144 



PETARA, OR SEA DYAlv GODS, 

 'S. 



" Do not quarrel with others 



" Do not give your friends bad names. 



" Corrupt speech do not utter. 



" Do not be envious of one another. 



" And you will all alike get padi. 



" All alike be clean of heart. 



" All alike be clever of speech. 



" I now make haste to return. 



" I use the wind as my ladder. 



" I go to the crashing whirlwind. 



" I return to my country in the cloudy moon." 



Traditionary lore and popular thought thus tell the same tale ; 

 the latter imagines the universe peopled with many gods, so that 

 each man has his own guardian deity ; and the former professes to 

 put before us who and what, at least, some of these are. The 

 traces of a belief in the unity of deity referred to at the beginning 

 of this paper, is at most but a faint echo of an ancient and purer 

 faith ; a faith buried long ago in more earthly ideas. Tet even 

 now Dyaks are met with who say that there is only one Petara ; 

 but when they are confronted with the teaching of the jpengajp, 

 and with unmistakeable assertions of gods many, they explain this 

 unity as implying nothing more than a unity of origin. In the 

 beginning of things there was one Petara just as there was one 

 human being ; and this Petara, was the ancestor of a whole family 

 of Petaras in heaven and earth, just as the first man was the ances- 

 tor of the inhabitants of the world. But this unity of origin does 

 not amount in their minds to a conception of a First G reat Cause ; 

 yet it is an echo of a belief which is still a silent witness to the One 

 True God. 



It has been said that " every form of polytheism is sprung from 

 '"nature worship." It is very clear that Dyak gods are begotten of 

 nature's manifold manifestations. Lit Andan seems a concrete 

 expression of her generating producing power. The sun and moon, 

 stars and clouds, the earth with its hills and trees and natural 

 fertility, are all channels of beneficial influences to man, and the 

 Dyak feels his dependence upon them ; he has to conduct his sim- 

 ple farming subject to their operations ; his rice-crop depends 



