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

118 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)[097]family was descended, what the tribe was doing, and whatwere its wishes, not forgetting to implore the vengeance of thespirits on the Batang-Lupars, the hereditary foes of the Kayans.The harangue was couched in rhyming verse and delivered insing-song tones. Five days later eight priestesses ascended asacrificial stage, on which food was daily set forth for the spirits.There they joined hands and crooned another long address tothe spirits, marking the time with their hands. Then a basketcontaining offerings of food was handed up to them, and one ofthe priestesses opened it and invited the spirits to enter the basket.When they were supposed to have done so, the lid was shut downon them, and the basket with the spirits in it was conveyed into thechief's house. As the priestesses in the performance of the sacredceremonies might not touch the ground, planks were cut froma fruit-tree and laid on the ground for them to step on. But thegreat feature of the New Year festival is the sacrifice of pigs, ofwhich the spiritual essence is appropriately offered to the spirits,while their material substance is consumed by the worshippers.In carrying out this highly satisfactory arrangement, while thelive pigs lay tethered in a row on the ground, the priestessesdanced solemnly round a sacrificial stage, each of them arrayedin a war-mantle of panther-skin and wearing a war-cap on herhead, and on either side two priests armed with swords executedwar dances for the purpose of scaring away evil spirits. By theirgesticulations the priestesses indicated to the powers above thatthe pigs were intended for their benefit. One of them, a fat butdignified lady, dancing composedly, seemed by her courteousgestures to invite the souls of the pigs to ascend up to heaven;but others, not content with this too ideal offering, rushed at thepigs, seized the smallest of them by the hind legs, and exerting alltheir strength danced with the squealing porker to and from thesacrificial stage. In the evening, before darkness fell, the animalswere slaughtered and their livers examined for omens: if theunder side of the liver was pale, the omen was good; but if it was