8 SARAWAK ETHNOGRAPHICAL COLLECTION. 



3. Malay — " sisir." 



a. A silver tiara worn by brides at the marriage ceremony. 

 It consists of a triangular plate of silver, slightly curved ; the 

 upper sides of the triangle are scallopped, and a phyllomorphic 

 design is executed in repousse work on its face. To the middle of 

 the back of the tiara are attached by soldering seven long back- 

 wardly directed teeth of silver, and at regular intervals along 

 the upper borders are attached at the back nine slender silver 

 sockets into which are fitted spiral wire springs, each bearing at 

 its summit a silver artificial flower with small diamond shaped 

 pendants. From each of the lower angles hangs a chain of 

 pendants cut out of a thin sheet of silver. The tiara is worn on 

 the top of the head and in front. Length (measured along the 

 curve) 18-4 cm. greatest breadth 6*5 cm. 



[Pd. 23. i. 03]. 



Catalogue No. 1220. (Plate I. fig. 3, b). 



A somewhat similar ornament is worn high-days and holi- 

 days by the more civilized Sea-Dyak women ; it was designed by 

 the late F. R. 0. Maxwell, Esq., formerly Resident of Sarawak, in 

 response to a request made by some women to invent a new 

 head-gear ; for a photograph of a woman wearing this or- 

 nament see Ling Roth, I.e. vol. I. p. 4. 



Malay brides in the Peninsula wear a rather different form 

 of head-dress for the marriage ceremony. " The bride's hair is 

 done up in a roll (sanggul) and this is surmounted with a head- 

 dress of artificial flowers (called g'rak gempa), cut out of p'rada 

 kresek ("crackling tinsel"') and raised on five wires; her fore- 

 head is bound with a band or fillet of tinsel — gold-leaf (p'rada 

 Siam) being used by the rich — which is called tekan kwidei, and 

 is carried round by the fringe of the hair (gigi rambut) down to 

 the top of each ear (pelipis)." (Malay Magic, by W. W. Skeat, 

 p. 378). One of these fillets was purchased by Mr. Skeat and 

 is now in the Cambridge Anthropological Museum; it is deco- 

 rated with a dragon design. 



III. Fillets and Head-Bands. 



These are worn by both sexes of a good many tribes ; but 

 very few of them, if indeed any, can be rightly classed as orna- 



Jour. Straits Branch 



