62 GEORGE D-S-DUNBAR ON 



Chaptkr III. — Mythology and Religious Beliefs. 



Abor mythology represents the gods, in the dawn of the world when they lived 

 , , . among men. as kindly and beneficent. But even in those 



General Observations. ° ' 



golden days a Chthonia of the hills had to be offered in sacri- 

 fice before the reluctant sun would wing its way over a darkness-smitten earth. Later 

 the world became the prey of demons openly malevolent and unchecked by the high gods, 

 and the present religious attitude of the hill-man is that of Browning's Caliban, tempered 

 by a belief in the powers of the mini to mollify the evil spirits and avert their anger. 

 His untutored mind sees a demon everywhere, in the sun and the thunder, the earth 

 and the water. It is a spirit of evil that takes life from all things that have breath, 

 that smites with sickness, that, in the questionable shape of a kinsman from some 

 distant village, lures the unfortunate to his doom in the dark recesses of the forest. 

 And the beginning and end of his religion, in sickness and in health, in seed time and 

 in war, in the agonies of death and in the burial rites that follow, is to appease the 

 malevolent spirits of an unseen world. Mythic legends are not told so habitually as to 

 be generally known, for mythology is caviare to the general. Apart from the mirii, re- 

 ligion only affects the hill-man at all closely when he is sick, then the interest vibrates 

 through the circle of his relatives and friends ; even so it is only directed towards the 

 spirit to whose malevolence the calamity is imputed. Still, there exists a vague idea 

 that above the spirits with whom they have to do, there may be an All-great who 

 is All-loving too. This sense of an omnipotent being is fostered and enlarged by 

 intercourse with the Plains. 



The following fragments of tribal mythology are of Dobang origin except when 

 otherwise stated : — 



At the beginning of time, the gods for seven generations dwelt alone on the earth, 



to which they came in the following order, father to son, 



Mythology, The Coming of Man. .... . _. . , 



as they are named by the mini in his incantations. Jimi, 1 

 Michek, Shegrum, Rombuk, Buksin, Sintu, Turi and, in the eighth generation, Riki 

 and Rini. Riki , as was the custom of the gods, ate flesh raw, but Rini cooked it. Riki 

 was renamed Taki and Rini, who burnt the flesh before he ate it, was called Tani.' 2 



Now the time came when Tani wanted a wife and he searched through all the 



world, but could find no woman with whom to mate. So 

 With and Eve. ^ made a i^ eness f one , of leaves on a bamboo frame 



just as the images of the gods are made to this day. From this image was born the 

 leech that gained its vitality only when the instinct came to it to suck the blood of 

 the man ; but still Tani had no wife. In his despair he tried to find a mate amongst 

 the creatures of the forest. But he could find no companion there and none bore him 

 any children. Amongst other creatures Tani mated with the Pajak. But one day 



) Lorraine gives Jemi-Jimiang as " God the all-loving " (Minyong-Padam dialect) with a dual personality, male and 

 female. 



S This is the general Abor word for man, meaning a human being, and is their equivalent for " Adam." It is 

 interesting to note that a man is ami. 



