8o PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



while the omens are being read, the hawk flaps his 

 wings, or screams, or swoops down and settles on a 

 tree, the omen is bad. But if it swoops down and 

 up again, that is good. If two or three hawks are 

 visible at the same time, and especially if they all 

 fly to the right, that is very good ; but if many are 

 visible, and especially if they fly off in different 

 directions, that is very bad, for it means that the 

 enemy will scatter the attacking force. If the 

 hawk should capture a small bird while it is under 

 observation, that means that they will be made 

 captives if they persist in their undertaking. The 

 hawk is not claimed as a relative by Klemantans. 

 They take omens from various other birds in matters 

 of minor importance. 



Klemantans use the domestic pig and fowl as 

 sacrificial animals just as the Kenyahs and Kayans 

 do, and they have the same superstitious dread of 

 killing a dog. One group of them, Malanaus, use a 

 dog in taking a very solemn oath, and sometimes 

 the dog is killed in the course of this ceremony. 

 Or instead of the dog being killed, its tail may be 

 cut off, and the man taking the oath licks the blood 

 from the stump ; this is considered a most binding 

 and solemn form of oath. The ceremony is spoken 

 of as Koman asu, i.e. '' the eating of the dog." 



Most Klemantans will kill and eat both deer 

 and cattle freely. But there are exceptions to this 

 rule. Thus Damong, the chief of a Malanau 

 household, together with all his people, will not kill 

 or eat the deer Cervulus muntjac, alleging that an 

 ancestor had become a deer of this kind, and that, 

 since they cannot distinguish this incarnation of 

 his ancestor from other deer, they must abstain 

 from killing all deer of this species. We know of 

 one instance in which one of these people refused 

 to use again his cooking-pot, because a Malay who 

 had borrowed it had used it for cooking the flesh of 



