MANY YEAR AGO THERE were many people in Kampung Bandukan who owned elves. These were begins that one could hear but could not see, and that had no shadows. They did all sorts of work for people. If, for example, you were planting flowers, you only needed to plant one to show them, and they would finish the rest of the planting for you. They had passion for sweeping, so that the houses of people who owned elves were always clean. When you arrived at such a house and took off your shoes at the door, and if there were n0o dusts to be seen when you looked around, then you knew that there were elves in the house. Elves were caught in the following manner. they buried at the crossroads, two different species of creatures, like millepedes and snakes. Then they were dug up several days later and put in an incense burner; there after one would find the elves. Every year they liked to eat a human begin, and if or when their master made accounts with them on Harvest Festival's Eve, and there was still something owing, he must give the elves a man. For this reason, on Harvest Festival's Eve, if they broke a jar, their master had to pretend that they had broken twenty, and reckoned it against them, and told them to wait until next year for their feast. If he no longer wanted them he could marry them off; but if they refused to marry, there was nothing to be done. If they consented, he would prepare a packet of silver, a packet of tobacco and a packet of incenseashes. These ashes were really the elves and they would be dropped on the road. Whoever wanted them would pick up the silver. Sometimes people who did not know about this picked up the silver by mistake, and then the elves would go with them. They preferred to live in the cooking pot, and for this reason, people who were afraide of elves put a little into the pot after cooking. Here is a story about them. A poor man once found a packet of silver and a packet of tobacco lying on the road. He knew it was the dowry of an elf, but he wanted the silver and not the imp. He was afraid, however, that it would follw him, and therefore he seized the silver and dashed down to the river, because elves could not cross the water. When he arrived at the river, the imp had already climbed onto the man's sun hat. He threw the hat into the river, and both the hat and its occupant were carried away by the stream. Later, the hat was hung on a tree, which withered at once. The poor man gradually became rich with the silver. One day he was walking along the river bank with his son when the boy pointed at the withered tree, and asked his father, "Why is the tree withered?" The father told his son the story about the elf. The imp was still in the tree, and when he heard that this rich man was his old enemy, he sprang to the ground, seized his soul, and ate it up. From then on, the rich man grew thin and yellow, and eventually he died. Note : "Tuntumolong" is the Dusun word for "Little people".
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