Note 40 — Chapter V · Magic Rites connected with the Several Departments of Nature

The Toucan or small Hornbill (Ĕnggang) was metamorphosed from a man who, in conjunction with a companion, broke into the house of an old man living by himself in the jungle, and slew him for the sake of his wealth. When life was extinct they threw a sheet over the body, and proceeded to ransack the house, throwing the loot into a second sheet close to the corpse. Day was about to dawn, when a false alarm induced them to make a hurried departure, so that they picked up the sheet with their loot and made off with it, carrying it slung hastily upon a pole between them. As they proceeded on their way day commenced gradually to dawn, and the man behind noticing something unexpected about the bundle, and divining the cause, called out to his companion “Orang!” (pr. o rang) “The man!” His companion, misunderstanding his exclamation, thought he meant that they were pursued by “a man,” and only went all the faster, until, on hearing his comrade repeat the cry a second and a third time, he turned round, and there saw the feet of the man he had murdered protruding from the sheet, a sight which startled him to such a degree that he turned into a bird upon the spot, and flew away into a tree, repeating as he went the fatal cry of “O’Rang! ’Rang!” which had caused the transformation. And to this day, whenever the Malay hears among the tree-tops the cry of “’Rang! ’rang!” he knows that he is listening to the cry of the murderer.40