MARITAL JEALOUSY 151 



wives as an expression of hospitality. But it is 

 suspended at feasts or at the will of the chief in some 

 of the islands, as part of certain ceremonies in others. 

 The ritual licence just described in Fiji is expressly 

 recognised as a suspension of property in women as in 

 other things. Independent inquiry has elicited the 

 confirmation of Dr. Fison's account of the circumcision 

 ceremonies. The details are described as unfit for 

 publication ; but Dr. Tylor quotes from them an ex- 

 pressive phrase to the effect that on the fourth day, 

 when food is no longer tabu but permitted, and the 

 great feast is prepared, "it is said that there are no 

 owners of pigs or women." 1 



The inhabitants of the Barito river basin in the 

 south of Borneo are addicted to feasts of a more or 

 less religious character. They last for several days at 

 a stretch and are the occasion of much licentiousness. 2 

 The Kenniahs in British North Borneo have a festival 

 called Bunut in honour of the fertility of their women 

 and of the soil. After certain ceremonies, including 

 auguries and prayers to their God Lake* Ivong, to come 

 and bring the soul of the paddy seed, what is described 

 as "a downright indecent rough and tumble" follows, 

 in which men and women boys and girls all indis- 

 criminately join, pelting one another with rice boiled 

 in soot and with filth. A naked man, with an idiotic 

 simper on his face, wanders in and out among the 

 revelling crew and the women are made to touch him 

 as he passes. This is obviously a fertility charm. 



1 Fison, foe. /., note by Dr. Tylor. It is even stated in one 

 account that tribal brothers and sisters are intentionally coupled, 

 thus compelling what at other times would be deemed incest and 

 as such deserving of the severest punishment. 



2 Ling Roth, Sarawak, ii. clxxiii. transcribing Schwaner's Notes, 



