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bar the door of the house against them if they are unsuccessful." "I believe the Malays are generally Mohammedans. What is the religion of the Dyaks?" inquired Louis. "It has been said by some travellers that they have no religion of any kind; but I don't think this is quite true, though it is not far from it," replied Mr. Eng. "Religion is a very indefinite idea among the Dyaks, and they are chary in speaking of what there is of it. Some who have been among them maintain that they believe in a Supreme Being, who has a great many different names among the various tribes. They have almost as many inferior deities as the Hindus. "They are very superstitious; and there are all sorts of omens, among which there is a particular bird which has obtained the name of the omen bird. His cry on the right of, or behind, a person engaged in any enterprise is an unlucky sign, and he abandons his object; while the cry heard on the left is a favorable omen, and the individual is duly encouraged to go forward. "I had a story from a Kyan head man which had come down to him as a tradition. A great head-hunting expedition, consisting of a thousand warriors, had set out many years ago. It had not gone far when a little muntjac, which you know is a kind of deer, ran across the path of the warriors. This was a bad omen; and they gave up the enterprise, and returned to their villages. "I know of a couple just married who separated because they heard a deer-cry within three days after their union, which was a sign that one of them would die within a year. Even little insects intimidate doughty warriors, or assure them that they are far from danger, by their appearance or their cry." "There is not a little of similar superstition in enlightened nations, though there is vastly less of it than formerly," added Louis. "I have heard my grandfather say that the ticking of a death-watch used to scare him so that he could not sleep when he was a boy," said Morris. "What is a death-watch?" asked Scott. "It is a kind of beetle that conceals itself in the walls of old houses," replied Louis. "The noise it makes is really the call of the bug for his mate, and is the cry of love instead of death, as many ignorant people believe. The breaking of a looking-glass is also a sign of death in the family." "Mrs. Blossom wouldn't break a looking-glass for a fortune," added Felix. "She says she broke one nine years before her husband died, and
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