There are many different ceremonies resorted to in cases of illness, but the following is what is common to all _manang_ performances. In the public hall of the Dyak house a long-handled spear is fixed blade upwards, with a few leaves tied round it, and at its foot are placed the medicine-boxes of all the witch-doctors who take part in the ceremony. This is called the _Pagar Api_ (“fence of fire”). Why it is called by this curious name is not clear. The _manangs_ all squat on the floor, and the leader begins a long monotonous drawl, the rest either singing in concert or joining in the choruses or singing antiphonally with him. After a tiresome period of this dull drawling, they stand up and march with slow and solemn step in single file round the _Pagar Api_. The monotonous chant sometimes slackens, sometimes quickens, as they march round and round the whole night through, with only one interval for food in the middle of the night. The patient simply lies on his mat and listens. Most of what is chanted is unintelligible, and consists of meaningless sounds, it being supposed that what is not understood by man is intelligible to the spirits. But some parts of it, though expressed in very prolix and ornate language, can be understood by the careful listener. The witch-doctors call upon the sickness to be off to the ends of the earth, and return to the unseen regions from whence it came. They invoke the aid of spirits and of ancient worthies and unworthies down to their own immediate ancestors, and spin the invocation out to a sufficient length to last till early morning. Then comes the climax to which all this has been leading—the truant soul has to be caught and brought back again to the body of the sick man. If the patient be in a dangerous state they pretend his soul has escaped far away. Perhaps they give out that it has escaped to the river, and they will wave about a garment or a piece of woven cloth to imitate the action of throwing a casting net to enclose it as a fish is caught. Or else they say that it has escaped into the jungle, and they will rush out of the house to secure it there. Or perhaps they say that it has been carried over the sea to unknown lands, and they all sit down and imitate the action of paddling a boat to follow it. But this is only done in special cases, and I have often been told by Dyaks who have been present at a particular _manang_ performance: “The man was very ill indeed. His _samengat_ (soul) had gone so far away that the _manangs_ had great difficulty in finding it. They paddled over the sea, they threw a net into the water, and did many other things before they ultimately succeeded in catching it.”