appearance of deceased relatives in dreams is to the Dyaks a proof that the souls live in _Sabayan_, and as in the dreams they seem to wear the same dress and to be engaged in the same occupations as when they lived in this world, it is difficult to persuade the Dyaks that the life in the other world can be different from that in this.

In dreams, also, the gods and spirits are supposed to bring charms to human beings. The story is often told of how a man falls asleep, and dreams that a spirit came to him and gave certain charms, and lo! when he awakes, he finds them in his hands. Or else he is told in his dream to go to a certain spot at a certain time, and take some stone which will have some mysterious influence for good over his fortunes. Very often these magic charms, or _pengaroh_, as they are called by the Dyaks, are nothing more than ordinary black pebbles, but the possession of them is supposed to endow the owner with exceptional powers.

No doubt Dyaks often concoct dreams out of their waking thoughts to suit their own interests, and many a man falsely declares he has received the gift of a charm from some spirit in order to appear of importance before others.

To conclude, dreams are looked upon by the Dyaks as the means the gods and spirits use to convey their commands or to warn men of coming danger. Houses are often deserted, and farming land on which much labour has been spent abandoned, on account of dreams. Newly-married couples often separate from the same cause. It is no unusual thing for a man or a woman to dream that the spirits are hungry and need food. In that case the inmates of the Dyak house organize a feast, and offerings are made to the hungry spirits.

Sometimes dreams are made an excuse for evil deeds. A woman who had been guilty of adultery said she was only carrying out the command of the gods conveyed to her in a dream, and that if she disobeyed she would probably become mad!