(M216) The Kayans of Borneo think that when the human soul departs from the body at death it may take the form of an animal or bird. For example, if a deer were seen browsing near a man’s grave, his relations would probably conclude that his soul had assumed the shape of a deer, and the whole family would abstain from eating venison lest they should annoy the deceased.(883) Most of the Kalamantans, another tribe of Borneo, will kill and eat deer freely, but there are exceptions to the rule. “Thus Damong, the chief of a Malanau household, together with all his people, will not kill or eat the deer _Cervulus muntjac_, alleging that an ancestor had become a deer of this kind, and that, since they cannot distinguish this incarnation of his ancestor from other deer, they must abstain from killing all deer of this species. We know of one instance in which one of these people refused to use again his cooking-pot which a Malay had borrowed and used for cooking the flesh of this deer. This superstition is still rigidly adhered to, although these people have been converted to Islam of recent years.... The people of Miri, who also are Mohammedan Malanaus, claim to be related to the large deer (_Cervus equinus_) and some of them to the muntjac deer also. Now these people live in a country in which deer of all kinds abound, and they always make a clearing in the jungle around a tomb. On such a clearing grass grows up rapidly, and so the spot becomes attractive to deer as a grazing ground; and it seems not improbable that it is through frequently seeing deer about the tombs that the people have come to entertain the belief that their dead relatives become deer or that they are in some other way closely related to the deer. The Bakongs, another group of Malanaus, hold a similar belief with regard to the bear-cat (_Artictis_) and the various species of _Paradoxurus_, and in this case the origin of the belief is admitted by them to be the fact that on going to their graveyards they often see one of these beasts coming out of a tomb. These tombs are roughly constructed wooden coffins raised a few feet only from the ground, and it is probable that these carnivores make their way into them in the first place to devour the corpse, and that they then make use of them as lairs.”(884) Among the Sea Dyaks, also of Borneo, the idea of metempsychosis is not unknown. One of them used to treat a snake with the greatest kindness, because he said it had been revealed to him in a dream that the spirit of his grandfather dwelt in that snake.(885)