In some parts of the country marriage is a very simple business, the two parties living together as long as they like each other, and separating if either feels dissatisfied. In any case, as we shall see, the facilities for divorce are extreme, and the bonds of matrimony are worn with marvellous looseness.
The reader cannot but have remembered the singular coincidence that often exists between customs of savage and of civilized life.
Among the Sinambau Dyaks there is a mode of courtship which still prevails in some parts of Europe, though it is generally falling into disuse. A young Sinambau Dyak, when struck with the charms of a girl, shows his preference in various ways, such as helping her in her daily labor, carrying home her load of wood for her, and making her such presents as are in his power to give.
After he has carried on these attentions for some time, he thinks that he may proceed to a more explicit declaration. At night, when the family is supposed to be asleep, he quietly slides back the bolt of the door, steals to the spot where his beloved is sleeping under her mosquito curtains, and gently awakes her. He always brings with him an abundant supply of betel-nut and sirih leaf, and the two sit talking together throughout the greater part of the night. It cannot be expected that the parents of the girl, who sleep in the same room, should be wholly ignorant of the proceeding, but they are conventionally supposed to be so, and if they approve of the young man they take no notice, while if they do not, they use their influence with the girl to induce her to dismiss him.
The mode of rejection is in keeping with the rest of the proceedings. Should the girl dislike the too adventurous suitor, she declines accepting the betel-nut, and merely asks him to blow up the fire or light the lamp, a request which is tantamount to instant dismissal.
When the marriage takes place a feast is made, and then the parties are made man and wife without any more ceremony. It is very seldom that the young couple begin housekeeping on their own account, and, as a general rule, the bridegroom enters the household of his father-in-law, or, at all events, of some of his wife’s relations, and so becomes one of the family, laboring for the common stock, and taking his share when the head of the household dies. Occasionally this plan is reversed, and when the bride is one of a large family of brothers and sisters, or if the bridegroom is the sole support of his parents, she accompanies her husband, and becomes part of his household.
The ceremony of marriage among the Sibuyan Dyaks of Lundu is worthy of notice. The artist has given an admirable [representation] of this unique ceremony on the following page. Two bars of iron are laid on the ground in the spot appointed for the ceremony, and the young couple are brought from opposite ends of the village. The first part of the ceremony consists in seating them on the bars of iron, as token that the blessings of their married life are to be as strong as iron. The priest gives to each of the pair a cigar and some betel-nut and sirih leaf, which they hold in their hand until the next part of the ceremony is completed. Taking two fowls in his hands, the priest waves them over the heads of the couple, and, in the course of a long address, invokes every blessing upon them. He then solemnly knocks their heads together three times, after which the bridegroom places the betel-nut in the mouth of his bride, and inserts the cheroot between her lips, she afterward doing the same by him, this ceremony being the public acknowledgment of accepting each other as husband and wife.
After they have thus declared their acceptance of each other, the fowls are killed, and their blood received in two cups, the color of the blood being carefully inspected by the priest, and its hue being held as an omen of the future well-being or misery of the newly married pair. One of the feasts which will presently be described closes the ceremonies.
It has already been mentioned that in most cases the bridegroom enters the family of his wife. But in any case he is bound to honor the father of his wife even above his own father. The young husband may never even pronounce the name of his father-in-law, he may not eat from the same dish, drink from the same cup, or rest on the same mat.
Among another tribe of Dyaks, the Balaus of Lingga, the ceremonies of marriage are rather different. By way of a propitiatory offering, the mother of the bridegroom gives to the relatives of the bride some domestic utensil, such as a plate or a basin, and three days afterward the very simple ceremony is performed.