8o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE OMEN ANIMALS OF SARAWAK. 



By a. C. HADDON, F.R.S., 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. 



nnHE cult of the omen animals is of such importance in the daily 

 -*- life of most of the tribes of Borneo that it is desirable that 

 more attention should be paid to it by those who have the opportunity 

 of studying it at first hand. 



The Venerable Archdeacon J. Perhamhas given a full account of the 

 Iban or Sea Dayak religion in the 'Journal of the Straits Branch of the 

 Eoyal Asiatic Society' (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8), which has been re- 

 printed by Ling Eoth in his book, 'The Natives of Sarawak and British 

 North Borneo.' Mr. Ling Eoth has also compiled some other scattered 

 references on omens (Vol. I., pp. 231-231). Although the following 

 notes are very imperfect, they contain some new facts derived from Dr. 

 C. Hose, and also, thanks to information derived from Dr. Hose, I 

 am able for the first time to give a fairly complete list of the omen 

 animals of Sarawak, with their scientific names. I have taken 

 the liberty of abstracting the following account of the way in which 

 birds are 'used,' as the Ibans say, from Archdeacon Perham's most 

 valuable papers, as it is the best description known to me of what is of 

 daily occurrence in Borneo: 



The yearly rice farming is a matter of much ceremony as well as of labor 

 with the Dayaks, and must be inaugurated with proper omens. Some man 

 who is successful with his padi will be the augur and undertake to obtain 

 omens for a certain area of land, which others besides himself will farm. 

 Some time before the Pleiades are sufficiently high above the horizon to warrant 

 the clearing the grounds of jungle or grass, the man sets about his work. He 

 will have to hear the nendak (Cittocincla suavis) on the left, the katupong 

 (Sasia abnormis) on the left, the burong malam (a locust) and the beragai 

 (Harpactes duvauceli) on the left, and in the order I have written them. As 

 soon as he has heard the nendak, he will 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 creature, is the first to make itself heard or seen, and 

 in that case the day's proceeding is vitiated; he must give the matter up, re- 

 turn and try his chance another day; and thus sometimes three or four days 

 are gone before he has obtained his first omen. When he has heard the nendak, 

 he will then go to listen for the katupong and the rest, but with the same 

 liability to delays; and it may possibly require a month to obtain all those 

 augural predictions, which are to give them confidence in the result of their 

 labors. The augur has now the same number of twigs and sticks as birds he 

 has heard, and he takes these to the land selected for farming and puts them 



