The Sumatrans in general are good speakers. The gift of oratory seems natural to them. I knew many among them whose harangues I have listened to with pleasure and admiration. This may be accounted for perhaps from the constitution of their government, which being far removed from despotism seems to admit, in some degree, every member of the society to a share in the public deliberations. Where personal endowments, as has been observed, will often raise a private man to a share of importance in the community,superior to that of a nominal chief, there is abundant inducement for the acquisition of these valuable talents. The forms of their judicial proceedings likewise, where there are no established advocates and each man depends upon his own or his friend's abilities for the management of his cause, must doubtless contribute to this habitual eloquence. We may add to these conjectures the nature of their domestic manners, which introduce the sons at an early period of life into the business of the family, and the counsels of their elders. There is little to be perceived among them of that passion for childish sports which marks the character of our boys from the seventh to the fourteenth year. In Sumatra you may observe infants, not exceeding the former age, full dressed and armed with a kris, seated in the circle of the old men of the dusun, and attending to their debates with a gravity of countenance not surpassed by their grandfathers. Thus initiated they are qualified to deliver an opinion in public at a time of life when an English schoolboy could scarcely return an answer to a question beyond the limits of his grammar or syntax, which he has learned by rote. It is not a little unaccountable that this people, who hold the art of speaking in such high esteem, and evidently pique themselves on the attainment of it, should yet take so much pains to destroy the organs of speech in filing down and otherwise disfiguring their teeth; and likewise adopt the uncouth practice of filling their mouths with betel whenever they prepare to hold forth. We must conclude that it is not upon the graces of elocution they value an orator, but his artful and judicious management of the subject matter; together with a copiousness of phrase, a perspicuity of thought, an advantageous arrangement, and a readiness, especially, at unravelling the difficulties and intricacies of their suits.
CHILD-BEARING.
The curse entailed on women in the article of child-bearing does not fall so heavy in this as in the northern countries. Their pregnancy scarcely at any period prevents their attendance on the ordinary domestic duties; and usually within a few hours after their delivery they walk to the bathing-place, at a small distance from the house. The presence of a sage femme is often esteemed superfluous. The facility of parturition may probably be owing to the relaxation of the frame from the warmth of the climate; to which cause also may be attributed the paucity of children borne by the Sumatran women and the early decay of their beauty and strength. They have the tokens of old age at a season of life when European women have not passed their prime. They are like the fruits of the country, soon ripe and soon decayed. They bear children before fifteen, are generally past it at thirty, and grey-headed and shrivelled at forty. I do not recollect hearing of any woman who had six children except the wife of Raddin of Madura, who had more; and she, contrary to the universal custom, did not give suck to hers.
TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.
Mothers carry the children not on the arm, as our nurses do, but straddling on the hip, and usually supported by a cloth which ties in a knot on the opposite shoulder. This practice I have been told is common in some parts of Wales. It is much safer than the other method, less tiresome to the nurse, and the child has the advantage of sitting in a less constrained posture: but the defensive armour of stays, and offensive weapons called pins, might be some objection to the general introduction of the fashion in England. The children are nursed but little, not confined by any swathing or bandages, and, being suffered to roll about the floor, soon learn to walk and shift for themselves. When cradles are used they are swung suspended from the ceiling of the rooms.
AGE OF THE PEOPLE.
The country people can very seldom give an account of their age, being entirely without any species of chronology. Among those country people who profess themselves Mahometans to very few is the date of the Hejra known; and even of those who in their writings make use of it not one in ten can pronounce in what year of it he was born. After a few taun padi (harvests) are elapsed they are bewildered in regard to the date of an event, and only guess at it from some contemporary circumstance of notoriety, as the appointment of a particular dupati, the incursion of a certain enemy, or the like. As far as can be judged from observation it would seem that not a great proportion of the men attain to the age of fifty, and sixty years is accounted a long life.
NAMES.
The children among the Rejangs have generally a name given to them by their parents soon after their birth, which is called namo daging. The galar (cognomen), another species of name, or title, as we improperly translate it, is bestowed at a subsequent, but not at any determinate, period: sometimes as the lads rise to manhood, at an entertainment given by the parent, on some particular occasion; and often at their marriage. It is generally conferred by the old men of the neighbouring villages, when assembled; but instances occur of its being irregularly assumed by the persons themselves; and some never obtain any galar. It is also not unusual, at a convention held on business of importance, to change the galar of one or two of the principal personages to others of superior estimation; though it is not easy to discover in what this pre-eminence consists, the appellations being entirely arbitrary, at the fancy of those who confer them: perhaps in the loftier sound, or more pompous allusion in the sense, which latter is sometimes carried to an extraordinary pitch of bombast, as in the instance of Pengunchang bumi, or Shaker of the World, the title of a pangeran of Manna. But a climax is not always perceptible in the change.
FATHER NAMED FROM HIS CHILD.