MARITAL JEALOUSY 171 



the Man Coc not only attach, like their neighbours the 

 Tho, no importance to virginity in a bride, but in 

 certain villages the women prostitute themselves to 

 the passers-by without seriously affecting their reputa- 

 tion. 1 Among the Pa-Teng on the watershed of the 

 Red River and the Clear River antenuptial incontinence 

 subjects the guilty parties to a light fine ; but in spite 

 of this the relations between unmarried men and girls 

 are quite untrammelled. Even adultery by married 

 women appears to have only a limited importance. 2 



Our information as to the rule of descent among the 

 pagan tribes of the Malay Peninsula is defective. But 

 it would seem that the Besisi reckon through the 

 father. At the end of the rice-harvest a festival is 

 held at which a temporary exchange of wives used to 

 be effected. This was a ritual performance intended 

 to have " some sort of productive influence not only 

 upon the crops but upon all other contributing sources 

 of food-supply." 3 Among some of the tribes in the 

 hills of Assam speaking Tibeto-Burman languages 

 the festival of sowing is marked by an outburst of 

 licentiousness, which is probably intended to stimulate 

 the fecundity of the crops. After the sowing is com- 

 pleted the village reverts to its usual continence. 4 

 The Tibetans who frequent the Kan-su border in the 

 north of China set little store on female chastity. In 

 lamaseries in the district of Kan-su which they call 

 Amdo a feast is held at different times ; it lasts two 

 or three days and is known to the Chinese as " the 



1 Lunet, 241. 2 Id. 292. 



3 Skeat and Blagden, ii. 70, 76, 121, 145. Among the Sakai of 

 Selangor the women were formerly allowed more than one husband 

 (Ibid. 68). But how did they reckon descent? 



4 T. C. Hodson,/. A. I. xxxvi. 94. - 



