p.

term

meaning

239

bilik

apartment

ruai

gallery

240

mensia

humans

sebayan

the dead

antu

spirits

petara

gods

241

tuboh

body

semenat

soul

249

amat

true

bula>

false

265

betul

exactly right

"exorcists enjoining the patient to laugh at ... the demons who had previously dominated him/her. Exorcisms work because of ... the demons being themselves controlled and ridiculed by the exorcist’s trickery."

"For the Kaluli, illness is caused by a person’s invisible pig aspect having become injured within a spirit world. During the se’ance, the medium’s spirit child searches for this pig aspect, releases it from a spirit trap". [One’s animal-soul {Aztec /tonal/} may "posit "para-normal" effects".]

p.

manan

239

"The power of the manang is derived from spirits. Potential initiates are called in dreams usually in the fourth or fifth decade of life and, although it is common to put up a token resistance by pleading the excuse of domestic duties, all eventually succumb to the insistent command, on pain of ... madness. The commanding being, or yang[,] may be ..., more commonly, an animal spirit, and it subsequently provides spirit assistance ... . ...effectiveness resides with the yang, manang ... talking in hushed and reverent tones about the strength of their particular yang. ... In explaining the relative contributions to the spirit journey ...,

240

Curative power is materialized in charms (ubat). These small, powerful (bisa) objects ... derive from spirits, their location revealed to the manang in dreams." {The locations of power-objects are likewise disclosed to Californian (Penutian) shamans in dreams.}

"serara` bunga (separation of the flowers) ceremony" : "its purpose is to achieve a clear-cut separation between the dead and living, and there is some urgency to schedule this ceremony if the dead have returned to interfere with the living, as evidenced by ... bad dreams ... . ... Manang also perform pelian to deal with bad dreams (jai> mimpi), as well as smaller scale rites to neutralize bad omens (penabar burong) {Sumerian namburbi rituals likewise canceled evil omens} or neutralize a breach of taboo (penabar pemali)".

p. 242

... within dreams the soul thinks, feels a range of emotions, is capable of seeing, hearing, and smelling, and engages in speech and social interaction. It, too, possesses intentionality and is capable of certain moral actions as choice and resistance. ... within dreams, souls appear to be physically embodied. ... Such experiences are endowed with the same accent of reality as waking experiences and have much the same evident value as an eye-witness account."

"A moral infraction ... (say a woman leaving her underwear on the clothes line at night ...) leads to her semengat aspect being ... seduced (kuchau antu, anu> antu), or even possessed and betrothed (tunang antu) by a spirit".

"Dream reality is also the obverse of waking reality. ... The soul is not fixed in space like the body but leaps geographical and cosmic distances to interact with far away people or the dead. ... dream experiences are ... especially

p. 243

... with the dead, who are experienced as being more or less the same age and appearance as they were just before they died. However to the Iban, the salient difference between the waking and dreaming reality is that beings who are invisible in the former (semengat, hantu, and sebayan) are visible within dream reality."

"... humans are also described as having a plant aspect (ayu or bunga), which thrives in health and becomes choked with weeds and wilts in illness. This ... is invisible to wide awake mortals but visible to mythic manang who clear around it, shade it, transplant it and tend it back to health."

p. 243

small figures flitting in the loft.

More often spirits are experienced by the soul in dreams, where ... they characteristically masquerade as animals or humans. ... Dreaming of an attractive person of the opposite sex is prima facie evidence that one’s soul has been seduced by a spirit. Even dreaming of one’s spouse ... may be a spirit in disguise. ... Spirits are also a source of benign power that are sought after to help executing dangerous projects."

p. 244

"The soul leaves the body shortly after death and travels to the land of the dead (menoa sebayan). This region ... has a this-world location in the Kapuas river basin ..., associated in legend with the origin of the Iban people. There, the dead ... are fully embodied beings who live a mundane and material existence in their longhouse, working their hill padi or sitting on the veranda talking. ... this region lies in a different cosmic domain on the other side of the mythic gate to the earth, where everything is opposite to this world. Day becomes night there, light becomes dark, bad becomes good and fish becomes fowl. Invisible to the waking eyes, the dead are visible to the soul ... in dreams ... since they often wish to help. ... Iban contend that from the point of view of one reality, everything in the other is reversed ...; day/night, waking/sleeping, light/dark and, most fundamentally, visible/invisible. ... For example, ... within dream reality, the soul is visible to other souls but normally invisible to spirits."

p.

curing by manan

244

"In illness, the visible body boundary is punctured by invisible wounds. ... The soul now becomes visible (tampak) to spirits and the dead who, in turn, make their appearance to the soul."

245

[use of dream-reports in curing illnesses :] "Dream reports are more elaborate and narrated in a muted, intense tone ... . Dreams provide clues to the fate of the soul and indicate to the manang which pelian rites to perform. Hearing a dream of drowning, for example, he performs a pelian using a fishing net. Dreams of kin are also relevant ... . Manang add their own dreams which have a special authority". {North American Indian shamans frequently cited their own dreams while curing a patient.}

[palpation :] "Manang ... began with firm, massaging movements of their fingers across the patient’s ... (depending on the symptom location), drawing up and pinching the skin at the end of each pass. They would repeat these seeping movements with a stone charm in their hand, or carefully hold one stone charm to the affected site and percuss it gently with a second, held in the other hand. {Traditional Chinese medical use of metal sphaires is similar.} Unlike ordinary Ibans, they can see and feel invisible wounds in the skin and palpate evidence of illness that lies deep within the body – ... as a quivering sensation ... to feel these vibrations. ...

246

The term for this procedure, begama>, can be translated as groping and in common use means to feel one’s way in the dark. ...

Finally, the manang closes the spirit wound ... using a covering or patching charm (ubat penampal) ... . ... the procedures up to this point ... are all routinely performed by the non-shamanic Malay and Iban dealers (dukun)."

"By now it is dark and the manang turns his gaze on the patient’s soul by looking at a quartz crystal (batu karas) held at arm’s length with a ... flame directly behind. Within the crystal he sees an image of the soul ... . ... the crystal itself is called a seeing stone (batu ilau) , although the world ilau does ... refer ... to the perception of spirits ... . {cf. [Skt. mythic names] /ILVala/ & /ILa-Vr@ta/; [Latin geographic name] /ILVa/} The stone is also named penampak manang, because it make the soul visible, obvious ... (tampak). ...

247

The process is termed mandang (to show, exhibit or expose) or ninjau (to scan from a high vantage). ... The taller the soul, the more visible it is to spirits. The more distant the soul, the further along the road to the dead it has travelled."

277, n. 3:1:3

"Saribas manang only used the crystal to visualize the soul, but .Freeman (1967:323) reports that in the Baleh region, it is also used to visualize the plant aspect, to see if it is wilting, wee choked or vigorous."

p.

yan

247

"logic which lay beneath the manang’s prestigitation" : "it is the yang (commanding spirit) who actually performs the treatment, not the

248

manang himself. Whether or not the manang actually extracts a stone [p. 246 : "removal of a small stone miraculously extracted from within the body."], what happens is that as the manang enacts the treatment, the yang simultaneously removes the illness from the patient’s body. ... An experienced manang stated the conundrum by explaining that it was both sleight of hand (silap mata) and at the same time it was not sleight of hand {"sleight of hand" involving (with the assistance of the commanding spirit) temporarily hypnotizing in oblivion the human viewers}, because it worked through the yang." {Apparently implying that the state of temporary hypnosis induced in the viewers by the commanding spirit, enableth the removal (if possible) of any evil spirit by merging it into the oblivion.}

p.

pelian

249

"Pelian are named by their central action (.g. killing a spirit, bebunoh antu) or the scene at which the action takes place (e.g. the spirit’s iron cage, sankar besi)."

250

"The chant ... culminates with the manang enacting the recapture, ... during which his soul, accompanied by the yang, carries out the actual soul retrieval. The manang reawakens with the soul, substantiated by a small black seed, in the palm of his hand. He inserts the rescues soul back into the patient’s head by placing the seed over the region of the anterior fontanelle."

p.

pagar api

251

"The pagar api is the point of departure and return for the journey and has been likened to a boat landing ... . ... (the manang circumambulates it) as well as a means of travel (a ladder of ascent and descent {Jacob’s ladder, hung down side of a ship} or a boat with painter, flag and ... a paddle)."

There is "a legend (cherita tuai) ... concerning the origin of the pagar api, in which Jarai, one of the original manang, meets with the demon antu gerasi at a tree while out hunting. Both have killed female pig-tailed macaques (nyumboh) which they roast on a fire. recognizing, however, that they have actaully killed each other’s wives, they agree to exchange corpses and each returns home with the body of his respective wife. For Jarai’s part, as he get closer to home, his wife’s body become smaller and smaller until it transforms into her soul, as tiny as a millet seed within the palm of his hand. Arriving home, ... the soul is cooled and does not stick to his palm. When he enters the longhouse he finds that while he was away hunting his wife died of a painful illness ... – so he places the soul into his wife’s body and she comes to life again. The pagar api is indeed the tree where manang and spirit encounter in a reciprocal killing and retrieval of wives."

253

"Literally translated, pagar means fence or barrier and api means fire ... . ... pagar api referred to a barrier of fire, for it represented the fire on which the macaques were roasted. The fire formed a barrier for the manang against the antu gerasi, for Jarai heaped it with lukai wood, the smoke of which blinds, weakens and repels spirits." {Because each hunter unsuccessfully briefly possessed the wife of the other, the fire may also repraesent a resistance posed by each woman against her non-husband; similarly as the fire which surroundeth each sleeping valkyrja (such as, Brynhild) defendeth her against the sexual attentions of any strange men.}

element

referent

rush mat (tikai bemban)

manan’s boat

small jar (kebok)

container for the soul

spear (sankoh)

path of manan’s journey

banana leaf

flag of manan’s boat

notches in stem of banana leaf

ladder of ascent & descent

red thread (ubon mansau)

to bind the soul (penanc^an semenat)

cloth

used to catch soul

white thread

the "stalk" of the soul (tampok semenat)

duku sword

soul-strengthener (kerin semenat)

plate bound in rotan

manan’s shield (terebai manan)

pua> kumbu> weaving

manan’s wings

p.

category

255

For the 1^st category, "recovering the soul from spirits (jalai ngagai antu)", "the manang use stage props to represent the spirit’s lair which, in actuality, is said to be located in the jungle not far from the longhouse."

pelian __

employeth __

to signify __

sankar besi

3 swords arranged on the mid-ruai

spirit’s iron cage whence the captive soul is sprung

luban batu

3 stones arranged on the ruai floor

rock-cave lair of a tigre-spirit

kara penjuan

2 bamboo uprights erected outside on the outer veranda, and tied together at the tips (into "A"-shape)

"a well-known haunt of spirits, the upper branches of the parasitic fig plant."

long wooden pestles hanging down

ae:rial roots of parasitic fig

256

For the 2^nd category, "travel toward the land of the dead to recapture the soul (jalai ngagai sebayan)", similar stage-props are ritually employed :

pelian __

stage-prop

its signification

tintin lanjan

"intermediate zone between the world of the living and the world of the dead."

large upturned wooden mortar

solitary hill in this intermediate zone

7 such upturned wooden mortars

"ridge of seven peaks ... from ... this world toward the world of the dead."

titi rawan (etc.)

tempuan

Mandai river, separating the world of the living from the world of the dead

wooden pestle placed transversely across the tempuan

"the "bridge of fear" which crosses this river and separates the living from the dead."

ladder

"waterfall on the Limban river, deeper within the land of the dead."

Pelian for the "obviously dying" are intended as "a graphic display of what could not be broached in conversation – the futility of any attempt to cure".

incident

its significance

p. 256 "the manang, seated on a large plate, slides down the ladder from the door to the ground below (belanchar ba> wong Limban). This represents his soul slithering down the waterfall at the Limban river".

{Slithering would imply clambering down an inclined cataract, rather than a true waterfall.}

"In ... the ruai of the longhouse of the dead, he enacts a tug of war with the dead (belian bebatak lampong)."

{The manan, and the rulers of the dead, are each pulling on the recently-arriven soul.}

"in bedagang bilang lawang, ... he walks from bilik to bilik pretending to trade, though he is

actually searching for the sick person’s soul.

He might masquerade as a visitor (nemuai) entering each bilik in turn, though his true purpose is to locate the lost soul which

[p. 257] comes into his sintong basket, attracted by the smell of the patient’s clothes which have been hidden there."

p.

chant

257

"the manang first bites the sword {scil., the hilt of the sword : cf. Hiltebeitel} to strengthen and protect his own soul, and then begins to chant ... . It is ... an adagio, in which the words are drawn out in long tones that oscillate between two and tree notes just a semitone or a tone apart. Each line progresses into a characteristic trill which is very difficult to execute, then comes to an emphatic and very abrupt end that accents the terminal rhyming syllable. ... The chant is composed of lines that contain runs of internal rhymes and ends with syllables that rhyme with terminal syllables of adjacent lines. ... The language of the chant is jako dalam or "deep language," in contrast to everyday, obvious or shallow Iban (jako mabu>). ... The language is archaic, employing words and phases of forebears rarely used nowadays and referring to equipment long since outdated ... . ...

258

The chant is also ... cryptic; a series of puzzles that the listener must decipher to make the meaning obvious. Of all the chants in the Iban corpus, the pelian chants are recognized as being the hardest to understand. In some parts, the language is so deep that even expert interpreters cannot make sense of it. These sections are described as the language of spirits (jako antu) or the language of the dead (jako sebayan)".

[relation of the manan to his chant :] "At times he is self-reflexive, describing his own equipment and actions in the third person. ... During breaks between pelian he runs commentaries on the nature of the pelian itself. One manang would achieve an alienation effect by breaking off the chant momentarily to comment on the characters. After singing about one ancestor ..., the manang stopped to scoff at him".

p.

Pelian Nyembayan

259

the __ birds

were associated with the __

their calls being heard during the __

1^st

living

daytime

subsequent

dead

nighttime

"The Semalau birds were too busy inspecting grave goods ...,

the Tiup Api birds ... were singing in the deep of the night, and

the Kuong Kebat birds were preoccupied with tying up the bones of the dead."

260

... the dead themselves were gathering to see the monitor lizard ... . ... Crowding closer to peer at the lizard, they were surprised and amused to see that this curious creature had one leg missing. Here lay the deception, for in the instant that the dead were caught off guard by their own curiosity, Manang ...’s yang snatched [the infant patient]’s soul and spirited it back to the land of the living again at breakneck speed." Each mythic manan used his own yan to recapture a soul :

yan of mythic Manan __

is a __

Guyak

python

Bidu

crocodile

Gelanyan

leopard

Jelapi

owl

Rec^ap

the daimon Nadin Gerasi

Emon

orangutan

"As they passed the old ruins of the former longhouse, the trees were flowering and fruiting profusely and when they bathed in a stream, the stones of the river bed turned miraculously into charms (ubat penchelap)".

261

"At the end of the chant Manang ... grasped the duku> sword in his right hand and suddenly lay down ... . ... After about 40 seconds, he emitted several queer, high-pitched moaning sounds ... . The soul clasped in his right hand, he returned to the bilik-apartment and placed it on [the infant patient]’s head, repeating the same procedure for [the infant patient]’s mother as well."

p.

Pelian Muru Antu

262

Rite to reprimand "a female antu buyu, who, in the Saribas, amy be an old hag who lives either in the ruins of deserted longhouses ... or in the loft among disused paddy bins. A food offering had been hung on a tree as bait just outside the back door ... . ... He implored her to show herself by using the highly-refined language of respect and flattery. He called her by extravagant praise names and sang in adoration of her beautiful tattooed body, describing the patterns in elaborate poetic detail. The spirit was attracted to the longhouse through the language of courtship. ... . ... . ... he continued to attract her with bells and the piring offering, and when she finally appeared, his language suddenly changed from the adoring blandishments of seductions into the stern rebuke ... . ...

263

Once the spirit was taught how to behave (ngajar antu) ..., he returned to the polite style of respect and apologized profusely for dealing so harshly with her."

p.

enactment

263

"Manang enact the recapture of the patient’s soul with a sudden, grasping movement, as in the pelian betansang where the manang leaps to seize the soul from a spirit’s nest (represented by a sintong-basket attached high on a longhouse upright) ... . In the ... pelian tinting lanjan, after circling so many times around the ridge of seven upturned mortars, the manang without notice jumps onto the ridge and leaps nimbly from peak to peak ... . ... he scrambles around on the floor, ... grabbing at the soul as if it were darting this way and that. The Iban word ngerampas or snatching, conveys the sense of sudden pouncing on the soul unawares."

264

"On recovering ..., the manang has the patient’s soul clasped in his hand. This ... he displays as a visible object (the tiny, black seed), washes and cools it down with water prior to placing it on the patient’s head. Here, the manang is ... enacting ... the myth of Jarai, who washed his wife’s soul before entering his longhouse."

p.

involvement

265

"Members of the audience, especially ... ritual experts ..., ... critique the quavering quality of the manang’s voice. ... Manang themselves use ... humble self-disparagement".

266

"Most manang carry charms given

267

ubat pemanchal for courage to perform in front of an audience, and so on."

p. 285

"the sky (langit), the principal domain of the gods (petara) and celestial shamans, which is said "to cover" (bap), or overlay, "this world" like the lid of a rice bin. Beneath the central zenith of the sky is Mount Rabong associated with the Shamanic Goddess Ini Inda."

p. 315, n. 3:2:5

"Mount Rabong ..., to return to its summit (tuchong) ... parallels the recovery of the patient’s soul and its reinsertion into the body through the fontanlle. Mount Rabong is an actual mountain located on the true left bank of the Ketungau river in West Kalimantan ... . ... It is also the site of Manang Raja Menjaya’s consecration as manang bali>, "transformed" or transvestite shaman, by his sister the Goddess Ini Inda, and the abode of the souls of deceased manang, ... their own special land of the dead."

p. 285

"human beings (mensia) also possess, as attributes of both body and soul, "appearance" (gamal), name (nama) and "vitality."

p. 315, n. 3:2:6

constituent

its significance

"appearance" (gamal)

"individual’s unique persona"

"name"

"reputation"

"character" (pendiau)

"individuating aspects"

p. 316, n. 3:2:6

To an "individual’s spiritual gamal are associated conditions of ritual jeopardy or favor, as revealed, for example, by omens and dreams".

p. 285

"Vitality" "is symbolized by an unseen plant counterpart (ayu or bunga) representing the mortal aspect of personality. Thus, ayu flourishes in health, but in sickness is said "to wither" (layu>); and in death, "to die" (parai)."

p. 316, n. 3:2:8

"In the pelian bejereki, ... the sabang ayu, literally the "cordyline of vitality" ... is represented by a cordyline ... set in an irun jar ..., which, after the pelian is over, is planted by the manang in the earth below the longhouse entry ladder. In the pelian bejereki the plant symbolizes the ... plant counterpart, of the about-to-be-born child in the womb of the expectant mother".

"the yang often threaten a new initiate with madness ... if he refuses to take up the "calling" (kumbai), and, once he does take it up, the "work" (pengawa) he performs is itself potentially "hot" (panas)." "This calling might be ‘hot’; perhaps this work is ‘hot’ ".

p. 291

The ensera comprise primarily the hero sagas (Orang Panggau), and the morality fables, ... and including both animal tales (ensera jelu) [p. 316, n. 3:2:13 : "Concerned chiefly with tortoise (tekura>) and Mousedeer (pelandok)."] and comic fables (ensera Paloi, or ensera Apai Aloi)." [Apai Aloi is "known as Saloi, Sali, Sali-ali, Pak Sali, or simply Tambap (Fool)" (p. 317, n. 3:2:16).]

pp. 316-7, n. 3:2:14

among the __

the comic-hero is named __

Naju Dayak

Bapa Paloi

p. 317, n. 3:2:14

Gerai Dayak

Pa> Aluwi

Salako (Selako)

Pa> Aiai {Alai?}

Embaloh

Ma> Alui

Sama-Bajau

Abu Nawas [<arabic name]

p. 303

"Paloi lives with his wife and two children, Aloi and Laminda, in a longhouse above Nanga Gelong and below Nanga Panggau Libau."

p. 319, n. 3:2:26

The Gelong heroes are led by Tutong, whose sister Kumang is the wife of Keling. Tutong is the spiritual patron of blacksmiths (tukang kamboh) and ... forger of weapons. ... Sempurai ... is a figure of mercurial temper ... and brute physical strength."