90 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



use the fowl and the pig as sacrificial animals in 

 much the same way as the other tribes. They eat 

 the fowl and both the wild and domestic pig freely, 

 except in so far as they are restrained by somewhat 

 rigid notions of economy in such matters. The 

 fowl plays a larger part than the pig in their 

 religious practices, and its entrails are sometimes 

 consulted for omens. 



I bans will kill and eat all kinds of deer, but there 

 are exceptions to this rule. The deer are of some 

 slight value to them as omen-givers. Horned cattle 

 they will kill and eat, but they are not accustomed 

 to their flesh, and few of them relish it. 



I bans have numerous animal fables that remind 

 one strongly of ^Esop's fables and the Brer Rabbit 

 stories of the Africans. In these kora, the land- 

 tortoise, and plandoky the tiny mouse-deer, figure 

 largely as cunning and unprincipled thieves and 

 vagabonds that turn the laugh always against the 

 bigger animals and man.^ 



The Ngarong or Secret Helper 



An important institution among some of the 

 I bans, which occurs but in rare instances among 

 the other peoples, is the ngarong''" or secret helper. 

 The ngarong is one of the very few topics in regard 

 to which the I bans display any reluctance to speak 

 freely. So great is their reserve in this connection 

 that one of us lived for fourteen years on friendly 

 terms with I bans of various districts without ascer- 

 taining the meaning of the word ngarong, or suspect- 

 ing the great importance of the part played by the 

 notion in the lives of some of these people. The 



1 See Chap. XVII. 



2 In the paper from which the greater part of this chapter is extracted this 

 word was spelt nyarong. It is now clear to us that it should be spelt as above, 

 with the initial ng^ a common initial sound in the Sea Dayak language. The 

 most literal translation of the word is, the thing that is secret, or simply, the 

 secret, or my secret. 



