Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/457

 Reviews. 437

that those who have been brave and have taken heads, as I have, will be respected in that other world and will have plenty of riches. When I die my friends will beat the gongs loud and shout out my name, so that those who are already in Balun Matai will know that I am coming, and meet me when I cross over the stream on Bintang Sik6pa [the great log]. I shall be glad enough to see them. But I don't want to go to-day, nor to-morrow." Hence it would appear that the spirits who become the guardians of the owners of the heads are not those of the original owners when the heads were those of living men. We must not be too sure of this, because the minds of savages are built, like other minds, in watertight compartments, and fre- quently hold inconsistent opinions. Moreover, it would seem that the practice of head-hunting comes from without and is of recent introduction among many of the tribes.

It may be, therefore, that the practice is imperfectly assimilated by the peoples of Sarawak, that they do not understand its original purpose and have not thought out its logical relation with their indigenous religion, which it partly overrides ; or it may be that there is something more to be learnt than Dr. Furness and Dr. Haddon have been able to ascertain concerning the religious beUefs of the Kenyahs and similar tribes of Borneo. Either hypothesis is consistent wdth the researches of Mr. Kruyt, a Dutch enquirer in Celebes and among the Dyaks and Battaks. The Toradja of Celebes, at all events, appear from his account to recognise a three-fold soul in every living being. That which is attached to the skull and is acquired by the head-hunter is only one soul of the three. The breath (the first of the three souls) expires at death, the personal soul departs to the place of souls, but the third is a part of the universal soul or vital ether. It is of this that the head-hunter becomes possessed. He deposits the skull in the shrine of his ancestral manes, and thereby augments their portion of the universal soul. It would be w^ell if enquiries were made in the island of Borneo with a view to ascertain whether such ideas have any currency there.

Dr. Furness, I gather, never had the luck to be present at a birth or a marriage. Neither of these is among the incidents of the book. But the ceremonies attending the naming of a chiefs son are detailed with minuteness. The name is given to a child about a year after birth. Until then the babe is under certain