I have mentioned the omens necessary before planting the seed. In a similar manner, before beginning to build a house, or starting on a war expedition, or undertaking any new line of action, certain omens are required, if good fortune is to attend them and the Fates be propitious. The worst of all omens is to find anywhere on the farm the dead body of any animal included in the omen list. It infuses a deadly poison into the whole crop. When such a terrible thing happens, the omen is tested by killing a pig, and divining from the appearance of its liver directly after death. If the liver be pronounced to be of good omen, then all is well, but if not, then all the paddy grown on that ground must be sold or given away. Other people may eat it, for the omen only affects those who own the crop. It is not only to the cry of birds that the Dyaks pay heed. There are certain animals--the deer, the armadillo, the lizard, the bat, the python, even the rat, as well as certain insects--which all may give omens under special circumstances. But these other creatures are subordinate to the birds, from which alone augury is sought at the beginning of any important undertaking. The Dyak pays heed to these omen creatures, not only in his farming, but in all his journeyings, and in any kind of work he may be engaged in. If he be going to visit a friend, the cry of a bird of ill omen will send him back. If he be engaged in carrying beams from the jungle to his house, and hear a _Kutok_, or a _Bejampong_ or an _Embuas_, he will at once throw down the piece of timber. So great is the Dyak belief in omens, that a man will sometimes abandon a nearly-finished boat simply because a bird of ill omen flies across its bows. The labour of weeks will thus be wasted. I have myself seen wooden beams and posts left half finished in the jungle, and have been told that some omen bird was heard while the man was at work on them, and so they had to be abandoned. There are many omens which make a house unfit for habitation. If a _Katupong_ fly into it, or a _Beragai_ over the house, or an armadillo crawls up into it, the Dyaks leave the house and build another for them to live in. Sometimes, however, they sacrifice a pig, and examine the liver, and only abandon the house if the liver is considered by experts to be of bad omen. DREAMS The Dyaks place implicit confidence in dreams. Their theory is that during sleep the soul can hear, see and understand, and so what is dreamt is what really takes place. When anyone dreams of a distant land, they believe that his soul has paid a flying visit to that land.