ven for this cruel act was that the child
was the cause of the mother's death, and that there was no one to nurse
and care for it. No woman would dare to nurse such an orphan, lest it
should bring misfortune upon her own children. Therefore the poor child
was often placed alive in the coffin with the dead mother, and both
were buried together. That was the old cruel Dyak custom, but I am glad
to say it is a long time since it has been carried out. I have myself
known many cases among the Dyaks where the mother has died, and the
orphan has been adopted and brought up by some friend or relative.

When a child is born a fowl is waved over it as a kind of offering to
the gods and spirits. This fowl is then killed, cooked, and eaten by the
parents, and any friends that may be present.

During the first three days the child receives its bath in a wooden
vessel in the house, but on the fourth day it is taken to the river.
Some curious ceremonies attend its first bath in the river. An old man
of some standing, who has been successful in his undertakings, is asked
to bathe the child. He wades into the river holding the child in his
arms. A fowl is killed on the bank, a wing is cut off, and if the child
be a boy this wing is stuck upon a spear, and if a girl it is fixed to
the slip of wood used to pass between the threads in weaving, and this
is fixed on the bank, and the blood allowed to drop into the stream, as
an offering to propitiate the spirits supposed to inhabit the waters,
and to insure that, at any rate, no accident by water shall happen to
the child. The remainder of the fowl is taken back to the house and
cooked and eaten.

At some period after the child's birth--it may be within a few weeks or
it may be deferred for years--a ceremony is gone through in which the
gods and spirits are invoked to grant the child health and wealth and
success in all his undertakings. This ceremony is generally postponed
for some years if the parents are poor, in order to enable them to save
a little to pay for the entertainment of their friends and relations on
the occasion. Where the parents are better off, the ceremony is held a
few weeks after the birth of the child. Several witch doctors are asked
to take part in this performance. A portion of the long open hall of the
Dyak house is screened off by large hand-woven Dyak sheets, and within
these the mother sits with the child in her arms. The witch doctors walk
round and round singi