150 PETARA, OR SEA DYAK GODS. 



" clean." Petard approves of industry, of honesty, of purity of 

 speech, of skill in word and work. Petara Ini Andau exhorts to 

 " spread a mat for the traveller, to be quick in giving rice to the 

 " hungry, not to be slow to give water to the thirsty, to joke with 

 " those who have heaviness at heart, and to encourage with talk 

 "the slow of speech; not to give the fingers to stealing, nor to 

 " allow the heart to be bad." Immorality among the unmarried is 

 supposed to bring a plague of rain upon the earth, as a punish- 

 ment inflicted by Petara. It must be atoned for with sacrifice 

 and fine. In a function which is sometimes held to procure fine 

 weather, the excessive rain is represented as the result of the 

 immorality of two young people. Petara is invoked, the offenders 

 are banished from their home, and the bad weather is said to cease. 

 Every district traversed by an adulterer is believed to be accursed 

 of the gods until the proper sacrifice has been offered. Thus in 

 general Petara is against man's sin ; but over and above moral 

 offences they have invented many sins, which are simply the 

 infringement of jjemate, or tabu — things trifling and superstitious, 

 yet they are supposed to expose the violators to the wrath of the 

 gods, and prevent the bestowal of their gift ; and thus the whole 

 subject of morality is degraded and perverted. 



The prevailing idea Dyaks commonly entertain of Petara is that 

 of the preserver of men. In the song of the head feast, when the 

 messengers, in going up to the skies to fetch Singalang Burotig 

 down, pass the house of Petara, they invite him to the feast, but 

 he replies : " I cannot go down, for mankind would come to grief 

 '•in my absence. Even when I wink or go to bathe, they cut 

 '■' themselves, or fall down." Petara does not leave his habitations, 

 for he takes care of men, and so far as he fails in this, he fails in 

 his duty. So in an invocation said by the manangs, when they 

 wave the sacrificial fowl over the sick : — ■ 



Lab oh daun bnloh, 

 Tangkap ikan Aung an ; 

 Antu Jcah munoli, 

 Petara naroh agembuau,. 



