Sometimes As Soon As One Year Afterward, But Usually Much Later, The Coffin Is Opened, The Bones Are Cleaned With Water And Soap And Placed In A New Box Of The Same Material Or In A Gutshi, An Earthen Jar Bought From The Chinese.

The box or jar is then deposited in a subterranean chamber made of iron-wood, called kobur by both Malays and Murungs, where in addition are left the personal effects of the deceased, - clothing, beads, and other ornaments, - and, if a man, also his sumpitan, parang, axe, etc.

This disposition of the bones is accompanied by a very elaborate feast, generally called tiwah, to the preparation of which much time is devoted.

According to a conception which is more or less general among the Dayaks, conditions surrounding the final home of the departed soul are on the whole similar to those existing here, but before the tiwah feast has been observed the soul is compelled to roam about in the jungle three or four years, or longer, until that event takes place. This elaborate ceremony is offered by surviving relatives as an equivalent for whatever was left behind by the deceased, whose ghost is regarded with apprehension.

Fortunately the Murungs were then preparing for such an observance at the Bundang kampong higher up the river where I intended to visit. They were making ready to dispose of the remains of no less a personage than the mother of our kapala. A water-buffalo would be killed and the festival would last for a week. In three years there would be another festal occasion of two weeks' duration, at which a water-buffalo would again be sacrificed, and when a second period of three years has elapsed the final celebration of three weeks' duration will be given, with the same sacrificial offering. Thus the occasions are seen to be of increasing magnitude and the expenses in this case to be on a rising scale. It was comparatively a small affair.

About a month later, when I stopped at Buntok, on the Barito, the controleur of the district told me that an unusually great tiwah feast had just been concluded in the neighbourhood. He had spent ten days there, the Dayaks having erected a house for him to stay in. More than two hundred pigs and nineteen water-buffaloes had been killed. Over three hundred bodies, or rather remains of bodies, had previously been exhumed and placed in forty boxes, for the accommodation of which a special house had been constructed. These, with contents, were burned and the remains deposited in ten receptacles made of iron-wood, those belonging to one family being put in the same container.

Some of the Dayaks were much preoccupied with preparations for the Bundang ceremony, which was postponed again and again. They encouraged me to participate in the festivities, representing it as a wonderful affair. I presented them with money to buy a sack of rice for the coming occasion, and some of them went at once to Puruk Tjahu to purchase it.

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