174 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



sions, 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 bride- 

 groom, 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 organisa- 

 tion 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 



