After the
pros and cons have been fully discussed, the chief names the day for
the beginning of the clearing operations.
At the beginning of the sowing the house is again subject to MALAN for
one day. During the growth of the PADI various charms and superstitious
practices are brought into use to promote its growth and health,
and to keep the pests from it. The PADI charms are a miscellaneous
collection or bundle of small articles, such as curious pebbles and
bits of wood, pigs' tusks of unusual size or shape, beads, feathers,
crystals of quartz. Kayans as a rule object to pebbles and stones
as charms. Such charms are generally acquired in the first instance
through indications afforded by dreams, and are handed down from
mother to daughter. Such charms contained in a basket are usually
kept in a PADI barn, from which they are taken to the field by the
woman and waved over it, usually with a live fowl in the hand, while
she addresses the PADI seed in some such terms as the following:
"May you have a good stem and a good top, let all parts of you grow
in harmony, etc. etc." Then she rapidly repeats a long customary
formula of exhortation to the pests, saying, "O rats, run away down
river, don't trouble us; O sparrows and noxious insects, go feed on
the PADI of the people down river.
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