SEA DYAK RELIGION. 297 



departed to visit their old habitations as soon as the feast shall 

 be ready and the final snmraons sent. Meanwhile preparations 

 for the festival advance. Those tribes who erect iron wood 

 memorial monuments at the graves get them put together. 

 On the day of the feast, or may be the day before, the women 

 weave with finely split bamboo small imitations of various 

 articles of personal and domestic use, which are afterwards 

 hung over the grave, that is, given to the dead. If it be a male 

 for whom the feast is made, a bamboo gun, a shield, a war cap, 

 a sirih bag and drinking vessel, etc. are woven : if a female, a 

 loom, a fish basket, a winnowing fan, sunshade, and other 

 things : if a child, bamboo toys of various descriptions. 



The guests arrive during the day, and the feasting begins 

 in the evening, and lasts all night. An offering of food to the 

 dead is put outside at the entrance of the house. The wailer 

 of course is present, and her office now is to invoke the spirit 

 of the winds to invite the dead to come, and feast once more 

 with the living ; and she goes on to describe in song the whole 

 imaginary circumstances — the coming of the dead from Hades, 

 the feasting, and the return. She sings how numerous animals, 

 one after another, and then Salampandai, maker of men, are 

 called upon to go to Hades, but none have the capacity to under- 

 take such a journey ; how the spirit of the winds arrives in 

 Hades, and urges the acceptance of the invitation by expatia- 

 ting on the abundance and excellence of the food their rela- 

 tions have provided for them; how they and a great company 

 of friends start, and' make the journey hither in the boat before 

 sent for them; how glad they are to see our earth and sky 

 again, and to hear the many voices o£ the busy world; how 

 they eat and drink, dance, and have a cock-fight with their 

 living friends (for they have brought fighting cocks with 

 them) ; how Hades is beaten (to make it victorious would be 

 a bad omen) ; how they ask for their final share of the fami- 

 ly property, and a division is marie, but here again the dead 

 get the worst of it, for in dividing the paddy, the living get 

 the grain, the dead only the chest in which it is kept ; so, the 

 jars remain with the living, the stand only on which they are 

 set being given to the dead ; the weapons too are retained, 

 whilst the sheaths go to Hades, etc., etc. In the very act of 



