Part 3 (2/2)

The lower cla.s.s is made up of slaves captured in war and of their descendants, and for this reason its members are of very varied physical type. An unmarried slave of either s.e.x lives with, and is treated almost as a member of, the family of his or her master, eating and in some cases sleeping in the family room. Slaves are allowed to marry, their children becoming the property of their masters. Some slave-families are allowed to acquire a room in the house, and they then begin to acquire a less dependent position; and though they still retain the status of slaves, and are spoken of as ”slaves-outside-the-room,” the master generally finds it impossible to command their services beyond a very limited extent, and in some cases will voluntarily resign his rights over the family. But in this case the family continues to belong to the lower cla.s.s.

The members of each of these cla.s.ses marry in nearly all cases within their own cla.s.s. The marriages of the young people of the upper cla.s.s are carefully regulated. Although they are allowed to choose their partners according to the inscrutable dictates of personal affinities, their choice is limited by their elders and the authority of the chief. Many of them marry members of neighbouring villages, while the other cla.s.ses marry within their own village.

A youth of the upper cla.s.s, becoming fond of some girl of the middle cla.s.s, and not being allowed to marry her (although this is occasionally permitted), will live with her for a year or two. Then, when the time for his marriage arrives (it having perhaps been postponed for some years after being arranged, owing to evil omens, or to lack of means or of house accommodation), he may separate from his mistress, leaving in her care any children born of their union, and perhaps making over to her some property -- as public opinion demands in such cases. She may and usually will marry subsequently a man of her own cla.s.s, but the children born of her irregular union may claim and may be accorded some of the privileges of their father's cla.s.s. In this way there is formed in most villages a cla.s.s of persons of ambiguous status, debarred from full members.h.i.+p in the upper cla.s.s by the bar-sinister. Such persons tend to become wholly identified with the upper or middle cla.s.s according to the degrees of their personal merits.

Marriages are sometimes contracted between persons of the middle and slave cla.s.ses. In the case of a young man marrying a slave woman, the owners of the woman will endeavour to persuade him to live with her in their room, when he becomes a subordinate member of their household. If they succeed in this they will claim as their property half the children born to the couple. On the other hand, if the man insists on establis.h.i.+ng himself in possession of a room, he may succeed in practically emanc.i.p.ating his wife, perhaps making some compensation to her owners in the shape of personal services or bra.s.s ware. In this case the children of the couple would be regarded as freeborn. It is generally possible for an energetic slave to buy his freedom.

Less frequent is the marriage of a slave man with a free woman of the middle cla.s.s. In this case the man will generally manage to secure his emanc.i.p.ation and to establish himself as master of a room, and to merge himself in the middle cla.s.s. In the case of marriage between two slaves, they continue to live in the rooms of their owners, spending by arrangement periods of two or three years alternately as members of the two households. The children born of such a slave-couple are divided as they grow up between the owners of their parents.

On the whole the slaves are treated with so much kindness and consideration that they have little to complain of, and most of them seem to have little desire to be freed. A capable slave may become the confidant and companion of his master, and in this way may attain a position of considerable influence in the village. A young slave is commonly addressed by his master and mistress as ”My Child.” A slave is seldom beaten or subjected to any punishment save scolding, and he bears his part freely in the life of the family, sharing in its labours and its recreations, its ill or its good fortunes. Nothing in the dress or appearance of the slave distinguishes him from the other members of the village.

The Family

Very few men have more than one wife. Occasionally a chief whose wife has borne him no children during some years of married life, or has found the labours of entertaining his guests beyond her strength, will with her consent, or even at her request, take a second younger wife. In such a case each wife has her own sleeping apartment within the chief's large chamber, and the younger wife is expected to defer to the older one, and to help her in the work of the house and of the field. The second wife would be chosen of rather lower social standing than the first wife, who in virtue of this fact maintains her ascendancy more easily. A third wife is probably unknown; public opinion does not easily condone a second wife, and would hardly tolerate a third. In spite of the presence of slave women in the houses, concubinage is not recognised or tolerated.

The choice of a wife is not restricted by the existence of any law or custom prescribing marriage without or within any defined group; that is to say, exogamous and endogamous groups do not exist. Incest is regarded very seriously, and the forbidden degrees of kins.h.i.+p are clearly defined. They are very similar to those recognised among ourselves. A man may under no circ.u.mstances marry or have s.e.xual relations with his sister, mother, daughter, father's or mother's sister or half sister, his brother's or sister's daughter; and in the case of those women who stand to him in any of these relations in virtue of adoption, the prohibitions and severe penalties are if possible even more strictly enforced. First cousins may marry, but such marriages are not regarded with favour, and certain special ceremonies are necessitated; and it seems to be the general opinion that such marriages are not likely to prove happy. Many young men of the upper cla.s.s marry girls of the same cla.s.s belonging to neighbouring villages of their own people, aid in some cases this choice falls on a girl of a village of some other tribe. A marriage of the latter kind is often encouraged by the chiefs and elder people, in order to strengthen or to restore friendly relations between the villages.

The initiative is taken in nearly all cases by the youth. He begins by paying attentions somewhat furtively to the girl who attracts his fancy. He will often be found pa.s.sing the evening in her company in her parents' room. There he will display his skill with the KELURI, or the Jew's harp, or sing the favourite love-song of the people, varying the words to suit the occasion. If the girl looks with favour on his advances, she manages to make the fact known to him. Politeness demands that in any case he shall be supplied by the women with lighted cigarettes. If the girl wishes him to stay, she gives him a cigarette tied in a peculiar manner, namely by winding the strip which confines its sheath of dried banana leaf close to the narrow mouth-piece; whereas on all other occasions this strip is wound about the middle of the cigarette. The young man thus encouraged will repeat his visits. If his suit makes progress, he may hope that the fair one will draw out with a pair of bra.s.s tweezers the hairs of his eyebrows and lashes, while he reclines on his back with his head in her lap. If these hairs are very few, the girl will remark that some one else has been pulling them out, an imputation which he repudiates. Or he complains of a headache, and she administers scalp-ma.s.sage by winding tufts of hair about her knuckles and sharply tugging them. When the courts.h.i.+p has advanced to this stage, the girl may attract her suitor to the room by playing on the Jew's harp, with which she claims to be able to speak to him -- presumably the language of the heart. The youth thus encouraged may presume to remain beside his sweetheart till early morning, or to return to her side when the old people have retired. When the affair has reached this stage, it becomes necessary to secure the public recognition which const.i.tutes the relation a formal betrothal. The man charges some elderly friend of either s.e.x, in many cases his father or mother, to inform the chief of his desire. The latter expresses a surprise which is not always genuine; and, if the match is a suitable one, he contents himself with giving a little friendly advice. But if he is aware of any objections to the match he will point them out, and though he will seldom forbid it in direct terms, he will know how to cause the marriage to be postponed.

If the chief and parents favour the match, the young man presents a bra.s.s gong or a valuable bead to the girl's family as pledge of his sincerity. This is returned to him if for any reason beyond his control the match is broken off. The marriage may take place with very little delay; but during the interval between betrothal and marriage the omens are anxiously observed and consulted. All accidents affecting any members of the village are regarded as of evil omen, the more so the more nearly the betrothed parties are concerned in them. The cries of birds and deer are important; those heard about the house are likely to be bad omens, and it is sought to compensate for these by sending a man skilled in augury to seek good omens in the jungle, such as the whistle of the Trogan and of the spider-hunter, and the flight of the hawk from right to left high up in the sky. If the omens are persistently and predominantly bad, the marriage is put off for a year, and after the next harvest fresh omens are sought. The man is encouraged in the meantime to absent himself from the village, in the hope that he may form some other attachment. But if he remains true and favourable omens are obtained, the marriage is celebrated if possible at the close of the harvest. If the marriage takes place at any other time, the feast will be postponed to the end of the following harvest.[40] After the marriage the man lives with his wife in the room of his father-in-law for one, two, or at most three years. During this time he works in the fields of his father-in-law and generally helps in the support of the household, showing great deference towards his wife's parents. Before the end of the third year of marriage, the young couple will acquire for themselves a room in the house and village of the husband, in which they set up housekeeping on their own account. In addition to these personal services rendered to the parents of the bride, the man or his father and other relatives give to the girl's parents at the time of the marriage various articles which are valuable in proportion to the social standing of the parties, and which are generally appropriated by the girl's parents.[41]

Divorce is rare but not unknown among the Kayans. The princ.i.p.al grounds of divorce are misconduct, desertion, incompatibility of temper and family quarrels; or a couple may terminate their state of wedlock by mutual consent on payment of a moderate fine to the chief. Such separation by mutual consent is occasioned not infrequently by the sterility of the marriage, especially if the couple fails to obtain a child for adoption; the parties hope to procure offspring by taking new partners; for the desire for children and pride and joy in the possession of them are strongly felt by all. The husband of a sterile wife may leave the house for a long period, living in the jungle and visiting other houses, in the hope that his wife may divorce him on the ground of desertion, or give him ground for divorcing her. On discovery of misconduct on the woman's part the husband will usually divorce her; the man then retains all property acc.u.mulated since the marriage, and the children are divided between the parents. The co-respondent and respondent are fined by the chief, and half the amount of the fine goes to the injured husband. Misconduct on the part of the man must be flagrant before it const.i.tutes a sufficient ground for his divorce by his wife. In this case the same rules are followed. Among the Kayans the divorce is not infrequently followed by a reconciliation brought about by the intervention of friends; the parties then come together again without further ceremony. There is little formality about the divorce procedure. In the main it takes the form of separation by mutual consent and the condonation of the irregularity by the community on the payment of a fine to the chief.

Adoption

Adoption is by no means uncommon. The desire for children, especially male children, is general and strong; but sterile marriages seem to be known among all the peoples and are common among the Kenyahs. When a woman has remained infertile for some years after her marriage, the couple usually seek to adopt one or more children. They generally prefer the child of a relative, but may take any child, even a captive or a slave child, whose parents are willing to resign all rights in it. A child is often taken over from parents oppressed by poverty, in many cases some article of value or a supply of PADI being given in exchange. Not infrequently the parents wish to have the child returned to them when their affairs take a turn for the better, owing to a good harvest or some stroke of luck, and this is a frequent cause of dissensions. Usually the adopted child takes in every way the position of a child born to the parents.

Some of the Klemantans (Barawans and Lelaks in the Baram) practise a curious symbolic ceremony on the adoption of a child. When a couple has arranged to adopt a child, both man and wife observe for some weeks before the ceremony all the prohibitions usually observed during the later months of pregnancy. Many of these prohibitions may be described in general terms by saying that they imply abstention from every action that may suggest difficulty or delay in delivery; E.G. the hand must not be thrust into any narrow hole to pull anything out of it; no fixing of things with wooden pegs must be done; there must be no lingering on the threshold on entering or leaving a room. When the appointed day arrives, the woman sits in her room propped up and with a cloth round her, in the att.i.tude commonly adopted during delivery. The child is pushed forward from behind between the woman's legs, and, if it is a young child, it is put to the breast and encouraged to suck. Later it receives a new name.

It is very difficult to obtain admission that a particular child has been adopted and is not the actual offspring of the parents; and this seems to be due, not so much to any desire to conceal the facts as to the completeness of the adoption, the parents coming to regard the child as so entirely their own that it is difficult to find words which will express the difference between the adopted child and the offspring. This is especially the case if the woman has actually suckled the child.

Proper Names

The child remains nameless during the first few years, and is spoken of as UKAT if a boy, OWING if a girl, both of which seem to be best translated as Thingumybob; among the Sea Dayaks ULAT (the little grub) is the name commonly used. It is felt that to give the child a name while its hold of life is still feeble is undesirable, because the name would tend to draw the attention of evil spirits to it. During its third or fourth year it is given a name at the same time as a number of other children of the house.[42] The name is chosen with much deliberation, the eldest son and daughter usually receiving the names of a grandfather and grandmother respectively. Male and female names are distinct. The name first given to any person is rarely carried through life; it is usually changed after any severe illness or serious accident, in order that the evil influences that have pursued him may fail to recognise him under the new name; thus the first or infant name of Tama Bulan was Lujah. After bearing it a few years he went through a serious illness, on account of which his name was changed to w.a.n.g. Among the Klemantans it is usual under these circ.u.mstances to name the child after some offensive object, E.G. TAI (dung), in order to render it inconspicuous, and thus withdraw it from the attention of malign powers. After the naming of a couple's first child, the parents are always addressed as father and mother of the child; E.G. if the child's name is OBONG, her father becomes known as TAMA OBONG, her mother as INAI OBONG, and their original names are disused and almost forgotten,[43] unless needed to distinguish the parents from other persons of the same name, when the old names are appended to the new; thus, Tama Obong Jau, if Jau was the original name of Tama Obong; and thus Tama Bulan received this name on the naming of his first child, Bulan (the moon), and when it is wished to distinguish him in conversation from other fathers of the moon he is called Tama Bulan w.a.n.g. If the eldest child OBONG dies, the father, Tama Obong Jau, becomes OYONG JAU; if one of his younger children dies, he becomes AKAM JAU; if his wife dies, he becomes ABAN JAU; if his brother died, he would be called YAT JAU; and if his sister, HAWAN JAU; and if two of these relatives are dead, these t.i.tles are used indifferently; but the deaths of wife and children are predominant over other occasions for the change of name. An elderly man who has no children receives the t.i.tle LINGO, and a woman, the t.i.tle APA prefixed to his or her former name. A widow is called BALU. The names of father and mother are never a.s.sumed by the children, and their deaths do not occasion any change of name, except the adoption of the t.i.tle OYAU on the loss of the father, and ILUN on the loss of the mother. These t.i.tles would be used only until the man became a father. When a man becomes a grandfather his t.i.tle is LAKI (E.G. LAKI JAU), and this t.i.tle supersedes all others. A child addresses, and speaks of, his father as TAMAN, and his mother as INAI or TINAN, and all four grandparents as POI. The parent commonly addresses the child, even when adult, as ANAK, or uses his proper name. A father's brother is addressed as AMAI, but this t.i.tle is used also as a term of respect in addressing any older man not related in any degree, even though he be of a different tribe or race. They use the word INAI for aunt as well as for mother, and some have adopted the Malay term MA MANAKAN for aunt proper. The same is true of the words for nephew and niece -- the Malay term ANAK MANAKAN being used for both.

The terms used to denote degrees of kins.h.i.+p are few, and are used in a very elastic manner. The term of widest connotation is PARIN IGAT, which is equivalent to our cousin used in the wider or Scotch sense; it is applied to all blood relatives of the same generation, and is sometimes used in a metaphorical sense much as we use the term brother. There are no words corresponding to our words son and daughter, ANAK meaning merely child of either s.e.x. There are no words corresponding to brother and sister; both are spoken of as PARIN, but this word is often used as a t.i.tle of endearment in addressing or speaking of a friend of either s.e.x of the same social standing and age as the speaker. The children of the same parents speak of themselves collectively as PANAK; this term also is sometimes used loosely and metaphorically. A step-father is TAMAN DONG; father-in-law is TAMAN DIVAN; forefather is SIPUN, a term used of any male or female ancestor more remote than the grandparents; but these are merely descriptive and not terms of address. A man of the upper cla.s.s not uncommonly has a favourite companion of the middle cla.s.s, who accompanies him everywhere and renders him a.s.sistance and service, and shares his fortunes (FIDUS ACHATES in short); him he addresses as BAKIS, and the t.i.tle is used reciprocally. A t.i.tle reciprocally used by those who are very dear friends, especially by those who have enjoyed the favours of the same fair one, is TOYONG (or among the Sea Dayaks -- IMPRIAN).

This list includes all the important Kayan terms used to denote personal relations and kins.h.i.+p, so far as we know; and we think it very improbable that any have escaped us. There seem to be no secret names, except in so far as names discarded on account of misfortune are not willingly recalled or communicated; but a child's name is seldom used, and adults also seem to avoid calling on one another by their proper names, especially when in the jungle, the t.i.tle alone, such as OYONG, or ABAN being commonly used; apparently owing to some vaguely conceived risk of directing to the individual named the attentions of malevolent powers.[44]

The foregoing account of the social organisation of the Kayans applies equally well to the Kenyahs, except that some of the t.i.tles used are different. The Klemantans and Muruts, too, present few important differences except that the power of the chiefs is decidedly less, and the distinction of the social strata less clearly marked, and slaves are less numerous. The Sea Dayak social organisation is also similar in most of its features. The most important of the differences presented by it are the following: -- Polygamy is not allowed, and occurs only illicitly. Both parties are fined when the facts are discovered. Divorce is very common and easily obtained; the marriage relation, being surrounded with much less solemnity, is more easily entered into and dissolved. Infidelity and mutual agreement are the common occasions of divorce. Either party can readily secure his or her freedom by payment of a small fine. There are both men and women who have married many times; a tenth husband or wife is not unknown; and a marriage may be dissolved within a week of its consummation.

The Sea Dayak, like all the other peoples, regards incest very seriously, and the forbidden degrees of kins.h.i.+p are well understood and very similar to those of Kayans.

A Sea Dayak village consists in almost every case of a single house, but such houses are generally grouped within easy reach of one another. Very few slaves are to be found in their houses, since the Ibans usually take the heads of all their conquered enemies rather than make slaves of them.

<script>