“My mother-in-law returned to her house, and a few days after she and my wife came to fetch me. I went back with them, and ever since I have had no serious trouble either with my wife or mother-in-law.”
I have already said that until children are born a Dyak husband and wife often separate from each other for very trivial reasons. After the birth of children there is seldom a divorce except for adultery, and even then very often the friends and relatives try hard—sometimes successfully—to persuade the husband and wife to live together again for the sake of the children. This lax view that Dyaks have of the marriage tie causes them very often to marry without any serious consideration. Where divorce is easy it naturally follows that marriage ceases to be a serious matter, which ought not to be “taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly,” as the marriage service has it.
I remember one day holding a service at a little chapel in a village in Saribas, and giving an address on marriage, and trying to explain to my small congregation of Dyaks the Christian view of it. I said that marriage ought to be a life-long tie, that the Dyak custom of husband and wife separating for any trivial cause was a bad one, and that Christians, when married, should live together “for better for worse” till death parted them. An old Dyak present interrupted me by asking: “What if one of them commits adultery?”
I went on to say that adultery was the only reason which Christ said justified a divorce.
I mention this little incident because I think it shows in an indirect way that deep down in the Dyak heart there is a feeling that adultery is a terrible crime, far worse than any other, and that where there has been adultery it is impossible for husband and wife to live happily together.
CHAPTER X
BURIAL RITES
Life beyond the grave—Wailings—Rice strewn on the dead man’s chest—The professional wailer—Feeding the dead—Carrying the dead—The grave—Articles buried with the dead—Baiya—Fire lit at sunset—The ulit, or mourning—Pana, or offering to the dead—The wailer’s song—Sumping—Periodical Sabak—Feast in honour of the dead—Gawai Antu—The dead not forgotten—Other methods of disposing of the dead besides burial—Dyak ideas of a future life.
Death for the Dyak does not mean the end of all. He has a belief in a life beyond the grave—a life different indeed from his existence in the flesh, with all its cares and anxieties, a life with little of the spiritual about it, but still, for all that, life, and not annihilation. The soul survives burial, and in Hades (Sabayan) lives anew much the same life as he does on earth, building houses and sowing and planting as do his friends and relatives in this world. He is able to watch those on earth, and can help them when required, and so his aid is often asked for in time of need. And in the Sea Dyak burial rites there are seen glimpses of a belief in the communion between those on earth and those who have crossed the River of Death, such as we would expect to find only among people of a higher civilization and a higher education.