298 SEA DYAK RELIGION. 



professing to entertain their friends, they must cheat them for 

 fear of conceding too much to Hades, and so hasten their own 

 departure thither. After this pretended division of property, 

 the children of deatliland make their parting salutation with 

 much affection and regret and 0,0 on their way. Such is the 

 esoteric meaning of the festival according to the wailer's song. 



The song makes the dead arrive about early dawn ; and 

 then occurs an action wherein the intercommunion of the dead 

 and the living is supposed to be brought to a climax. A 

 certain quantity of tuak has been reserved until now in a 

 bamboo, as the peculiar portion of Hades, set apart for a 

 sacred symposium between, the dead and the living. It is now 

 drunk by some old man renowned for bravery or riches, or 

 other aged guest who is believed to possess a nature tough 

 enough to encounter the risk of so near a contact with the 

 shades of death. This c% drinking the bamboo/' as it is called, 

 is an important part of the festival. 



Earlier in the night comes the formal putting off of 

 mourning. The nearest male relation is habited in an old 

 waistcloth, or trousers : these are slit through and taken awa} r , 

 and the man assumes a better and liner garment; a bit of hair 

 from each side of the head is cut off ami thrown away. In 

 case of female relations, some of the rotau rings which they 

 wear round their waists are cut through and set aside ; and 

 they no?/ resume the use of personal ornaments. This action 

 is represented as a last farewell to the dead. 



The morning after the feast, the last duty to the dead is 

 fulfilled. The monument, if any, the bamboo imitation articles, 

 the cast off garments, with food of all kinds are taken and 

 arranged upon the grave. With this final equipment, the 

 dead are said to relinquish a 1 ! claims upon the living, and to 

 go henceforward on their way, and to depend upon their own 

 resources. But before the Gaicei aula is made they are 

 thought to carry on a system of secret depredations upon the 

 eatables and drinkables of the living, in other words, to come 

 for their share. When sitting down to his plate of rice, a 

 Dyak will sometimes be seen to throw a little under the house 

 as a portion for a departed one. And I have been told that in 

 the morning the footprints of the dead are sometimes visible in 



