When everything has been satisfactorily arranged, and the consent of the girl’s parents has been obtained, a day is fixed for the marriage ceremony.
The day before the wedding is spent by the bridegroom in obtaining a plentiful supply of betel-nut, sireh leaf (a species of pepper), lime, gambier, etc.—all necessary concomitants for the guests to chew during the proceedings connected with the marriage ceremony.
The wedding may take place either at the house of the bride, or else at that of the bridegroom. Generally it is held in the house in which the newly married couple do not intend to reside; that is, if it be decided that the newly married wife should settle in her husband’s house, then the wedding will take place at her home. If, on the other hand, the relatives decide that the husband is to live in the home of his wife, then the wedding takes place at the house of his parents.
The principal part of the ceremony among the Sea Dyaks is the fetching of the bride from her father’s to the bridegroom’s house. The women-folk of his village set out in a boat, gaily decorated with an awning of parti-coloured sheets, and with streamers and flags flying, to an accompaniment of gongs and drums, and musical instruments, to fetch the bride to her future husband’s house.
When the other party arrive at the landing-stage of the house at which the wedding is to take place, they walk up to the house—a gaily-dressed crowd—and sit down in the open veranda, to talk over the future prospects of the young couple, chewing betel-nut and sireh all the time. A portion of these chewing ingredients are carefully set aside to be used later on. The Dyak, with his great love for divination, cannot allow such an occasion to pass without making some attempt to penetrate into the secrets of the future.
The company sit down in the long common room of the Dyak house, and then are brought forward the betel-nut, sireh, etc., specially set aside for the ceremony. A betel-nut is split into seven pieces by a man supposed to be lucky in matrimonial matters, and these, together with the other ingredients of the betel-nut mixture, are all put in a little basket, which is bound together with red cloth and laid for a short time upon the open platform adjoining the house.
The master of the ceremonies, who splits the betel-nut, generally an older man of some standing, then makes to the assembled guests the declaration that if either party should desert the other without sufficient reason, the offending party shall be fined to such an amount as has been already agreed upon.
The basket containing the split pieces of betel-nut is then brought in and uncovered, and the contents examined to ascertain the will of the gods. Should the pieces of betel-nut by some mystic power increase in number, the marriage will be an unusually happy one; but should they decrease it is a bad omen, and the marriage must be postponed, or relinquished altogether. But as a matter of fact, they neither increase nor decrease, and this is interpreted to mean that the wedding is one upon which the spirits have pronounced neither a good nor a bad verdict.
This action gives the name to the marriage ceremony. The Dyaks call marriage Mlah Pinang—“splitting the betel-nut.”