The Sea Dayak MANANG is usually covered with skin disease
(tinea) and shirks all hard work with the other members of the village.
A peculiar and infrequent variety of Sea Dayak MANANG are the MANANG
BALI. They are men who adopt and continuously wear woman's dress
and behave in all ways like women, except that they avoid as far as
possible taking any part in the domestic labour. They claim to have
been told in dreams to adopt this mode of life; they are employed
for the same purpose as the more ordinary MANANGS, and they practise
similar methods.
Among the IBANS certain persons get a bad reputation for working harm
by magic. They are said to be cunning in sorcery (TAU TEPANG), and
these persons may properly be said to be sorcerers or witches. They are
believed to work harm in many ill-defined ways, especially to health;
but their procedures are not generally known; they probably include
poisoning, but, like the practices of our European witches in recent
times, they probably have but little existence outside the timorous
imaginations of the people. Such persons are disliked and shunned,
though not killed as they would be among Kayans or Kenyahs. They are
not professional sorcerers, I.E. their help is not called in by other
persons who wish to work evil on their enemies, for others do not dare
to do this.
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