88 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



The hornbill must be included among the sacred 

 birds of the Iban, although it does not give omens. 

 On the occasion of making peace between hostile 

 tribes, the I bans sometimes make a large wooden 

 image of the hornbill and hang great numbers of 

 cigarettes upon it ; and these are taken from it 

 during the ceremony and smoked by all the men 

 taking part in it. On the occasion of the great 

 peace-making at Baram in March 1899, ^^ which 

 thousands of Kenyahs, Kayans, Klemantans, and 

 I bans were present/ the Ibans made an elaborate 

 image of the hornbill some nine feet in height, and 

 hung upon it many thousands of cigarettes, and 

 these were smoked by the men of the different 

 tribes, all apparently with full understanding of the 

 value of the act. 



A special deity or spirit, Pulang Gana, presides 

 over the rice-culture of the Ibans, but the crocodile 

 also is intimately concerned with it. The following 

 account was given us by an intelligent Iban from 

 the Batang Lupar : — 



Klieng first advised the Ibans to make friends 

 with Pulang Gana, who is a Petara and the grand- 

 father ['' aki'') oi padi. Pulang Gana first taught 

 them to plant padi and instructed them in the 

 following rites : — 



On going to a new district Ibans always make a 

 life-size image of a crocodile in clay on the land 

 chosen for the padz-fsLvm. The image is made 

 chiefly by some elderly man of good repute and 

 noted for skilful farming. Then for seven days 

 the house is malt, i,e, under special restrictions — no 

 one may enter the house or do anything in it except 

 eat and sleep. At the end of the seven days they 

 go to see the clay crocodile and give it cloth and 

 food and rice-spirit, and kill a fowl and a pig before 

 it. The ground round about the image is kept 



1 See Chap. XXII. 



