io8 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



length of the shadow are arrived at, purely em- 

 pirically, by marking off the length of the mid-day 

 shadow every three days. 



The clerk of the weather measures the shadow of 

 the pole at mid-day whenever the sun is unclouded. 

 As the shadow grows shorter after reaching its 

 maximal length, he observes it with special care, and 

 announces to the village that the time for preparing 

 the land is near at hand. When the shadow reaches 

 the notch made opposite the middle of the arm, the 

 best time for sowing the grain is considered to have 

 arrived ; the land is therefore cleared, and made 

 ready before this time arrives. Sowing at times 

 when the shadow reaches other notches is held to 

 involve various disadvantages, such as liability to 

 more than the usual number of pests — monkeys, 

 insects, rats, or sparrows. In the case of each 

 successful harvest, the date of the sowing is recorded 

 by driving a peg of ironwood into the ground at the 

 point denoting the length of the mid-day shadow at 

 that date. The weather prophet has other marks 

 and notches whose meaning is known only to him- 

 self; his procedures are surrounded with mystery 

 and kept something of a secret, even from the chief 

 as well as from all the rest of the village, and his 

 advice is always followed. 



The method of observing the sun described above 

 is universal among the Kenyahs, but some of the 

 Kayans practise a different method. A hole is 

 made in the roof of the weather-prophet's chamber 

 in the long-house, and the altitude of the mid-day 

 sun and its direction, north or south of the meridian, 

 are observed by measuring along a plank fixed on 

 the floor the distance of the patch of sunlight (falling 

 through the hole on to the plank) from the point 

 vertically below the hole. The horizontal position 

 of the plank is secured by placing upon it smooth 

 spherical stones and noting any inclination to roll. 



