I may notice that among these Dayaks there is great pride of birth, and that parents will seldom consent to their daughter’s marrying a man of very inferior condition. Many lamentable occurrences have arisen from this, among other causes, which I will mention when treating of love. As a general rule, if the bride be an only daughter, or of higher rank, the husband joins her family—if he be of higher rank, or an only son, she follows him, and then she is conducted under a canopy of red cloth to the house of his parents. If they should be of equal condition and similarly circumstanced, they divide their time among their respective families, until they set up housekeeping on their own account.
There are three subjects of which I must now treat,—and they are the chastity of the women, love, and divorce. I find it difficult to reconcile the statements that I have to make; they are modest, and yet unchaste, love warmly and yet divorce easily, but are generally faithful to their husbands when married.
In looking over the notes I have collected, both of my own and those that I have received from my friends, I find them apparently irreconcilable; but I will endeavour to make them intelligible.
The Sibuyaus, though they do not consider the sexual intercourse of their young people as a positive crime, yet are careful of the honour of their daughters, as they attach an idea of great indecency to promiscuous connection. They are far advanced beyond their brethren in this respect, and are of opinion that an unmarried girl proving with child must be offensive to the superior powers, who, instead of always chastising the individual, punish the tribe by misfortunes happening to its members. They, therefore, on the discovery of the pregnancy fine the lovers, and sacrifice a pig to propitiate offended Heaven, and to avert that sickness or those misfortunes that might otherwise follow; and they inflict heavy mulcts for every one who may have suffered from any severe accident, or who may have been drowned within a month before the religious atonement was made; lighter fines are levied if a person be simply wounded.
As these pecuniary demands fall upon the families of both parties, great care is taken of the young girls, and seldom is it found necessary to sacrifice the pig. After marriage the women also are generally chaste, though cases of adultery are occasionally brought before the Orang Kayas.
Among the Dayaks on the Batang Lupar, however, unchastity is more common; but the favours of the women are generally confined to their own countrymen, and usually to one lover. Should the girl prove with child, it is an understanding between them that they marry, and men seldom, by denying, refuse to fulfil their engagements. Should, however, the girl be unable to name the father, she is exposed to the reproaches of her relatives, and many to escape them have taken poison. In respectable families they sacrifice a pig, and sprinkle the doors with its blood, to wash away the sin; and the erring maiden’s position is rendered so uncomfortable that she generally tries to get away from home.
In the account of the Land Dayaks, I will mention the manner in which the young lover approaches the curtains of his mistress. As this seldom ends in immorality, it may be likened to the Welch and Afghan bundling. The Sea Dayaks have the same practice of seeking the girls at night; and as the favoured lover is seldom refused entrance to the curtains, it may be compared to the system of company-keeping which obtains in many of our agricultural counties, where the brides have children a couple of months after marriage. The morality of the Sea Dayaks is, perhaps, superior to the Malays, but inferior to that of the Land Dayaks.
During one of my visits to the Sakarang I heard a story which is rather French in its termination. A young man proposed to a girl and was accepted by her, but her parents refused to give their consent, as he was of very inferior birth. Every means was tried to soften their hearts, but they were obstinate, and endeavoured to induce her to give up her lover and marry another. In their despair the lovers retired to the jungle, and swallowed the poisonous juice of the tuba plant: next morning they were found dead, with their cold and stiff arms entwined round each other. Cases are not of very rare occurrence among the Sakarang Dayaks, where disappointed love has sought solace in the grave.
Of the warmth of married affection, I have never heard a more striking instance than the following:—the story has been told before, but it is worth repeating. Ijau, a Balau chief, was bathing with his wife in the Lingga river, a place notorious for man-eating alligators, when Indra Lela, a Malay, passing in a boat remarked,—“I have just seen a very large animal swimming up the stream.” Upon hearing this, Ijau told his wife to go up the steps and he would follow; she got safely up, but he, stopping to wash his feet, was seized by the alligator, dragged into the middle of the stream, and disappeared from view. His wife hearing a cry turned round, and seeing her husband’s fate sprang into the river, shrieking,—“Take me also,” and dived down at the spot where she had seen the alligator sink with his prey. No persuasion could induce her to come out of the water: she swam about, diving in all the places most dreaded from being a resort of ferocious reptiles, seeking to die with her husband; at last her friends came down and forcibly removed her to their house.
About two miles below the town of Kuching, is a place called Tanah Putih. Here a man and his wife were working in a small canoe, when an alligator seized the latter by the thigh and bore her along the surface of the water, calling for that help, which her husband swimming after, in vain endeavoured to afford. The bold fellow with a kris in his mouth neared the reptile, but as soon as he was heard, the beast sank with his shrieking prey and ended a scene almost too painful for description. Two days afterwards the body, unmangled, was found hidden in some bushes, which partly confirms my previous remark, that alligators do not immediately swallow their prey.