io8 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



from the arm of the two men, each of whom then 

 drinks or consumes in a cigarette the blood of the 

 other one. Such a rite calls for no remote explana- 

 tion ; it seems to have suggested itself naturally to 

 the minds of primitive people all the world over as 

 a process for the cementing of friendship. When 

 two hostile communities wished to make a permanent 

 peace with one another, it would be natural that 

 they should wish to perform a ceremony similar to 

 the rite of blood-brotherhood. But the interchange 

 of drops of blood between large numbers of persons 

 would obviously be inconvenient ; and if the idea 

 of substituting fowls and pigs for human victims 

 had once taken root in their minds, it woyld have 

 been but a small step to substitute their blood for 

 human blood in the peacemaking ceremonies. We 

 have seen above that in such a ceremony fowls are 

 exchanged by the two parties, so that the men of 

 either party are smeared with the blood of the fowl 

 originally belonging to the other party. It may be 

 that here, too, the blood of slaves was formerly 

 used, but of this we have no evidence. The custom 

 of smearing the blood of fowls and pigs on the two 

 parties to a friendly compact having been arrived 

 at in this way, the rite might readily be extended 

 to the cases in which the hawk, represented by his 

 wooden image, or the Supreme Being, also repre- 

 sented by an image, is invoked as one of the parties 

 to the compact. We are inclined to think that in 

 some such way as we have here suggested, namely, 

 by the substitution of pigs and fowls for human 

 victims, and of their blood for human blood, the 

 origin of the customs of sacrificing fowls and pigs, 

 and of ceremonially sprinkling their blood, may be 

 explained. 



We conclude, then, that the various superstitions 

 entertained by these tribes in regard to animals are 

 not to be looked upon as survivals of totemism. 



