Excerpt: ...equivalents for sacrificial purposes. Perhaps the most important occasion on which the fowl plays a part is the performance of the rite by which a blood-feud is finally wiped away. The following extract from the journal previously quoted describes an incident of this kind: - In the evening there was serious business on hand. Two chiefs, who some years ago were burned out of their homes in the Rejang district by the government, have settled themselves with their people in the Baram district. They had made a ...
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Excerpt: ...equivalents for sacrificial purposes. Perhaps the most important occasion on which the fowl plays a part is the performance of the rite by which a blood-feud is finally wiped away. The following extract from the journal previously quoted describes an incident of this kind: - In the evening there was serious business on hand. Two chiefs, who some years ago were burned out of their homes in the Rejang district by the government, have settled themselves with their people in the Baram district. They had made a provisional peace with the Kayans some years ago, but the final ceremony was to be performed this evening. The two chiefs of the immigrants, who had remained hitherto in a remote part of the house, seated themselves at one side, and the Kayan chiefs at the other, and Tama Bulan and ourselves between the two parties. First, presents of iron were exchanged. In the old days costly presents of metal-work used to be given; but, as this led sometimes to renewed disputes, the government has forbidden the giving, in such ceremony, of presents of a greater value than two dollars. So now old sword-blades are given, and the other essential part of the present has been proportionately reduced from a full-grown fowl to a tiny chick. After much preliminary talking, two chicks were brought and a bundle of old sword-blades, which Tama Bulan, in his character of peace-maker, carries with him whenever he travels abroad. A chief of either party took a chick and a sword and presented them to the other. Then one led his men a little apart and began to rattle off an invocation beginning, "O sacred (Bali) chick," snipped off its head with the sword, and with the bloody blade smeared the right arm of his followers as they crowded round him. The old fellow kept up the stream of words until every man was smeared; and then they all stamped together on the floor raising a great shout. Then the other party went through a similar performance; and the peace being thus formally...
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