Introductory notes: Deities and spirits called to offerings

Abstract

This chapter presents the introductory notes on altars or offering stands that used to be temporarily erected under the open sky, with roofed altars and offering houses, and with 'spirit ladders' and 'inverted post'. A categorical distinction between good and evil spirits was apparently an established concept among the Bahau of Central Borneo. Spirits of another kind that may seem to have been regarded as categorically evil were the spirits of persons who had died a bad death. In other words, human souls and free spirits were both conceived of as being essentially immaterial and normally invisible; occasionally, however, they would assume human or animal forms. The human soul was often imagined as taking bird form when leaving the body. The first soul was sometimes said to be like the whole human being, the latter like a smoke soon vanishing.Keywords: animal forms; Central Borneo; evil spirits; good spirits; human soul; inverted post; offering houses