more black magic

i'm on holidays :D - so planning a trip or two, a few friends had reccomended going to Kalimantan and visiting the orang-a-tang sanctuary as a good trip.

I mention this to an Indonesian colleague of mine and she warned me to be careful. The dayak girls there use lots of magic to cast spells on men, so if in a months time i have fallen for a new girl from Kalimantan, you'll all know what happened to me! ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayak_people

story from another website...

The story of bird But and bird Kuwai
The bird Kuwai (Great Argus pheasant), who was cunning and managed to play tricks on bird But (another pheasant-species), also had no beautiful feathers to begin with. That was the reason the two were friends.

A long time ago, when these two birds were still friends, both were quite black and pitiful to look at. The other birds, from the Rhinoceros hornbill "Belengang" down to the tiniest, all had beautiful patterns and colours. Their unimpressive feathers were an embarrassment to these two black birds. One day they got together to discuss the matter: " Why, oh why of all the birds in the world are we the worst looking?" they asked themselves. "Well, as this is the case it would be to our advantage to decorate ourselves" said Kuwai. "What a good idea!" replied as he patterns from the top of Kuwai’s head to the tips of his tail. When he was finished the result was really very successful!

Now it was Kuwai’s turn to paint beautiful patterns on But. However, it did not suit Kuwai at all to have his friend looking beautiful, so he painted him brownish and then determined his part of the decorating fulfilled and added: "My heart is overjoyed because you have really made me look beautiful." When But realised how unimpressive he looked he got very angry at Kuwai and tried to grab him, but Kuwai flew off and disappeared.

So Kuwai is to blame that But will forever stay an ugly bird and is ashamed of his looks. From this time forth he leads a bad life, stays down in the bush and contents himself with wanderings through the undergrowth. Kuwai, on the other hand, with his jazzed-up and attractive plumage sits high up in the branches because among the beautiful birds he now is the king!

For the natives of Sarawak the feathers of Kuwai have magic power. Today, the bird has disappeared in wide parts of Sarawak due to logging.