Part 51 (1/2)
Says Captain Mundy (II., 222):
”No aristocratic youth dare venture to pay his addresses to a Dyak demoiselle unless he throws at the blus.h.i.+ng maiden's feet a netful of skulls! In some districts it is customary for the young lady to desire her lover to cut a thick bamboo from the neighboring jungle, and when in possession of this instrument, she carefully arranges the _cadeau d'amour_ on the floor, and by repeated blows beats the heads into fragments, which, when thus pounded, are sc.r.a.ped up and cast into the river; at the same time she throws herself into the arms of the enraptured youth, and so commences the honeymoon.”
Another account of Dyak courts.h.i.+p (Roth, II., 166) represents a young warrior returning from a head-hunting expedition and, on meeting his beloved, holding in each hand one of the captured heads by the hair.
She takes one of the heads, whereupon they dance round each other with the most extravagant gestures, amidst the applause of the Rajah and his people. The next step is a feast, at which the young couple eat together. When this is over, they have to take off whatever clothes they have on and sit naked on the ground while some of the old women throw over them handfuls of paddy and repeat a prayer that they may prove as fruitful as that grain.
”The warrior can take away any inferior man's wife at pleasure, and is thanked for so doing. A chief who has twenty heads in his possession will do the same with another who may have only ten, and upwards to the Rajah's family, who can take any woman at pleasure.”
FICKLE AND SHALLOW Pa.s.sION
Though the Dyaks may be somewhat less coa.r.s.e than those Australians who make a captured woman marry the man who killed her husband, an almost equal callousness of feeling is revealed by J. Dalton's statement that the women taken on the head-hunting expedition ”soon became attached to the conquerors”--resembling, in this respect, the Australian woman who, of her own accord, deserts to an enemy who has vanquished her husband. Cases of frantic amorous infatuation occur, as a matter of course. Brooke (II., 106) relates the story of a girl of seventeen who, for the sake of an ugly, deformed, and degraded workman, left her home, dressed as a man, and in a small broken canoe made a trip of eighty miles to join her lover. In olden times death would have been the penalty for such an act; but she, being a ”New Woman” in her tribe, exclaimed, ”If I fell in love with a wild beast, no one should prevent me marrying it.” In this Eastern clime, Brooke declares, ”love is like the sun's rays in warmth.” He might have added that it is as fickle and transient as the sun's warmth; every pa.s.sing cloud chills it. The shallow nature of Dyak attachment is indicated by their ephemeral unions and universal addiction to divorce. ”Among the Upper Sarawak Dyaks divorce is very frequent, owing to the great extent of adultery,” says Haughton (Roth, I., 126); and St. John remarks:
”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 labor 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.'”
”Many men and women have married seven or eight times before they find the partner with whom they desire to spend the rest of their lives.”
”When a couple are newly-married, if a deer or a gazelle, or a moose-deer utters 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 an European lover; the Dayaks, however, take the matter very philosophically.”
”Mr. Chalmers mentions to me the case of a young Penin-jau 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.'”
”'Are you sorry?'”
”'Very sorry.'”
”'What are you doing with that bra.s.s wire?'”
”'Making _perik_'--the bra.s.s chain work which the women wear round their waists--'for a young woman whom I want to get for my new wife,'” (I., 165-67; 55.)
Such is the love of Dyaks. Marriage among them, says the same keen observer, ”is a business of partners.h.i.+p for the purpose of having children, dividing labor, and, by means of their offspring, providing for their old age;” and Brooke Low remarks that ”intercourse before marriage is strictly to ascertain that the marriage will be fruitful, as the Dyaks want children,” In other words, apart from sensual purposes, the women are not desired and cherished for their own sakes, but only for utilitarian reasons, as a means to an end. Whence we conclude that, high as the Dyaks stand above Australians and many Africans, they are still far from the goal of genuine affection. Their feelings are only skin deep.
DYAK LOVE-SONGS
Dyaks are not without their love-songs.
”I am the tender shoot of the drooping libau with its fragrant scent.” ”I am the comb of the champion fighting-c.o.c.k that never runs away,” ”I am the hawk flying down the Kanyau Kiver, coming after the fine feathered fowl.” ”I am the crocodile from the mouth of the Lingga, coming repeatedly for the striped flower of the rose-apple.”
Roth (I., 119-21) cites forty-five of these verses, mostly expressive of such selfish boasting and vanity. Not one of them expresses a feeling of tenderness or admiration of a beloved person, not to speak of altruistic feelings.
THE GIRL WITH THE CLEAN FACE
Is a Dyak capable of admiring personal beauty? Some of the girls have fine figures and pretty faces; but there is no evidence that any but the voluptuous (non-esthetic) qualities of the figure are appreciated, and as for the faces, if the men really appreciated beauty as we do, they would first of all things insist that the girls must keep their faces clean. An amusing experiment made by St. John with some Ida'an girls (I., 339) is suggestive from this point of view:
”We selected one who had the dirtiest face--and it was difficult to select where all were dirty--and asked her to glance at herself in a looking-gla.s.s. She did so, and pa.s.sed it round to the others; we then asked which they thought looked best, cleanliness or dirt: this was received with a universal giggle.