Note 59 — Chapter I · TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS

Permantong is the term used by the Kayan of the Baram District; among the Kayan in the valley of the Kapuas River, Dutch Borneo, the word is pantang, the regular Malay equivalent of tabu. Both these forms are possibly derived from the Malay hantu, a word meaning demon or evil spirit, with the prefix per and the affix an. The Malay word in full would thus be per-hantu-an, meaning “possessed by spirits” or “bewitched.” Lali is probably a pure Kayan word and means both “prohibited” and “sacred” (Furness, op. cit., p. 160; A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo, Leiden, 1904-1907, i, 109). According to Messrs. Hose and McDougall malan and parit are the proper Kayan words for taboo, though lali and tulah are used as their lingua franca equivalents. Malan applies to acts involving risks to the entire community, parit to those involving risk to the individual committing the forbidden act (Pagan Tribes of Borneo, i, 14 n.¹).