(M101) There they lived happily, and in time Siu’s wife bore him a son whom they named Seragunting. One day when the boy had grown wonderfully tall and strong for his years and was playing with his fellows, a man brought some birds which he had caught in a trap. Forgetting the promise he had made to his wife, Siu asked the man to shew him the birds, and taking one of them in his hand he stroked it. His wife saw it and was sad at heart. She took the pitchers and went as though she would fetch water from the well. But she never came back. Siu and his son sought her, sorrowing, for days. At last after many adventures they came to the house of the boy’s grandfather, Singalang Burong, the Ruler of the Spirit World. There they found the lost wife and mother, and there they stayed for a time. But the heart of Siu yearned to his old home. He would fain have persuaded his wife to return with him, but she would not. So at last he and his son went back alone. But before he went he learned from his father-in-law how to plant rice, and how to revere the sacred birds and to draw omens from them. These birds were named after the sons-in-law of the Ruler of the Spirit World and were the appointed means whereby he made known his wishes to mankind. That is how the Sea Dyaks learned to plant rice and to honour the omen-birds.(369) (M102) Stories of the same kind meet us on the west coast of Africa. Thus the Tshi-speaking negroes of the Gold Coast are divided into a number of great families or clans, mostly named after animals or plants, and the members of a clan refrain from eating animals of the species whose name they bear. In short, the various animals or plants are the totems of their respective clans. Now some of the more recent of these clans possess traditions of their origin, and in such cases the founder of the family, from whom the name is derived, is always represented as having been a beast, bird, or fish, which possessed the power of assuming human shape at will. Thus, for instance, at the town of Chama there resides a family or clan who take their name from the _sarfu_ or horse-mackerel, which they may not eat because they are descended from a horse-mackerel. One day, so runs the story, a native of Chama who had lost his wife was walking sadly on the beach, when he met a beautiful young woman whom he persuaded to be his wife. She consented, but told him that her home lay in the sea, that her people were fishes, and that she herself was a fish, and she made him swear that he would never allude to her old home and kinsfolk. All went well for a time till her husband took a second wife, who quarrelled with the first wife and taunted her with being a fish. That grieved her so that she bade her husband good-bye and plunged into the sea with her youngest child in her arms. But she left her two elder children behind, and from them are descended the Horse-mackerel people of Chama. A similar story is told of another family in the town of Appam.