The office of sexton is hereditary, descending from father to son, and when the line fails, great indeed is the difficulty of inducing another family to undertake its unpleasant duties, involving, as it is supposed, too familiar an association with the dead and the other world to be at all beneficial. Though the prospect of fees is good, and perhaps every family in the village offers six gallons of unpounded rice to start the sexton elect in his new, and certainly useful career, among the Quop Dayaks it is difficult to find a candidate. The usual burial fee is one jar, valued at a rupee, though if great care be bestowed on the interment, a dollar is asked; at other places as much as two dollars are occasionally demanded, and obtained when the corpse is offensive.
On the day of a person’s death, a feast[7] is given by the family to their relations; if the deceased be rich, a pig and a fowl are killed, but if poor, a fowl is considered sufficient. The apartment, and the family in which the death occurs, are tabooed for seven days and nights, and if the interdict be not rigidly kept, the ghost of the departed will haunt the house. Among the Silakau, the Lara, and the true Lundu tribes, the bodies of the elders and rich are burned, while the others are buried.
Children.—All children are very desirable in Dayak eyes. Mr. Chalmers thinks that if a Dayak could have but one child, he would prefer a female, as she will always assist in getting wood and water (labours held in little esteem by those males who have arrived at the age of puberty); and, moreover, at marriage a son may have to follow his wife, whereas a daughter obtains for her parents the benefit of her husband’s labour and assistance; but my opinion is contrary, I think male children are generally desired.
Female Chastity.—With regard to female chastity, I imagine they are better, certainly not worse, than the Malays. The “Orang Kayas” have many cases of adultery to settle, which do not, however, cause much excitement in the tribe.
Divorces are very common, one can scarcely meet with a middle-aged Dayak who has not had two, and often three or more wives. I have heard of a girl of seventeen or eighteen years who had already had three husbands. Repudiation, which is generally done by the man or woman running away to the house of a near relation, takes place for the slightest cause—personal dislike or disappointments, a sudden quarrel, bad dreams, discontent with their partners’ powers of labour or their industry, or in fact, any excuse which will help to give force to the expression, “I do not want to live with him or her any longer.”
A woman has deserted her husband when laid up with a bad foot, and consequently unable to work, and returned to him when recovered, but this is perhaps to obtain her food on easier terms. A lad once forced his mother to divorce her husband, the lad’s stepfather, because the latter tried to get too much work out of his stepson, and let his own children by a former marriage remain idle. The stepson did not understand why he should contribute to the support of his half-brothers, so he told his mother she must leave her husband, or he would leave her, and live with his late father’s relatives. She preferred her son’s society to her husband’s.
In fact, marriage among the Dayaks is a business of partnership for the purpose of having children, dividing labour, and by means of their offspring providing for their old age. It is, therefore, entered into and dissolved almost at pleasure. If a husband divorces his wife, except for the sake of adultery, he has to pay her a fine of two small jars, or about two rupees. If a woman puts away her husband, she pays him a jar, or one rupee. If a wife commits adultery the husband can put her away if he please; though if she be a strong, useful woman, he sometimes does not do so, and her lover pays him a fine of one “tajau,” a large jar equal to twelve small jars, valued at twelve rupees. If a separation take place, the guilty wife also gives her husband about two rupees. If a husband commit adultery, the wife can divorce him, and fine his paramour eight rupees, but she gets nothing from her unfaithful spouse. There is one cause of divorce, where the blame rests on neither party, but on their superstitions. When a couple are newly married, if a deer, or gazelle, or a mouse deer utter a cry at night near the house in which the pair are living, it is an omen of ill—they must separate, or the death of one would ensue. This might be a great trial to a European lover; the Dayaks, however, take the matter very philosophically.
Mr. Chalmers mentions to me the case of a young Peninjau man who was divorced from his wife on the third day after marriage. The previous night a deer had uttered its warning cry, and separate they must. The morning of the divorce he chanced to go into the “head-house,” and there sat the bridegroom contentedly at work.
“Why are you here?” he was asked, as the “head-house” is frequented by bachelors and boys only; “what news of your new wife?”
“I have no wife, we were separated this morning, because the deer cried last night.”