CHAPTER 18

Childhood and Youth of a Kayan

From the time that the parents of a Kayan become aware of his existence they faithfully observe, without intermission until his appearance in the world, certain tabus. Or, in their own language, they are MALAN and certain things and acts are LALI for them. The belief that the child will resemble in some degree the things which arrest the glance of his mother while she carries him (LEMALI) is unquestioningly held and acted upon; hence the expectant woman seeks to avoid seeing all disagreeable and uncanny objects, more especially the Maias and the long-nosed monkey; she observes also the tabus imposed upon sick women in general, and besides these a number of other tabus peculiar to her condition, most of which apply to acts or situations which may symbolise any difficulty in delivery of the child; for example, she must not tie knots, she must not thrust her hand into any narrow hole to pull anything out. The tabus of the latter class are observed by the husband even more strictly, if possible, than by the wife. The woman must also avoid certain kinds of flesh and fish. It frequently happens that the woman begins to crave to eat a peculiar soapy earth (BATU KRAP), and this is generally supplied to her.

The woman will also take positive measures to ensure the prosperous course of her pregnancy and delivery. At the quickening she sacrifices a young pig and charges it to convey her prayer to Doh Tenangan; and on the occurrence of any untoward incident, such as a fall, the prayer and sacrifice are repeated. The carcases of the victims are stuck upon poles before the house near her door, and the inevitable feathered sticks, smeared with blood, are thrust behind a roof beam in the gallery opposite her door.

In every Kayan house are certain elderly women (not the DAYONGS) who have a reputation for special knowledge and skill in all matters connected with pregnancy and childbirth. One of these is called in at an early stage; she makes from time to time a careful examination of the patient's abdomen and professes to secure the best position of the child.

She has also a number of charms, which she hangs in the woman's room, and various unguents, which she applies externally. But all these procedures are surrounded by a veil of secrecy which we have failed to penetrate. And, in fact, all information in regard to the processes of childbirth is difficult to obtain, for all Kayans are very reticent on the matter, even among themselves.

In all other respects the pregnant woman follows her ordinary mode of life until the pains of labour begin. Then she is attended by the wise woman and several elderly relatives or friends. She sits in her room which is LALI to all but her attendants and her husband; and she is hidden from the latter by a screen of mats. During the pains she grasps and pulls on a cloth fixed to a rafter above and before her. The pains seem to be severe, since the woman generally groans and cries out; but the duration of labour is commonly brief, perhaps two or three hours only. The attendants' great anxiety is lest the child should go upward, and to prevent this they tie a cloth very tightly round the patient about the upper part of her abdomen. During the pains two of them press down with great force upon the uterus, one from each side. The wise woman professes to accomplish version by external manipulation, if she judges that the feet are about to present. But we do not know whether her claim to so much skill is well founded. If the after-birth does not follow immediately upon the child, the attendants become very anxious; two of them lift up the patient, and, if it does not soon appear, an axe-head is tied to the cord in order to prevent its return within the body, and possibly that the weight may hasten its extrusion. We have no reason to suppose that any internal manipulation is attempted at this or any other stage of labour or of pregnancy. Immediately after delivery the cord is tied and cut across with a bamboo knife. If the child does not cry at once, its nostrils are tickled with a feather.

The after-birth is usually buried or merely thrown away. But if the child is born enclosed in the membranes (with a caul), they are dried and preserved by the mother. It is said that, when dried, it is pounded to a powder and mixed with medicines administered to the child in later years.

If labour is unusually difficult or prolonged, or if accidents happen, the news spreads quickly through the house; and, if the attendants begin to fear a fatal issue, the whole household is thrown into consternation, for death in childbirth is regarded with peculiar horror. All the men of the house, including the chief and boys, will flee from the house, or, if it is night, they will clamber up among the beams of the roof and there hide in terror; and, if the worst happens, they remain there until the woman's corpse has been taken out of the house for burial. In such a case the burial is effected with the utmost despatch. Old men and women, who are indifferent to death, will undertake the work, and they expect a large fee.

The body, wrapped in a mat, is buried in a grave dug in the earth among the tombs, instead of being put in a coffin raised on a tall post; for the soul of the woman who dies in childbirth goes, with the souls of those who fall in battle, or die by violence of any kind, to Bawang Daha (the lake of blood).

If twins are born, one is chosen, generally the boy, if they are of different sexes. The other is got rid off by exposure in the jungle. The avowed motive for this practice (which, of course, is rapidly passing away under the influence of the European governments) is the desire to preserve the life of the survivor; for they hold that his chances of life are diminished not only by the necessity of dividing the mother's care and milk between the twins, if both survive, but also by the sympathetic bond which they believe to exist between twins, and which renders each of them liable to all the ills and misfortunes that befall the other; and to Kayans the loss of a child of some years of age is a calamity of the first magnitude, whereas the sacrifice of one of a pair of new-born twins is hardly felt.

At the moment the child is completely born, a TAWAK or a drum (according as it is male or female) is beaten in the gallery with a peculiar rhythm. All members of the household (I.E. all whose rooms are under the roof of the one long house, and who, therefore, are under the same omens and tabus) who are within the house at this moment have the right to a handful of salt from the parents of the child; and all members who are not under the roof at the moment are expected to make a present of some piece of iron to the child. This is an ancient custom, which is no longer strictly observed, and which seems to be undergoing a natural decay.

During the confinement of a woman, Kayans (more especially those of the upper Rejang) sometimes perform a dance which is supposed to facilitate delivery. It is commonly performed by a woman, a friend or relative of the labouring woman, who takes in her arms a bundle of cloth, which she handles like a baby while she dances, afterwards putting it into the cradle (HAVAT) in which a child is carried on the back. An old story relates the origin of this dance as follows. A widow died in childbirth, and the child was given to a woman who happened to be dancing at the time of its birth, and who afterwards became a very influential and prosperous person.

When the delivery has been normally accomplished and all goes well, the mother at once nurses the child; and a woman of the lower class may resume her lighter household duties within twenty-four hours. A woman of the upper class may remain recumbent for the most part of several days or even weeks. For seventeen days the mother wears threads tied round the thumbs and big toes, and during this time she is expected to avoid heavy labour, such as farm-work and the pounding of hadi. There seems to be no trace of any such custom as the COUVADE, though the father observes, like the mother, certain tabus during the early months and years of the child's life, with diminishing strictness as the child grows older. The child also is hedged about with tabus. The general aim of all these tabus seems to be to establish and maintain about the child a certain atmosphere (or, as they say, a certain odour)[168] in which alone it can thrive. Neither father nor mother will eat or touch anything whose properties are thought to be harmful or undesirable for the child, E.G. such things as the skin of the timid deer (see vol. ii. p. 72), or that of the tiger-cat; and the child himself is still more strictly preserved from such contacts. Further, nothing used by or about the child -- toys, garments, cradle, or beads -- must be lost, lent, sold, or otherwise allowed to pass out of the possession of the parents; though, if one child has thriven, its properties are preferred to all others for the use of a younger brother or sister. It is important also that no stranger shall handle or gaze too closely upon the child; and when it is put down to sleep in the parents' room, the mat or rude wooden cradle on which it lies is generally surrounded by a rough screen. The more influential the stranger, the more is his contact to be feared; for any such contact or notice may attract to the infant the unwelcome and probably injurious attentions of the TOH. For the same reason it is forbidden, or PARIT, to a child to lie down on the spot where a chief has been sitting or where he usually reposes. And it is a grave offence for a child to, jump over the legs of a reclining chief; but in this case the disrespect shown is probably the more important ground of the disapprobation incurred.

If any such contact has unwittingly occurred, or if, for example, a Kayan mother has consented to submit an ailing child to inspection by a European medical man, the danger incurred may be warded off by the gift from the stranger to the child of some small article of value. In a similar way the breach of other tabus, such as the entering of a room which is LALI, may be rendered innocuous.

The infant is carried by the mother almost continuously during the waking hours of its first year of life; it is generally suspended in a sling made of wood or of basket-work, resembling in shape the baby's swing familiar in our nurseries; the child sits on a semicircular piece of board, its legs dependent, its knees and belly against the mother's back, and its own back supported by the two vertical pieces of the cradle (see Pl. 166). The mother nurses the infant in her arms during most of her leisure moments, and she hushes it to sleep by crooning old lullabies as she rocks it in her arms or in a cradle suspended from a pliable stick.[169] The father hardly handles it during its first year, but many fathers nurse and dandle the older infants for hours together in the most affectionate manner; and, if the child's grandfather is living, he generally becomes its devoted attendant.

About the end of its first year the infant begins to crawl and toddle about the room and gallery, to sprawl into the hearth and eat charcoal, and to get into all sorts of mischief in the usual way. During the first year he lives chiefly on his mother's milk, but takes also thick rice-water from an early age.

Towards the end of the first year the lobes of the ears are perforated, and a ring (or, in the case of a girl, several small rings) is inserted in each. Of childish affections of health, the commonest at this age is yaws (FRAMBOESIA) about the mouth. Kayan mothers believe that every child must go through this, and that one attack protects against its recurrence; and the rareness of the disease in adults seems to bear out this belief. Most of the children are weaned about the end of their second year.

During the next years, until the boy is five or six years of age, he remains always under the care of his mother. He spends the day running about within and around the house and among the boats at the landing-place, playing with his fellows, chasing the pigs and fowls, and bathing in the river. The children are in the main what is commonly called good, they cry but little, and quarrels and outbreaks of temper are few. During the boy's third year a hole is punched in the shell of each ear. A single blow with a bamboo punch takes out a circular piece; into this a circular plug of wax or wood is inserted. The girl, on the other hand, has more rings added to the lobes of her cars, which gradually yield to the weight, and begin to assume the desired character of slender loops. During these years the boy normally takes the first step of his initiation as a warrior by striking a blow at a freshly taken head, or, if need be, at an old one (see vol. ii. p. 169).

It is at some time in the course of these years, usually not earlier than the beginning of the child's third year, that he first receives a name. The occasion of the rite is a general naming of all the children of the house of suitable age; and the time is determined by the conclusion of a successful harvest; for a general feast is made for which much rice and BURAK are required, and these cannot be spared in a year of poor harvest. For each child who is to be named a small human image in soft wood is prepared. This is an effigy of Laki Pesong, the god whose special function it is to care for the welfare of the children. A small mat is woven and a few strips of rattan provided for each child. Each child sits with his (or her) mother in the gallery beside the door of their room, and the parents announce the name they propose for the child. Then the father, or some other man, after killing a chick or young pig, lays the image on the mat before the child, passes one of the rattan strips beneath it, and, holding the image firmly with a big toe on each end of it, pulls the strip rapidly to and fro, until it is made hot by its friction against the image, and smoke begins to rise. While this goes on, the same man, or another, pours out a stream of words addressed to Laki Pesong, the sense of which is a supplication for an answer to the question, "Is this a suitable name? Will he be prosperous under it? Will he enjoy a long life?" etc. He continues the sawing movement until the strip breaks in two. The two pieces are then compared; if they are of unequal length, this result is regarded as expressing the approval of the proposed name by Laki Pesong; if they are of approximately equal length, the god is held to have expressed his disapproval, and another name is proposed and submitted to the same test. If disapproval is thus expressed several times, the naming of the child is postponed to another occasion (Pls. 53, 168).

If a name has been approved, the image, together with the knife used in killing the pig or chicken, is wrapped up in the small mat; the bundle, which, as well as the ceremony, is called PUSA, is thrust behind the rafters of the gallery opposite the door of the child's room, to remain there as a memento of the naming.

When the naming is accomplished a general feast begins, the parents of the newly named children contributing the chief part of the good things; and a number of specially invited guests may participate.

The name so given at this ceremony is borne until the child becomes a parent; when he resigns it in favour of the name given to his child with the title Taman (= father) prefixed (or Tinan in the case of a woman).

Among the Kayans of the upper Rejang the naming ceremonies differ widely from those described above, and are even more elaborate. The following description was given us by Laki Bo, a Kayan PENGHULU.[170] A child is named sometime between its third month and the end of its second year, the date depending partly on the father's capacity to afford the expenses incidental to the ceremony. The father and his friends obtain specimens of all the edible animals and fish, and after drying them over the fire, set them up in his room in attitudes as lifelike as possible. He procures also the leaves of a species of banana tree which bears very large horn-like fruit, known as PUTI ORAN; and having procured the services of a female DAYONG, who has a reputation for skill in naming, he calls all the friends and relatives of the family to the feast. The DAYONG enters the room where the child is, bearing a fowl's egg, while gongs and drums are beaten and guns discharged. She strokes the child from forehead to navel with the egg, calling out some name at each stroke, until she feels that she has found a suitable name. The whole company then pretends to fall asleep; and presently some go out into the gallery. The DAYONG then calls upon sixteen of the women to enter the room; they enter led by a woman who, pretending to be a fowl, clucks and crows, and says, "Why are you all asleep here? It has been daylight for a long time. Don't you hear me crowing? Wake up, wake up." The child, which has been kept in its parents' cubicle during this first part of the ceremony, is then brought into the large room, and a fowl and small pig are slaughtered and their entrails examined. If these yield favourable omens, the DAYONG begins to chant, invoking the protection of good spirits for the child. Then sixteen men and sixteen women, whose parents are still living, are sent to fetch water for the use of the child and its mother. The feasting then begins, some person eating on behalf of the child, if it is too young to partake of the feast. Eight days later the DAYONG again invokes the protection of the beneficent spirits, and the child is taken out into the gallery and shown to all the household. Some near relative makes a cross upon its right foot with a piece of charcoal, and the child is taken to the door of each room to receive some small present from each roomhold. The child must then return to its parents' room and remain there eight days. After the next harvest a similar feast of pigs' flesh and dried animals is made, and the name is confirmed. But if in the meantime the child has been ill, or any other untoward event has happened, a new name is given to it. In this case it would be usual to choose the well-tried name of some prosperous uncle or aunt. Again the child must be confined to its parents' room for eight days following the feast; and after that time it is free to go where it will, or rather wherever children are allowed to go.

From five or six years onwards the boy more and more accompanies the men in their excursions on the river and in the jungle, and is taught to make himself useful on these occasions, and also on the PADI farm, where he helps in scaring pests and in other odd jobs. But he still has much leisure, which is chiefly devoted to playing with his fellows. Among the principal boys' games the following deserve mention: -- Spinning of peg-tops of hard wood, usually thrown overhand, but sometimes underhand, in a manner very similar to that of English boys, each boy in turn striving to strike the tops of the others with his own; this game is played about the time of PADI harvest. Simple kites are flown. A roughly made bow with unfeathered arrow is a somewhat rare toy. Most of the out-door games are of the nature of practice for the chase and war, and of trials of strength and of endurance of pain. Wrestling is perhaps the most popular sport with the older boys and with men. Each grips his antagonist's waist-cloth at its lower edge behind, and strives to lay him on his back (Pl. 169). Throwing mock spears at the domestic pigs or goats, and thrusting a spear through a bounding hoop, afford practice for sport and war. Running games like prisoner's base, and diving and swimming games, are also played. All these boys' games are but little organised, and the competitive motive is not very strongly operative; there are few set rules, and but little scope for, training in leadership and subordination is afforded by them.

In the house less active games are played. In one of the most popular of these a number of children squat in a ring upon the floor; one takes a glowing ember from a hearth, and passes it on to his neighbour, who in turn passes it on as quickly as possible. In this way it goes round and round the ring until the last spark of fire goes out. He or she who holds it at that moment is then dubbed ABAN LALU or BALU DOH (=widower Lalu or widow Doh).

Pets, in the form of birds and the smaller mammals, especially hornbills, parrokeets, squirrels, porcupines, are kept in wicker cages.

About the age of ten years the Kayan boy begins to wear a waist-cloth -- his first garment -- his sister having assumed the apron some two or three years earlier; we are not aware of any ceremony connected with this. From this time onward the boy begins to accompany his father on the longer excursions of the men, especially on the long expeditions in search of jungle produce; and on these occasions he is expected to take an active part in the labours of the party. Participation in such expeditions affords, perhaps, the most important part of his education. There is little or no attempt made to impart instruction to the children, whether moral or other, but they fall naturally under the spell of custom and public opinion; and they absorb the lore, legends, myths, and traditions of their tribe, while listening to their elders as they discuss the affairs of the household and of their neighbours in the long evening talks. They learn also the prohibitions and tabus by being constantly checked; a sharp word generally suffices to secure obedience. Punishments are almost unknown, especially physical punishments; though in extreme cases of disobedience the child's ear may be tweaked, while it is asked if it is deaf. A sound scolding also is not infrequent, and an incorrigible offender, especially if his conduct has been offensive to persons outside his family, may be haled before the chief, who rates him soundly, and who may, in a more serious case, award compensation to be paid by the delinquent's father. But in the main the Spencerian method of training is followed. A parent warns his child of the ill effects that may be expected from the line of behaviour he is taking, and when those effects are realised, he says, "Well, what did I tell you?" and adds a grunt of withering contempt.

The growth of the children in wisdom and morality is aided also by the hearing from the lips of their elders wise saws and ancient maxims that embody the experience of their forefathers, many of which are possibly of Malay origin. A few of these seem worthy of citation here: --

"Never mind a drop or two so long as you don't spill the whole."

"Better white bones than white eyes" (which means -- that death is preferable to shame).

"If you haven't a rattan do the best you can with a creeper."

It is difficult to say exactly at what age puberty begins with the youths. The girls mostly begin their courses in the fourteenth or fifteenth year. By this time the girl of the better class has the lobes of her ears distended to form loops, which allow her heavy ear-rings to reach to her collar-bone or even lower, and she is far advanced towards completion of her tatu on thighs, feet, hands, and forearms (see Chap. XII.). The process is begun at about the tenth year, and is continued from time to time, only a small area being covered at each bout, owing to the pain of the operation and the ensuing inflammation and discomfort.

The boys begin at about fifteen years, or rather earlier, to assert their independence, by clubbing together with those of their own age, and taking up their sleeping quarters with the bachelors in the gallery. At an earlier age the children have picked up a number of songs and spontaneously sing them in groups, but now they begin to develop their powers of musical. expression by practising with the KELURI, Jew's harp, drum and TAWAK.

Of these instruments the first is the most used, especially by the youths. It is a rude form of the bagpipes. The KELURI consists of a dried gourd which has the shape of an oval flask with a long neck (Fig. 85). The closed ends of a bundle of six narrow bamboo pipes are inserted in the body of the gourd through a hole cut in its wall, and are fixed hermetically with wax. Their free ends are open, and each pipe has a small lateral hole or stop at a carefully determined distance from the open end. The artist blows through the neck of the gourd, and the air enters the base of each pipe by an oblong aperture which is filled by a vibrating tongue or reed; this is formed by shaving away the wall of the bamboo till it is very thin, and then cutting through it round three sides of the oblong; it is weighted with a piece of wax. The holes are stopped by the fingers, 3ach pipe emitting its note only when its hole is stopped. The physical principles involved are obscure to us. Varieties of this instrument are made by all the tribes of Borneo as well as by many other peoples of the far East (Pl. 70).

The bamboo harp is similar to that made and used by the Punans (see Fig. 86); the SAPEH is a two-stringed instrument of the banjo order; the strings are thin strips of rattan; the whole stem and body are carved out of a single block of hard wood (see Pl. 170 and Fig. 20).

Some of the girls learn to execute a solo dance, which consists largely in slow graceful movements of the arms and hands (Pl. 170). The bigger boys are taught to take part in the dance in which the return from the warpath is dramatically represented. This is a musical march rather than a dance. A party of young men in full war-dress form up in single line; the leader, and perhaps two or three others, play the battle march on the KELURI. The line advances slowly up the gallery, each man turning half about at every third step, the even numbers turning to the one hand, the odd to the other hand, alternately, and all stamping together as they complete the turn at each third step. The turning to right and left symbolises the alert guarding of the heads which are supposed to be carried by the victorious warriors.

A more violent display of warlike feeling is given in the war-dance which is executed by one or two warriors only. The youth, in full panoply of war, and brandishing a PARANG and shield, goes through the movements of a single combat with some fanciful exaggeration (Pl. 171). He crouches beneath his shield, and springs violently hither and thither, emitting piercing yells of defiance and rage, cutting and striking at his imaginary foe or his partner in the dance. But it is characteristic of the Kayans that neither in this dance nor in actual practice in fencing do they attempt to strike one another. The boy, besides watching these martial displays, is instructed in the arts of striking, parrying, and shielding by the older men, who strike at him with a stick but arrest the blow before it goes home. And we have found it impossible to introduce among them a more realistic mode of playful fencing. The ground of this reluctance actually to strike one another in fencing is probably their strong feeling for symbolism and the prevailing tendency to believe that the symbolical art brings about that which it symbolises. In part also it is due to the fact that to draw the blood of any member of the household is LALI and involves the penalty of a fine.[171]

The youth goes through no elaborate rite of initiation to manhood; and, to the best of our knowledge, there exists no body of secret knowledge or of tradition or rites shared in only by the adult men, to participation in which he might be admitted in the course of such a rite. The only rite that is required to qualify him for taking his place as a full-fledged member of the community is the second occasion on which he strikes at the heads taken in battle. We have seen that he performs this ceremonial act for the first time when still of tender age. The age at which he repeats it depends in part upon the occurrence of an opportunity; it commonly falls between his eighth and fifteenth year. If in a house there is a number of big lads who have not performed this rite, owing to no heads having been taken for some years, a head may be borrowed for the purpose from a friendly household; and in this case the borrowed head is brought into the house with all the pomp and ceremony of successful war.

As the returning war-party approaches the village, the boys who are to take part in the rite are marshalled before the house by a master of the ceremonies. He kills a fowl and thrusts a sharpened stake right through it, so that the point projects from its beak, and slashes the carcase into three pieces, one for the adults of the house, one for the boys, and one for the infants. He then takes a short bamboo knife, and a bunch of ISANG leaves, and, after making a short address to the boys, ties a band of ISANG round the wrist of each of them, and, diluting the blood of the fowl with water, smears some of the mixture on each boy's wrist-band. He puts a handful of rice on a burning log and gives a grain of it to each of the boys to eat.

Some old man of the house goes down to the river to meet the returning war-party and brings up the head (or one of the heads) and holds it out, while the master of ceremonies, holding the portion of the fowl's carcase assigned to the boys, leads up each boy in turn to strike at the head with a sword. The boys then go down to the river; and, while they bathe, a bunch of ISANG with which the head has been decorated is waved over them. During the feasting which follows the boys may eat only twice a day. No youth may join a war-party until he has taken part in this rite. The boys are with few or no exceptions keen to go out to war and therefore they like to go through this ceremony at the earliest permissible opportunity.

When the youth begins to feel strongly the attraction of the other sex, he finds opportunities of paying visits, with a few companions, in friendly houses. It is then said in his own house that he has gone "to seek tobacco," a phrase which is well understood to mean that he has gone to seek female companionship.[172]

We must not pass over without mention a peculiar mutilation which is practised by most of the Kayan youths as they approach manhood, namely, the transverse perforation of the GLANS PENIS and the insertion of a short rod of polished bone or hard wood.

A youth of average presentability will usually succeed in becoming the accepted lover of some girl in his own or another house (cp. Chap. V.); and though he may engage himself in this way with two or three girls in turn before deciding to "settle down," he is usually not much over twenty years of age when he becomes accepted as the future husband of a girl some years his junior. A Kayan youth who has rendered pregnant a girl with whom he has kept company can be relied upon to acknowledge his responsibility and to marry her before her time comes. In general it may be said that the rite of marriage does not mark so complete a change in the recognised relations of the young couple as with ourselves, except perhaps in those parts of this country where "handfasting" is recognised as customary and regular. A time is appointed for the wedding, generally shortly after the completion of the padi-harvest; but this date is liable to be repeatedly postponed to the following year by the occurrence of various events which are regarded as of evil omen and as foretelling the early death of one of the couple if they should persist in going through the ceremony. Such omens are hardly ever disregarded; not even if the girl is far advanced in pregnancy.[173] In the latter case the girl does not incur the odium that attaches to the production of bastard offspring (see Chap. XX.); she is treated as a married woman would be, and her child is regarded as legitimate.

We describe in the following paragraphs the wedding of the son of an influential Kayan chief to the daughter of the chief of another house of the same village, such as we have had occasion to assist at. The weddings of couples of less exalted station are correspondingly less elaborate in all particulars.

When the appointed time draws near, the bridegroom sends a trusted friend (his "best man") to open negotiations with the bride's parents. The emissary carries with him a number of presents whose value accords with the status and wealth of the bridegroom's parents. For some time the fiction is maintained that the object of his visit is not even suspected by the family, who make enquiries into the nature of his business. After some fencing he comes to the point and asks on behalf of his friend for a definite date at which he may marry the daughter. The parents raise objections and difficulties of all sorts, and perhaps nothing is settled until a second or third visit. If the parents accept the proposal, the best man hands to them five sets each of sixteen beads, the beads of each set being of uniform shape and colour, namely (1) small yellow beads (UTEH); (2) black beads (MEDAK); (3) a set known as HABARANI which may not be worn by the bride before the naming of her first child; (4) light blue beads (KRUTANG); (5) dark blue beads (TOBI). Each of these sets of beads is held to ensure to the bride the enjoyment of some moral good. The girl also sends a string of beads to her lover by the hand of his best man, and at last the date is fixed, due regard being paid to the phases of the moon; new moon is considered the most favourable time of the month. The importance ascribed to the phase of the moon seems to arise from the fact that the shape of the half-moon suggests the state of pregnancy. Tally is kept by both parties of the date agreed upon. On two long strips of rattan an equal number of knots is tied. Each party keeps one of these tallies (often it is carried tied below the knee) and cuts off one knot each morning; when the last knot alone remains, the appointed day is at hand.

The parties on both sides invite the attendance of their friends and relatives, who crowd the gallery of the bride's house. Early in the morning the bridegroom arrives with his best man and a party of young friends in full war-dress; they land from a boat even though they have come but a few yards by water. They march up to the house, some of them carrying large brass gongs; ascending the ladder, they lay the gongs down the gallery from the head of the ladder towards the door of the bride's room at such intervals that the bride can step from one to another. It is understood that these gongs become the property of the bride and her parents. Others of the bridegroom's band carry other articles of value, and when the party reaches the door of the bride's room, they parley with her parents and friends who are gathered in the room, displaying and offering these objects to the defenders of the room as inducements to admit them. They strive also to push open the door. Presently the men of the defending party make a sortie from the room fully armed, and repel the attackers with much show of violence, but without bloodshed. After this sham fight has been repeated, perhaps several times, the bridegroom and his supporters are at last admitted to the room, and they rush in, only to find, perhaps, that the coy maiden has slipped away through the small door which generally gives access to a neighbouring room. The impatient bridegroom cannot obtain information as to her whereabouts, and so he and his men sit down in the room and accept the proffered cigarettes. Presently the bride relents and returns to her parents' room accompanied by a bevy of her girl friends. But the bridegroom takes no notice of her entry. The inevitable pig meanwhile has been laid in the gallery, together with a few gifts for the DAYONG who is to read its liver. Here the final steps of the bargaining are conducted by the friends of the bridegroom. (It is impossible to say in each case how far this bargaining is genuine and how far the terms of the bargain have been arranged beforehand.) More gongs are added to the row upon the floor, chiefly by the friends invited by the bridegroom, who thus make their wedding gifts, perhaps until the row extends to the door of the bride's room. The pig is then killed and its liver examined; and, if necessary, this is repeated with another and another pig, until one whose liver permits of favourable interpretation is found. (A series of bad livers would lead to postponement.) The DAYONG then sprinkles pig's blood and water from a gong upon all the assembly, invoking the blessing of the gods upon the young couple, asking for them long life and many children. Then the bride and bridegroom walk up and down the row of gongs eight times, stepping only upon the metal. In some cases the bridegroom descends to his boat at the landing-stage on each of these eight excursions, thus showing that he is free to come and go as he pleases and has no entanglements. In this degenerate age the ceremony terminates with this act, but for the feasting and speech-making which fill up the evening hours. But in the old days, as we are credibly informed by those who have been eye-witnesses, the bride descended with the groom and his party to his boat and was then carried off at full speed, pursued by several boat-loads of her friends. The fleeing party would then check the pursuit by throwing out on to the bank every article of value still remaining among them; each article in turn would be snapped up by the pursuers, who then, having thus resisted to the last and extorted the highest possible price from the bridegroom, would allow the happy pair to console each other in peace for the many trials they had had to endure.

It may seem difficult to reconcile the form of the marriage ceremony (involving as it does a blending of symbolical capture with actual purchase) with the fact that, in accordance with the custom almost universally followed among Kayans, the bridegroom becomes a member of the room of his father-in-law and remains there for some years before carrying off his wife to his own house. But we think this latter practice, which in some quarters has been regarded as a survival from a matriarchal organisation of society, is a recently introduced custom, which has come rapidly into favour as a means by which the bridegroom and his friends avoid a part of the expense involved in the older form of marriage. For the residence for a period of years of the young couple in the house and room of the wife's parents is made a part of the marriage contract. If the bride is the only child of a chief, her husband may remain permanently in her home and succeed her father as chief. But in most cases the couple migrates to the husband's house after a few years, generally on the occasion of the building of a new house or on the death of his father, both of which events afford him the opportunity of becoming head of a room and thus taking rank as, and assuming the full responsibilities of, a PATER FAMILIAS.

The marriage ceremonies of the Kenyahs and Klemantans are similar but less elaborate. But the Sea Dayak ceremony is different. A feast is made in the house of the girl's parents. The bridegroom makes no considerable gifts to the parents of the bride, though he is generally expected to become a member of their household for the first few years of his married life. The principal feature of the ceremony is the splitting open of a PINANG (the seed of the areca palm) during the feast, in the presence of the young couple and their relatives. The two halves are examined for signs of decay or imperfection; and if there are none, the marriage is regarded as approved. A live fowl is waved over the couple by the chief of the house as he says, "Make them prosperous, make them happy, give them long life, make them wealthy, etc. etc." The phrases conform to a conventional pattern, but each orator modifies and adapts them freely. The words seemed to be addressed to the fowl, and it seems impossible to discover in the Iban mind any conception of a higher power behind or beyond the fowl, though we may suspect that in a vague way the live fowl symbolises or represents Life in general or the power behind Nature (Pl. 173).

Few or no Kayans can state their age without going through some preliminary calculations, and even then their statements are apt to be vague and uncertain. A Kayan mother can generally work out the age of each of her children on request. She puts down in a row bits of leaf or stick, one for each year, working back from the present, and recalling each year by the name of the place where the PADI crop of that year was raised. When she reaches back to, the year of the birth of any one of her children, she says that the child was born about or before or soon after this particular harvest, and by counting the pieces of stuff laid down she then arrives at the child's age.

An elderly man can generally make no more accurate statement regarding his age than that at the time of the great eclipse he had just begun to wear a waist-cloth, or that when the great guns were heard (I.E. the sound of the eruption of Krakatoa) he was just beginning "to look for tobacco."

We mention here a statement commonly made by Kayans, which, if true, is of some interest as reporting a curious exception to a world-wide custom commonly regarded as directly determined by the difference of nature between the sexes, the report, namely, that among the Kalabits the initiative in all love-making is taken by the women. We have no detailed information in regard to their courtship and marriage procedures.