Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/468

410 commands upon him, and that if he neglects to fulfil them, he will certainly suffer sickness or death as a punishment for his inattention. Consequently he begins to labour over in his brains all the circumstances of his dream, and try his utmost to put some explanation or other upon them. In this, if he fails, he sends for the cawin or priest, who assists him to interpret them. Sometimes Satan orders him to do this thing or that, but generally he wants either meat or money, which is always sent him, and hung upon a little plate made of cocoanut leaves on the boughs of a tree, near the river. I have asked them what they thought the devil did with money, and whether or no they thought that he ate the victuals. As for the money, they said, so that the man ordered to do so did but part with it, it signified not who took it, therefore it was generally a prey to the first stranger who found it; and the meat he did not eat, but bringing his mouth near it, he at once sucked all the savour out of it, without disturbing its position in the least, but rendering it as tasteless as water.

But what is more difficult to reconcile to the rules of human reason, is the belief that these people have, that women who bring forth children sometimes bring forth at the same time young crocodiles as twins to the children. These creatures are received by the midwives most carefully, and immediately carried down to the river, where they are turned loose, but have victuals supplied them constantly from the family, especially the twin, who is obliged to go down to the river every now and then, and give meat to this sudara, as it is called. The latter, if he is deprived of such attendance, constantly afflicts his relation with sickness. The existence of an opinion so contrary to human reason, and which seemed totally unconnected with religion, was with me long a subject of doubt, but the universal testimony of every Indian I ever heard speak of it was not to be withstood. It seems to have taken its rise in the islands of Celebes and Bouton, very many of the inhabitants of which have crocodiles in their families; from thence it has spread all over the eastern islands, even to Timor and Ceram, and