These curious restrictions are more or less similar among the different tribes. It is probable that they are founded on some theory of sympathy. Man, woman, and unborn or newborn babe are all linked together by some unseen bond, and, accordingly, the wrong action of one may result in harm to the others.
The whole period of a woman’s pregnancy is passed in fear lest the spirits (antu) should do harm to her or her unborn babe. If the mother has a bad dream or hears a bird of ill omen, at once a fowl is sacrificed to propitiate the spirits.
Should the husband wilfully violate any of the restrictions, the wife’s relations immediately bring him to justice, and, according to Dyak law, he has to pay a fine.
Some years ago Bishop Hose, accompanied by a missionary, visited Ginsurai, one of the villages in the Saribas. The Christians there had built for themselves a small chapel, where services were held. In the evening, when the Dyaks were sitting together in the ruai of the Dyak house talking to the Bishop and his companion, the question arose as to whether the attending of public worship should be included among the many restrictions imposed upon a pregnant woman. The wife of the headman in the house was a great invalid, and she gave her opinion on the matter. “I think,” she said, “a woman in that state should be allowed to come to public worship. It is just the time she needs it most. You men have so much to engage your attention, and go out to your work. I am an invalid, and am left at home ill. I often go by myself into our little chapel and say the Lord’s Prayer, and I find it is a great consolation to me. A pregnant woman, who is perhaps feeling ill and low-spirited, ought to be allowed to join in public prayers.” Not so very long after she spoke in this way this woman, Manja’s wife, died. Let us hope that there are many others in Borneo who, like herself, have learnt to rely on a Higher Power in time of need.
When the time of delivery is near, and the woman is in travail, two or three older women come in and attend to her.
Should any difficulty occur in the delivery of the child the manangs, or witch-doctors, are called in. One takes charge of the proceedings in the lying-in room, while the others remain outside in the ruai, or common veranda. The manang inside the room winds a loop of cloth around the woman above the womb. One of the manangs outside wraps his body around in the same manner, but first places within the folds of a cloth a large stone. A long incantation is then sung by the manangs outside, while the one within the room strives to force the child downward, and so hasten delivery. If he succeed in doing this, he draws down upon it the loop of cloth, and twists it tightly around the mother’s body, so as to prevent the upward return of the child. A shout from him proclaims his success to his companions outside, and the manang who is personating the mother moves the loop of cloth which contains the stone and encircles his body a stage downwards, in imitation of what has been done to the mother in the room. So the matter proceeds until the child is born, or until all concerned become assured of the fruitlessness of their efforts.
Fortunately for Dyak mothers, difficulties of this sort seldom occur. Delivery is generally very easy. The mother may often be seen sitting up with her back to the fire half an hour after her child is born, looking none the worse for what she has gone through, and before a week she will probably be back at her work as usual.
As soon as the child is born, a signal is given either by beating a bamboo with a stick or by striking a brass gong to announce the event. Then a fowl is waved over the heads of all present, including the infant and his mother. The fowl is killed and the blood smeared on the foreheads of those present. It is afterwards cooked and eaten by the parents of the child and any friends that may be present.
The mother has a poultice of ground ginger placed on her abdomen, and is bandaged and made to sit up with her back to the fire, and she is given an unlimited amount of ginger-tea to drink. Her poultice is changed once a day. The infant is washed, and a compound of betel-nut and pepper leaf, which has been chewed in the mouth, is placed on its stomach, and a binder tied round it. It is then made to lie on the spathe of a betel-nut palm, a cloth is put round it, and a Dyak sheet hung over it.
Until a civilized Government interfered to prevent such atrocious murders, there used to be a custom among the Dyaks that, if the mother died in giving birth to her child, the babe should pay the penalty and be buried with the mother. The reasons given by them for this cruel act being, that it was the cause of the mother’s death, and that there was no one to nurse and care for it. No woman would dare to suckle such an orphan, lest it should bring misfortune upon her own children. Therefore the poor child was very often placed alive in the coffin with the dead mother, and both were buried together. This was the old Dyak custom, but it is a long time since it has been carried out. I have myself known many cases among the Dyaks when, the mother having died in child-birth, the orphan has been adopted and brought up by some friend or relative.