90 MANANGISM IN BORNEO. 
unless the case is very bad, and the people pay him well for 
it; to ‘‘belian’’ during the day, he says, is difficult and dan- 
gerous work. Sitting down by the patient, after some in- 
quiries, he takes out of his ‘‘lupong” a boar’s tusk, or a 
smooth pebble, or some other “obat’’ of magical virtue, and 
gently strokes the body with it; then he gravely looks into 
his ‘‘ Batu Ilau”’ to diagnose the character of the disease and 
the condition of the soul, and to discover the proper ‘‘ pelian”’ 
needed for its restoration and then tells them what sort of 
function he would prescribe. If there be several Manangs 
called in, the leader undertakes the preliminary examination, 
the rest giving their assent. This done they retire to the 
outside public verandah of the house, where has been prepared 
a ‘‘Pagar Api,” which is a long handled spear fixed blade up- 
wards in the middle of the verandah with a few leaves of some 
sort tied round it, and having at its base the ‘“‘lupongs” of 
each Manang. Why it is called ‘“ Pagar Api,” “ Fence of 
Fire,’ no one has been able to tell me. Then the leader 
begins a long monotonous drawl at the rate of about two 
words a minute, which, however, increases in velocity as the 
performance proceeds; the rest either chanting with him, or 
joining in at choruses, or may be singing antiphonally with him, 
all squatting on the floor. After a tiresome period of this dull 
drawling, they stand up, and march with slow and solemn step 
round the ‘ Pagar Api,’’ the monotonous chant slackening or 
quickening as they march the whole night through with only 
one interval for a feed in the middle of the night. The patient 
simply lies on his mats and listens. Most of the matter 
_chanted in these Manang performance is unmeaning rubbish. 
They begin by describing in prolix and grandiose language 
all the parts of a Dyak house; but how such an irrelevant 
descant can effect the cure of a fever or a diamhzamieea 
mystery to all but themselves. Then they “bark at the 
sickness,’’ in other words, call upon it tu be off to the ends 
of the earth, and to return tothe regions of the unseen world: 
they invoke the aid of spirits, and of ancient worthies and 
unworthies down to their own immediate ancestors, and spin 
the invocations out to a sufficient length to bring them to the 
daylight hours. Here the grand climax is reached—the tru- 
