ABSTRACT

The fear of thunder and lightning, punishment for sins committed and tabus broken and only to be avoided by a blood sacrifice, has a very prominent place in Negrito religious ideas and in their daily life, and has been noted both by Vaughan Stevens and Skeat. Among the Jehai certain actions are tabu, being thought to cause thunderstorms which may involve the death by lightning, or drowning, of others as well as the transgressors. The Kensieu, according to Schebesta, say that thunder is caused by Capon, the grandson of Pedn, by beating and knocking on the galogn while all the grandchildren of Pedn, who are with him in heaven, play like this on the galogn. Thunder is Karei’s voice, while the lightning is a rope hurled by him, by the light of which he sees everything. Schebesta, after discussing the Bateg thunder beliefs, passes to the beliefs of the Negrito-Sakai and then to those of the Sakai proper.