e Ringgong had to set them up, until in
their great wisdom they realized the necessity of props and stays, so
they fashioned the strong vines and creepers. Then these two creators
saw what pleasant places the boughs and branches of these trees would
make for other beings; whereupon they created birds and all flying
animals, like bats and flying squirrels. Then for a long while they
consulted together, and, finally, decided that they would make a man who
should walk about on the earth; at first, they made him of clay, but
when he was dried he could neither speak nor move, which provoked them,
and they ran at him angrily; so frightened was he that he fell backward
and broke all to pieces. The next man that they made was of hard wood,
but he, also, was utterly stupid, and absolutely good for nothing. Then
the two birds searched carefully for a good material, and eventually
selected the wood of a tree known as the _Kumpong_, which has a strong
fibre and exudes a quantity of deep red sap, whenever it is cut. Out of
this tree they fashioned a man and a woman, and were so well pleased
with this achievement that they rested for a long while and admired
their handiwork. Then they decided to continue creating more men; they
returned to the Kumpong tree, but they had entirely forgotten their
original pattern, and how they had executed it, and they were therefore
able to make only very inferior creatures, which became the ancestors of
the _Maias_ (the Orang Utan) and monkeys.

The man and the woman were very helpless and hardly knew how to obtain
the simplest necessities of life, so the Iri and the Ringgong devised
the _Ubi_--a wild sweetpotato--the wild Tapioca, the Kaladi, or, as we
know it, the Kaladium, and other edible roots, whereof the man and woman
soon learned to eat; fire, however, was unknown to these first people
and they had to eat all of their food raw.

Contemporaneously with the Maias and the monkeys many other animals came
into being, among them the dog. For a long time all living things were
friendly to one another and lived in the land of Kaburau, which lies
near a branch of the great Kapuas river, and is, even to this day,
considered by the Dayaks as the garden-spot of the world. The dog,
however, because he cleaned himself with his tongue, soon came to be
despised by all other animals, and although a bully he was yet
subservient to man. Then the deer and many of the other animals taunted
the dog, saying that h