SEA DYAK RELIGION. 931 
thing, and are not much practised. 
These are the inaugurating omens sought in order to strike the 
line of good luck, to render the commencement of an undertakin z 
auspicious. The continuance of good fortune must be carried on 
by omen influence to the end. 
To take farming again, where the practice becomes most exten- 
sive and conspicuous. When any of these omens, either of bird, 
beast, or insect. are heard or seen by the Dyak on his way to tlie 
paddy lands, he supposes they foretell either good or ill to himself 
or to thefarm ; and in most cases he will turn back, and wait for the 
following day befere proceeding again. The nendak is generally 
good, so is the katupong on right or left, but the papan is of evil 
omen, and the man must beat a retreat. A beragai heard once or 
twice matters not; but if often, a day’s rest is necessary. The 
mbuas on the right is wrong, and sometimes it portends so much 
blight and destruction that the victim of it must rest five days. 
The “shout” of the kutok is evil, and that of the katwpong so bad 
that it requires three days’ absence from the farm to allow the evil 
to pass away; and even then a beragazi must be heard before com- 
mencing work. The beragai is a doctor among birds. If the cry 
of a deer, a pelan ok, or a gazelle be heard, or if a rat crosses the 
path before you on your way to the farm, a day’s rest is necessary ; 
or you will cut yourself, get ill, or sutfer by failure of the crop. 
When a good omen is heard, one which is supposed to foretell a 
plentiful harvest, you must go on to the farm, and do some trifling 
work by way of “leasing the works of your hands” there, and 
then return ; in this way you clench the foreshadowed luck, and at 
the same time reverence the spirit which promises it. Andshould 
deer, pelandok, or gazelle come out of the jungle and on to the 
farm when you are working there, it means that customers will 
come to buy the corn, and that, therefore, there will be corn for 
them to buy. This is the best omen they can have; and they 
honour it by resting from work for three days. 
But the worst of all omens is a dead beast of any kind, especially 
those included in the omen list, found anywhere on the farm. It 
infuses a deadly poison into the whole crop, and will kill some one 
or other of the owner’s family within a year. When this terrible 
