128 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



however are said to live on good terms with one 

 another despite the prevalent infidelity. The wife 

 may indeed be divorced for adultery, and in that event 

 the bride-price must be repaid. But she must not be 

 struck, otherwise her relatives will interfere and 

 avenge her. She may on the other hand beat her 

 husband with a stick without being liable to any 

 penalty. If he illuse her she may leave him and 

 take the children with her, nor can he obtain repay- 

 ment of the bride-price. 1 



On the Poggi Islands off the west of Sumatra it is 

 said the marriage contract is unknown. The sexes 

 cohabit at will and the children belong exclusively to 

 the mother. The father indeed is for the most part 

 unknown, and in any case has never any right to them. 2 

 This is probably a somewhat highly coloured picture. 

 But it conveys the idea of a matrilineal society in which 

 the marriage-tie is extremely weak, and change of 

 spouse is frequent. With equal emphasis travellers 

 and others who have come into contact with the 

 natives of Borneo speak of the dissoluteness of various 

 tribes of Dyaks. Thus of the Dyaks of the Syang 

 district Schwaner declares that fidelity in marriage is 

 in the eyes of both parties a chimera ; of the Kampong 

 of Dengan Kamai in the Katingan river-basin he 

 reports that the men and women live mostly in promis- 

 cuous intercouse, and of the Olo Ot in the interior of 

 Koetei that no marriage contract is entered into. Kater 

 says that among the Dyaks of Sidin in the western 

 division of Borneo a woman may have more than one 



1 H. O. Forbes,/. A. I. xiii. 20; Riedel, 302. 



2 Wilken, Verwantschap, 672 note, citing Tijdschrift voor Ind. 7\ 

 L. en Vk. iii. 327. 



