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Updated: June 26, 2025
This is an effigy of Laki Pesong, the god whose special function it is to care for the welfare of the children. A small mat is woven and a few strips of rattan provided for each child.
All of them are approached at times with prayers and with rites similar to those used in addressing LAKI TENANGAN. Several wooden posts, very roughly carved to indicate the head and, limbs of a human form, stand before every Kayan house.
In the case of Laki Avit, for example, the Bruni Malays, jealous and afraid of the allied Kayans and Kenyahs, soon succeeded by means of murderous intrigues in bringing back the more normal condition of suspicious hostility and frequent warfare. Thus, although several chiefs had endeavoured to establish peace throughout wide areas, no one of them had achieved any enduring success.
Beside or above all these is LAKI TENANGAN, a god more powerful than all the rest, to whom are assigned no special or departmental functions. He seems to preside or rule over the company of lesser gods, much as Zeus and Jupiter ruled over the lesser gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Kayans seem to have no very clear and generally accepted dogmas about these gods.
Again, if they see a certain snake just as they are about to enter a strange river or a strange village, they will stop and light a fire on the bank in order to communicate with Laki Neho. Kayans will not eat any species of turtle or tortoise. Klemantans When a party is about to set out on any expedition they explain their intentions to BALI FLAKI, and then observe the movements of the hawks.
They both came back and helped to fight the enemy, who lost many dead and retired. Laki, see No. 10. Tehi, see No. 12. A woman called Daietan had one child, Semang, who was a bad boy. He was lazy, slept day and night, and did not want to make ladang nor plant any banana nor papaya trees. His mother angrily said to him: "Why don't you exert yourself to get food?"
The grandfather usually gives up his name to his eldest grandson, and reassumes the original name of his childhood with the prefix or title LAKI, and the custom seems to be connected with this belief or hope. There is no means of discovering whether the hope is realised.
If this supposition could be shown to be true, it would afford a strong presumption in favour of the view that LAKI TENANGAN also has had a similar history, and that he is but PRIMUS INTER PARES. For among the Kayans, as we have seen, a large village acknowledges a supreme chief as well as the chiefs of the several houses of the village; and in the operations of war on a large scale, a supreme war chief presides over a council of lesser chiefs.
The name TENANGAN is not a proper name borne by any Kayans, nor, so far as we know, does it occur amongst the other peoples. LAKI in Malay means a male. The name is possibly connected with the Kayan word TENANG which means correct, or genuine. The name then possibly means he who is correct or all-knowing; but this is a very speculative suggestion.
On the other hand, none of the facts, noted in connection with the minor gods as indicating their ancestral origin, are found to be true of LAKI TENANGAN, except only his bearing the title LAKI, which, as we have seen, is the title by which a man is addressed as soon as he becomes a grandfather.
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