The Pagan Tribes of Borneo / A Description of Their Physical Moral and Intellectual Condition, with Some Discussion of Their Ethnic Relations

by Charles Hose; William McDougall

[172] — It came into use, no doubt, through the hospitable offering of cigarettes by the women of the household.

[173] — The omen birds are not consulted in the hope of obtaining favourable omens; but rather special events are regarded as of evil omen; such are any outbreak of fire in the house, any fatal accident to any member of the house, the repeated crying of the muntjac (the barking deer) about the house. In one instance known to us the attractive daughter of a Kenyah chief had three times been compelled by series of bad omens to break off the betrothals.

[174] — Some few communities of Punans live in the large caves of the limestone mountains; it seems possible that this is a survival of a very ancient custom that preceded the making of shelters, however rude; but we know of no facts which can be regarded as supporting this view, save that we have found human bones of uncertain age in several caves. Some of these caves have undoubtedly been used as burial-places, possibly during epidemics of cholera or smallpox.

[175] — See Chap. XXI.

[176] — Perhaps the most commonly used is a double-ended spatula. With this the head of the family stirs the boiled sago, and then conveys it to his own mouth on one end and to his wife's mouth on the other.

[177] — Formerly, they say, they cooked in green bamboos; and this is still done occasionally. They also occasionally boil their sago in the large cups of the pitcher-plant (NEPENTHES).

[178] — This occurrence of incest between couples brought up in the same household is, of course, difficult to reconcile with Prof. Westermarck's well-known theory of the ground of the almost universal feeling against incest, namely that it depends upon sexual aversion or indifference engendered by close proximity during childhood. But medical men who have experience of slum practice in European towns can supply similar evidence in large quantity. And the medical psychologists of the school of Freud could cite much evidence against this theory.

We cannot refrain from throwing out here a speculative suggestion towards the explanation of the feeling against incest which seems to find support in certain of the facts of this area. It seems to us that the feeling with which incest is regarded is an example of a feeling or sentiment engendered in each generation by law and tradition, rather than a spontaneous reaction of individuals, based on some special instinct or innate tendency. The occurrence of incest between brothers and sisters, and the strong feeling of the Sea Dayaks against incest between nephew and aunt (who often are members of distinct communities), are facts which seem to us fatal to Prof. Westermarck's theory, as well as to point strongly to the view that the sentiment has a purely conventional or customary source. Now, if we accept some such view of the constitution of primitive society as has been suggested by Messrs. Atkinson and Lang (PRIMAL LAW), namely, that the social group consisted of a single patriarch and a group of wives and daughters, over all of whom he exercised unrestricted power or rights; we shall see that the first step towards the constitution of a higher form of society must have been the strict limitation of his rights over certain of the women, in order that younger males might be incorporated in the society and enjoy the undisputed possession of them. The patriarch, having accepted this limitation of his rights over his daughters for the sake of the greater security and strength of the band given by the inclusion of a certain number of young males, would enforce all the more strictly upon them his prohibition against any tampering with the females of the senior generation. Thus very strict prohibitions and severe penalties against the consorting of the patriarch with the younger generation of females, I.E. his daughters, and against intercourse between the young males admitted to membership of the group and the wives of the patriarch, would be the essential conditions of advance of social organisation. The enforcement of these penalties would engender a traditional sentiment against such unions, and these would be the unions primitively regarded as incestuous. The persistence of the tendency of the patriarch's jealousy to drive his sons out of the family group as they attained puberty would render the extension of this sentiment to brother-and-sister unions easy and almost inevitable. For the young male admitted to the group would be one who came with a price in his hand to offer in return for the bride he sought. Such a price could only be exacted by the patriarch on the condition that he maintained an absolute prohibition on sexual relations between his offspring so long as the young sons remained under his roof.

It is not impossible that a trace of the primitive state of society imagined by Messrs. Atkinson and Lang survives in the fact that a Kayan chief may, if he is so inclined, temporarily possess himself of the wife of any of his men without raising the strong resentment and incurring the penalties which would attend adultery on the part of any other man of the house; but the law against incest with his daughters, whether natural or adopted, would be enforced against him by the co-operation of the chiefs of neighbouring houses and villages.

[179] — A limestone cliff whose foot is washed by the Baram river and which contains a number of caves (known as Batu Gading, or the ivory rock) is said by a Kayan legend to have been formed by a Kayan house being turned into Stone owing to incestuous conduct within it.