SEA DYAK RELIGION. 297 
one may offer them: but old men are generally selected in respect 
of the honour due to their age. No priesthood, in the proper sense 
of the term, seems to exist among these Sea-Dyaks; for the Manang 
or medicine man does not fulfil the necessary conditions. Any man 
who is a chief, or who has been fortunate in life, or who is well up 
in ancient lore, and knows the form of address to the deities, may 
perform the sacrificial function. 
And the worship is a purely external matter, unconnected with 
morality, a simple opus operatum, a magical action which effects 
its object irrespective of the condition of mind, or habits of life of 
the worshipper. A man of sober conduct would be preferred to 
one of notoriously bad character, to offer a sacrifice; but I have 
not perceived that any good moral or spiritual dispositions are re- 
quired to secure the object of the function. This indeed follows 
from the fact that no improvement of the moral being is sought 
for, or even thought of. as the purpose of a piring. However 
good Petara may be supposed to be, the spirits in general have not 
made known that they delight in virtue; and the Dyak does not 
offer sacrifices and repeat invocations to promote personal righteous- 
ness and wisdom ; but to get good crops of paddy, the heads of his 
enemies, skill in craft, health and long life. Neither bis prayers 
nor aspirations reach higher than the realm of the visible and pre- 
sent. And in cases where we can see that propitiation for sin is 
the esoteric basis of the institutions, as for instance, in the slaying 
of sacrifice after an act of adultery, yet the thoughts of the Dyak 
are not directed to the cleansing of the offenders, but to the appeas- 
ing of the anger of the gods, in order to preserve their land and 
their crops from blight and ravage. There is no confession of sin, 
nor petition for the pardon of the offenders. It is a witness of a 
belief that the offences of man provoke the displeasure of the gods, 
and that satisfaction is demanded; but there is nothing to show 
that the ultimate purity and improvement of the offender is con- 
templated as the thing desired. It is compensation for wrong done. 
and a bargain to secure immunity for their material interests. I 
am speaking of the sentiment consciously entertained by the Dyak 
himself coneerning his own piring; not of the whole rationale 
which we can give of it, 
