234 SEA DYAK RELIGION. 
the Sea-Dyaks, one would have expected that the tediousness of 
the system would have produced a remedy. To consult omens at 
the commencement of importaut undertakings is one thing; to be 
liable to obstruction and restraint at every step of life, is quite - 
another and far heavier matter. The substitutions before-mentioned, 
no doubt, were invented as a short cut through a troublesome mat- 
ter, but they have evidently failed in the object. And then the 
intricacies of the subject are so endless. Old men, industrious and 
sensible in ordinary matters of life, will sit for hours at a stretch 
discussing lawful or unlawful, lucky or unlucky, combinations of 
these voices of nature, and their effect upon the work and destiny 
of men. Only the older men are able to tell what is to be done in 
alleases. The deaf who do not hear, and children who do not under- 
stand, are conveniently supposed to be exempt from obedience. 
And this involved system of life is thoroughly believed in as the 
foundation of all success. Stories upon stories are recounted of the 
failures, of the sicknesses and of the deaths that have resulted from 
disregard of the omens. You may reason with them against the 
system, but in the coincidences which they can produce they think 
they have a proof positive of its truth ; and with them an accidental 
coincidence is more convincing than the most cogent reasoning. 
But it need hardly be said, that the citing of precedents is very one 
sided. All cases in which the event has apparently verified the 
prediction, are carefully remembered, whilst those in which the 
omen has been falsified are as quickly forgotten. 
The object of the bird-cultus is like that of all other rites: to 
secure good crops, freedom from accidents and falls and diseases, 
victory in war, and profit in exchange and trade, skill in discourse, 
and. cleverness in all native craft. 1 say bird-cultus; for it rises 
from observance of omens into invocation and worship of the birds, 
as the following extractfrom a “Sampi Umai” will show :— 
I call to ye, O Birds! 
Which birds do you call, do you beckon ? 
The false, the lying birds, 
The mocking, the wicked ones, 
The evil ones which in sideways, 
Those which start in sleep, 
