Seventeen years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo; a ... - Sabrizain.org

BURIAL KITES 143
Burial is the usual, but not the only, mode of disposing
of the dead. Manangs, or witch-doctors, are never buried,
but their coffins are hung up in the cemetery. Among
some tribes a young child dying before he has any teeth
is put in a jar instead of a coffin, and this is tied to the
branch of some tree in the burial-ground.
The Dyak believes in a future life, but it is simply a
prolongation of the present state of things in a new
sphere. Even the journey from this world to the land
of is
spirits much like the journey from one part of the
country to another. The traveller must be provided with
food and money for his journey, which may take a longer
or a shorter time, dependent to a great extent on the
liberality of his friends here on earth and to the kindness
of those whose houses he passes in his journey to the
spirit world.
If the dead man has been able while in this terrestrial
sphere to provide
for himself assistance in the world of
spirits, then his life in the other world will be an easy
one. The spirits of the enemies whose heads he has taken
become his slaves in the other world, and the man who
has succeeded in killing many enemies lives in Hades a
life of ease.
I have given the general belief among the Sea Dyaks
about the future existence. But occasionally other con-
ceptions are met with. The idea of metempsychosis is
not unknown, and I have met a Dyak who treated a snake
with the greatest kindness, because he said it had been
revealed to him in a dream that the spirit of his grandfather
dwelt in that snake.
Some Dyaks speak of a series of spirit worlds through
which their souls must pass before they become finally
extinct. Some Dyaks say they have to die three times ;