the fruit; then, when
the fire is burnt out, the fruit may be taken with impunity. In the
ceremony of naming a child, the sacrificial pig is touched with a fire
brand before it is harangued by the Dayong, or medicine man; and to
determine whether or not the chosen name be propitious, the strip of
rattan which has been used on the fire-saw to obtain the sacred fire, is
bent into a loop until its ends just meet; it is then set on fire in the
middle and allowed to burn through. If the two pieces thus made are of
uneven length the name is good; if they are both the same length another
name must be selected. The ashes from this burning are made into a paste
and smeared on the child's forehead just before it is deluged with a
bowl of cold water, and the name is made public for the first time. It
is strange what a similarity exists in different races relative to this
ceremony of giving a name. Why water should be used to confirm the rite,
they cannot themselves explain, except by saying that it is a custom
handed down to them from their grandfathers and their
great-great-grandfathers. It can hardly have suggested itself to the
minds of the Borneans as an element of purification and cleansing; to
their mind water does not possess these properties. Water is good to
drink when you are thirsty, and refreshing to bathe in when you are
hot, that is all; dirt has no horrors to the Bornean mind, and after a
plunge in the river has refreshed the body, the Kayan, Dayak, Kenyah,
Sibop, or whatever the tribe, will put on the same dirty waist-cloth or
cotton jacket that has never known soap, and has seldom if ever been
nearer the water than when on the back of its owner. Perhaps it is that
water is symbolic of life and motion; the river is always moving, it
murmurs and talks to itself, a draft of its coolness and a plunge into
its embrace adds new life to man; why should it not be the giver of
life? In almost all the native languages of Borneo the word for water
and river is the same; even when water is brought up into the house it
is still the river, and when they drink, they drink the river; when they
boil their rice they boil in the river, and when they name their
children they pour the river over them. Many subtribes or households
take their name from the river on which they live, as, for instance, the
Long Patas who live, or used to live, at the mouth of the Pata river
(Long meaning junction of one river with another), the Long Kiputs,