Someone's crop-guarding prayer; a secret prayer providing the owner with the power or ability to invoke a crop-guarding spirit, hamleng 2, for the protection of his or her growing crops.
Those possessing this power may or may not be ritualists, mumbā'i. The one offering the prayer ties a knot at the top of an arrow-grass cane, bilāu, to make a taboo marker, pūdung. He or she then recites a prayer over the cane, either spitting betel mixture, mama, on the knot or pouring rice beer on it, all the while invoking the spirit to enforce the sign. The cane is then planted erect at the base of a tree or betel vine to prevent fruits or leaves from being stolen, at the base of a clump of sugarcane or along the dike of a pond field with growing rice. Enforcement of the sign is through sickness of one who disobeys it. Different prayers result in different sicknesses: stomach ache, sore eyes, swollen gums. The afflicted person must go to the one possessing the prayer for relief. The latter appeals to the spirit enforcing the sign through ritual prayer. One person may possess one or more crop-guarding prayers.