Surong Gunting is the culture-hero of Iban augury, the human grandson of the war-god Sengalang Burong through the god's daughter Endu Dara Tinchin Temaga and her mortal husband Menggin. In the foundational myth he journeys up to Sengalang Burong's longhouse in the sky, where over a long sojourn he learns from his grandfather the whole science of the omen birds, the graded rites of headhunting and war, the observances of the Gawai Burong, and the calendar reckoned by the stars. He also transgresses by lying with a kinswoman of the sky-people and is taught in consequence the laws forbidding incest and the penalties that redeem it. Returning to earth, he transmits this knowledge to the Iban, becoming the ancestral source of their augural and ritual custom.