366 THROUGH CENTRAL BORNEO 



ing to Katingan belief, are alive and multiplying. As my 

 visit was expected, a fowl had just been sacrificed to these 

 guardians of the kampong, and a fire made from bark was 

 burning near by to keep the stones comfortable, so they 

 would not be angry at being photographed. There were 

 two roundish specimens, almost honeycombed with small 

 cavities, one of them, scarcely twenty-five centimetres 

 high, being regarded as masculine and the other, smaller 

 and covered with green moss, was supposed to be of 

 feminine gender. Originally, as the story goes, only 

 these two were there, but later six "children" appeared, 

 as evidenced by six smaller stones lying close to the 

 "parents." The domain held sacred to this interesting 

 family was bounded by four pieces of wood, each about a 

 metre in length. Over all was extended a small square 

 piece of red cloth supported on four upright sticks, which 

 had been placed there two weeks before on behalf of a 

 sick man whose recovery was attributed to this act of 

 veneration. In front of the small enclosure lay four 

 stones of inconsiderable size, lying in two pairs and sup- 

 posed to be attendants; in the rear was a small house, 

 reputed to be over three hundred years old, its purpose 

 being to protect the stones, where offerings of food, with 

 skulls of deer and pigs, were deposited. 



Next day we met the Selatan on its way up the 

 river, brought our luggage on board, and continued our 

 journey. We had a disagreeable night before arriving 

 at Bandjermasin; in fact, it is risky to travel south of 

 Borneo in a steam-launch in January. As the wind was 

 strong and the waves were too high for us to proceed, 



