92 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



perhaps he is told in his dream to take the tusks 

 from the dead boar and that they will bring him 

 good luck. Unless he dreams something of this 

 sort, he feels that he has been mistaken, and that 

 the boar was not really his secret helper. 



Perhaps only one in a hundred men is fortunate 

 enough to have a secret helper, though it is ardently 

 desired by many of them. Many a young man goes 

 to sleep on the grave of some distinguished person, 

 or in some wild and lonely spot, and lives for some 

 days on a very restricted diet, hoping that a secret 

 helper will come to him in his dreams. 



When, as is most commonly the case, the secret 

 helper takes on the form of some animal, all in- 

 dividuals of that species become objects of especial 

 regard to the fortunate I ban ; he will not kill or 

 eat any such animal, and he will as far as possible 

 restrain others from doing so. A ngarong may after 

 a time manifest itself in some new form, but even 

 then the Iban will continue to respect the animal- 

 form in which it first appeared. 



In some cases the cult of a secret helper will 

 spread through a whole family or household. The 

 children and grandchildren will usually respect the 

 species of animal to which a man's secret helper 

 belongs, and will perhaps sacrifice fowls or pigs to it 

 occasionally, although they expect no help from it ; 

 but it is asserted that if the great-grandchildren 

 of a man behave well to his secret helper, it will 

 often befriend them just as much as its original 

 protdge. 



The above general account of the secret helper 

 is founded on the descriptions of many different 

 Ibans, and we will now supplement it by describing 

 several particular instances. 



Anggus (an Ulu Ai Iban of the Batang Lupar) 

 says that every Iban who has no ngarong hopes to 

 get some bird or beast as his helper at the begawai, 



