196 



A NATURALIST'S WANDEBINQ3 



tlie Malay races, cliaracteristically marked red cheeks. They 

 wear usually only one garment, a loin-cloth fastened below the 

 breasts and roaehing to the middle of the thigh. Their arms are 

 decked from the i\Tist to the elbow with tiers of silver bracelets, 

 and the lower joint of every finger with as many rings as it 

 can hold, but they did not exhibit any delicate ideas about 

 spoiling their lustre, and, notwithstanding the iiicongrnity 

 of the combination, I have often seen them grabbing up roots 

 with their jewelled fingers, and filling baskets with earth to 

 the clang of their bracelets. 



Marriage between members of the same village or village 

 cluster is prohibited among the Passumah people; in some 

 districts even those of the same marga are within the bonds of 

 consanguinity tecognised by them. The two forms already 

 described at page 151 as practised in the Lampongs I found 

 existing here also: the one by simple purchase; the other 

 (ambil-anak) by which the father of the bride adopts his son- 

 in-law into his family, more as a shive, however, than as a 

 son.* The position of the man married by the latter arrange- 

 ment recalls in his utter subserviency to ths wjmin— her 

 property never passing to him as long as the marriage bond 

 remains, and his children always hers — the insignificant and 

 pitiable position of the paterfamilias among the Egyptians 

 under the Ptolemies, in which " the woman owned all and 

 ruled all ; the man was a helpless dependant. As a child he 

 was the property of his mother and as a married man the 

 pensioner of his wife.** t 



On the day of the marriage the youth and his bride come 

 before the Head of the village, who is as it were both king and 

 priest. After offering to the Dewa incense of benzoin, and 

 sprinkling over them rice yellowed with curcuma powder, he 

 reads what may in tnith be called their marriage service, a 

 long and singular formula of gr&vt interest, called *'Saw<S 

 berdundtin/' which I had the good fortune to obtain a copy of 

 in the rentjomj character inscribed on a bamboo. It is a 



• This is reaUj a remnant of tlio flnctent ]Matriarchal Systflm, in which 

 desceat followed m ihe female line. Consult "Over de Vorwanhscliap en het 

 Huwelijksen Erfect bij de Vol ken van di?n Indtscheti Archipel," by G. A. 

 Wilkin, also Midden Sumatra, by Prof. P. J. Veth. 



t The Ttmeji: Buried Treasure "—Jan. 1B82. 



