I70 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



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.^ 



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 \h^ 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 



^ It came into use, no doubt, through the hospitable offering of cigarettes 

 by the women of the household. 



