THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE DYAKS. 
107 
chickens, which is placed in a small “balei” (a little case 
made of bambu 6-8 feet in circumference) and properly hung; 
to a tree at the river side, by which means he is propitiated 
and a licence obtained for the future inhabitant of this world. 
3.—Another evil spirit is the “ Rajk hantuen” (king of 
spells and charms) who has no fixed habitation and is also 
called “Raja dohong.” Men who come in contact with him 
receive his name and are called “ Hantuen/’ Nothing in the 
world is more dangerous than such a demoniac. When the 
sun has withdrawn and concealed himself behind the impe¬ 
netrable woods of the west, and the night spreads its black 
wings over the earth, then the time has arrived for the Han- 
tuen to commence his terrible activity. He directs his course 
to a solitary spot, where he throws off his body and with 
nothing but his bead and bowels he flies whistling over hill 
and dale, visits the graves, where he devours the hearts of the 
newly interred corpses, approaches men on their beds, from 
whose veins he sucks the blood to the last drop, so that 
nothing is left but a lifeless corpse, and when the melancholy 
tone of the bird Tantint rings over from the solitary brook, 
the signal of approaching morning, the cruel Hantuen, drunk, 
with human blood, returns to his cold stiff body, and appears 
again in the midst of his fellow creatures, whom he a little 
while before had so treacherously attacked and hideously 
mangled. 
Once however in Mantangei such a Hantuen in its nightly per¬ 
ambulations nearly had the worst of it. It was a woman still 
in the prime of her age, who had devoted herself to the above- 
mentioned spirit. She took her way along the river Kapuas, 
but having gone too far it was impossible for her to reach 
before break of day her abandoned hollow body, and in order 
to save herself from being killed by the rays of the rising sun, 
she was under the necessity of availing herself of the first 
shelter. She chose a house, where she concealed herself 
under a basket in which a hen was hatching. The fowl, ter¬ 
rified by the appearance of the hideous figure, rushed from the 
nest, rambled crying over the ground and returned to the 
basket with redoubled cries, fluttering about the spot and 
trying with all her power to dislodge the unwelcome guest 
from the cherished spot. An old woman, whose attention 
had been attracted for some time by the ben, approached 
softly and looking over the brim of the basket, discovered 
the Hantuen. “ Come here,” said the latter, “ you"can be of 
“ great service to me, and I shall reward you fully for it. 
“ Place me in your buta [a small oblong basket] which you 
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