There are no recognised magicians among them other than
the DAYONGS, and these, as we have seen, perform the functions of the
priest and the physician rather than those OF the wizard or sorcerer.
Some of the DAYONGS make use at certain ceremonies of a rough mask
carved out OF wood, or made from the shell of a gourd. The mask is
merely an oval shell with slits for eyes and mouth, generally blackened
with age and use. It may be worn during the soul-catching ceremony,
but not during attendance on the recently deceased. This use of a
mask is not known to us among any other of the peoples (Pl. 151).
The medicine man of the Ibans is known as MANANG; the MANANGS are
more numerous than the DAYONGS of the Kayans; they are more strictly
professional in the sense that they do but little other work, depending
chiefly on what they can earn by their treatment of disease and by
other ways of practising upon the superstitions of their fellows. They
generally work in groups of three or four, or more in cases of serious
illness, and, with the imitativeness and disregard for tradition
characteristic of the IBAN, they have developed a great variety of
procedures,[151] into most of which the element of deliberate fraud
enters to a much greater extent than into the practice of the Kayan
DAYONGS.
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