SINGING.
Dancing is not the only amusement on these occasions. A gadis sometimes rises and, leaning her face on her arm, supporting herself against a pillar, or the shoulder of one of her companions, with her back to the audience, begins a tender song. She is soon taken up and answered by one of the bujangs in company, whose greatest pretensions to gallantry and fashion are founded on an adroitness at this polite accomplishment. The uniform subject on such occasions is love, and, as the words are extempore, there are numberless degrees of merit in the composition, which is sometimes surprisingly well turned, quaint, and even witty. Professed story-tellers are sometimes introduced, who are raised on a little stage and during several hours arrest the attention of their audience by the relation of wonderful and interesting adventures. There are also characters of humour amongst them who, by buffoonery, mimicry, punning, repartee, and satire (rather of the sardonic kind) are able to keep the company in laughter at intervals during the course of a night's entertainment. The assembly seldom breaks up before daylight, and these bimbangs are often continued for several days and nights together till their stock of provisions is exhausted. The young men frequent them in order to look out for wives, and the lasses of course set themselves off to the best advantage.
DRESSES.
They wear their best silken dresses, of their own weaving; as many ornaments of filigree as they possess; silver rings upon their arms and legs; and earrings of a particular construction. Their hair is variously adorned with flowers and perfumed with oil of benzoin. Civet is also in repute, but more used by the men.
COSMETIC USED, AND MODE OF PREPARING IT.
To render their skin fine, smooth, and soft they make use of a white cosmetic called pupur. The mode of preparing it is as follows. The basis is fine rice, which is a long time steeped in water and let to ferment, during which process the water becomes of a deep red colour and highly putrid, when it is drained off, and fresh added successively until the water remains clear, and the rice subsides in the form of a fine white paste. It is then exposed to the sun to dry, and, being reduced to a powder, they mix with it ginger, the leaves of a plant called by them dilam, and by Europeans patch-leaf (Melissa lotoria, R.), which gives to it a peculiar smell, and also, as is supposed, a cooling quality. They add likewise the flowers of the jagong (maize); kayu chendana (sandalwood); and the seeds of a plant called there kapas antu (fairy-cotton), which is the Hibiscus abelmoschus, or musk seed. All these ingredients, after being moistened and well mixed together, are made up into little balls, and when they would apply the cosmetic these are diluted with a drop of water, rubbed between the hands, and then on the face, neck, and shoulders. They have an apprehension, probably well founded, that a too abundant or frequent application will, by stopping the pores of the skin, bring on a fever. It is used with good effect to remove that troublesome complaint, so well known to Europeans in India, by the name of the prickly heat; but it is not always safe for strangers thus to check the operations of nature in a warm climate. The Sumatran girls, as well as our English maidens, entertain a favourable opinion of the virtues of morning dew as a beautifier, and believe that by rubbing it to the roots of the hair it will strengthen and thicken it. With this view they take pains to catch it before sunrise in vessels as it falls.
CONSUMMATION OF MARRIAGES.
If a wedding is the occasion of the bimbang the couple are married, perhaps, the second or third day; but it may be two or three more ere the husband can get possession of his bride; the old matrons making it a rule to prevent him, as long as possible, and the bride herself holding it a point of honour to defend to extremity that jewel which she would yet be disappointed in preserving.*
(*Footnote. It is recorded that the jealousy between the English and Dutch at Bantam arose from a preference shown to the former by the king at a festival which he gave upon obtaining a victory of this nature, which his bride had long disputed with him. For a description of a Malayan wedding, with an excellent plate representing the conclusion of the ceremony and the sleeping apartment, I beg to refer the reader to Captain Forrest's Voyage to New Guinea page 286 quarto edition. The bed-place is described at page 232 and the processional car (perarakan) at page 241. His whole account of the domestic manners of the people of Mindanao, at the court of which he lived on terms of familiarity, will be found highly amusing.)
They sit up in state at night on raised cushions, in their best clothes and trinkets. They are sometimes loaded on the occasion with all the finery of their relations, or even the whole dusun, and carefully eased of it when the ceremony is over. But this is not the case with the children of persons of rank. I remember being present at the marriage of a young woman, whose beauty would not have disgraced any country, with a son of Raddin, prince of Madura, to whom the English gave protection from the power of the Dutch after his father had fallen a sacrifice.* She was decked in unborrowed plumes. Her dress was eminently calculated to do justice to a fine person; her hair, in which consists their chief pride, was disposed with extreme grace; and an uncommon elegance and taste were displayed in the workmanship and adjustment of her ornaments. It must be confessed however that this taste is by no means general, especially amongst the country people. Simplicity, so essential to the idea, is the characteristic of a rude and quite uncivilized people, and is again adopted by men in their highest state of refinement. The Sumatrans stand removed from both these extremes. Rich and splendid articles of dress and furniture, though not often procured, are the objects of their vanity and ambition.