22D, SEA DYAK RELIGION. 
the fates to be caught by man. The only time when anything like 
homage may be supposed to be offered to the alligator, is in the 
ordeal of diving. When Dyaks left to themselves cannot settle 
their litigations by talking and arguing, the opposing parties each 
select a diver; and victory goes to the side whose diver can remain 
longest in the water without fainting.* When the divers proceed 
from the village-house to the water, somebody will follow saying 
a samp, (invocation) ;+ and casting rice about right and left, and 
on the water as he monotones his part. He calls out to the Royal 
Alligators and Royal Fishes, and all the minor denizens of the 
waters to come to his party’s aid, and confound their opponents by 
shortening the breath of the opposite diver. The whole, often dis- 
orderly, always exciting. is an appeal to Petara: and all that live 
in the waters are asked to give their assistance. 
Among all Oriental races, the serpent has been credited with 
large capacities. The Phoenicians adored it as a benificent genius. 
With the ancient Persians it symbolised the principle of evil. The 
Chinese attributed to the kings of heaven bodies of serpents. 
“There is no superstition more universal than ophiolatry. There 
“is hardly a people on earth among whom the serpent was not 
“either an object of divine worship, or superstitious veneration.” 
The Dyak is no exception. His feeling towards prominent mem- 
bers of the snake tribe is something more than reverential regard. 
And if his form of the cultus is far from the elaborate proportions 
of the worship of the Danhgbwe in the serpents’ house of 
Dahomey,t the belief in serpent guardianship is, where it exists, 
as strong. All Dyak worship, to whatsoever directed, is irregular 
and occasional; and it is only here and there that an instance of 
ophiolatry is found; but the veneration. such as 11 is, is the same 
which is given to antus and deities in general. The serpent is, in 
fact, in tne Dyak view an antu, and partakes of the capricious 
* [The ordeal by diving can be traced from India to Borneo through the 
Burmese, Siamese and Malays. Sce As. Researches, I., 390-404; Journal R.A:S. 
Bengal, V. XXXV.; De Backer, L’Archipel Indien, 376; Low’s Dissertation on 
Province Wellesley, 284; De la Loubére’s Siam, §7; Journal R. A. 8. (Straits 
Branch) IT., 30.—Ep, |] 
+ [ Malay, jampi.—Ep.] 
{ Row ry’s “ Religion of the Africans,” p. 46, 
