I04 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



domesticated by their worshippers ; that they were 

 occasionally slain as a rite for the renewal of the 

 bond between them and their worshippers, their 

 blood being smeared or sprinkled on the latter, and 

 their flesh ceremonially eaten by them ; and that 

 the eating of them has become more and more 

 frequent, until now every religious rite, of however 

 small importance, is made the occasion for the killing 

 and eating of them. It might also be supposed 

 that, with the development or the adoption of the 

 conception of a Supreme Being, the original purpose 

 and character of the rites had become obscure, so 

 that the slaughtered animals are now regarded in 

 some cases as sacrifices offered to the deity. 



But we do not think that this tempting hypothesis 

 as to the origin of the rites can be upheld in this 

 case. In the first place, the wild pig of the jungle 

 is hunted in sport and killed and eaten freely by all 

 the various tribes, and is, in fact, treated on the 

 whole with less respect and ceremony than perhaps 

 any other animal. Secondly, the domestic pig differs 

 so much from the wild pig that Mr. Oldfield Thomas 

 has pronounced it to be of a different species, and 

 it seems possible that it has been introduced to 

 Borneo by the Chinese at a comparatively recent 

 date. Further, there is reason to suppose that the 

 custom of sacrificing pigs and fowls arose through 

 the substitution of them for human beings in certain 

 rites. For there is a number of rites of which it is 

 admitted by the people that the slaughter of human 

 beings was formerly a central feature ; of these, the 

 most important and the most widely spread are the 

 funeral rites of a great chief, the rites at the building 

 of a new house, and those on returning from a 

 successful war expedition. In all these fowls or 

 pigs are now substituted as a rule, but we know of 

 instances in which in recent years human beings 

 were the victims. Thus some years ago, on the 



