Pulang Gana
Pulang Gana, addressed in ritual as Sempulang Gana, is the Iban god of the earth and the tutelary lord of rice agriculture. A widespread myth explains his claim: when the goods of the newly made world were being divided among the divine kindred, Pulang Gana was absent or asleep and received no share of the visible wealth; on returning he was given the ground itself, the soil beneath all things, and so every Iban who fells forest and plants a swidden must first make offerings to him lest the padi wither. He presides over each rite of the farming year, from the clearing and burning of the plot to the sowing, the guarding of the growing rice-soul, and the harvest. His authority over the fertile earth complements that of his brother Sengalang Burong over war and the birds.
Domains
- agriculture
- earth
- rice
Powers
- governs the fertility of the soil
Epithets
- Sempulang Gana — Sempulang Gana (ceremonial form of the name)Richards, Anthony (1981), An Iban-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press), s.v. 'Pulang Gana'. (secondary)
Relations
- sibling: Sengalang BurongSandin, Benedict (1967), The Sea Dayaks of Borneo Before White Rajah Rule (London: Macmillan), divine genealogy. (primary)
Sources
- Pulang Gana is the Iban god of the earth and of rice cultivation, who must be propitiated at every stage of the swidden farming cycle.: Perham, John (1882), 'Sea Dayak Religion', JSBRAS no. 10. (primary); Jensen, Erik (1974), The Iban and their Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press). (secondary)
- In myth he received the soil as his portion at the primal division of the world's goods, obliging all cultivators to offer to him.: Sandin, Benedict (1967), The Sea Dayaks of Borneo Before White Rajah Rule (London: Macmillan). (primary)