76 PAGAN TRIBES OF BORNEO chap. 



in the meantime to absent himself from the village, 

 in the hope that he may form some other attach- 

 ment. But if he remains true and favourable omens 

 are obtained, the marriage is celebrated if possible 

 at the close of the harvest. If the marriage takes 

 place at any other time, the feast will be postponed 

 to the end of the following harvest.^ After the 

 marriage the man lives with his wife in the room of 

 his father-in-law for one, two, or at most three 

 years. During this time he works in the fields of 

 his father-in-law and generally helps in the support 

 of the household, showing great deference towards 

 his wife's parents. Before the end of the third 

 year of marriage, the young couple will acquire for 

 themselves a room in the house and village of the 

 husband, in which they set up housekeeping on 

 their own account. In addition to these personal 

 services rendered to the parents of the bride, the 

 man or his father and other relatives give to the 

 girl's parents at the time of the marriage various 

 articles which are valuable in proportion to the 

 social standing of the parties, and which are gener- 

 ally appropriated by the girl's parents.^ 



Divorce is rare but not unknown among the 

 Kayans. The principal grounds of divorce are 



^ For the marriage ceremony see Chap. XVIII, 



2 We take this opportunity of contradicting in the most emphatic manner 

 a very misleading statement which of all the many misleading statements about 

 the peoples of Borneo that are in circulation is perhaps the most frequently re- 

 peated in print. The statement makes its most recent reappearance in Professor 

 Keane's book The World's Peoples (published in 1908). There it is written of 

 the " Borneans" that "No girl will look at a wooer before he has laid a head 

 or two at her feet." To us it seems obvious that this state of affairs could only 

 obtain among a hydra-headed race. The statement is not true of any one tribe, 

 and as regards most of the ' ' Borneans " has no foundation in fact. Applied to the 

 Sea Dayaks alone has the statement an element of truth. Among them to have 

 taken a head does commonly enhance a wooer's chances of success, and many 

 Sea Dayak girls and their mothers will taunt a suitor with having taken no 

 head, but few of them will make the taking of a head an essential condition of 

 the bestowal of their favour or of marriage. A mother will remark to a youth 

 who is hanging about her daughter, Bisi dalafji, bisi deluar bull di tanya 

 anak ahi (When you have the wherewithal to adorn both the interior and the 

 exterior of a room {i.e. jars within the room and heads without in the gallery) 

 you can then ask for my child). 



