It may seem difficult to reconcile the form of the marriage ceremony (involving as it does a blending of symbolical capture with actual purchase) with the fact that, in accordance with the custom almost universally followed among Kayans, the bridegroom becomes a member of the room of his father-in-law and remains there for some years before carrying off his wife to his own house. But we think this latter practice, which in some quarters has been regarded as a survival from a matriarchal organisation of society, is a recently introduced custom, which has come rapidly into favour as a means by which the bridegroom and his friends avoid a part of the expense involved in the older form of marriage. For the residence for a period of years of the young couple in the house and room of the wife's parents is made a part of the marriage contract. If the bride is the only child of a chief, her husband may remain permanently in her home and succeed her father as chief. But in most cases the couple migrates to the husband's house after a few years, generally on the occasion of the building of a new house or on the death of his father, both of which events afford him the opportunity of becoming head of a room and thus taking rank as, and assuming the full responsibilities of, a PATER FAMILIAS.
The marriage ceremonies of the Kenyahs and Klemantans are similar but less elaborate. But the Sea Dayak ceremony is different. A feast is made in the house of the girl's parents. The bridegroom makes no considerable gifts to the parents of the bride, though he is generally expected to become a member of their household for the first few years of his married life. The principal feature of the ceremony is the splitting open of a PINANG (the seed of the areca palm) during the feast, in the presence of the young couple and their relatives. The two halves are examined for signs of decay or imperfection; and if there are none, the marriage is regarded as approved. A live fowl is waved over the couple by the chief of the house as he says, "Make them prosperous, make them happy, give them long life, make them wealthy, etc. etc." The phrases conform to a conventional pattern, but each orator modifies and adapts them freely. The words seemed to be addressed to the fowl, and it seems impossible to discover in the Iban mind any conception of a higher power behind or beyond the fowl, though we may suspect that in a vague way the live fowl symbolises or represents Life in general or the power behind Nature (Pl. 173).
Few or no Kayans can state their age without going through some preliminary calculations, and even then their statements are apt to be vague and uncertain. A Kayan mother can generally work out the age of each of her children on request. She puts down in a row bits of leaf or stick, one for each year, working back from the present, and recalling each year by the name of the place where the PADI crop of that year was raised. When she reaches back to, the year of the birth of any one of her children, she says that the child was born about or before or soon after this particular harvest, and by counting the pieces of stuff laid down she then arrives at the child's age.
An elderly man can generally make no more accurate statement regarding his age than that at the time of the great eclipse he had just begun to wear a waist-cloth, or that when the great guns were heard (I.E. the sound of the eruption of Krakatoa) he was just beginning "to look for tobacco."
We mention here a statement commonly made by Kayans, which, if true, is of some interest as reporting a curious exception to a world-wide custom commonly regarded as directly determined by the difference of nature between the sexes, the report, namely, that among the Kalabits the initiative in all love-making is taken by the women. We have no detailed information in regard to their courtship and marriage procedures.
CHAPTER 19
The Nomad Hunters
In almost all parts of Borneo there are to be found hidden in the remotest recesses of the jungles small bands of homeless nomad hunters. All these closely resemble one another in physical characters and in mode of life; but differences of language mark them as belonging to several groups, of which the Punans, the Ukits, the Sians, the Bukitans, the Lugats, and the Lisums are the best known. Hitherto we have designated all these groups by the name Punan, which properly belongs to the largest group only. These groups inhabit different areas, though there is considerable overlapping; and it seems probable that they are merely local varieties of one stock, and that their differences are mainly the results of geographical separation and of intercourse with, and probably some mingling of blood with, the settled tribes of the regions inhabited by the several groups. For their languages seem to be closely allied; but in each region the nomads seem to have adopted many words from their settled neighbours, with whom they trade; and instances are known to us in which the men of the settled tribes have married women of the nomads and have adopted their mode of life, and others in which children of nomad women, married into Kenyah, Kayan, or other villages, have gone back to their mothers' people.
The Punans proper are found in the central highlands wandering through the upper parts of the basins of all the large rivers; here and there they range into the lowlands, and in rare instances they even reach the coast. The Ukits, on the other hand, confine themselves to the interior, and are found chiefly in the upper parts of the basins of the Kotei, the Rejang, the Kapuas, and Banjermasin rivers. The Bukitans inhabit chiefly the upper basins of the rivers of Sarawak. Although these nomads wander perpetually in the forests, moving their camp every few weeks or months, any one group attaches itself to a particular area, partly because they become familiar with its natural resources, partly because they establish friendly relations with the villagers of the region, with whom they barter jungle-produce to the advantage of both parties. The settled tribesmen of any region find this trade so profitable that they regard the harmless nomads with friendly feelings, learn their language, and avoid and reprobate any harsh treatment of them that might drive them to leave their district. In fact they look upon them with a certain sense of proprietorship and are jealous of their intercourse with other tribes; the nomads, in fact, rank high among the many natural products of the jungle that render any particular region attractive to the tribesmen.
Of all these nomad groups the Punans are the most numerous and we have seen more of them than of any others. We therefore describe their peculiar mode of life; but it may be understood that what we say of them holds good in the main of the other groups of nomads with but little modification.