Note 47.2 — THE SCOPE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Rev. J. Perham, “Petara, or Sea Dyak Gods,” Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. 8, December 1881, p. 150; H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo (London, 1896), i. 180. Petara is the general Dyak name for deity. The common idea is that there are many petaras, indeed that every man has his own. The word is said to be derived from Sanscrit and to be etymologically identical with Avatar, the Dyaks regularly substituting p or b for v. See Rev. J. Perham, op. cit. pp. 133 sqq.; H. Ling Roth’s Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, i. 168 sqq.