i6 Htifton Webster 



At the same time the closed house provides freedom from 

 intrusion and secures the presence of every member of the tribe. 

 Furthermore it may be noticed how the prospect of feasting, 

 drinking and general excitement furnishes an added zest to the 

 labors of the workers. The mid-harvest festival, when this is 

 celebrated, affords a much needed rest in the heavy labor of 

 harvesting; and the last and greatest of the festivals comes as a 

 natural period of relaxation after the long strain of toil and 

 frugality is suddenly released.^* 



That in actual practice the Borneo observances have this out- 

 come it is impossible to deny. Yet it must be noticed that very 

 similar regulations are in force on many other and quite different 

 occasions. Thus we are told that a particular species of taboo 

 called pamali pcniakit is imposed on the inhabitants of a village 

 when a general sickness prevails. It is marked by the slaying of 

 a pig and a feast made in order to propitiate the divinity which 

 has sent the malady amongst them. In its severest form the 

 taboo lasts for eight days, " and during this period everything 

 in the village is at a standstill, the inhabitants shutting them- 

 selves up from all intercourse with strangers. "^^ A death in a 



" Idem, 244 sqq. 



^^ (Sir) Hugh Low, Sankvak, London, 1848, p. 260. Cf. Nyuak, in 

 Anfhropos, 1906, i. 416 sg. In the island of Nias, when an epidemic breaks 

 out a quarantine is established in each village, not only against the in- 

 habitants of the infected village, but against all strangers; no person from 

 outside is allowed to enter (Frazer, The Golden Bough,' London, 1900, 

 iii. 64). The inhabitants of the Poggi or Pageh Islands, two islands of the 

 Mentawei group, which lies off the western coast of Sumatra, have " a 

 very remarkable and strange custom to which they are strongly attached 

 and which they observe faithfully under all circumstances. It consists in 

 this, that on certain occasions they are bound to remain in their village 

 and may not quit it for any cause whatever; further they will allow no 

 stranger to enter the village, much less their dwellings ; they may neither 

 give nor receive anything; they must abstain from certain foods, and may 

 not trade" {idem, Totemism and Exogamy, London. 1910, ii. 214 sq.). 

 The Dutch authorities cited by Prof. Frazer do not indicate on what 

 occasions these communal interdicts are enforced. A season of abstinence 

 known as hiang has been discovered among the natives of Formosa (Joest, 

 in Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologie. Ethnologic 

 und Urgeschichte, 1882, p. 62). 



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