ry priest there.

Mr. Grant was Government resident at Lundu, and the ruler and missionary
devoted themselves to the improvement of the people. In 1855, when we
returned to our home after our first visit to England, we received a
delightful visit from Mr. Gomes and twelve Dyaks, whom he brought to be
baptized at St. Thomas's Church. Callon's son Langi, and half a dozen
other boys, lived with Mr. Gomes, and ran after him all day--nice little
fellows, who fraternized with our boys at the school-house. There were
also five men, the chief of whom was Bulan (Moon), one of the manangs,
or witch-doctors, of the tribe. These manangs, being as it were the
priests of Dyak superstitions, and getting their living by pretended
cures, interpretations of omens and the voices of birds, were of course
the natural enemies of truth and enlightenment. Bulan, however, had
tried to be an honest manang, and finding it impossible had turned with
all his heart to Christianity. His brother Bugai, also a Christian, was
a very intelligent person, and became catechist at Lundu.

There was also a very rich old man, Simoulin by name, who was baptized
at this time. His wife had opposed his conversion with all her might;
indeed, she declared she would leave him and carry half the property
with her. Simoulin said quietly, "If she will she must: she is only a
woman, and her judgment in the matter is not likely to be good."
Christianity had strong opponents in the women of all the Dyak tribes.
They held important parts in all the feasts, incantations, and
superstitions, which could not be called religion, but were based on the
dread of evil spirits and a desire to propitiate them. The women
encouraged head-taking by preferring to marry the man who had some of
those ghastly tokens of his prowess. When Sir James Brooke forbad
head-taking among the tribes in his dominions, it was the women who
would row their lovers out of the rivers in their boats, and set them
down on the sea-coast to find the head of a stranger. When heads were
brought in, it was the women who took possession of them, decked them
with flowers, put food into their mouths, sang to them, mocked them, and
instituted feasts in honour of the slayers. The young Dyak woman works
hard; she helps in all the labours of sowing, planting out, weeding, and
reaping the paddy. She beats out the rice in a wooden trough, with a
long pole, or pestle. She grows the cotton for clothing, dyes and weaves
it. S