bem (DYAK RELIGION. 
2 N a former paper*® some account was given of the deities 
believed in by the Sea-Dyaks of Sarawak; of Petara 
innumerable, of Salampandi, Singalang Burong and 
Pulang Gana. The two latter occupy, in the Dyak mind, 
a distinct personality, possess a certain character, and 
exercise definite functions over the Dyak world. Although the- 
oretically inferior to Petara, they may be regarded as the racial 
gods of the Sea-Dyaks, for an amount of story and legend, of rite 
and sacrifice, gathers round them which is not found in connection 
with the more colourless Petara, which is yet regarded as the bet- 
ter being. The word Peiara is none other than the Hindoo “Ava- 
-tara”—the incarnations of VisHyu—the ditterence of spelling being 
accounted for by the fact that the Dyaks never sound the v, but use 
p orb instead. Again, in an invocation to Pulang Gana there 
occur the names Int InpA and Raja Jewara, which look like InpRa 
and Dewars. And the function in which these terms figure is 
called “buja,” Malay “ puja,’ which is the word, I believe, com- 
monly used in India for worship in the present day. Now, do 
these Indian words indicate an organic connection of religion and 
race with those to whom they naturally belong, or have they been 
adopted by Dyaks from later external sources? Itis not impossible 
that such words may have been obtained through contact with 
Hindooism during the period of ascendency of the Majapait king- 
dom, whose influence, it seems, extended to Borneo; but at pre- 
sent I know of no evidence for this theory, beyond the fact of the 
appearance of the words in Dyak. The probable explanation is. 
that these terms have been brought into Dyak use from the Malay. 
Under the word Indra, Marspen gives a quotation of Malay which, 
*See Journal No. 8, p. 133 ef seg. 
