These Interesting Objects Are Carved Representations Of A Good Antoh, Or Of Man, Bird, Or Animal Which Good Antohs Have Entered, And Which, Therefore, Are Believed To Protect Their Owners.

When the carving has been finished the blian invokes a beneficent antoh to take it in possession, by dancing and singing one or two nights and by smearing blood on it from the sacrifice of a fowl, pig, or a water-buffalo - formerly often taken from a slave.

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 larger ones, which appear as crude statues in many kampongs of Southern Borneo, more rarely on the Mahakam, are supposed to be attendants on the souls of the dead and were briefly described in Chapter XII.

The smaller kapatongs are used for the protection of the living and all their earthly belongings or pursuits. 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. The monkey, itself very predatory on the rice fields, is converted into an efficient watchman in the form of its image, which is considered an excellent guardian of boiled rice that may be kept over from one meal to the next.

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