FOLK MEDICINE IN BORNEO. DIAGNOSIS AND CURE
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the danger of illness; and both have techniques for diagnosing and for setting things right when they go wrong. For the Melanau the most important way of avoiding danger is to follow the adet; but if he fails to do so and gets into trouble, then there are experts who will guide and help him. If, in spite of the guidance of the adet and commonsense, combined warnings from omens and dreams, he does get into trouble and does not immediately die, then he can resort to mediators who are expert in diagnosing or guessing the cause of the trouble, and in prescribing the correct expiation and remedy for restoring the balance of nature and right relations among the different orders of being. On the whole the Melanau, unlike the western doctor, does not look for the cause of an upset in the economy of the body itself, though their first course of action may be to do just that. A man who feels unwell probably goes in the first place to a herbalist who can supply medicines that will, he says, cool or heat the body. He may attribute the illness to what we would call natural causes, and point out that the patient has eaten unwisely, or he may tell an anaemic woman after childbirth that she has lost her blood to the child and that the birth has therefore left her subject to 'coldness'. On the other hand, he may attribute the trouble to 'wind' which is always present in the air, and which through human folly or some accident weakens the proper relationship between the body, the soul, the emotions, and life.
A visit to the herbal doctor is only the first step, and if he cures the condition, well and good. The most general cause of misfortune and illness is thought to be disrespect or disregard of proper behaviour in one or other of its many forms. To mock the natural order in any way, as, for example, by laughing at or by teasing animals, puts everybody in grave danger; for the angered spirits who act as guardians of order will certainly send down thunder, lightning, and hail and maybe even turn a whole village into stone. Or again, a man who unnecessarily spears a frog while his wife is pregnant puts his unborn child in danger of being born with deformed features and no control over its orifices. But punishment for disrespect in the form of misfortune or illness is more usually linked to a particular act of disrespect to another being rather than to the order of things as a whole. A man who goes into the forest and puts his foot into a hole may well have disturbed the home of a spirit; and he will not be surprised if some days later he develops sores on his leg. Or if he cuts down a tree without offering an apology to the spirit who may dwell in it, or if he ignores