54 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



In the house, meanwhile, four boys were pounding at two 

 big drums to keep away from the worshippers all sounds 

 but the words of their own prayers.^ Then another fowl 

 and another pig were sacrificed in similar fashion at each 

 altar, and the second part of the rite was finished by the 

 men sticking the carcases of the slaughtered beasts each 

 one on the point of a pole, and fixing the poles upright in 

 the earth before the images. 



Tama Bulan now came up into the house to perform the 

 third and last act. A pig was brought and laid bound 

 upon the floor, and Tama Bulan, stooping, with a sword in 

 his right hand, kept punching the pig gently behind the 

 shoulder as though to keep its attention, and addressed it 

 with a rapid flow of words, each phrase beginning " O Bali 

 Bouin." The pig's throat was then cut by an attendant, 

 and Tama Bulan, standing up, diluted its blood with water 

 and scattered it abroad over all of us as we stood round 

 about him, while he still kept up the rapid patter of words. 

 Then he pulled off the head of a fowl and concluded the 

 rites by once more sprinkling us all with blood and water. 

 Everyone seemed relieved and well satisfied to have got 

 through this important business, and to have secured pro- 

 tectors for all the party during the forthcoming journey. 

 For the three hawks will watch over them, and are held to 

 have given them explicit guarantees of safety. The frayed 

 stick that had figured so largely in the rites was stuck 

 under the rafters of the roof among a row of others 

 previously used, and there it will remain, a sign and a 

 pledge of the piety of the people, as long as the house shall 

 stand. And then as Tama Bulan, pretty well covered with 

 blood, went away to wash himself, I felt as though 1 had 

 just lived through a book of the Aeneid, and was about to 

 follow Father Aeneas to the shores of Latium. 



This elaborate rite, so well fitted to set agoing 

 the speculative fancy of any one acquainted with the 

 writings of Robertson Smith and Messrs. Jevons 

 and Frazer, was one of the first that we witnessed 

 together. After giving all our facts we shall return 

 to discuss some of the interesting questions raised 

 by it, but it will be seen that we are far from having 



^ " Hence devices were adopted so that no ill-omened sound should be 

 heard, such as blowing a trumpet during the sacrifice. " 



