Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 50

On the island of Mabniag, after a girl has sent an intermediary to bring a string to the man she covets, she follows this up by sending him food, again and again. But he "lies low" a month or two before he ventures to eat any of this food, because he has been warned by his mother that if he takes it he will "get an eruption all over his face." Finally, he concludes she means business, so he consults the big men of the village and marries her.

If a man danced well, he found favor in the sight of these island damsels. His being married did not prevent a girl from proposing. Of course she took good care not to make the advances through one of the other wives--that might have caused trouble!--but in the usual way. On this island the men never made the first advances toward matrimony.

Haddon tells a story of a native girl who wanted to marry a Loyalty Islander, a cook, who was loafing on the mission premises. He did not encourage her advances, but finally agreed to meet her in the bush, where, according to his version of the story, he finally refused her.

She, however, accused him of trying to "steal" her. This led to a big palaver before the chief, at which the verdict was that the cook was innocent and that the girl had trumped up the charge in order to force the marriage.

If a man and a girl began to keep company, he was branded on the back with a charcoal, while her mark was cut into the skin (because "she asked the man"). It was expected they would marry, but if they did not nothing could be done. If it was the man who was unwilling, the girl's father told the other men of the place, and they gave him a sound thras.h.i.+ng. Refusing a girl was thus a serious matter on these islands!

The missionaries, Haddon was informed,

"discountenance the native custom of the women proposing to the men, although there is not the least objection to it from a moral or social point of view; quite the reverse. So the white man's fas.h.i.+on is being introduced. As an ill.u.s.tration of the present mixed condition of affairs, I found that a girl who wants a certain man writes him a letter, often on a slate, and he replies in a similar manner."

On the island of Tud it often happened that the girl who was first enamoured of a youth at his initiation, and who first asked him in marriage, was one who "like too many men." The lad, being on his guard, might get rid of her attentions by playing a trick on her, making a bogus appointment with her in the bush, and then informing the elder men, who would appear in his place at the trysting-place, to the girl's mortification.

Various details given in the chapter on Australia indicated that if the women on that big island did not propose, as a rule, it was not from coyness but because the selfishness of the men and their arrangements made it impossible in most cases. On these neighboring islands the women could propose; yet the cause of love, of course, did not gain anything from such an arrangement, which could serve only to stimulate licentiousness. Haddon gathered the impression that "chast.i.ty before marriage was unknown, free intercourse not being considered wrong; it was merely 'fas.h.i.+on along we folk.'" Their excuse was the same as Adam's: "Woman, he steal; man, how can he help it?"[182]

Nocturnal courts.h.i.+p was in vogue:

"Decorum was observed. Thus I was told in Tud a girl, before going to sleep, would tie a string round her foot and pa.s.s it under the thatched wall of the house. In the middle of the night her lover would come, pull the string, and so awaken the girl, who would then join him. As the chief of Mabuiag said, 'What can the father do; if she wants the man how can he stop her?'"

On Muralug Island the custom is somewhat different. There, after the girl has sent her gra.s.s-ring to the man she wants,

"if he is willing to proceed in the matter, he goes to the rendezvous in the bush and, not unnaturally, takes every advantage of the situation. Every night afterwards he goes to the girl's house and steals away before daybreak. At length someone informs the girl's father that a man is sleeping with his daughter. The father communicates with the girl, and she tells her lover that her father wants to see him--'To see what sort of man he is?' The father then says, 'You like my daughter, she like you, you may have her.' The details are then arranged."

Sometimes, if a girl was too free with her favors to the men, the other women cut a mark down her back, to make her feel ashamed. Yet she had no difficulty on this account in subsequently finding a husband.

Besides the existence of "free love," there are other customs arguing the absence of sentiment in these insular affairs of the heart.

Infanticide was frequently resorted to, the babes being buried alive in the sand, for no other reason than to save the trouble of taking care of them. After marriage, in spite of the fact that the girl did the proposing, she becomes the man's property; so much so that if she should offend him, he may kill her and no harm will come to him. If her sister comes to remonstrate, he can kill her too, and if he has two wives and they quarrel, he can kill both. In that love-scene reported by Maino, the chief of Tud, the girl gives us her "sentimental" reasons why she loves him: because he has a fine leg and body, and a good skin. The "romance" of the situation is further aggravated when we read that, as in Australia, swapping sisters is the usual way of getting a wife, and that if a man has no sister to exchange he must pay for his wife with a canoe, a knife, or a gla.s.s bottle. Chief Maino himself told Haddon that he gave for his wife seven pieces of calico, one dozen s.h.i.+rts, one dozen singlets, one dozen trousers, one dozen handkerchiefs, two dozen tomahawks, besides tobacco, fish-lines and hooks and pearl sh.e.l.ls. He finished his enumeration by exclaiming "By golly, he too dear!"

How did these islanders ever come to indulge in the custom, so inconsistent with their general att.i.tude toward women, of allowing them to propose? The only hint at an explanation I have been able to find is contained in the following citation from Haddon:

"If an unmarried woman desired a man she accosted him, but the man did not ask the woman (at least, so I was informed), for if she refused him he would feel ashamed, and maybe brain her with a stone club, and so 'he would kill her for nothing.'"

BORNEAN CAGED GIRLS

The islands of the Pacific Ocean and adjacent waters are almost innumerable. To give an account of the love-affairs customary on all of them would require a large volume by itself. In the present work it is not possible to do more than select a few of the islands, as samples, preference being given to those that show at least some traces of feelings rising above mere sensualism. One of the largest and best known of these islands is Borneo, and of its inhabitants the Dyaks are of special interest from our point of view. Their customs have been observed and described by St. John, Low, Bock, H. Ling Roth and others.[183]

In some parts of Dutch Borneo the cruel custom prevails of locking up a girl when she is eight to ten years old in a small, dark apartment of the house, which she is not allowed to leave for about seven years.

She spends her time making mats and doing other handiwork, but is not allowed to see anyone--not even of her own family--except a female slave. When she is free from her prison she appears bleached a light yellow, as though made out of wax, and totters along on small, thin feet--which the natives consider especially attractive.

CHARMS OF DYAK WOMEN

Dyak girls are not subjected to any such restraints, and in some respects they enjoy more liberty than is good for them. As usual among the lower races, they have to do most of the hard work. "It is a sad sight," says Low (75), "to see the Dyak girls, some but nine or ten years of age, carrying water up the mount in bamboos, their bodies bent nearly double, and groaning under the weight of their burden."

Lieutenant Marryat found that the mountain Dyak girls, if not beautiful, had some beautiful points--good eyes, teeth, and hair, besides good manners, and they "knew how to make use of their eyes."

Denison (cited by Roth, I., 46) remarks that

"Some of the girls showed signs of good looks, but hard work, poor feeding, and intermarriage and early marriage soon told their tale, and rapidly converted them into ugly, dirty, diseased old hags, and this at an age when they are barely more than young women."

They marry sometimes as early as the age of thirteen, and in general they are inferior in looks to the men. Marryat thought he saw "something wicked in their dark furtive glances," while Earl found the faces of Dyak women generally extremely interesting, largely on account of "the soft expression given by their long eyelashes, and by the habit of keeping the eyes half closed." "Their general conversation is not wanting in wit," says Brooke (I., 70),

"and considerable acuteness of perception is evinced, but often accompanied by improper and indecent language, of which they are unaware when giving utterance to it. Their acts, however, fortunately evince more regard for modesty than their words."

Grant, in describing his tour among the Land Dyaks, remarks (97):

"It has been mentioned once or twice that we found the women bathing at the village well. Although, generally speaking, no lack of proper modesty is shown, certainly rather an Adam and Eve like idea of the same is displayed on such occasions by these simple people."

DYAK MORALS

Concerning the s.e.xual morality of the Dyaks, opinions of observers differ somewhat. St. John (I., 52) observes that "the Sea Dyak women are modest and yet unchaste, love warmly and yet divorce easily, but are generally faithful to their husbands when married." It is agreed that the morality of the Land Dyaks is superior to that of the Sea Dyaks; yet with them,

"as among the Sea Dyaks, the young people have almost unrestrained intercourse; but, if a girl prove with child a marriage immediately takes place, the bridegroom making the richest presents he can to her relatives" (I., 113). "There is no strict law,"

says Mundy (II., 2),

"to bind the conduct of young married people of either s.e.x, and parents are more or less indifferent on those points, according to their individual ideas of right and wrong. It is supposed that every young Dyak woman will eventually suit herself with a husband, and it is considered no disgrace to be on terms of intimacy with the youth of her fancy till she has the opportunity of selecting a suitable helpmate; and as the unmarried ladies attach much importance to bravery, they are always desirous of securing the affections of a renowned warrior. Lax, however, as this code may appear before marriage, it would seem to be sufficiently stringent after the matrimonial. One wife only is allowed, and infidelity is punished by fine on both sides--inconstancy on the part of the husband being esteemed equally as bad as in the female. The breach of the marriage vows, however, appears to be infrequent, though they allow that, during the time of war, more license is given."

NOCTURNAL COURTs.h.i.+P

Brooke Low relates that the Sea Dyak girls receive their male visitors at night.

"They sleep apart from their parents, sometimes in the same room, but more often in the loft. The young men are not invited to sleep with them unless they are old friends, but they may sit with them and chat, and if they get to be fond of each other after a short acquaintance, and wish to make a match of it, they are united in marriage, if the parents on either side have no objections to offer. It is in fact the only way open to the man and woman to become acquainted with each other, as privacy during the daytime is out of the question in a Dyak village."

The same method of courts.h.i.+p prevails among the Land Dyaks. Some queer details are given by St. John, Crossland and Leggatt (Roth, 110).

About nine or ten o'clock at night the lover goes on tiptoe to the mosquito curtains of his beloved, gently awakens her and offers her some prepared betel-nut. If she accepts it, he is happy, for it means that his suit is prospering, but if she refuses it and says "Be good enough to blow up the fire," it means that he is dismissed. Sometimes their discourse is carried on through the medium of a sort of Jew's-harp, one handing it to the other, asking questions and returning answers. The lover remains until daybreak. After the consent of the girl and her parents has been obtained, one more ordeal remains; the bridal couple have to run the gauntlet of the mischievous village boys, who stand ready with sooted hands to begrime their faces and bodies; and generally they succeed so well that bride and groom present the appearance of negroes.

Elopements also occur in cases where parental consent is withheld.

Brooke Low thus describes an old custom which permits a man to carry off a girl:

"She will meet him by arrangement at the water-side and step into his boat with a paddle in her hand, and both will pull away as fast as they can. If pursued he will stop every now and then to deposit some article of value on the bank, such as a gun, a jar, or a favor for the acceptance of her family, and when he has exhausted his resources he will leave his own sword. When the pursuers observe this they will cease to follow, knowing he is cleared out. As soon as he reaches his own village he tidies up the house and spreads the mats, and when his pursuers arrive he gives them food to eat and toddy to drink, and sends them home satisfied. In the meanwhile he is left in possession of his wife."

HEAD HUNTERS A-WOOING

In one of the introductory chapters of this volume a brief account was given of the Dyak head-hunters. Reference was made to the fact that the more heads a man has cut off, the more he is respected. He cannot marry until he has killed a man, woman, or child, and brought home the head as a trophy, and cases are known of men having to wait two years before they could procure the skull necessary to soften the heart of the gentle beloved. "From all accounts," says Roth (II., 163),

"there can be little doubt that one of the chief incentives to getting heads is the desire to please the women ... Mrs. McDougall relates an old Sakaran legend which says that the daughter of their great ancestor, who resides in heaven near the great Evening Star, refused to marry until her betrothed brought her a present worth her acceptance. The man went into the jungle and killed a deer, which he presented to her; but the fair lady turned away in disdain. He went again and returned with a _mias_, the great monkey [_sic_]

who haunts the forest; but this present was not more to her taste. Then, in a fit of despair, the lover went abroad, and killed the first man that he met, and throwing his victim's head at the maiden's feet, he exclaimed at the cruelty she had made him guilty of; but to his surprise, she smiled, and said that now he had discovered the only gift worthy of herself."

Roth cites a correspondent who says:

"At this moment there are two Dyaks in the Kuching jail who acknowledge that they took the heads of two innocent Chinese with no other object in view when doing so than to secure the pseudo affections of women, who refused to marry them until they had thus proved themselves to be men."

Here is what a sweet Dyak maiden said to a young man who asked for her hand and heart:

"Why don't you go to the Saribus Fort and there take the head of Bakir (the Dyak chief), or even that of Tuan Ha.s.san (Mr. Watson), and then I will deign to think of your desires with some degree of interest."