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Updated: June 26, 2025
The inevitable pig meanwhile has been laid in the gallery, together with a few gifts for the DAYONG who is to read its liver. Here the final steps of the bargaining are conducted by the friends of the bridegroom. The pig is then killed and its liver examined; and, if necessary, this is repeated with another and another pig, until one whose liver permits of favourable interpretation is found.
During the singing of a number of verses in this way, the DAYONG seems to become more and more distraught and unconscious of his surroundings; and when the singing ceases he behaves in a strange manner, which strikes the attendant crowd with awe, starting suddenly and making strange clucking noises.
For the chant with which the DAYONG begins his operations is essentially a prayer for help addressed to LAKI TENANGAN, or, in case of a woman, to DOH TEMANGAN also.
On the day appointed for the removal of the corpse it is the duty of the DAYONG to instruct the dead man's soul how to find his way to the other world; this he does, sitting beside the coffin and chanting aloud in doleful tones.
One feature of the ceremony, not quite logically consistent with its general scheme, is that the DAYONG takes in his hand a sword and, glancing at the polished blade with a startled air, seems to catch in it a glimpse of the wandering soul. The next step is to restore the soul to the body.
The DAYONG enters the room where the child is, bearing a fowl's egg, while gongs and drums are beaten and guns discharged. She strokes the child from forehead to navel with the egg, calling out some name at each stroke, until she feels that she has found a suitable name. The whole company then pretends to fall asleep; and presently some go out into the gallery.
When he entered he asked for a piece of iron, and on returning home he killed a fowl and a pig, and submitted to the process of having his soul caught by a DAYONG, lest it should have incurred some undefined injury in the neighbourhood of the horns.
The jaws are placed together with water in a gong or other basin, and the DAYONG, taking a fowl's feather, sprinkles drops of water from the basin upon all the assembled mourners, pouring out the while a stream of words, the purport of which is may all evil things, all sickness and such things be kept away from you. Fire is left burning beside these structures.
It is usually performed by the DAYONGS, and is applied more particularly in cases in which localised pain is a prominent feature of the disorder. The DAYONG comes provided with a short tube, prepared by pushing out the core of a section of the stem of a certain plant of the ginger family.
The DAYONG does not necessarily confine his or her activities to this one calling; for in a large village there are usually several DAYONGS, and the occasions demanding their services recur at considerable intervals of time. The relatives of the sick man usually prefer to call in a DAYONG from some other village.
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