ANIMISTIC BELIEFS 91 



ngarong seems to be usually the spirit of some 

 ancestor or dead relative, but not always so, and it 

 is not clear that it is always conceived as the spirit 

 of a deceased human being. This spirit becomes 

 the special protector of some individual I ban, to 

 whom in a dream he manifests himself, in the first 

 place in human form, and announces that he will be 

 his secret helper ; and he may or may not inform 

 the dreamer in what form he will appear in future. 

 On the day after such a dream the I ban wanders 

 through the jungle looking for signs by which he 

 may recognise his secret helper ; and if an animal 

 behaves in a manner at all unusual, if a startled 

 deer stops a moment to gaze at him before bounding 

 away, if a gibbon gambols about persistently in the 

 trees near him, if he comes upon a bright quartz- 

 crystal or a strangely contorted root or creeper,^ 

 that animal or object is for him full of a mysterious 

 significance and is the abode of his ngarong. Some- 

 times the ngarong then assumes the form of an I ban 

 and speaks with him, promising all kinds of help 

 and good fortune. If this occurs the seer usually 

 faints away, and when he comes to himself again 

 the ngarong will have disappeared. Or, again, a 

 man may be told in his dream that if he will go 

 into the jungle he will meet his ngarong in the form 

 of a wild boar. He will then, of course, go to seek 

 it, and if by chance other men of his house should 

 kill a wild boar that day, he will go to them and beg 

 for its head or buy it at a good price if need be, 

 carry it home to his bed-place, offer it cooked rice 

 and kill a fowl before it, smearing the blood on the 

 head and on himself, and humbly begging for pardon. 

 Or he may leave the corpse in the jungle and 

 sacrifice a fowl before it there. On the following 

 night he hopes to dream of the ngarong again, and 



^ Almost every Iban possesses and constantly carries with him a bundle of 

 such objects ; they are regarded as charms and are called pengaroh ; but few 

 probably claim to enjoy the protection of a secret helper. 



