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Inside the room a couple of winnowing trays are laid on the floor and on these are placed the kapatongs in recumbent position, axes, parangs, the small knives used for cutting paddi and other knives, spears for killing pigs as well as those for fish, fish-hooks and lines, the sharpening stone and the hammer used in making parangs and other iron utensils.
As with a person, so with a kapatong; nobody is permitted to step over it lest the good antoh which resides in it should become frightened and flee. Kapatongs are made from ironwood; they are of various kinds and serve many purposes. The smaller kapatongs are used for the protection of the living and all their earthly belongings or pursuits.
The killing of a fowl is not sufficient to accomplish this; that of a pig helps a little, a water-buffalo more, but to kill a man and bring the head makes the kampong completely clean. With the Katingans a head hanging in the house is considered a far better guardian than the wooden figures called kapatongs, which play an important part in the life of that tribe.
The guardians of the ladang and the implements are to be regaled with new paddi. Blood of pig and fowls mixed with new rice having been duly offered to antoh, the mixture is smeared on the kapatongs and implements and a small quantity is also placed on a plate near the trays. Here also stands a dish of boiled rice and meat, the same kind of food which is eaten later by the family.
The kampong was neat and clean; there were many new wooden kapatongs, as well as small wooden cages on poles, evidently serving for sacrificial offerings. The following day we arrived at Long Iram. Of comparatively recent origin, the town lies on level land, and its inhabitants outside the garrison are Malays, Chinese, and Dayaks.
The kampong was quite large, and although it has been subject to the influence of Malay traders a long time and quite recently to that of a missionary, still the natives offered considerable of interest. It is only eight years since the communal house obtained. Before some of the houses stand grotesque kapatongs, and the majority of the population lives in the atmosphere of the long ago.
The bones of dead persons were kept at the back of at least one dwelling, inside the appropriate small house provided for the purpose, and some curious kapatongs of large size were to be seen, some of which had guarded the dead for more than a hundred years.
These images and their pedestals are usually carved from one block, though the very small ones may be made to stand inside of an upright piece of bamboo. Some kapatongs are placed in the ladang to protect the crops, others in the storehouse or inside the baskets where rice or food is kept.
In the afternoon of the day previous to commencing harvest work the following ceremony is performed, to provide for which the owner and his wife have brought new rice from the ladang as well as the kapatongs, which in the number of two to five have been guarding the crop.
A few of these were later estimated by an intelligent Dayak to be two hundred years old. At the time of purchase I was struck with the fact that the Ot-Danums were parting with objects of great importance in their religious life. One reason is that the young generation no longer practises head-hunting, which necessitated the use of a great number of kapatongs.
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