Sengalang Burong is the greatest of the Iban gods after the diffuse petara: the divine lord of war, headhunting and augury. He lives in a longhouse in the sky where he appears in human form, but descends to the middle world as the Brahminy kite, and is honoured by the epithet Aki Lang, 'Grandfather Kite'. The seven omen birds whose calls and flight-paths govern Iban farming, journeying and war are understood as his seven sons-in-law, married to his seven daughters. He is the source and patron of the Gawai Burong, the great bird festival by which warriors and their leaders rise through graded ritual honours. The foundational myth relates how his human son-in-law Menggin followed a shed feather-garment into the sky and married the god's daughter; their son Surong Gunting later ascended to the sky-longhouse and learned from Sengalang Burong the laws of augury, the rites of war and the prohibitions of incest, which he carried back to mankind.