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Updated: June 18, 2025
Although the Kenyahs thus look to Bali Flaki to guide them and help them in many ways, and express gratitude towards him, we do not think that they conceive of him as a single great spirit, as some of the other tribes tend to do; they rather look upon the hawks as messengers and intermediators between themselves and Bali Penyalong, to which a certain undefined amount of power is delegated.
Then one of the head men from a neighbouring village took a lighted piece of wood and singed a few of the bristles of the pig, giving it a poke with his hand at the same time, as if to attract its attention, and calling in a loud voice to the supreme being, "Bali Penyalong."
In such a case the man who has killed the fowl will carry its carcase to the door of the house, and there he will wave towards the heavens a frayed stick moistened with its blood, while he announces the facts of the ceremony to Bali Penyalong. So that here again the fowl seems to play the part of a messenger.
It is not clear that he is the spirit of the river itself; for floods and the various changes of the river do not seem to be attributed to him. BALI PENYALONG, like Laki Tenangen, has a wife BUNGAN. She is not so distinctly the special deity of the women folk as is DOH TENANGAN among the Kayans.
It is probably true that Bali Penyalong is never addressed without the slaughter of one or more pigs, and also that no domestic pig is ever slaughtered without being charged beforehand with some message or prayer to Bali Penyalong, which its spirit may carry up to him.
The omens thus obtained are held to be the answer vouchsafed by Bali Penyalong to the prayers which have been carried to him by the spirit of the pig. If the answer obtained in this way from one pig is unsatisfactory, they will often kill a second, and on important occasions even a third or fourth, in order to obtain a favourable answer.
We have seen that, in the rites preparatory to an important and dangerous expedition, the chief was washed with pig's blood and water, and that young pigs were slain before the altar-post of Bali Penyalong, and their blood sprinkled on the post and afterwards upon all or most of the men of the household.
Nevertheless, he is the chief or ruler over all the other omen birds, who are merely his messengers. He thus seems to have come to occupy almost the supreme position accorded to Bali Penyalong by the Kenyahs.
The crocodile seems to be regarded as a god by the Punans they speak of it as Bali Penyalong. Punans certainly ascribe significance to the behaviour of a few animals other than those observed by the other peoples.
These are two images of the one Supreme Being, Bali Penyalong, and they seem to be at the same time the altars of the god. A tall young tree, stripped of all but its topmost twigs, stands beside one of them, and is supposed to reach to heaven or, at least, by its greater proximity to the regions above, to facilitate intercourse.
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