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

154 OMENS AND DREAMS
the other sacred birds must sound on his right.
He goes
forth in the early morning, and wanders about the jungle
till the cry of the nendak is heard on his left. He will
then break off a twig of anything growing near, and take
it home and put it in a safe place. But it may happen
that some other omen bird or animal is first to be seen
or heard. In that case he must give the matter up,
return, and try his chance another day. Thus, some-
times several days pass before he has obtained his first
omen. When he has heard the nendak, he will then listen
for the katupong and the other birds in the necessary order.
There is always the liability of delays caused by the wrong
be a month or more
birds being heard, and it may possibly
before he obtains all those augural predictions, which will
give him confidence that his farming for the year will be
successful. When the augur has collected a twig for each
bird he has heard, he takes these to the land selected for
farming, buries them in the ground, and with a short form
of address to the birds and to Pulang Gana— the god of
the Earth— clears a small portion of the ground of grass
or jungle, and then returns home. The magic virtues of
the birds have been conveyed to the land, and the
work of clearing it for planting may be begun at any
time.
The sacred birds can be bad omens as well as good.
If heard on the wrong side, or in the wrong order, the
matter in hand must be postponed or altogether aban-
doned, unless a subsequent conjunction of good omens
occurs, which in the judgment of old experts more than
counterbalances the bad omens.
I have mentioned the omens necessary before planting
the seed. In a similar manner, before beginning to build
a house, or starting on a war expedition, or undertaking