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He procures also the leaves of a species of banana tree which bears very large horn-like fruit, known as PUTI ORAN; and having procured the services of a female DAYONG, who has a reputation for skill in naming, he calls all the friends and relatives of the family to the feast.
In case of any dispute regarding the division of the property of a dead man, his ghost may be called upon by a DAYONG and questioned as to the dead man's intentions; but this would not be done until after the harvest following upon the death.
The DAYONG acts as though listening to the whispering of the soul within the house, starting and clucking from time to time. Then he announces the will of the ghost in regard to the distribution of the property, speaking in the first person and reproducing the phraseology and peculiarities of the dead man. The directions so obtained are usually followed, and the dispute is thus terminated.
The ceremony is known as DAYONG JANOI. A small model of a house, perhaps a yard in width and length, is made and placed in the gallery beside the door of the dead man's chamber. Food and drink of various kinds as prepared for a feast are placed in this house, together with cigarettes.
The child, which has been kept in its parents' cubicle during this first part of the ceremony, is then brought into the large room, and a fowl and small pig are slaughtered and their entrails examined. If these yield favourable omens, the DAYONG begins to chant, invoking the protection of good spirits for the child.
When the DAYONG has completed his instructions, the rattan lashings about the head of the coffin are loosed. Since this is the moment at which the soul is believed to take its final departure from the body, it is probable that this custom of unlashing the coffin is connected with the idea of facilitating its escape, although we have obtained no definite statement to this effect.
On one occasion, one of us being a little indisposed in a Klemantan house, we made an opportunity to examine the methods of the DAYONG a little more closely than is usually possible, by inviting one to undertake the extraction of his pains.
After inquiring of the patient the locality of his pains, he holds up the polished blade of a sword, and, gazing at it as one seeing visions, he sings a long incantation beginning: The crowd of people, men and women, sitting round the central figure, join in the BALI DAYONG, which recurs as the refrain at the end of each verse, intoning in loud deep voices.
They asked one fish after another to become a DAYONG; but all refused until they came to the BELIRA, who said he would do his best to become a DAYONG and to make rain for them, if each of the other fishes would give him a bone. They accepted the bargain and each gave him a bone, and that is why the BELIRA has so many bones. The Story of the Stupid Boy
The DAYONG is expected to make the diagnosis and to determine upon the line of treatment to be practised. If he decides that the soul or BLUA of the patient has left his body, and has made some part of the journey towards the abode of departed souls, his task is to fall into a trance and to send his own soul to overtake that of his patient and to persuade it to return.
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