Iban Whetstone Feast

This summary condenses twenty printed pages from the Sarawak Museum Journal July-December 1962 written by Benedict Sandin. My sincere apologies if things were left out or written in error.

Probably one of the most unusual of Iban gawai rights is the whetstone feast. A whetstone is used for sharpening knives and farming tools.

Why one would have celebration in honor of this piece of stone is bizarre indeed but Benedict Sandin says it is one of the most important of feasts taking place before the clearing of shrubs, vegetation and new plots at the beginning of the Iban fifth moon which is sometime in June. I could understand having a feast before the clearing the land but Sandin says its to placate the spirits in the stone. The party is not held every year but only after a series of bad harvests or when new families need a stone of there own.

The first step is a meeting of the farm chief who encourages the new familys to seek stones in the stream beds. When the material is collected, the invitations are sent out. These are strings which are distributed to the neighboring longhouses. Each string has a number of knots. After each day, a knot is untied until the whetstone day.

The land purification ceremony is next. One day before the feast, the farm chief and two others go to each plot and offerings are made to the god and the good spirits. The offerings are in the form of trays. One tray is placed on the ground, the second is placed in a bamboo frame, the third is placed on a keresang (?) pile, four trays are hung at the corners of the frame while the last is thrown in the river. The keresang trays are placed at the begining and end of the road leading to the plot to be farmed. Every item on the tray must be in pairs. For example, two betel nut (sireh cubes), two bananas, two hens eggs and so on. A prayer is said imploring the spirits to remove the bad luck from the fields. A pig and a chicken are slaughtered with their blood running into a hole where another offering has been made.

The next occasion includes the readiness in the longhouse where the head farmer waves a chicken in all directions on newly made mats. Then a basket is passed from door to door to collect old clothes and worn out sticks. The whetstones are collected and a procession follows, gongs beating and people singing.
The whetstones are washed, oiled, prayed over and wrapped in a pua kumbu (woven cloth). A platform is erected for roasting gluttinous rice. A ritual dance is held to clear the way for the spitits. Songs are sung to bless the feast.

At dawn the next day, the farm chief waves a chicken which announces the roasting of the rice. A cock fight is then held. A procession then forms headed by the chief farmer carrying a white flag. A pig is held in the procession and the ladies then comb its hair. It is then slaughtered.

A seating arrangement is announced with the higher status Ibans given the best seats. Rice wine is served. A dance is performed to clear the path for the spirits. A second dance improves the path. Prayers are held. Then there is a midnight feast. The Chief Farmer then walks through the longhouse while the gongs sound.

The next day, seating arrangements are made where the rich Ibans sit on either side of the person who washed the whetstones. Dawn is breaking. The singer sing, the gongs sound. Sempulang Gana is welcomed. Young men and girls pour wine and hand it to their elders. Long songs are sung. The pigs hair is combed again. A song of praise to the women is then sung. The farm chief sends the spirits of the whetstones to the farms. Another song is sung to send the bad spirits away.

The whetstone feast has ended. The farmers return to their fields and perform more rituals.

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