Rest Days; A Sociological Study 1 3 



the work begins with the clearing off the dense undergrowth. 

 During this prehminary stage, when the labor is less heavy than 

 it will be later when trees must be felled, the household is not as 

 yet under a taboo. Nevertheless every individual keeps a sharp 

 eye for evil omens. Should a native on the way to the clearing 

 see any one of four ominous animals, a certain species of snake, 

 a deer, a civet cat or a rain-bird, the site will be at once abandoned 

 regardless of the work already done there. Wilfully to disregard 

 such warning " not only compromises the abundance and quality 

 of the crops, but also the health, or even the life, of the whole 

 household."® 



If no evil omens are observed for three days the Kayan work- 

 ers feel sufficiently encouraged to proceed to the next stage of 

 felling the heavy timber on the site which has now been cleared 

 of its underbrush. Then ensues an elaborate series of auguries. 

 Whilst the various families making up the household of a com- 

 munal dwelling remain secluded in the long veranda, or in their 

 small private rooms, sitting all day long, quite still, smoking and 

 talking, two hawk-men are off in the forest looking for a hawk 

 called niho. Three days must be devoted to this search: if the 

 hawk be seen on the first day, but not on the two days following, 

 the omen is unfavorable. The people will continue the prepa- 

 ration of the soil, but they expect poor crops, a result pretty 

 certain to follow their half-hearted and discouraged labors. 

 On the second day the search is continued, and if the hawk be 

 seen, the omen is favorable but not completely so. If the third 

 day's search again reveals a hawk, the two men return at once 

 to the house and spread the good news. Every one now lights a 

 cigarette or waves a fire-brand wdiereby a blessing is invoked on 



pological Institute, 1901, xxxi. 175 sqq. The cult of omen animals is 

 very widely diffused in Sarawak. Archdeacon Perham, who knew the 

 natives well, declares that the ominous birds are thought to be possessed 

 with the spirits of certain invisible beings in the upper world whose names 

 they bear and as whose deputies they serve (op. cit., 200). Cf. also Hose 

 and McDougall, op. cit., 206, 212; Nyuak in Anthropos, igo6, i. 176 sq., 

 408 sqq. 



'Furness, op. cit., 161. 



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