When twelve years of age girls are regarded as marriageable, and sexual relations are absolutely free until marriage; in fact, if she chooses to have a young man share her mat it is considered by no means improper. If a girl should be left with child and the father cannot be found she is married to somebody else, though no man is forced to wed her. Marriage relations are very strict and heavy fines are imposed on people at fault, but divorces may be had provided payment is made, and a widow may remarry if she desires to do so.
When a person dies there is much wailing, and if the deceased is a father or mother people of the same house do not sleep for three days. The corpse remains in the house three days, during which time a root called javau is eaten instead of rice, babi and bananas being also permissible. The body is washed and wrapped in white cotton cloth, bought from Malay traders, and placed in a coffin made of iron-wood. As the coffin must not be carried through the door, the house wall is broken open for it to pass on its way to a cemetery in the utan. Sometimes as soon as one year afterward, but usually much later, the coffin is opened, the bones are cleaned with water and soap and placed in a new box of the same material or in a gutshi, an earthen jar bought from the Chinese. The box or jar is then deposited in a subterranean chamber made of iron-wood, called kobur by both Malays and Murungs, where in addition are left the personal effects of the deceased,—clothing, beads, and other ornaments,—and, if a man, also his sumpitan, parang, axe, etc. This disposition of the bones is accompanied by a very elaborate feast, generally called tiwah, to the preparation of which much time is devoted.
According to a conception which is more or less general among the Dayaks, conditions surrounding the final home of the departed soul are on the whole similar to those existing here, but before the tiwah feast has been observed the soul is compelled to roam about in the jungle three or four years, or longer, until that event takes place. This elaborate ceremony is offered by surviving relatives as an equivalent for whatever was left behind by the deceased, whose ghost is regarded with apprehension.
Fortunately the Murungs were then preparing for such an observance at the Bundang kampong higher up the river where I intended to visit. They were making ready to dispose of the remains of no less a personage than the mother of our kapala. A water-buffalo would be killed and the festival would last for a week. In three years there would be another festal occasion of two weeks' duration, at which a water-buffalo would again be sacrificed, and when a second period of three years has elapsed the final celebration of three weeks' duration will be given, with the same sacrificial offering. Thus the occasions are seen to be of increasing magnitude and the expenses in this case to be on a rising scale. It was comparatively a small affair.
About a month later, when I stopped at Buntok, on the Barito, the controleur of the district told me that an unusually great tiwah feast had just been concluded in the neighbourhood. He had spent ten days there, the Dayaks having erected a house for him to stay in. More than two hundred pigs and nineteen water-buffaloes had been killed. Over three hundred bodies, or rather remains of bodies, had previously been exhumed and placed in forty boxes, for the accommodation of which a special house had been constructed. These, with contents, were burned and the remains deposited in ten receptacles made of iron-wood, those belonging to one family being put in the same container.
Some of the Dayaks were much preoccupied with preparations for the Bundang ceremony, which was postponed again and again. They encouraged me to participate in the festivities, representing it as a wonderful affair. I presented them with money to buy a sack of rice for the coming occasion, and some of them went at once to Puruk Tjahu to purchase it. Having overcome the usual difficulties in regard to getting prahus and men, and Mr. Demmini having recovered from a week's illness, I was finally, early in November, able to move on. Several people from our kampong went the same day, and it looked as if the feast were really about to take place.
We proceeded with uneventful rapidity up-stream on a lovely day, warm but not oppressively so, and in the afternoon arrived at Bundang, which is a pleasant little kampong. The Dayaks here have three small houses and the Malays have five still smaller. A big water-buffalo, which had been brought from far away to be sacrificed at the coming ceremonial, was grazing in a small field near by. The surrounding scenery was attractive, having in the background a jungle-clad mountain some distance away, which was called by the same name as the kampong, and which, in the clear air against the blue sky, completed a charming picture. We found a primitive, tiny pasang-grahan, inconveniently small for more than one person, and there was hardly space on which to erect my tent.
There appeared to be more Siangs than Murungs here, the former, who are neighbours and evidently allied to the latter, occupying the inland to the north of the great rivers on which the Murungs are chiefly settled, part of the Barito and the Laong. They were shy, friendly natives, and distinguished by well-grown mustaches, an appendage I also later noted among the Upper Katingans. The people told me that I might photograph the arrangements incident to the feast as much as I desired, and also promised to furnish prahus and men when I wished to leave.
The following day Mr. Demmini seemed worse than before, being unable to sleep and without appetite. The festival was to begin in two days, but much to my regret there seemed nothing else to do but to return to Puruk Tjahu. The Dayaks proposed to take the sick man there if I would remain, but he protested against this, and I decided that we should all leave the following day. In the evening I attended the dancing of the Dayak women around an artificial tree made up of bamboo stalks and branches so as to form a very thick trunk. The dancing at the tiwa feast, or connected with it, is of a different character and meaning from the general performance which is to attract good antohs. This one is meant to give pleasure to the departed soul. The scene was inside one of the houses, and fourteen or fifteen different dances were performed, one of them obscene, but presented and accepted with the same seriousness as the other varieties. Some small girls danced extraordinarily well, and their movements were fairylike in unaffected grace.
Enjoying the very pleasant air after the night's rain, we travelled rapidly down-stream on the swollen river to Tumbang Marowei, where we spent the night. There were twenty men from the kampong eager to accompany me on my further journey, but they were swayed to and fro according to the dictates of the kapala, who was resolutely opposed to letting other kampongs obtain possession of us. He wanted to reserve for himself and the kampong the advantages accruing from our need of prahus and men. To his chagrin, in the morning there arrived a large prahu with four Murungs from Batu Boa, who also wanted a chance at this bonanza, whereupon the kapala began to develop schemes to harass us and to compel me to pay more.