The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

114 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)Ceremoniesobserved at thesowing festival.Taboos observed atthe sowing festival.of the powers which rule them for good or evil. The spirit-worldstands in close connexion with the agriculture of the Bahaus;without the consent of the spirits no work in the fields may beundertaken. Moreover, all the great popular festivals coincidewith the different periods of the cultivation of the rice. As thepeople are in an unusual state of affluence after harvest, all familyfestivals which require a large outlay are for practical reasonsdeferred till the New Year festival at the end of harvest. Thetwo mighty spirits Amei Awi and his wife Buring Une, who,according to the belief of the Kayans, live in a world underground, dominate the whole of the tillage and determine theissue of the harvest in great measure by the behaviour of theowner of the land, not so much by his moral conduct, as by theofferings he has made to the spirits and the attention he has paidto their warnings. An important part in agriculture falls to thechief: at the festivals he has, in the name of the whole tribe, tosee to it that the prescribed conjurations are carried out by thepriestesses. All religious ceremonies required for the cultivationof the ground take place in a small rice-field specially set apartfor that purpose, called luma lali: here the chief's family ushersin every fresh operation in the cultivation of the rice, such assowing, hoeing, and reaping: the solemn actions there performedhave a symbolical significance.” 314Not only the chief's family among the Kayans has such aconsecrated field; every family possesses one of its own. Theselittle fields are never cultivated for the sake of their produce:they serve only as the scene of religious ceremonies and ofthose symbolical operations of agriculture which are afterwardsperformed in earnest on the real rice-fields. 315 For example,at the festival before sowing a priestess sows some rice on theconsecrated field of the chief's family and then calls on a numberof young men and girls to complete the work; the young men then314 A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo (Leyden, 1904-1907), i. 156 sq.315 A. W. Nieuwenhuis, op. cit. i. 164.