Madame Pfeiffer--Chinese Village--Chinese Maidens--Sirambau--Ascent of the Mountain--Difficult Climbing--Forests of Fruit Trees--Scenery--Sirambau Village--Houses--The “Look-out”--Scenery--Head-houses--Orang Kaya Mita--His modest Request--Sir James Brooke’s Cottage--Natural Bath-house--Chinese Gold Workings--Tapang Trees--Social Life of the Land Dayaks--Ceremonies at a Birth--Courtship--Betrothment--Marriage--Burial--Graves--The Sexton--Funeral Feast--Children--Female Chastity--Divorces--Cause of Separations--Anecdote 152 CHAPTER VI. SOCIAL LIFE OF THE LAND DAYAKS--_Continued_. Religion--Belief in Supreme Being--Traces of Hinduism--Sacrifices--Pamali or Interdict--Mr. Chalmers’s Account of the Dayak Religion--A Future State--Spirits by Nature--Ghosts of Departed Men--Transformations--Catching the Soul--Conversion of the Priest to Christianity--Story--Other Ghosts--Custom of Pamali, or Taboo--Sacrifices--Things and Actions Interdicted--Not to Eat Horned Animals--Reasons for not Eating Venison--Of Snakes--The Living Principle--Causes of Sickness--Spirits Blinding the Eyes of Men--Incantations to Propitiate or Foil the Spirits of Evil--Catching the Soul--Feasts and Incantations connected with Farming Operations--The Blessing of the Seed--The Feast of First Fruits--Securing the Soul of the Rice--Exciting Night Scene--The Harvest Home--Singular Ceremony--Head Feasts--Offering the Drinking Cup--Minor Ceremonies--Images--Dreams--Love--Journeys of the Soul--Warnings in Sleep--Magic Stones--Anecdote--Ordeals--Omens--Birds of Omen--Method of Consulting them--Beneficial Effects of the Head Feasts--Languages of the Land Dayaks--Deer--The Sibuyaus free from Prejudice--Story of the Cobra de Capella--Names--Change of Name--Prohibited Degrees of Affinity--Heights--Medical Knowledge--Priests and Priestesses--Origin of the latter--Their Practices--Manufactures--Agriculture--Story of the Origin of Rice--The Pleiades 168 CHAPTER VII. THE SAMARAHAN RIVER AND THE CAVES OF SIRIH.