This is
no longer done, but a wooden figure of a man is put up at the head
and another of a woman at the foot of the coffin of a chief as it
lies in state before the funeral. And a small wooden figure of a man
is usually fixed on the top of the tomb, and it is said that this
is to row the canoe for the chief. A live fowl is usually tied to
this figure, and although it is said to be put there merely to eat
the maggots, we think there can be no doubt that we see here going
on the process of substitution of fowl for slave.
In building a new house it is customary among almost all these tribes
to put a fowl into the hole dug to receive the first of the piles
that are to support the house, and to allow the end of the pile to
fall upon the fowl so as to kill it. The Kenyahs admit that formerly
a girl was usually killed in this way, and there is reason to believe
that in all cases a human victim was formerly the rule, and that the
fowl is a substitute merely.[146]
In the following cases, too, we see the idea of substitution of fowls
or pigs for men.
It is customary with the Malanaus of Niah to kill buffalo, and also
to kill fowls, and put them together with eggs on poles in the caves
in which the swifts build the edible nests, in order to secure a good
crop of nests.
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