At the other side of the world, as it were, in Borneo, there is given similar preeminence, as among the Zuñis, to the blood as the life, to the liver as a representative of blood, and to the heart as the epitome of the life. “The principal sacrifice of the Sakarang Dayaks,” says Mr. St. John, “is killing a pig and examining its _heart_, which is supposed to foretell events with the utmost certainty.” This custom seems to have grown out of the idea that the heart of any God devoted organism, as the embodiment of its life is closely linked with the Author of all life; who is the Disposer of all events. A human heart is naturally deemed preferable to a pig’s; but the latter is the common substitute for the former. Yet, “not many years ago,” one of the Sakarang chiefs put to death a lad “of his own race,” remarking, as he did so: “It has been our custom heretofore to examine the heart of a pig, but now we will examine a human one.”[695] The Kayans, again, examine “the _heart_ and _liver_,” as preliminary to covenant-making.[696] Among the Dayaks, the blood of a fowl sacrificed by one who is supposed to be in favor with the gods, has peculiar potency when sprinkled upon “the lintels of the doors.”[697] And a house will be deserted by its Dayak inhabitants, “if a drop of blood be seen sprinkled on the floor, unless they can prove whence it came.”[698] An incidental connection of this recognition of the blood as the life, with the primitive rite of blood covenanting, is seen in one form of the marriage rite among the Dayaks.[699]--In the rite of blood-covenanting itself, as consummated between Mr. St. John and Siñgauding, a cigarette stained with the blood of the covenanting parties was smoked by them mutually (See page 51, _supra_). In the marriage covenant, a cigar and betel leaf prepared with the areca nut are put first into the mouth of the bride by the bridegroom, and then into the mouth of the bridegroom by the bride; while two fowls are waved over their heads by a priest, and then killed; their blood being “caught in two cups” for examination, instead of for drinking.[700]