follows: "When my
spirit left you, I went directly down the path which leads to the great
tree-trunk, _Bintang Sikopa_, where Maligang stands; according to his
wont, he hailed me and told me to halt, which I would not do. Then
Maligang, whose arm is enormous, many times bigger than his body, began
to shake the tree, calling out 'who are you?' I replied 'I am Gamong, a
brave warrior, and you must not shake the tree while I cross.' Maligang
then said, consulting the pegs with which he records the deeds of men,
'What proof have I that you have been brave?' At this I was furious, I
drew my parang, uplifted my spear and ran amok, rushing into Maligang's
house, smashing everything and overturning the great jars of rice-toddy,
of which there is an abundance, but whereof no one ever drinks. Maligang
was frightened and bolted from the house, shouting as he fled, 'I have
not got you now, but in seven years' time you must return.' Finding that
Maligang had fled, and that there were other obstacles to prevent me
from going on, I returned to this world and its trials." The story goes
that Gamong lived seven years after this, and then succumbed body and
soul to the great Maligang; and as there is no record of his bravery, he
was probably shaken off of the tree-trunk and disappeared in the deep
pit seething with maggots.

All this veracious history I got by word of mouth from a Kayan of the
Tinjar valley.

Almost every medicine man has been down among the spirits of the dead,
and in proof of his assertions, a curiously shaped stone, or a knot of
wood, is displayed, which has been given by the spirits and is endowed
with all sorts of marvellous properties. I have in my possession a
Dayong's whole outfit of charms which I bought from his relatives after
his death; they were afraid to touch it, and for another Dayong to use
it is taboo of the worst kind. Such charms are usually buried with the
practitioner, but this old fellow evidently did not have a very large
practice, and, at his death, he was somewhat neglected. One of the
charms is a stone in which an active imagination might trace a
resemblance to the hand or foot of an animal; the sorrowing relatives
told me, with awe and bated breath, that it was given to their uncle by
a spirit on the top of a mountain, and that it was the foot of a dragon,
one of the most powerful resources of the Dayong pharmacopoeia.

[Illustration: KAYAN WOMEN.]

Companions to the stories of visits to t