There
are two uses for Nampok, one
in which the Dyaks seek to be made brave, and the other in order to discover a
cure for ailments, and this latter is practised only when the person who is
suffering is beyond all human aid. The idea is religious, the person practising
it betaking himself to some solitary place on mountains, hills, rivers or even
in a cemetery or wherever there is any probability of meeting with the spirits,
and before leaving the spirits must be approached with an ample offering. Some
unfortunates have been known to have visited a dozen places and yet never had
the chance of meeting a single antu or spirit. The undertaking is said to be dangerous and
to require considerable pluck and self control; the spirit may either appear in
person or else in visions and may take on themselves the forms of animals or
reptiles in hideous shapes in order to frighten one.
Should
the person give way to fright and run away he suffers death, but if he can
control himself he obtains his desire and the spirits finally appear before him
in human form bestowing kindly and caressing looks on him.
The
offering with which the spirits are approached must needs be stolen from other
people and none is allowed to know when a person goes nampok.
A
few years ago an old man went nampok in a cemetery. The first
night he was unvisited by the spirits but on his second visit the koklir—a
ferocious female spirit—appeared and he ran for his life. This man lived for
many years after that though the nampok did him no good. It seems difficult to
understand how a Dyak can possibly escape harm when going nampok,
lying exposed as he does to the elements on the bare ground amongst rocks and
stones.
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