PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 



BY 



The Eev. J. PEKEAM. 



MB"- 



^^^^ 



|m ETARA, otherwise Betara, is, according to Marsdem", 

 Sanskrit, and adopted into Malay from the Hindu 

 system, and applied to various mythological person- 

 ages : but whatever be its meaning and application in 

 Malay, in Sea Dyak — a language akin to Malay — it is 

 the one word to denote Deity. Fctara is God, and corresponds 

 in idea to the Elohim of the Old Testament. 



But to elucidate the use of the term, we cannot turn to dictionary 

 and treatises. There is no literature to which we can appeal. The 

 Sea Dyaks never had their language committed to writing before 

 the Missionaries began to work amongst them. For our know- 

 ledge of their belief, we have to depend upon what individuals tell 

 us, and upon what we can gather from various kinds of penyap — 

 long songs or recitations made at certain semi-sacred services, 

 which are invocations to supernatural powers. These are handed 

 down from generation to generation by word of mouth : but only 

 those who are curious and diligent enough, and have sufficiently 

 capacious memories, are able to learn and repeat them ; and, as 

 may be expected, in course of transmission from age to age, they 

 undergo alteration, but mostly, I believe, in the way of addition. 

 This tendency to change is evident from the fact that, in different 

 tribes or clans, different renderings of the pengaji, and different . 

 accounts of individual belief may be found. What follows in this 

 Paper is gathered from the Balau and Saribus tribes of Dyaks. 



A very common statement of Dyaks, and one which may easily 

 mislead those who have only a superficial acquaintance with them 

 and their thought, is that Pctoru is equivalent to Allah Taala, or 



