ACCOUNT OF SULU. 
557 
The Idaan have, amongst different tribes of them, many very 
whimsical religious tenets; Paradise is generally supposed to be 
a-top of Kiny-Ballu: Some, as those of Giong, think it is guarded 
by a fiery dog, who is a formidable opponent to the female sex; 
for, whenever any virgins come, he seizes them as his legal prize; 
but whatever women have been cohabited with in this world, he 
considers as unworthy of his embrace, and lets them pass : The 
fathers, however, of Giong do not fail to reproach their daughters, 
though not very severely, if they make a slip. 
Others, amongst the Idaan, think the passage for men into pa¬ 
radise is over a long tree, which, unless they have killed a man, is 
scarcely practicable, perhaps for want of the slave’s assistance. If 
prisoners are taken in war, it is said, a general meeting is called ; 
when the chief gives the first blow, and then the devoted victim is 
struck with weapons on every side. It is reported, if a chief of 
their enemies be taken, his body is embalmed with camphor, and 
his eyes being taken out, two cowries are placed in the sockets, and 
his arms extended ; forming a dismal spectacle. 
People, who thus deform the image of their Maker, by estrang¬ 
ing themselves from the dictates of reason and humanity, can 
scarce be considered as men, and are, in dignity, beneath the 
Oran-Outans of their neighbouring woods. 
However, although these customs and opinions may raise 
abhorrence, the Idaan deserve rather to be considered as objects of 
compassion than contempt; as they seem extremely desirous of 
intuition, and entertain a just regret of their own ignorance, and a 
mean idea of themselves on that account; for, when they come into 
the houses, or vessels, of the Mahometans, they pay them the utmost 
veneration, as superiour intelligences, who know their Creator; 
they will not sit down where the Mahometans sleep, nor will they 
put their fingers into the same chunam, or betel-box, but receive a 
portion with the utmost humility, and in every instance denote, 
with the most abject attitudes and gesture, the veneration they 
entertain for a God unknown, in the respect they pay to those who 
have a knowledge of him. 
If we add the custom of arranging human skulls about the 
houses of the Idaan, as a mark of affluence, we need not wonder at 
the terrible accounts of their barbarity, nor at the reports of 
Anthropophagi. That sometimes distress, and, on particular 
occasions, national anatipathies, have induced men to eat of their 
species, are too strongly attested to be doubted; but that there is 
any race of men, who, eating human flesh as food, may properly 
be called cannibals, may well be questioned ? I never have even 
heard, from any of the natives, of such people, to the Eastward of 
Sumatra, though if is reported some, as well in the Philipinas as 
Eastern Islands, are proud to drink out of the skulls of their 
enemies ; opinions of this nature often arise from misconstruction, 
or accident, and ought always to be adopted with great caution; 
