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Updated: June 26, 2025
He is a giver of omens and a bringer of messages from Laki Tenangan. The following notes of a conversation with an intelligent Kayan chief will give some idea of his attitude towards Laki Neho.
An' when she loured the grai, it penned laki, "Mukk mandy jal an' I'll rikker tute to a kushto-dick barvelo rye who kaums a pirreny." So she lelled the kushto tauno rye, an' she jivved with lester kushto yeck cooricus; but pash dovo he pookered her to jal avree, he didn't kaum her kekoomi. "Sa a wafro mush is tute," ruvved the rakli, "to bitcher mandy avree!
LAKI TENANGAN has a wife, DOH TENANGAN, who, though of less importance than himself, is specially addressed by the women. The god is addressed by name in terms of praise and supplication; the prayers seem to be transmitted to him by means of the souls of domestic pigs or fowls; for one of these is always killed and charged to carry the prayer to the god.
The Kayans have a hawk-god, Laki Neho, but seem to regard the hawk as the servant of the chief god, Laki Tenangan. Singalang Burong, the hawk-god of the Dyaks, is completely anthropomorphized.
At first our informant said that help is asked directly of Laki Neho; but, when pressed, he said that Laki Neho may carry the message to Laki Tenangan. Some things Laki Neho does of his own will and power; for example, if a branch were likely to fall on a Kayan boat he would prevent it, for Laki Tenangan long ago taught him how to do such things.
Then they spend another night in the hut hoping for significant dreams. After a favourable dream comes the most important stage of the business, the observation of the hawks. They look for LAKI NEHO from the door of their hut about nine o'clock in the morning.
So for five days the expedition toiled up the Silat, and during these days Juman, Laki Lah, and most of the Kayans turned back, their confidence being shaken by the unfamiliar aspect of the country, by the neighbourhood of the hitherto hostile Madangs, and by the bad dream of one of their chiefs and the illness of another.
A man suffering from chronic disease may himself pray to Laki Tenangan. He lights a fire and kills a fowl, and perhaps a pig also, and calls upon Laki Neho to be his witness and messenger.
The people crowd round deeply interested, while the old man interprets the movements of the beetles as forecasting good or ill luck with the crops of the following season, and invokes the good-will of Laki Ivong. Laki Ivong is asked to bring the soul of the PADI to their homes.
He is conceived as beneficent and, as his title LAKI implies, as a fatherly god who protects mankind. He is not a strictly tribal god, for the Kayan admits his identity with PA SILONG, and with BALI PENYLONG, the supreme gods of the Klemantans and Kenyahs respectively. In this, we think, the Kayan religion shows a catholicity which gives it a claim to rank very high among all religious systems.
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