220 SEA DYAK RELIGION, 
But the bad and angry spirits are far more numerous in Dyak 
belief than the good ones. These are regarded with dire dread. 
There 18 hardly a sickness which is not attributed to the unseen 
blow of an antu. “ What is the matter with so and so?” you ask, 
“Something has passed him,” is the reply: an antu hag passed 
him and inflicted the malady. A serious epidemic is the devasta- 
ting presence of a powerful and revengeful spirit. You ask where 
such an one was taken ill, and you are told that at such a place 
“it (antw) found him.” Small-pox is spoken of as Raja the Chief. 
Cholera is the coming of a great spirit from the sea to kill and 
eat. When a report of cholera is bruited abroad, somebody or 
other will be sure to have a dream in which he will be told that 
the spirit is making his way from the sea up the rivers, and will 
speedily swallow up human victims, unless he be fed with sacrifice 
and offering. These antus are always hungry, and will accept the 
sacrificial food in substitution for human beings.- A sacrifice is ac- 
cordingly made to avert the evil. The same idea prevails about all 
internal maladies; and as people constantly get ill, the propitia- 
tion of the antu is an ever recurring feature in Dyak life. I¢ is 
the worship of fear, the demonolatry of the less intellectual races of 
mankind. Petara is good, and will not easily injure them, and 
they may worship it as suits their convenience; but these antus 
always about their path are violent, savage and hungry, and must 
be reckoned with; hence the frequency of the demon-cultus. 
It hardly need be pointed out that this relation with the spirits 
is no more ghost-seeing, where the apparition comes without ob- 
ject, and passes away without result. It is a system which has a 
definite function; which bestows favours, which brings evil, which 
directs conduct, and receives religious homage; and therefore a 
constituent part of Dyak religion. ; 
Another way in which the antu appears to men is in the form of 
animals. A man and an antu are often interchangeable. A man 
will declare that he has seen an anéu, like a gigantic human being; 
and in his dream he will find the same antu in the form of a deer, 
or other animal. The following is toldof a Dyak, whom I know 
well. He was at work alone in the jungle, and cut himself with 
his parang: he bled profusely and fainted: and after recovering 
