ANIMISTIC BELIEFS 93 



the feast given to the Petara. He himself has 

 none, but he will not kill the gibbon because the 

 ngarong of his grandfather, who died twenty years 

 ago, was a gibbon. Once a man came to his 

 grandfather in a dream and said to him, ** Don't 

 you kill the gibbon," and then turned into a grey 

 gibbon. This gibbon helped him to become rich 

 and to take heads, and in all possible ways. On 

 one occasion, when he was about to go on the 

 war-path, his ngarong came to him in a dream and 

 said, " Go on, I will help you," and the next day 

 he saw in the jungle a grey gibbon which was un- 

 doubtedly his ngarong. When he died he said to 

 his sons, '* Don't you kill the gibbon," and his sons 

 and grandsons have obeyed him in this ever since. 

 Anggus adds that when a man dreams of a ngarong 

 for the first time he does not accept it, and will still 

 kill animals of that kind ; nor is a second dream 

 enough ; but when he dreams the same dream a 

 third time, then his scepticism is overcome and he 

 can no longer doubt his good fortune. 



Anggus himself once shot a gibbon when told to 

 do so by one of us. He first said to it, *' I don't 

 want to kill you, but the Tuan who is giving me 

 wages expects me to, and the blame is his. But if 

 you are really the ngarong of my grandfather, make 

 the shot miss you." He then shot and missed three 

 times, and on shooting a fourth time he killed a 

 gibbon, but not the one he had spoken to. Anggus 

 does not think the gibbon helps either his father or 

 himself. 



Payang, an old Katibas Iban, tells us that he 

 has been helped by a python ever since he was a 

 youth, when a man came to him in a dream and 

 said, "■ Sometimes I become a python and some- 

 times a cobra, and I will always help you." It has 

 certainly helped him very much, but he does not 

 know whether it has helped his children ; neverthe- 



