I40 THROUGH CENTRAL 1K)RNE0 



jungle three or four years, or longer, until that event 

 takes place. This elaborate ceremony is offered by sur- 

 viving relatives as an equivalent for whatever was left 

 behind by the deceased, whose ghost is regarded with 

 apprehension. 



Fortunately the Murungs were then preparing for 

 such an observance at the Bundang kampong higher up 

 the river where I intended to visit. They were making 

 ready to dispose of the remains of no less a personage 

 than the mother of our kapala. A water-buffalo would 

 be killed and the festival would last for a week. In 

 three years there would be another festal occasion of 

 two weeks' duration, at which a water-buffalo would 

 again be sacrificed, and when a second period of three 

 years has elapsed the final celebration of three weeks' 

 duration will be given, with the same sacrificial offer- 

 ing. Thus the occasions are seen to be of increasing 

 magnitude and the expenses in this case to be on a rising 

 scale. It was comparatively a small affair. 



About a month later, when I stopped at Buntok, on 

 the Barito, the controleur of the district told me that 

 an unusually great tiwah feast had just been concluded 

 in the neighbourhood. He had spent ten days there, 

 the Dayaks having erected a house for him to stay in. 

 More than two hundred pigs and nineteen water-buffaloes 

 had been killed. Over three hundred bodies, or rather 

 remains of bodies, had previously been exhumed and 

 placed in forty boxes, for the accommodation of which a 

 special house had been constructed. These, with con- 

 tents, were burned and the remains deposited in ten re- 



