PLATE XXIX
SHRINE OUTSIDE TAMA BULAN’S HOUSE
BULAN
SABA IRANG, THE HEAD CHIEF OF THE MADANGS
We have already seen that a Resident who takes a sympathetic interest in his people is consulted about their private affairs, and in time he may possess an intimate knowledge of the domestic life of large numbers of natives. An example of the fatherly interest that Hose takes in his people came under my notice on the occasion of this visit to Tama Bulan.
Ballan, a pleasant young man about nineteen or twenty years of age, son of a Long Belukan Kenyah chief, spoke in a confidential tone to Hose, saying he had something to tell him. Ballan explained that he very much wanted to marry Laan, a nice-looking girl of about seventeen years of age, who was a niece of Tama Bulan’s. He stated that the girl was willing to be married, and anxious for him to inform Tama Bulan and her father to that effect, but he was a little nervous of doing so.
As a matter of fact, a good number of youths in a similar predicament come to Hose to ask him to help them, and as he is constantly discussing such matters with Tama Bulan and other chiefs he is in a position to put in a word in season and smooth over any difficulties that may arise, for the course of true love does not always run smoothly even in Borneo. In the present instance not only had the girl’s father to be approached, but it was necessary that consent should be given by the great chief Tama Bulan, who was also her uncle.
Hose questioned Ballan whether his was a genuine love affair, and the latter emphatically stated that the girl was quite willing. Hose then asked if he had slept in her room; and having been assured that he had done so, he further inquired if they had slept on the same pillow, and he said they had. Among these people it is customary for a young man to visit the sleeping-chamber of his sweetheart and sit and talk for several hours after the family has retired to rest. When friendly relations are well established the lover may enter within the mosquito curtains and sleep by the side of his beloved; but the sharing of the pillow is only accorded to him who has been accepted as a prospective husband. The young people behave with strict propriety, and I understand that there is little to object to in this custom, which may have resulted from the public life which everyone leads.
At all events we cannot criticise these good people very harshly, as the very similar practice of “bundling” was in vogue until recently in Wales, as Brand informs us in his Antiquities (vol. ii. p. 98): “In Wales there is a custom called ‘bundling,’ in which the betrothed parties go to bed in their clothes.”