I30 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



drums throughout the night, lasting every night for some- 

 times a whole week, cannot fail to impress even a casual 

 observer. 



The natives of Niah, who are Malanaus, believe in a 

 multitude of spirits, good and bad, great and small, im- 

 portant and of little account. At the head of these is Ula 

 Gemilang, the sea divinity, a power who works for the good 

 of man.i Adum Girang is another spirit of the sea, as also 

 is Raja Duan, who has power over the sun, a spirit who is 

 distinguished, when he appears in human form, by his 

 white head-cloth. Majau is said to be pre-eminently rich. 

 Aiar Urai Arang is said to be a small child whose mother 

 is Aiar. Besides these there are other powerful spirits of 

 the sea, the land, the up-river country, and so forth, and 

 each is attended by innumerable slaves and attendants of 

 ghostly kind ; they have influence of many kinds over the 

 dwellers in this world, some for good, others very much for 

 evil. Madness is caused by various evil spirits throwing 

 themselves into mortals, ghosts with red eyes which flash 

 like lightning. The " amok " devil, which comes from the 

 swamp, differs from those which drive people to commit 

 suicide — these again being quite distinct from those which 

 cause merely harmless lunacy. 



It not infrequently happens that when a woman (or 

 more rarely a man) is insane or is very ill, she is urged to 

 admit that a devil has possessed her, and to become a 

 medicine woman. By this means she becomes well of her 

 complaint, and at the same time acquires the power of 

 helping others to cast out devils. But she is not able of 

 her own accord to determine whether she shall become a 

 medicine woman or not. For three nights she is taken 

 through the ceremony of bayoh^ afterwards to be described, 

 without a rattan swing, and then for three nights with the 

 swing. If the indications are favourable, some three weeks 

 are allowed to elapse before she undergoes the final test of 

 five nights with the swing. The first bayoh is to satisfy the 

 people, the second to appease the demon ; and if her malady 

 is cured by the eleven nights of artificial hysteria, she is 

 considered to have been accepted both by men and spirits 

 in her new role of exorciser. 



As one woman expressed it, she is now "in with the 



^ We have a wooden image of this being. It is rudely anthropomorphic, 

 and is covered with fish-like scales. Its sex is indeterminate. He is supposed 

 to ascend the river from the sea, kneeling on the back of a sting-ray. 



