﻿342 A SHORT DESCRIPTION 



A house, Jlbanum. To sleep, Loom hum, 



A fowl, Hayam. A dog, T'amam. 



A hog, Hown. Fire, T y amia. 



Fish, Ka. Rain, Koomra. 



They have no notion of a God ; but they believe 

 firmly in the Devil, and worship him from fear. In 

 every village there is a high pole erected with long 

 strings of ground-rattans hanging from it, which, it 

 is said, has the virtue to keep him at a distance. 

 When they see any signs of an approaching storm, they 

 imagine that the Devil intends them a visit; upon which 

 many superstitious ceremonies are performed. The 

 people of every village march round their own boun- 

 daries, and fix up at different distances small sticks 

 split at the top, into which split they put a piece of 

 cocoa-nut, a wisp of tobacco, and the leaf of a cer- 

 tain plant. Whether this is meant as a peace-offering 

 to the Devil, or a scarcecrow to frighten him away, 

 does not appear. 



When a man dies, all his live stock, cloth, hatchets, 

 fishing-lances, and in short every moveable thing he 

 possessed is buried with him ; and his death is mourned 

 by the whole village. In one view, this is an excellent 

 custom, seeing it prevents all disputes about the pro- 

 perty of the deceased amongst his relations. His 

 wife must conform to custom, by having a joint cut off 

 from one of her fingers ; and, if she refuses this, she 

 must submit to have a deep notch cut in one of the 

 pillars of her house. 



I was once present at the funeral of an old woman, 

 When we went into the house, which had belonged to 

 the deceased, we found it full of her female relations ; 

 some of them were employed in wrapping up the 



