(M156) Among the Kayans of the Mahakam river in Central Borneo the sowing of the rice is immediately preceded by a performance of masked men, which is intended to attract the soul or rather souls of the rice and so to make sure that the harvest will be a good one. The performers represent spirits; for, believing that spirits are mightier than men, the Kayans imagine that they can acquire and exert superhuman power by imitating the form and actions of spirits.(586) To support their assumed character they wear grotesque masks with goggle eyes, great teeth, huge ears, and beards of white goat’s hair, while their bodies are so thickly wrapt up in shredded banana-leaves that to the spectator they present the appearance of unwieldy masses of green foliage. The leader of the band carries a long wooden hook or rather crook, the shaft of which is partly whittled into loose fluttering shavings. These disguises they don at a little distance from the village, then dropping down the river in boats they land and march in procession to an open space among the houses, where the people, dressed out in all their finery, are waiting to witness the performance. Here the maskers range themselves in a circle and dance for some time under the burning rays of the midday sun, waving their arms, shaking and turning their heads, and executing a variety of steps to the sound of a gong, which is beaten according to a rigidly prescribed rhythm. After the dance they form a line, one behind the other, to fetch the vagrant soul of the rice from far countries. At the head of the procession marches the leader holding high his crook and behind him follow all the other masked men in their leafy costume, each holding his fellow by the hand. As he strides along, the leader makes a motion with his crook as if he were hooking something and drawing it to himself, and the gesture is imitated by all his followers. What he is thus catching are the souls of the rice, which sometimes wander far away, and by drawing them home to the village he is believed to ensure that the seed of the rice which is about to be sown will produce a plentiful harvest. As the spirits are thought not to possess the power of speech, the actors who personate them may not utter a word, else they would run the risk of falling down dead. The great field of the chief is sown by representatives of all the families, both free and slaves, on the day after the masquerade. On the same day the free families sacrifice on their fields and begin their sowing on one or other of the following days. Every family sets up in its field a sacrificial stage or altar, with which the sowers must remain in connexion during the time of sowing. Therefore no stranger may pass between them and the stage; indeed the Kayans are not allowed to have anything to do with strangers in the fields; above all they may not speak with them. If such a thing should accidentally happen, the sowing must cease for that day. At the sowing