Bringing This Rubber From Up Country Had Occupied Eighteen Days, And It Was The Result Of Ten Men's Work For Two Or Three Months.

Twice before during the last two years rubber had been brought here in the same manner.

First they considered it essential to make a feast for the badak (the Malay name for rhinoceros). When going out on their expedition they had promised to make a badak effigy if they found much rubber. As the man on its back represented the owner, there was the risk that one of the souls of the latter might enter his image, resulting in illness for the owner, to avoid which a pig would have to be killed and various ceremonies performed.

The festival was scheduled to take place in three days, but it had to be postponed one day on account of difficulties in procuring the pig. I presented them with three tins of rice and another half full of sugar, which they wanted to mix with water to serve as drink because there was no rice brandy. It required some exertion to bring the heavy image from the float up to the open space in front of the house where the rubber gatherers lived, but this had been done a day or two before the feast, the statue in the meantime having been covered with white cotton cloth. Several metres of the same material had also been raised on poles to form a half enclosure around the main object.

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