BOOK: THE HISTORY OF SUMATRA

THE HISTORY OF SUMATRA,

CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF
THE GOVERNMENT, LAWS, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS
OF
THE NATIVE INHABITANTS,
WITH
A DESCRIPTION OF THE NATURAL PRODUCTIONS,
AND A RELATION OF THE
ANCIENT POLITICAL STATE OF THAT ISLAND.

BY

WILLIAM MARSDEN, F.R.S.

THE THIRD EDITION, WITH CORRECTIONS, ADDITIONS, AND PLATES.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR,
BY J. M'CREERY, BLACK-HORSE-COURT,
AND SOLD BY
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1811.

source

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16768/16768-h/16768-h.htm#ch-16

CHAPTER 12.

LAWS AND CUSTOMS. MODE OF DECIDING CAUSES.
CODE OF LAWS.

LAWS OR CUSTOMS.

There is no word in the languages of the island which properly and strictly signifies law; nor is there any person or class of persons among the Rejangs regularly invested with a legislative power. They are governed in their various disputes by a set of long-established customs (adat), handed down to them from their ancestors, the authority of which is founded on usage and general consent. The chiefs, in pronouncing their decisions, are not heard to say, "so the law directs," but "such is the custom." It is true that, if any case arises for which there is no precedent on record (of memory)-HUKUM TAMBO, they deliberate and agree on some mode that shall serve as a rule in future similar circumstances. If the affair be trifling that is seldom objected to; but when it is a matter of consequence the pangeran, or kalippah (in places where such are present), consults with the proattins, or lower order of chiefs, who frequently desire time to consider of it, and consult with the inhabitants of their dusun. When the point is thus determined the people voluntarily submit to observe it as an established custom; but they do not acknowledge a right in the chiefs to constitute what laws they think proper, or to repeal or alter their ancient usages, of which they are extremely tenacious and jealous. It is notwithstanding true that, by the influence of the Europeans, they have at times been prevailed on to submit to innovations in their customs; but, except when they perceived a manifest advantage from the change, they have generally seized an opportunity of reverting to the old practice.

MODE OF DECIDING CAUSES.

All causes, both civil and criminal, are determined by the several chiefs of the district, assembled together at stated times for the purpose of distributing justice. These meetings are called becharo (which signifies also to discourse or debate), and among us, by an easy corruption, bechars. Their manner of settling litigations in points of property is rather a species of arbitration, each party previously binding himself to submit to the award, than the exertion of a coercive power possessed by the court for the redress of wrongs.

The want of a written criterion of the laws and the imperfect stability of traditionary usage must frequently, in the intricacies of their suits, give rise to contradictory decisions; particularly as the interests and passions of the chiefs are but too often concerned in the determination of the causes that come before them.

COMPILATION OF LAWS.

This evil had long been perceived by the English Residents, who, in the countries where we are settled, preside at the bechars, and, being instigated by the splendid example of the Governor-general of Bengal (Mr. Hastings), under whose direction a code of the laws of that empire was compiled (and translated by Mr. Halhed), it was resolved that the servants of the Company at each of the subordinates should, with the assistance of the ablest and most experienced of the natives, attempt to reduce to writing and form a system of the usages of the Sumatrans in their respective residencies. This was accordingly executed in some instances, and, a translation of that compiled in the residency of Laye coming into my possession, I insert it here, in the original form, as being attended with more authority and precision than any account furnished from my own memorandums could pretend to.

REJANG LAWS.

For the more regular and impartial administration of justice in the Residency of Laye, the laws and customs of the Rejangs, hitherto preserved by tradition, are now, after being discussed, amended, and ratified, in an assembly of the pangeran, pambarabs, and proattins, committed to writing in order that they may not be liable to alteration; that those deserving death or fine may meet their reward; that causes may be brought before the proper judges, and due amends made for defaults; that the compensation for murder may be fully paid; that property may be equitably divided; that what is borrowed may be restored; that gifts may become the undoubted property of the receiver; that debts may be paid and credits received agreeably to the customs that have been ever in force beneath the heavens and on the face of the earth. By the observance of the laws a country is made to flourish, and where they are neglected or violated ruin ensues.

MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, ETC.

MARRIAGE.

There are two modes of marriage used here: one by purchase, called jujur or kulu, the other by adoption, called ambel anak. First of jujur.

JUJUR.

When a person is desirous of marrying he deposits a sum of money in the hands of the father of the virgin, which is called the pagatan. This sum is not esteemed part of the purchase, but as an equivalent for the dandanan (paraphernalia, or ornamental apparel) of the bride, and is not fixed but varies according to the circumstances and rank of the father. The amount of the jujur is fixed at seventy dollars, including the hurup niawa (price of life), forty dollars, a kris with gold about the head and silver about the sheath, valued at ten dollars, and the meniudakan billi or putus kulo (completion of purchase) at twenty. If a young man runs away with a gadis or virgin without the consent of the father he does not act contrary to the laws of the country; but if he refuses to pay the full jujur on demand he shall be fined twenty ­eight dollars. If the father, having received the pagatan of one man, marries his daughter to another before he returns the money to the first, he shall be fined fourteen dollars, and the man who marries the daughter shall also be fined fourteen dollars. In case of divorce (which may take place at the will of either party) the dandanan brought by the wife is to be valued and to be deducted from the purchase-money. If a divorce originates from the man, and before the whole purchase ­money is paid, the man shall receive back what he has advanced after deducting the dandanan as above, and fourteen dollars, called penusutan. If the divorce originates with the woman the whole purchase-money shall be returned, and the children, if any, remain with the father. If a divorce originates with the man, when the whole purchase-money has been paid, or kulo sudah putus, he shall not be entitled to receive back the purchase-money, but may recall his wife whenever it shall be agreeable to him. An exact estimation is made of the value of the woman's ornaments, and what are not restored with her must be made good by the husband. If there are children they are in this case to be divided, or if there be only one the husband is to allow the woman fifteen dollars, and to take the child. Secondly, of ambel anak.

AMBEL ANAK.

When a man marries after the custom called ambel anak he pays no money to the father of the bride, but becomes one of his family, and is entirely upon the footing of a son, the father of his wife being thenceforward answerable for his debts, etc., in the same manner as for his own children. The married man becomes entirely separate from his original family, and gives up his right of inheritance. It is however in the power of the father of the wife to divorce from her his adopted son whenever he thinks proper, in which case the husband is not entitled to any of the children, nor to any effects other than simply the clothes on his back: but if the wife is willing still to live with him, and he is able to redeem her and the children by paying the father a hundred dollars, it is not at the option of the father to refuse accepting this sum; and in that case the marriage becomes a kulo or jujur, and is subject to the same rules. If any unmarried woman is convicted of incontinence, or a married woman of adultery, they shall pay to the chiefs a fine of forty dollars, or in defect thereof become slaves, and the man with whom the crime was committed shall pay a fine of thirty dollars, or in like manner become a slave; and the parties between them shall also be at the expense of a buffalo and a hundred bamboos of rice (HUKUM ADAT ZINA). This is called the gawe pati or panjingan. If an unmarried woman proves with child and refuses to name the man with whom she was guilty she shall pay the whole fine of seventy dollars, and furnish the buffalo, etc. If a woman after marriage brings forth a child before the due course of nature she shall be fined twenty-eight dollars. If a man keeps a young woman in his house for any length of time, and has a child by her without being regularly married, he shall be fined twenty-eight dollars, and furnish a buffalo and a hundred bamboos of rice. If a person detects the offenders in the act of adultery, and, attempting to seize the man, is obliged to kill him in self-defence, he shall not pay the bangun, nor be fined, but only pay the bhasa lurah, which is a buffalo and a hundred bamboos of rice. On the other hand, if the guilty person kills the one who attempts to seize him, he shall be deemed guilty of murder and pay the bangun and fine accordingly. If a man holding a woman as a pawn, or in the condition of mengiring shall commit fornication with her, he shall forfeit his claim to the debt, and the woman become free.

CHAPTER 14.

MODES OF MARRIAGE, AND CUSTOMS RELATIVE THERETO.
POLYGAMY.
FESTIVALS.
GAMES.
COCK-FIGHTING.
USE AND EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

MOTIVES FOR ALTERING SOME OF THEIR MARRIAGE CUSTOMS.

By much the greater number of the legal disputes among these people have their source in the intricacy attending their marriage contracts. In most uncivilized countries these matters are very simple, the dictates of nature being obeyed, or the calls of appetite satisfied, with little ceremony or form of convention; but with the Sumatrans the difficulties, both precedent and subsequent, are increased to a degree unknown even in the most refined states. To remedy these inconveniences, which might be supposed to deter men from engaging in marriage, was the view of the Resident of Laye, before mentioned, who prevailed upon them to simplify their engagements, as the means of preventing litigation between families, and of increasing the population of the country. How far his liberal views will be answered by having thus influenced the people to change their customs, whether they will not soon relapse into the ancient track; and whether in fact the cause that he supposed did actually contribute to retard population, I shall not pretend to determine; but as the last is a point on which a difference of opinion prevails I shall take the liberty of quoting here the sentiments of another servant of the Company (the late Mr. John Crisp) who possessed an understanding highly enlightened.

REASONS AGAINST THIS ALTERATION.

This part of the island is in a low state of population, but it is an error to ascribe this to the mode of obtaining wives by purchase. The circumstance of children constituting part of the property of the parents proves a most powerful incentive to matrimony, and there is not perhaps any country on the face of the earth where marriage is more general than here, instances of persons of either sex passing their lives in a state of celibacy being extremely rare. The necessity of purchasing does not prove such an obstacle to matrimony as is supposed. Was it indeed true that every man was obliged to remain single till he had accumulated, from the produce of his pepper-garden, a sum adequate to the purchase of a wife, married pairs would truly be scarce. But the people have other resources; there are few families who are not in possession of some small substance; they breed goats and buffaloes, and in general keep in reserve some small sum for particular purposes. The purchase-money of the daughter serves also to provide wives for the sons. Certain it is that the fathers are rarely at a loss for money to procure them wives so soon as they become marriageable. In the districts under my charge are about eight thousand inhabitants, among whom I do not conceive it would be possible to find ten instances of men of the age of thirty years unmarried. We must then seek for other causes of the paucity of inhabitants, and indeed they are sufficiently obvious; among these we may reckon that the women are by nature unprolific, and cease gestation at an early age; that, almost totally unskilled in the medical art, numbers fall victims to the endemic diseases of a climate nearly as fatal to its indigenous inhabitants as to the strangers who settle among them: to which we may add that the indolence and inactivity of the natives tend to relax and enervate the bodily frame, and to abridge the natural period of their lives.

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MODES OF MARRIAGE.

The modes of marriage, according to the original institutions of these people, are by jujur, by ambel anak, or by semando. The jujur is a certain sum of money given by one man to another as a consideration for the person of his daughter, whose situation, in this case, differs not much from that of a slave to the man she marries, and to his family. His absolute property in her depends however upon some nice circumstances. Beside the batang jujur (or main sum) there are certain appendages or branches, one of which, the tali kulo, of five dollars, is usually, from motives of delicacy or friendship, left unpaid, and so long as that is the case a relationship is understood to subsist between the two families, and the parents of the woman have a right to interfere on occasions of ill treatment: the husband is also liable to be fined for wounding her, with other limitations of absolute right. When that sum is finally paid, which seldom happens but in cases of violent quarrel, the tali kulo (tie of relationship) is said to be putus (broken), and the woman becomes to all intents the slave of her lord.*

(*Footnote. I cannot omit to remark here that, however apposite the word tali, which in Malayan signifies a cord, may be to the subject of the marriage tie, there is very strong evidence of the term, as applied to this ceremony, having been adopted from the customs of the Hindu inhabitants of the peninsula of India, in whose language it has a different meaning. Among others who have described their rites is M. Sonnerat. In speaking of the mode of marriage called pariam, which, like the jujur, n'est autre chose qu'un achat que le mari fait de sa femme, he says, le mari doit aussi fournir le tali, petit joyau d'or, qu'il attache avec un cordon au col de la fille; c'est la derniere ceremonie; elle donne la sanction au marriage, qui ne peut plus etre rompu des que le tali est attache. Voyage aux Indes etc. tome 1 page 70. The reader will also find the Sumatran mode of marriage by ambel anak, or adoption, exactly described at page 72. An engraving of the tali is given by P. Paolino, Systema Brahmanicum tab. 22. This resemblance is not confined to the rites of marriage, for it is remarked by Sir W. Jones that, "among the laws of the Sumatrans two positive rules concerning sureties and interest appear to be taken word for word from the Indian legislators." Asiatic Researches Volume 3 page 9.)

She has then no title to claim a divorce in any predicament; and he may sell her, making only the first offer to her relations. The other appendages as already mentioned are the tulis tanggil (the meaning of which I cannot satisfactorily ascertain, this and many other of the legal terms being in the Rejang or the Passummah and not the Malayan language) and the upah daun kodo, which is a consideration for the expense of the marriage feast, paid to the girl's parent, who provides it. But sometimes it is deposited at the wedding, when a distribution is made of it amongst the old people present. The words allude to the leaf in which the rice is served up. These additional sums are seldom paid or claimed before the principal is defrayed, of which a large proportion, as fifty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred and four dollars, is laid down at the time of marriage, or in the first visit (after the parties are determined in their regards) made by the father of the young man, or the bujang himself, to the father of the woman. Upon opening his design this money is tendered as a present, and the other's acceptance of it is a token that he is inclined to forward the match. It lies often in his hands three, six, or twelve months before the marriage is consummated. He sometimes sends for more, and is seldom refused. Until at least fifty dollars are thus deposited the man cannot take his wife home; but so long as the matter continues dalam rasa-an (under consideration) it would be deemed scandalous in the father to listen to any other proposals. When there is a difficulty in producing the necessary sum it is not uncommon to resort to an expedient termed mengiring jujur, that is, to continue a debtor with the family until he can raise money sufficient to redeem himself; and after this long credit is usually given for the remainder. Years often elapse, if the families continue on good terms, without the debt being demanded, particularly when a hundred and four dollars have been paid, unless distress obliges them to it. Sometimes it remains unadjusted to the second and third generation, and it is not uncommon to see a man suing for the jujur of the sister of his grandfather. These debts constitute in fact the chief part of their substance; and a person is esteemed rich who has several of them due to him for his daughters, sisters, aunts, and great aunts. Debts of this nature are looked upon as sacred, and are scarcely ever lost. In Passummah, if the race of a man is extinct, and some of these remain unpaid, the dusun or village to which the family belonged must make it good to the creditor; but this is not insisted upon amongst the Rejangs.

In lieu of paying the jujur a barter transaction, called libei, sometimes takes place, where one gadis (virgin) is given in exchange for another; and it is not unusual to borrow a girl for this purpose from a friend or relation, the borrower binding himself to replace her or pay her jujur when required, A man who has a son and daughter gives the latter in exchange for a wife to the former. The person who receives her disposes of her as his own child or marries her himself. A brother will give his sister in exchange for a wife, or, in default of such, procure a cousin for the purpose. If the girl given in exchange be under age a certain allowance per annum is made till she becomes marriageable. Beguppok is a mode of marriage differing a little from the common jujur, and probably only taking place where a parent wants to get off a child labouring under some infirmity or defect. A certain sum is in this case fixed below the usual custom, which, when paid, is in full for her value, without any appendages. In other cases likewise the jujur is sometimes lessened and sometimes increased by mutual agreement; but on trials it is always estimated at a hundred and twenty dollars. If a wife dies soon after marriage, or at any time without children, the full jujur cannot be claimed; it is reduced to eighty dollars; but should more than that have been laid down in the interim there is no refunding. The jujur of a widow, which is generally eighty dollars, without appendages, is again reduced upon a third marriage, allowances being made for dilapidation. A widow being with child cannot marry again till she is delivered, without incurring a penalty. In divorces it is the same. If there be no appearance of pregnancy she must yet abstain from making another choice during the period of three months and ten days.

When the relations and friends of the man go in form to the parents of the girl to settle the terms of the marriage they pay at that time the adat besasala, or earnest, of six dollars generally; and these kill a goat or a few fowls to entertain them. It is usually some space of time (except in cases of telari gadis or elopement) after the payment of the besasala, before the wedding takes place; but, when the father has received that, he cannot give his daughter to any other person without incurring a fine, which the young lady sometimes renders him liable to; for whilst the old folk are planning a match by patutan, or regular agreement between families, it frequently happens that miss disappears with a more favoured swain and secures a match of her own choice. The practice styled telari gadis is not the least common way of determining a marriage, and from a spirit of indulgence and humanity, which few codes can boast, has the sanction of the laws. The father has only the power left of dictating the mode of marriage, but cannot take his daughter away if the lover is willing to comply with the custom in such cases. The girl must be lodged, unviolated, in the house of some respectable family till the relations are advised of the enlevement and settle the terms. If however upon immediate pursuit they are overtaken on the road, she may be forced back, but not after she has taken sanctuary.

By the Mosaic law, if a man left a widow without children his brother was to marry her. Among the Sumatrans, with or without children, the brother, or nearest male relation of the deceased, unmarried (the father excepted), takes the widow. This is practised both by Malays and country people. The brother, in taking the widow to himself, becomes answerable for what may remain due of her purchase money, and in every respect represents the deceased. This is phrased ganti tikar bantal'nia--supplying his place on his mat and pillow.

CHASTITY OF THE WOMEN.

Chastity prevails more perhaps among these than any other people. It is so materially the interest of the parents to preserve the virtue of their daughters unsullied, as they constitute the chief of their substance, that they are particularly watchful in this respect. But as marriages in general do not take place so early as the forwardness of nature in that climate would admit, it will sometimes happen, notwithstanding their precaution, that a young woman, not choosing to wait her father's pleasure, tastes the fruit by stealth. When this is discovered he can oblige the man to marry her, and pay the jujur; or, if he chooses to keep his daughter, the seducer must make good the difference he has occasioned in her value, and also pay the fine, called tippong bumi, for removing the stain from the earth. Prostitution for hire is I think unknown in the country, and confined to the more polite bazaars, where there is usually a concourse of sailors and others who have no honest settlement of their own, and whom, therefore, it is impossible to restrain from promiscuous concubinage. At these places vice generally reigns in a degree proportioned to the number and variety of people of different nations who inhabit them or occasionally resort thither. From the scenes which these sea-ports present travellers too commonly form their judgment, and imprudently take upon them to draw, for the information of the world, a picture of the manners of a people.

The different species of horrid and disgustful crimes, which are emphatically denominated, against nature, are unknown on Sumatra; nor have any of their languages terms to express such ideas.

INCEST.

Incest, or the intermarriage of persons within a certain degree of consanguinity, which is, perhaps (at least after the first degree), rather an offence against the institutions of human prudence than a natural crime, is forbidden by their customs and punishable by fine: yet the guilt is often expiated by a ceremony, and the marriages in many instances confirmed.

ADULTERY.

Adultery is punishable by fine; but the crime is rare, and suits on the subject still less frequent. The husband, it is probable, either conceals his shame or revenges it with his own hand.

DIVORCES.

If a man would divorce a wife he has married by jujur he may claim back what he has paid in part, less twenty-five dollars, the adat charo, for the damage he has done her; but if he has paid the jujur in full the relations may choose whether they will receive her or not; if not he may sell her. If a man has paid part of a jujur but cannot raise the remainder, though repeatedly dunned for it, the parents of the girl may obtain a divorce; but if it is not with the husband's concurrence they lose the advantage of the charo, and must refund all they have received. A woman married by jujur must bring with her effects to the amount of ten dollars, or, if not, it is deducted from the sum; if she brings more the husband is accountable for the difference. The original ceremony of divorce consists in cutting a rattan­cane in two, in presence of the parties, their relations, and the chiefs of the country.

SECOND MODE OF MARRIAGE.

In the mode of marriage by ambel anak the father of a virgin makes choice of some young man for her husband, generally from an inferior family, which renounces all further right to, or interest in, him, and he is taken into the house of his father-in-law, who kills a buffalo on the occasion, and receives twenty dollars from the son's relations. After this the buruk baik'nia (the good and bad of him) is vested in the wife's family. If he murders or robs they pay the bangun, or the fine. If he is murdered they receive the bangun. They are liable to any debts he may contract after marriage; those prior to it remaining with his parents. He lives in the family in a state between that of a son and a debtor. He partakes as a son of what the house affords, but has no property in himself. His rice plantation, the produce of his pepper-garden, with everything that he can gain or earn, belong to the family. He is liable to be divorced at their pleasure, and, though he has children, must leave all, and return naked as he came. The family sometimes indulge him with leave to remove to a house of his own, and take his wife with him; but he, his children, and effects are still their property. If he has not daughters by the marriage he may redeem himself and wife by paying her jujur; but if there are daughters before they become emancipated the difficulty is enhanced, because the family are likewise entitled to their value. It is common however when they are upon good terms to release him on the payment of one jujur, or at most with the addition of an adat of fifty dollars. With this addition he may insist upon a release whilst his daughters are not marriageable. If the family have paid any debts for him he must also make them good. Should he contract more than they approve of, and they fear his adding to them, they procure a divorce, and send him back to his parents; but must pay his debts to that time. If he is a notorious spendthrift they outlaw him by means of a writ presented to the magistrate. These are inscribed on slips of bamboo with a sharp instrument, and I have several of them in my possession. They must banish him from home, and if they receive him again, or assist him with the smallest sum, they are liable to all his debts. On the prodigal son's return, and assurance of amendment, this writ may be redeemed on payment of five dollars to the proattins, and satisfying the creditors. This kind of marriage is productive of much confusion, for till the time it takes place the young man belongs to one dusun and family, and afterwards to another, and as they have no records to refer to there is great uncertainty in settling the time when debts were contracted, and the like. Sometimes the redemption of the family and their return to the former dusun take place in the second or third generation; and in many cases it is doubtful whether they ever took place or not; the two parties contradicting each other, and perhaps no evidence to refer to. Hence arise various and intricate bechars.

THIRD, OR MALAYAN MODE OF MARRIAGE.

Besides the modes of marriage above described, a third form, called semando, has been adopted from the Malays, and thence termed semando malayo or mardika (free). This marriage is a regular treaty between the parties, on the footing of equality. The adat paid to the girl's friends has usually been twelve dollars. The agreement stipulates that all effects, gains, or earnings are to be equally the property of both, and in case of divorce by mutual consent the stock, debts, and credits are to be equally divided. If the man only insists on the divorce he gives the woman her half of the effects, and loses the twelve dollars he has paid. If the woman only claims the divorce she forfeits her right to the proportion of the effects, but is entitled to keep her tikar, bantal, and dandan (paraphernalia), and her relations are liable to pay back the twelve dollars; but it is seldom demanded. This mode, doubtless the most conformable to our ideas of conjugal right and felicity, is that which the chiefs of the Rejang country have formally consented to establish throughout their jurisdiction, and to their orders the influence of the Malayan priests will contribute to give efficacy.

In the ambel anak marriage, according to the institutions of Passummah, when the father resolves to dismiss the husband of his daughter and send him back to his dusun the sum for which he can redeem his wife and family is a hundred dollars: and if he can raise that, and the woman is willing to go with him, the father cannot refuse them; and now the affair is changed into a kulo marriage; the man returns to his former tungguan (settlement or family) and becomes of more consequence in society. These people are no strangers to that sentiment which we call a regard to family. There are some families among them more esteemed than others, though not graced with any title or employment in the state. The origin of this distinction it is difficult to trace; but it may have arisen from a succession of men of abilities, or from the reputation for wisdom or valour of some ancestor. Everyone has a regard to his race; and the probability of its being extinct is esteemed a great unhappiness. This is what they call tungguan putus, and the expression is used by the lowest member of the community. To have a wife, a family, collateral relations, and a settled place of residence is to have a tungguan, and this they are anxious to support and perpetuate. It is with this view that, when a single female only remains of a family, they marry her by ambel anak; in which mode the husband's consequence is lost in the wife's, and in her children the tungguan of her father is continued. They find her a husband that will menegga tungguan, or, as it is expressed amongst the Rejangs menegga rumah, set up the house again.

The semando marriage is little known in Passummah. I recollect that a pangeran of Manna, having lost a son by a marriage of this kind with a Malay woman, she refused upon the father's death to let the boy succeed to his dignities, and at the same time become answerable for his debts, and carried him with her from the country; which was productive of much confusion. The regulations there in respect to incontinence have much severity, and fall particularly hard on the girl's father, who not only has his daughter spoiled but must also pay largely for her frailty. To the northward the offence is not punished with so much rigour, yet the instances are there said to be rarer, and marriage is more usually the consequence. In other respects the customs of Passummah and Rejang are the same in these matters.

RITES OF MARRIAGE.

The rites of marriage, nikah (from the Arabian), consist simply in joining the hands of the parties and pronouncing them man and wife, without much ceremony excepting the entertainment which is given on the occasion. This is performed by one of the fathers or the chief of the dusun, according to the original customs of the country; but where Mahometanism has found its way, a priest or imam executes the business.

COURTSHIP.

But little apparent courtship precedes their marriages. Their manners do not admit of it, the bujang and gadis (youth of each sex) being carefully kept asunder, and the latter seldom trusted from under the wing of their mothers. Besides, courtship with us includes the idea of humble entreaty on the man's side, and favour and condescension on the part of the woman, who bestows person and property for love. The Sumatran on the contrary, when he fixes his choice and pays all that he is worth for the object of it, may naturally consider the obligation on his side. But still they are not without gallantry. They preserve a degree of delicacy and respect towards the sex, which might justify their retorting on many of the polished nations of antiquity the epithet of barbarians. The opportunities which the young people have of seeing and conversing with each other are at the bimbangs, or public festivals, held at the balei, or town hall of the dusun. On these occasions the unmarried people meet together and dance and sing in company. It may be supposed that the young ladies cannot be long without their particular admirers. The men, when determined in their regards, generally employ an old woman as their agent, by whom they make known their sentiments and send presents to the female of their choice. The parents then interfere and, the preliminaries being settled, a bimbang takes place.

MARRIAGE FESTIVALS.

At these festivals a goat, a buffalo, or several, according to the rank of the parties, are killed, to entertain not only the relations and invited guests but all the inhabitants of the neighbouring country who choose to repair to them. The greater the concourse the more is the credit of the host, who is generally on these occasions the father of the girl; but the different branches of the family, and frequently all the people of the dusun, contribute a quota of rice.

ORDER OBSERVED.

The young women proceed in a body to the upper end of the balei where there is a part divided off for them by a curtain. The floor is spread with their best mats, and the sides and ceiling of that extremity of the building are hung with pieces of chintz, palampores, and the like. They do not always make their appearance before dinner; that time, with part of the afternoon, previous to a second or third meal, being appropriated to cock-fighting and other diversions peculiar to the men. Whilst the young are thus employed the old men consult together upon any affair that may be at the time in agitation; such as repairing a public building or making reprisals upon the cattle of a neighbouring people. The bimbangs are often given on occasions of business only, and, as they are apt to be productive of cabals, the Europeans require that they shall not be held without their knowledge and approbation. To give authority to their contracts and other deeds, whether of a public or private nature, they always make one of these feasts. Writings, say they, may be altered or counterfeited, but the memory of what is transacted and concluded in the presence of a thousand witnesses must remain sacred. Sometimes, in token of the final determination of an affair, they cut a notch in a post, before the chiefs, which they call taka kayu.

AMUSEMENT OF DANCING.

In the evening their softer amusements take place, of which the dances are the principal. These are performed either singly or by two women, two men, or with both mixed. Their motions and attitudes are usually slow, and too much forced to be graceful; approaching often to the lascivious, and not unfrequently the ludicrous. This is I believe the general opinion formed of them by Europeans, but it may be the effect of prejudice. Certain I am that our usual dances are in their judgment to the full as ridiculous. The minuets they compare to the fighting of two game-cocks, alternately approaching and receding. Our country dances they esteem too violent and confused, without showing grace or agility. The stage dances I have not a doubt would please them. Part of the female dress, called the salendang, which is usually of silk with a gold head, is tied round the waist, and the ends of this they at times extend behind them with their hands. They bend forward as they dance, and usually carry a fan, which they close and strike smartly against their elbows at particular cadences. They keep time well, and the partners preserve a consistency with each other though the figure and steps are ad libitum. A brisker movement is sometimes adopted which proves more conformable to the taste of the English spectators.

SINGING.

Dancing is not the only amusement on these occasions. A gadis sometimes rises and, leaning her face on her arm, supporting herself against a pillar, or the shoulder of one of her companions, with her back to the audience, begins a tender song. She is soon taken up and answered by one of the bujangs in company, whose greatest pretensions to gallantry and fashion are founded on an adroitness at this polite accomplishment. The uniform subject on such occasions is love, and, as the words are extempore, there are numberless degrees of merit in the composition, which is sometimes surprisingly well turned, quaint, and even witty. Professed story-tellers are sometimes introduced, who are raised on a little stage and during several hours arrest the attention of their audience by the relation of wonderful and interesting adventures. There are also characters of humour amongst them who, by buffoonery, mimicry, punning, repartee, and satire (rather of the sardonic kind) are able to keep the company in laughter at intervals during the course of a night's entertainment. The assembly seldom breaks up before daylight, and these bimbangs are often continued for several days and nights together till their stock of provisions is exhausted. The young men frequent them in order to look out for wives, and the lasses of course set themselves off to the best advantage.

DRESSES.

They wear their best silken dresses, of their own weaving; as many ornaments of filigree as they possess; silver rings upon their arms and legs; and earrings of a particular construction. Their hair is variously adorned with flowers and perfumed with oil of benzoin. Civet is also in repute, but more used by the men.

COSMETIC USED, AND MODE OF PREPARING IT.

To render their skin fine, smooth, and soft they make use of a white cosmetic called pupur. The mode of preparing it is as follows. The basis is fine rice, which is a long time steeped in water and let to ferment, during which process the water becomes of a deep red colour and highly putrid, when it is drained off, and fresh added successively until the water remains clear, and the rice subsides in the form of a fine white paste. It is then exposed to the sun to dry, and, being reduced to a powder, they mix with it ginger, the leaves of a plant called by them dilam, and by Europeans patch-leaf (Melissa lotoria, R.), which gives to it a peculiar smell, and also, as is supposed, a cooling quality. They add likewise the flowers of the jagong (maize); kayu chendana (sandalwood); and the seeds of a plant called there kapas antu (fairy-cotton), which is the Hibiscus abelmoschus, or musk seed. All these ingredients, after being moistened and well mixed together, are made up into little balls, and when they would apply the cosmetic these are diluted with a drop of water, rubbed between the hands, and then on the face, neck, and shoulders. They have an apprehension, probably well founded, that a too abundant or frequent application will, by stopping the pores of the skin, bring on a fever. It is used with good effect to remove that troublesome complaint, so well known to Europeans in India, by the name of the prickly heat; but it is not always safe for strangers thus to check the operations of nature in a warm climate. The Sumatran girls, as well as our English maidens, entertain a favourable opinion of the virtues of morning dew as a beautifier, and believe that by rubbing it to the roots of the hair it will strengthen and thicken it. With this view they take pains to catch it before sunrise in vessels as it falls.

CONSUMMATION OF MARRIAGES.

If a wedding is the occasion of the bimbang the couple are married, perhaps, the second or third day; but it may be two or three more ere the husband can get possession of his bride; the old matrons making it a rule to prevent him, as long as possible, and the bride herself holding it a point of honour to defend to extremity that jewel which she would yet be disappointed in preserving.*

(*Footnote. It is recorded that the jealousy between the English and Dutch at Bantam arose from a preference shown to the former by the king at a festival which he gave upon obtaining a victory of this nature, which his bride had long disputed with him. For a description of a Malayan wedding, with an excellent plate representing the conclusion of the ceremony and the sleeping apartment, I beg to refer the reader to Captain Forrest's Voyage to New Guinea page 286 quarto edition. The bed-place is described at page 232 and the processional car (per­arakan) at page 241. His whole account of the domestic manners of the people of Mindanao, at the court of which he lived on terms of familiarity, will be found highly amusing.)

They sit up in state at night on raised cushions, in their best clothes and trinkets. They are sometimes loaded on the occasion with all the finery of their relations, or even the whole dusun, and carefully eased of it when the ceremony is over. But this is not the case with the children of persons of rank. I remember being present at the marriage of a young woman, whose beauty would not have disgraced any country, with a son of Raddin, prince of Madura, to whom the English gave protection from the power of the Dutch after his father had fallen a sacrifice.* She was decked in unborrowed plumes. Her dress was eminently calculated to do justice to a fine person; her hair, in which consists their chief pride, was disposed with extreme grace; and an uncommon elegance and taste were displayed in the workmanship and adjustment of her ornaments. It must be confessed however that this taste is by no means general, especially amongst the country people. Simplicity, so essential to the idea, is the characteristic of a rude and quite uncivilized people, and is again adopted by men in their highest state of refinement. The Sumatrans stand removed from both these extremes. Rich and splendid articles of dress and furniture, though not often procured, are the objects of their vanity and ambition.

(*Footnote. The circumstances of this disgraceful affair are preserved in a book entitled A Voyage to the East Indies in 1747 and 1748. This Raddin Tamanggung, a most intelligent and respectable man, died at Bencoolen in the year 1790. His sons possess the good qualities of their father, and are employed in the Company's service.)

The bimbangs are conducted with great decorum and regularity. The old women are very attentive to the conduct of the girls, and the male relations are highly jealous of any insults that may be shown them. A lad at one of these entertainments asked another his opinion of a gadis who was then dancing. "If she was plated with gold," replied he, "I would not take her for my concubine, much less for my wife." A brother of the girl happened to be within hearing, and called him to account for the reflection thrown on his sister. Krises were drawn but the bystanders prevented mischief. The brother appeared the next day to take the law of the defamer, but the gentleman, being of the risau description, had absconded, and was not to be found.

NUMBER OF WIVES.

The customs of the Sumatrans permit their having as many wives by jujur as they can compass the purchase of or afford to maintain; but it is extremely rare that an instance occurs of their having more than one, and that only among a few of the chiefs (POLYGAMY BY ADAT). This continence they in some measure owe to their poverty. The dictates of frugality are more powerful with them than the irregular calls of appetite, and make them decline an indulgence that their law does not restrain them from. In talking of polygamy they allow it to be the privilege of the rich, but regard it as a refinement which the poor Rejangs cannot pretend to. Some young risaus have been known to take wives in different places, but the father of the first, as soon as he hears of the second marriage, procures a divorce. A man married by semando cannot take a second wife without repudiating the first for this obvious reason that two or more persons could not be equally entitled to the half of his effects (POLYGAMY FOR A MAN MARRIED BY SEMANDO).

QUESTION OF POLYGAMY.

Montesquieu infers that the law which permits polygamy is physically conformable to the climate of Asia. The season of female beauty precedes that of their reason, and from its prematurity soon decays. The empire of their charms is short. It is therefore natural, the president observes, that a man should leave one wife to take another: that he should seek a renovation of those charms which had withered in his possession. But are these the real circumstances of polygamy? Surely not. It implies the contemporary enjoyment of women in the same predicament; and I should consider it as a vice that has its source in the influence of a warm atmosphere upon the passions of men, which, like the cravings of other disordered appetites, make them miscalculate their wants. It is probably the same influence, on less rigid nerves, that renders their thirst of revenge so much more violent than among northern nations; but we are not therefore to pronounce murder to be physically conformable to a southern climate. Far be it from my intention however to put these passions on a level; I only mean to show that the president's reasoning proves too much. It must further be considered that the genial warmth which expands the desires of the men, and prompts a more unlimited exertion of their faculties, does not inspire their constitutions with proportionate vigour; but on the contrary renders them in this respect inferior to the inhabitants of the temperate zone; whilst it equally influences the desires of the opposite sex without being found to diminish from their capacity of enjoyment. From which I would draw this conclusion, that if nature intended that one woman only should be the companion of one man, in the colder regions of the earth it appears also intended a fortiori that the same law should be observed in the hotter; inferring nature's design, not from the desires, but from the abilities with which she has endowed mankind.

Montesquieu has further suggested that the inequality in the comparative numbers of each sex born in Asia, which is represented to be greatly superior on the female side, may have a relation to the law that allows polygamy. But there is strong reason to deny the reality of this supposed excess. The Japanese account, taken from Kaempfer, which makes them to be in the proportion of twenty-two to eighteen, is very inconclusive, as the numbering of the inhabitants of a great city can furnish no proper test; and the account of births at Bantam, which states the number of girls to be ten to one boy, is not only manifestly absurd, but positively false. I can take upon me to assert that the proportion of the sexes throughout Sumatra does not sensibly differ from that ascertained in Europe; nor could I ever learn from the inhabitants of the many eastern islands whom I have conversed with that they were conscious of any disproportion in this respect.

CONNEXION BETWEEN POLYGAMY AND PURCHASE OF WIVES.

But from whatever source we derive polygamy its prevalence seems to be universally attended with the practice of giving a valuable consideration for the woman, instead of receiving a dowry with her. This is a natural consequence. Where each man endeavours to engross several, the demand for the commodity, as a merchant would express it, is increased, and the price of course enhanced. In Europe on the contrary, where the demand is small; whether owing to the paucity of males from continual diminution; their coldness of constitution, which suffers them rather to play with the sentimental than act from the animal passion; their corruption of manners leading them to promiscuous concubinage; or, in fine, the extravagant luxury of the times, which too often renders a family an insupportable burden--whatever may be the cause it becomes necessary, in order to counteract it and produce an additional incitement to the marriage state, that a premium be given with the females. We find in the history of the earliest ages of the world that, where a plurality of women was allowed of, by law or custom, they were obtained by money or service. The form of marriage by semando among the Malays, which admits but of one partner, requires no sum to be paid by the husband to the relations of the wife except a trifle, by way of token, or to defray the expenses of the wedding-feast. The circumstance of the rejangs confining themselves to one, and at the same time giving a price for their wives, would seem an exception to the general rule laid down; but this is an accidental and perhaps temporary restraint, arising, it may be, from the European influence, which tends to make them regular and industrious, but keeps them poor: affords the means of subsistence to all, but the opportunity of acquiring riches to few or none. In their genuine state war and plunder caused a rapid fluctuation of property; the little wealth now among them, derived mostly from the India Company's expenditure, circulates through the country in an equal stream, returning chiefly, like the water exhaled in vapours from the sea, to its original source. The custom of giving jujurs had most probably its foundation in polygamy; and the superstructure subsists, though its basis is partly mouldered away; but, being scarcely tenantable, the inhabitants are inclined to quit, and suffer it to fall to the ground. Moderation in point of women destroying their principle, the jujurs appear to be devoid of policy. Open a new spring of luxury, and polygamy, now confined to a few individuals amongst the chiefs, will spread throughout the people. Beauty will be in high request; each fair one will be sought for by many competitors; and the payment of the jujur be again esteemed a reasonable equivalent for possession. Their acknowledging the custom under the present circumstances to be a prejudicial one, so contrary to the spirit of eastern manners, which is ever marked with a blind veneration for the establishments of antiquity, contributes to strengthen considerably the opinion I have advanced.

GAMING.

Through every rank of the people there prevails a strong spirit of gaming, which is a vice that readily insinuates itself into minds naturally indisposed to the avocations of industry; and, being in general a sedentary occupation, is more adapted to a warm climate, where bodily exertion is in few instances considered as an amusement.

DICE. OTHER MODES.

Beside the common species of gambling with dice, which, from the term dadu applied to it, was evidently introduced by the Portuguese, they have several others; as the judi, a mode of playing with small shells, which are taken up by handfuls, and, being counted out by a given number at a time (generally that of the party engaged), the success is determined by the fractional number remaining, the amount of which is previously guessed at by each of the party.

CHESS.

They have also various games on chequered boards or other delineations, and persons of superior rank are in general versed in the game of chess, which they term main gajah, or the game of the elephant, naming the pieces as follows: king, raja; queen or vizir, mantri; bishop or elephant, gajah; knight or horse, kuda; castle, rook, or chariot, ter; and pawn or foot-soldier, bidak. For check they use the word sah; and for checkmate, mat or mati. Among these names the only one that appears to require observation as being peculiar is that for the castle or rook, which they have borrowed from the Tamul language of the peninsula of India, wherein the word ter (answering to the Sanskrit rat'ha) signifies a chariot (particularly such as are drawn in the processions of certain divinities), and not unaptly transferred to this military game to complete the constituent parts of an army. Gambling, especially with dice, is rigorously forbidden throughout the pepper districts, because it is not only the child, but the parent of idleness, and by the events of play often throws whole villages into confusion. Debts contracted on this account are declared to be void.

COCK-FIGHTING.

To cock-fighting they are still more passionately addicted, and it is indulged to them under certain regulations. Where they are perfectly independent their propensity to it is so great that it resembles rather a serious occupation than a sport. You seldom meet a man travelling in the country without a cock under his arm, and sometimes fifty persons in a company when there is a bimbang in one of the neighbouring villages. A country-man coming down, on any occasion, to the bazaar or settlement at the mouth of the river, if he boasts the least degree of spirit must not be unprovided with this token of it. They often game high at their meetings; particularly when a superstitious faith in the invincibility of their bird has been strengthened by past success. A hundred Spanish dollars is no very uncommon risk, and instances have occurred of a father's staking his children or wife, and a son his mother or sisters, on the issue of a battle, when a run of ill luck has stripped them of property and rendered them desperate. Quarrels, attended with dreadful consequences, have often arisen on these occasions.

RULES OF COCKING.

By their customs there are four umpires appointed to determine on all disputed points in the course of the battles; and from their decision there lies no appeal except the Gothic appeal to the sword. A person who loses and has not the ability to pay is immediately proscribed, departs with disgrace, and is never again suffered to appear at the galan­gang. This cannot with propriety be translated a cockpit, as it is generally a spot on the level ground, or a stage erected, and covered in. It is inclosed with a railing which keeps off the spectators; none but the handlers and heelers being admitted withinside. A man who has a high opinion of and regard for his cock will not fight him under a certain number of dollars, which he places in order on the floor: his poorer adversary is perhaps unable to deposit above one half: the standers-by make up the sum, and receive their dividends in proportion if successful. A father at his deathbed has been known to desire his son to take the first opportunity of matching a certain cock for a sum equal to his whole property, under a blind conviction of its being betuah, or invulnerable.

MATCHES.

Cocks of the same colour are never matched but a grey against a pile, a yellow against a red, or the like. This might have been originally designed to prevent disputes or knavish impositions. The Malay breed of cocks is much esteemed by connoisseurs who have had an opportunity of trying them. Great pains is taken in the rearing and feeding; they are frequently handled and accustomed to spar in public, in order to prevent any shyness. Contrary to our laws, the owner is allowed to take up and handle his cock during the battle to clear his eye of a feather or his mouth of blood. When a cock is killed, or runs, the other must have sufficient spirit and vigour left to peck at him three times, on his being held to him for that purpose, or it becomes a drawn battle; and sometimes an experienced cocker will place the head of his vanquished bird in such an uncouth posture as to terrify the other and render him unable to give this proof of victory. The cocks are never trimmed, but matched in full feather. The artificial spur used in Sumatra resembles in shape the blade of a scimitar, and proves a more destructive weapon than the European spur. It has no socket but is tied to the leg, and in the position of it the nicety of the match is regulated. As in horse-racing weight is proportioned to inches, so in cocking a bird of superior weight and size is brought to an equality with his adversary by fixing the steel spur so many scales of the leg above the natural spur, and thus obliging him to fight with a degree of disadvantage. It rarely happens that both cocks survive the combat.

In the northern parts of the island, where gold-dust is the common medium of gambling, as well as of trade, so much is accidentally dropped in weighing and delivering that at some cock-pits, where the resort of people is great, the sweepings are said, probably with exaggeration, to be worth upwards of a thousand dollars per annum to the owner of the ground; beside his profit of two fanams (five pence) for each battle.

QUAIL-FIGHTING.

In some places they match quails, in the manner of cocks. These fight with great inveteracy, and endeavour to seize each other by the tongue. The Achinese bring also into combat the dial-bird (murei) which resembles a small magpie, but has an agreeable though imperfect note. They sometimes engage one another on the wing, and drop to the ground in the struggle.

FENCING.

They have other diversions of a more innocent nature. Matches of fencing, or a species of tournament, are exhibited on particular days; as at the breaking up of their annual fast, or month of ramadan, called there the puasa. On these occasions they practise strange attitudes, with violent contortions of the body, and often work themselves up to a degree of frenzy, when the old men step in and carry them off. These exercises in some circumstances resemble the idea which the ancients have given us of the pyrrhic or war dance; the combatants moving at a distance from each other in cadence, and making many turns and springs unnecessary in the representation of a real combat. This entertainment is more common among the Malays than in the country. The chief weapons of offence used by these people are the kujur or lance and the kris. This last is properly Malayan, but in all parts of the island they have a weapon equivalent, though in general less curious in its structure, wanting that waving in the blade for which the kris is remarkable, and approaching nearer to daggers or knives.

Among their exercises we never observe jumping or running. They smile at the Europeans, who in their excursions take so many unnecessary leaps. The custom of going barefoot may be a principal impediment to this practice in a country overrun with thorny shrubs, and where no fences occur to render it a matter of expediency.

DIVERSION OF TOSSING A BALL.

They have a diversion similar to that described by Homer as practised among the Phaeacians, which consists in tossing an elastic wicker ball or round basket of split rattans into the air, and from one player to another, in a peculiar manner. This game is called by the Malays sipak raga, or, in the dialect of Bencoolen, chipak rago, and is played by a large party standing in an extended circle, who endeavour to keep up the ball by striking it either perpendicularly, in order to receive it again, or obliquely to some other person of the company, with the foot or the hand, the heel or the toe, the knee, the shoulder, the head, or with any other part of the body; the merit appearing to consist in producing the effect in the least obvious or most whimsical manner; and in this sport many of them attain an extraordinary degree of expertness. Among the plates of Lord Macartney's Embassy will be found the representation of a similar game, as practised by the natives of Cochin­china.

SMOKING OF OPIUM.

The Sumatrans, and more particularly the Malays, are much attached, in common with many other eastern people, to the custom of smoking opium. The poppy which produces it not growing on the island, it is annually imported from Bengal in considerable quantities, in chests containing a hundred and forty pounds each. It is made up in cakes of five or six pounds weight, and packed with dried leaves; in which situation it will continue good and vendible for two years, but after that period grows hard and diminishes considerably in value. It is of a darker colour, and is supposed to have less strength than the Turkey opium. About a hundred and fifty chests are consumed annually on the west coast of Sumatra, where it is purchased, on an average, at three hundred dollars the chest, and sold again in smaller quantities at five or six. But on occasions of extraordinary scarcity I have known it to sell for its weight in silver, and a single chest to fetch upwards of three thousand dollars.

PREPARATION.

The method of preparing it for use is as follows. The raw opium is first boiled or seethed in a copper vessel; then strained through a cloth to free it from impurities; and then a second time boiled. The leaf of the tambaku, shred fine, is mixed with it, in a quantity sufficient to absorb the whole; and it is afterwards made up into small pills, about the size of a pea, for smoking. One of these being put into the small tube that projects from the side of the opium pipe, that tube is applied to a lamp, and the pill being lighted is consumed at one whiff or inflation of the lungs, attended with a whistling noise. The smoke is never emitted by the mouth, but usually receives vent through the nostrils, and sometimes, by adepts, through the passage of the ears and eyes. This preparation of the opium is called maddat, and is often adulterated in the process by mixing jaggri, or pine sugar, with it; as is the raw opium, by incorporating with it the fruit of the pisang or plantain.

EFFECTS OF OPIUM.

The use of opium among these people, as that of intoxicating liquors among other nations, is a species of luxury which all ranks adopt according to their ability, and which, when once become habitual, it is almost impossible to shake off. Being however like other luxuries expensive, few only among the lower or middling class of people can compass the regular enjoyment of it, even where its use is not restrained, as it is among the pepper-planters, to the times of their festivals. That the practice of smoking opium must be in some degree prejudicial to the health is highly probable; yet I am inclined to think that effects have been attributed to it much more pernicious to the constitution than it in reality causes. The bugis soldiers and others in the Malay bazaars whom we see most attached to it, and who use it to excess, commonly appear emaciated; but they are in other respects abandoned and debauched. The Limun and Batang Assei gold-traders, on the contrary, who are an active, laborious class of men but yet indulge as freely in opium as any others whatever, are notwithstanding the most healthy and vigorous people to be met with on the island. It has been usual also to attribute to the practice destructive consequences of another nature from the frenzy it has been supposed to excite in those who take it in quantities. But this should probably rank with the many errors that mankind have been led into by travellers addicted to the marvellous; and there is every reason to believe that the furious quarrels, desperate assassinations, and sanguinary attacks, which the use of opium is said to give birth to, are idle notions, originally adopted through ignorance and since maintained from the mere want of investigation, without having any solid foundation. It is not to be controverted, that those desperate acts of indiscriminate murder, called by us mucks, and by the natives mengamok, do actually take place, and frequently too in some parts of the East (in Java in particular) but it is not equally evident that they proceed from any intoxication except that of their unruly passions. Too often they are occasioned by excess of cruelty and injustice in their oppressors. On the west coast of Sumatra about twenty thousand pounds weight of this drug are consumed annually, yet instances of this crime do not happen (at least within the scope of our knowledge) above once in two or three years. During my residence there I had an opportunity of being an eyewitness but to one muck. The slave of a Portuguese woman, a man of the island of Nias, who in all probability had never handled an opium pipe in his life, being treated by his mistress with extreme severity for a trifling offence, vowed he would have revenge if she attempted to strike him again, and ran down the steps of the house with a knife in each hand, as it is said. She cried out, mengamok! The civil guard was called, who, having the power in these cases of exercising summary justice, fired half a dozen rounds into an outhouse where the unfortunate wretch had sheltered himself on their approach, and from whence he was at length dragged, covered with wounds. Many other mucks might perhaps be found, upon scrutiny, of the nature of the foregoing, where a man of strong feelings was driven by excess of injury to domestic rebellion.

It is true that the Malays, when in a state of war they are bent on any daring enterprise, fortify themselves with a few whiffs of opium to render them insensible to danger, as the people of another nation are said to take a dram for the same purpose; but it must be observed that the resolution for the act precedes, and is not the effect of, the intoxication. They take the same precaution previous to being led to public execution; but on these occasions show greater signs of stupidity than frenzy. Upon the whole it may be reasonably concluded that the sanguinary achievements, for which the Malays have been famous, or infamous rather, in history, are more justly to be attributed to the natural ferocity of their disposition, or to the influence upon their manners of a particular state of society, than to the qualities of any drug whatever. The pretext of the soldiers of the country-guard for using opium is that it may render them watchful on their nightly posts: we on the contrary administer it to procure sleep, and according to the quantity it has either effect. The delirium it produces is known to be so very pleasing that Pope has supposed this to have been designed by Homer when he describes the delicious draught prepared by Helen, called nepenthe, which exhilarated the spirits and banished from the mind the recollection of woe.

It is remarkable that at Batavia, where the assassins just now described, when taken alive, are broken on the wheel, with every aggravation of punishment that the most rigorous justice can inflict, the mucks yet happen in great frequency, whilst at Bencoolen, where they are executed in the most simple and expeditious manner, the offence is extremely rare. Excesses of severity in punishment may deter men from deliberate and interested acts of villainy, but they add fuel to the atrocious enthusiasm of desperadoes.

PIRATICAL ADVENTURES.

A further proof of the influence that mild government has upon the manners of people is that the piratical adventures so common on the eastern coast of the island are unknown on the western. Far from our having apprehensions of the Malays, the guards at the smaller English settlements are almost entirely composed of them, with a mixture of Bugis or Makasar people. Europeans, attended by Malays only, are continually travelling through the country. They are the only persons employed in carrying treasure to distant places; in the capacity of secretaries for the country correspondence; as civil officers in seizing delinquents among the planters and elsewhere; and as masters and supercargoes of the tambangans, praws, and other small coasting vessels. So great is the effect of moral causes and habit upon a physical character esteemed the most treacherous and sanguinary.

CHAPTER 15.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.
EMBLEMATIC PRESENTS.
ORATORY.
CHILDREN.
NAMES.
CIRCUMCISION.
FUNERALS.
RELIGION.

CUSTOM OF CHEWING BETEL.

Whether to blunt the edge of painful reflection, or owing to an aversion our natures have to total inaction, most nations have been addicted to the practice of enjoying by mastication or otherwise the flavour of substances possessing an inebriating quality. The South Americans chew the cocoa and mambee, and the eastern people the betel and areca, or, as they are called in the Malay language, sirih and pinang. This custom has been accurately described by various writers, and therefore it is almost superfluous to say more on the subject than that the Sumatrans universally use it, carry the ingredients constantly about them, and serve it to their guests on all occasions--the prince in a gold stand, and the poor man in a brass box or mat bag. The betel-stands of the better rank of people are usually of silver embossed with rude figures. The Sultan of Moco-moco was presented with one by the India Company, with their arms on it; and he possesses beside another of gold filigree. The form of the stand is the frustum of a hexagonal pyramid reversed, about six or eight inches in diameter. It contains many smaller vessels fitted to the angles, for holding the nut, leaf, and chunam, which is quicklime made from calcined shells; with places for the instruments (kachip) employed in cutting the first, and spatulas for spreading the last.

When the first salutation is over, which consists in bending the body, and the inferior's putting his joined hands between those of the superior, and then lifting them to his forehead, the betel is presented as a token of hospitality and an act of politeness. To omit it on the one hand or to reject it on the other would be an affront; as it would be likewise in a person of subordinate rank to address a great man without the precaution of chewing it before he spoke. All the preparation consists in spreading on the sirih leaf a small quantity of the chunam and folding it up with a slice of the pinang nut. Some mix with these gambir, which is a substance prepared from the leaves of a tree of that name by boiling their juices to a consistence, and made up into little balls or squares, as before spoken of: tobacco is likewise added, which is shred fine for the purpose, and carried between the lip and upper row of teeth. From the mastication of the first three proceeds a juice which tinges the saliva of a bright red, and which the leaf and nut, without the chunam, will not yield. This hue being communicated to the mouth and lips is esteemed ornamental; and an agreeable flavour is imparted to the breath. The juice is usually (after the first fermentation produced by the lime) though not always swallowed by the chewers of betel. We might reasonably suppose that its active qualities would injure the coats of the stomach, but experience seems to disprove such a consequence. It is common to see the teeth of elderly persons stand loose in the gums, which is probably the effect of this custom, but I do not think that it affects the soundness of the teeth themselves. Children begin to chew betel very young, and yet their teeth are always beautifully white till pains are taken to disfigure them by filing and staining them black. To persons who are not habituated to the composition it causes a strong giddiness, astringes and excoriates the tongue and fauces, and deadens for a time the faculty of taste. During the puasa, or fast of ramadan, the Mahometans among them abstain from the use of betel whilst the sun continues above the horizon; but excepting at this season it is the constant luxury of both sexes from an early period of childhood, till, becoming toothless, they are reduced to the necessity of having the ingredients previously reduced to a paste for them, that without further effort the betel may dissolve in the mouth. Along with the betel, and generally in the chunam, is the mode of conveying philtres, or love charms. How far they prove effectual I cannot take upon me to say, but suppose that they are of the nature of our stimulant medicines, and that the direction of the passion is of course indiscriminate. The practice of administering poison in this manner is not followed in latter times; but that the idea is not so far eradicated as entirely to prevent suspicion appears from this circumstance, that the guest, though taking a leaf from the betel-service of his entertainer, not unfrequently applies to it his own chunam, and never omits to pass the former between his thumb and forefinger in order to wipe off any extraneous matter. This mistrustful procedure is so common as not to give offence.

TOBACCO.

Beside the mode before-mentioned of enjoying the flavour of tobacco it is also smoked by the natives and for this use--after shredding it fine whilst green and drying it well it is rolled up in the thin leaves of a tree, and is in that form called roko, a word they appear to have borrowed from the Dutch. The rokos are carried in the betel-box, or more commonly under the destar or handkerchief which, in imitation of a turband, surrounds the head. Much tobacco is likewise imported from China and sells at a high price. It seems to possess a greater pungency than the Sumatran plant, which the people cultivate for their own use in the interior parts of the island.

EMBLEMATIC PRESENTS.

The custom of sending emblematical presents in order to make known, in a covert manner, the birth, progress, or change of certain affections of the mind, prevails here, as in some other parts of the East; and not only flowers of various kinds have their appropriate meaning, but also cayenne-pepper, betel-leaf, salt, and other articles are understood by adepts to denote love, jealousy, resentment, hatred, and other strong feelings.

ORATORY.

The Sumatrans in general are good speakers. The gift of oratory seems natural to them. I knew many among them whose harangues I have listened to with pleasure and admiration. This may be accounted for perhaps from the constitution of their government, which being far removed from despotism seems to admit, in some degree, every member of the society to a share in the public deliberations. Where personal endowments, as has been observed, will often raise a private man to a share of importance in the community,superior to that of a nominal chief, there is abundant inducement for the acquisition of these valuable talents. The forms of their judicial proceedings likewise, where there are no established advocates and each man depends upon his own or his friend's abilities for the management of his cause, must doubtless contribute to this habitual eloquence. We may add to these conjectures the nature of their domestic manners, which introduce the sons at an early period of life into the business of the family, and the counsels of their elders. There is little to be perceived among them of that passion for childish sports which marks the character of our boys from the seventh to the fourteenth year. In Sumatra you may observe infants, not exceeding the former age, full dressed and armed with a kris, seated in the circle of the old men of the dusun, and attending to their debates with a gravity of countenance not surpassed by their grandfathers. Thus initiated they are qualified to deliver an opinion in public at a time of life when an English schoolboy could scarcely return an answer to a question beyond the limits of his grammar or syntax, which he has learned by rote. It is not a little unaccountable that this people, who hold the art of speaking in such high esteem, and evidently pique themselves on the attainment of it, should yet take so much pains to destroy the organs of speech in filing down and otherwise disfiguring their teeth; and likewise adopt the uncouth practice of filling their mouths with betel whenever they prepare to hold forth. We must conclude that it is not upon the graces of elocution they value an orator, but his artful and judicious management of the subject matter; together with a copiousness of phrase, a perspicuity of thought, an advantageous arrangement, and a readiness, especially, at unravelling the difficulties and intricacies of their suits.

CHILD-BEARING.

The curse entailed on women in the article of child-bearing does not fall so heavy in this as in the northern countries. Their pregnancy scarcely at any period prevents their attendance on the ordinary domestic duties; and usually within a few hours after their delivery they walk to the bathing-place, at a small distance from the house. The presence of a sage femme is often esteemed superfluous. The facility of parturition may probably be owing to the relaxation of the frame from the warmth of the climate; to which cause also may be attributed the paucity of children borne by the Sumatran women and the early decay of their beauty and strength. They have the tokens of old age at a season of life when European women have not passed their prime. They are like the fruits of the country, soon ripe and soon decayed. They bear children before fifteen, are generally past it at thirty, and grey-headed and shrivelled at forty. I do not recollect hearing of any woman who had six children except the wife of Raddin of Madura, who had more; and she, contrary to the universal custom, did not give suck to hers.

TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.

Mothers carry the children not on the arm, as our nurses do, but straddling on the hip, and usually supported by a cloth which ties in a knot on the opposite shoulder. This practice I have been told is common in some parts of Wales. It is much safer than the other method, less tiresome to the nurse, and the child has the advantage of sitting in a less constrained posture: but the defensive armour of stays, and offensive weapons called pins, might be some objection to the general introduction of the fashion in England. The children are nursed but little, not confined by any swathing or bandages, and, being suffered to roll about the floor, soon learn to walk and shift for themselves. When cradles are used they are swung suspended from the ceiling of the rooms.

AGE OF THE PEOPLE.

The country people can very seldom give an account of their age, being entirely without any species of chronology. Among those country people who profess themselves Mahometans to very few is the date of the Hejra known; and even of those who in their writings make use of it not one in ten can pronounce in what year of it he was born. After a few taun padi (harvests) are elapsed they are bewildered in regard to the date of an event, and only guess at it from some contemporary circumstance of notoriety, as the appointment of a particular dupati, the incursion of a certain enemy, or the like. As far as can be judged from observation it would seem that not a great proportion of the men attain to the age of fifty, and sixty years is accounted a long life.

NAMES.

The children among the Rejangs have generally a name given to them by their parents soon after their birth, which is called namo daging. The galar (cognomen), another species of name, or title, as we improperly translate it, is bestowed at a subsequent, but not at any determinate, period: sometimes as the lads rise to manhood, at an entertainment given by the parent, on some particular occasion; and often at their marriage. It is generally conferred by the old men of the neighbouring villages, when assembled; but instances occur of its being irregularly assumed by the persons themselves; and some never obtain any galar. It is also not unusual, at a convention held on business of importance, to change the galar of one or two of the principal personages to others of superior estimation; though it is not easy to discover in what this pre-eminence consists, the appellations being entirely arbitrary, at the fancy of those who confer them: perhaps in the loftier sound, or more pompous allusion in the sense, which latter is sometimes carried to an extraordinary pitch of bombast, as in the instance of Pengunchang bumi, or Shaker of the World, the title of a pangeran of Manna. But a climax is not always perceptible in the change.

FATHER NAMED FROM HIS CHILD.

The father, in many parts of the country, particularly in Passummah, is distinguished by the name of his first child, as Pa-Ladin, or Pa-Rindu (Pa for bapa, signifying the father of), and loses in this acquired his own proper name. This is a singular custom, and surely less conformable to the order of nature than that which names the son from the father. There it is not usual to give them a galar on their marriage, as with the Rejangs, among whom the filionymic is not so common, though sometimes adopted, and occasionally joined with the galar; as Radin-pa-Chirano. The women never change the name given them at the time of their birth; yet frequently they are called, through courtesy, from their eldest child, Ma-si-ano, the mother of such a one; but rather as a polite description than a name. The word or particle Si is prefixed to the birth-names of persons, which almost ever consist of but a single word, as Si Bintang, Si Tolong; and we find from Captain Forrest's voyage that in the island of Mindanao the infant son of the Raja Muda was named Se Mama.

HESITATE TO PRONOUNCE THEIR OWN NAME.

A Sumatran ever scrupulously abstains from pronouncing his own name; not as I understand from any motive of superstition, but merely as a punctilio in manners. It occasions him infinite embarrassment when a stranger, unacquainted with their customs, requires it of him. As soon as he recovers from his confusion he solicits the interposition of his neighbour.

ADDRESS IN THE THIRD PERSON.

He is never addressed, except in the case of a superior dictating to his dependant, in the second person, but always in the third; using his name or title instead of the pronoun; and when these are unknown a general title of respect is substituted, and they say, for instance, apa orang kaya punia suka, what is his honour's pleasure for what is your, or your honour's pleasure? When criminals or other ignominious persons are spoken to use is made of the pronoun personal kau (a contraction of angkau) particularly expressive of contempt. The idea of disrespect annexed to the use of the second person in discourse, though difficult to be accounted for, seems pretty general in the world. The Europeans, to avoid the supposed indecorum, exchange the singular number for the plural; but I think with less propriety of effect than the Asiatic mode; if to take off from the bluntness of address be the object aimed at.

CIRCUMCISION.

The boys are circumcised, where Mahometanism prevails, between the sixth and tenth year. The ceremony is called krat kulop and buang or lepas malu (casting away their shame), and a bimbang is usually given on the occasion; as well as at the ceremony of boring the ears and filing the teeth of their daughters (before described), which takes place at about the age of ten or twelve; and until this is performed they cannot with propriety be married.

FUNERALS.

At their funerals the corpse is carried to the place of interment on a broad plank, which is kept for the public service of the dusun, and lasts for many generations. It is constantly rubbed with lime, either to preserve it from decay or to keep it pure. No coffin is made use of; the body being simply wrapped in white cloth, particularly of the sort called hummums. In forming the grave (kubur), after digging to a convenient depth they make a cavity in the side, at bottom, of sufficient dimensions to contain the body, which is there deposited on its right side. By this mode the earth literally lies light upon it; and the cavity, after strewing flowers in it, they stop up by two boards fastened angularly to each other, so that the one is on the top of the corpse, whilst the other defends it on the open side, the edge resting on the bottom of the grave. The outer excavation is then filled up with earth, and little white flags or streamers are stuck in order around. They likewise plant a shrub, bearing a white flower, called kumbang­kamboja (Plumeria obtusa), and in some places wild marjoram. The women who attend the funeral make a hideous noise, not much unlike the Irish howl. On the third and seventh day the relations perform a ceremony at the grave, and at the end of twelve months that of tegga batu, or setting up a few long elliptical stones at the head and foot, which, being scarce in some parts of the country, bear a considerable price. On this occasion they kill and feast on a buffalo, and leave the head to decay on the spot as a token of the honour they have done to the deceased, in eating to his memory.* The ancient burying-places are called krammat, and are supposed to have been those of the holy men by whom their ancestors were converted to the faith. They are held in extraordinary reverence, and the least disturbance or violation of the ground, though all traces of the graves be obliterated, is regarded as an unpardonable sacrilege.

(*Footnote. The above ceremonies (with the exception of the last) are briefly described in the following lines, extracted from a Malayan poem.

Setelah sudah de tangisi, nia Lalu de kubur de tanamkan 'nia De ambel koran de ajikan 'nia Sopaya lepas deri sangsara 'nia Mengaji de kubur tujuh ari Setelah de khatam tiga kali Sudah de tegga batu sakali Membayer utang pada si-mati.)

RELIGION.

In works descriptive of the manners of people little known to the world the account of their religion usually constitutes an article of the first importance. Mine will labour under the contrary disadvantage. The ancient and genuine religion of the Rejangs, if in fact they ever had any, is scarcely now to be traced; and what principally adds to its obscurity, and the difficulty of getting information on the subject, is that even those among them who have not been initiated in the principles of Mahometanism yet regard those who have as persons advanced a step in knowledge beyond them, and therefore hesitate to own circumstantially that they remain still unenlightened. Ceremonies are fascinating to mankind, and without comprehending with what views they were instituted the profanum vulgus naturally give them credit for something mysterious and above their capacities, and accordingly pay them a tribute of respect. With Mahometanism a more extensive field of knowledge (I speak in comparison) is open to its converts, and some additional notions of science are conveyed. These help to give it importance, though it must be confessed they are not the most pure tenets of that religion which have found their way to Sumatra; nor are even the ceremonial parts very scrupulously adhered to. Many who profess to follow it give themselves not the least concern about its injunctions, or even know what they require. A Malay at Manna upbraided a countryman with the total ignorance of religion his nation laboured under. "You pay a veneration to the tombs of your ancestors: what foundation have you for supposing that your dead ancestors can lend you assistance?" "It may be true," answered the other, "but what foundation have you for expecting assistance from Allah and Mahomet?" "Are you not aware, replied the Malay, that it is written in a Book? Have you not heard of the Koran?" The native of Passummah, with conscious inferiority, submitted to the force of this argument.

If by religion is meant a public or private form of worship of any kind, and if prayers, processions, meetings, offerings, images, or priests are any of them necessary to constitute it, I can pronounce that the Rejangs are totally without religion and cannot with propriety be even termed pagans, if that, as I apprehend, conveys the idea of mistaken worship. They neither worship God, devil, nor idols. They are not however without superstitious beliefs of many kinds, and have certainly a confused notion, though perhaps derived from their intercourse with other people, of some species of superior beings who have the power of rendering themselves visible or invisible at pleasure. These they call orang alus, fine, or impalpable beings, and regard them as possessing the faculty of doing them good or evil, deprecating their wrath as the sense of present misfortunes or apprehension of future prevails in their minds. But when they speak particularly of them they call them by the appellations of maleikat and jin, which are the angels and evil spirits of the Arabians, and the idea may probably have been borrowed at the same time with the names. These are the powers they also refer to in an oath. I have heard a dupati say, "My grandfather took an oath that he would not demand the jujur of that woman, and imprecated a curse on any of his descendants that should do it: I never have, nor could I without salah kapada maleikat--an offence against the angels." Thus they say also, de talong nabi, maleikat, the prophet and angels assisting. This is pure Mahometanism.

NO NAME FOR THE DEITY.

The clearest proof that they never entertained an idea of Theism or the belief of one supreme power is that they have no word in their language to express the person of God, except the Allah tala of the Malays, corrupted by them to Ulah tallo. Yet when questioned on the subject they assert their ancestors' knowledge of a deity, though their thoughts were never employed about him; but this evidently means no more than that their forefathers as well as themselves had heard of the Allah of the Mahometans (Allah orang islam). (ISLAM IN SUMATRA_-SYAHADA)

IDEA OF INVISIBLE BEINGS.

They use, both in Rejang and Passummah, the word dewa to express a superior invisible class of beings; but each country acknowledges it to be of foreign derivation, and they suppose it Javanese. Radin, of Madura, an island close to Java, who was well conversant with the religious opinions of most nations, asserted to me that dewa was an original word of that country for a superior being, which the Javans of the interior believed in, but with regard to whom they used no ceremonies or forms of worship:* that they had some idea of a future life, but not as a state of retribution, conceiving immortality to be the lot of rich rather than of good men. I recollect that an inhabitant of one of the islands farther eastward observed to me, with great simplicity, that only great men went to the skies; how should poor men find admittance there? The Sumatrans, where untinctured with Mahometanism, do not appear to have any notion of a future state. Their conception of virtue or vice extends no farther than to the immediate effect of actions to the benefit or prejudice of society, and all such as tend not to either of these ends are in their estimation perfectly indifferent.

(*Footnote. In the Transactions of the Batavian Society Volumes 1 and 3 is to be found a History of these Dewas of the Javans, translated from an original manuscript. The mythology is childish and incoherent. The Dutch commentator supposes them to have been a race of men held sacred, forming a species of Hierarchy, like the government of the Lamas in Tartary.)

Notwithstanding what is asserted of the originality of the word dewa, I cannot help remarking its extreme affinity to the Persian word div or diw, which signifies an evil spirit or bad genius. Perhaps, long antecedent to the introduction of the faith of the khalifs among the eastern people, this word might have found its way and been naturalized in the islands; or perhaps its progress was in a contrary direction. It has likewise a connexion in sound with the names used to express a deity or some degree of superior being by many other people of this region of the earth. The Battas, inhabitants of the northern end of Sumatra, whom I shall describe hereafter, use the word daibattah or daivattah; the Chingalese of Ceylon dewiju, the Telingas of India dai-wundu, the Biajus of Borneo dewattah, the Papuas of New Guinea 'wat, and the Pampangos of the Philippines diuata. It bears likewise an affinity (perhaps accidental) to the deus and deitas of the Romans.*

(*Footnote. At the period when the above was written I was little aware of the intimate connexion now well understood to have anciently subsisted between the Hindus and the various nations beyond the Ganges. The most evident proofs appear of the extensive dissemination both of their language and mythology throughout Sumatra, Java, Balli (where at this day they are best preserved), and the other eastern islands. To the Sanskrit words dewa and dewata, signifying divinities in that great mother-tongue, we are therefore to look for the source of the terms, more or less corrupted, that have been mentioned in the text. See Asiatic Researches Volume 4 page 223.)

VENERATION FOR THE MANES AND TOMBS OF THEIR ANCESTORS.

The superstition which has the strongest influence on the minds of the Sumatrans, and which approaches the nearest to a species of religion, is that which leads them to venerate, almost to the point of worshipping, the tombs and manes of their deceased ancestors (nenek puyang). These they are attached to as strongly as to life itself, and to oblige them to remove from the neighbourhood of their krammat is like tearing up a tree by the roots; these the more genuine country people regard chiefly, when they take a solemn oath, and to these they apostrophise in instances of sudden calamity. Had they the art of making images or other representations of them they would be perfect lares, penates, or household gods. It has been asserted to me by the natives (conformably to what we are told by some of the early travellers) that in very ancient times the Sumatrans made a practice of burning the bodies of their dead, but I could never find any traces of the custom, or any circumstances that corroborated it.

METEMPSYCHOSIS.

They have an imperfect notion of a metempsychosis, but not in any degree systematic, nor considered as an article of religious faith. Popular stories prevail amongst them of such a particular man being changed into a tiger or other beast. They seem to think indeed that tigers in general are actuated with the spirits of departed men, and no consideration will prevail on a countryman to catch or to wound one but in self-defence, or immediately after the act of destroying a friend or relation. They speak of them with a degree of awe, and hesitate to call them by their common name (rimau or machang), terming them respectfully satwa (the wild animals), or even nenek (ancestors), as really believing them such, or by way of soothing and coaxing them; as our ignorant country folk call the fairies the good people. When a European procures traps to be set, by the means of persons less superstitious, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood have been known to go at night to the place and practise some forms in order to persuade the animal, when caught, or when he shall perceive the bait, that it was not laid by them, or with their consent. They talk of a place in the country where the tigers have a court and maintain a regular form of government, in towns, the houses of which are thatched with women's hair. It happened that in one month seven or eight people were killed by these prowling beasts in Manna district; upon which a report became current that fifteen hundred of them were come down from Passummah, of which number four were without understanding (gila), and having separated from the rest ran about the country occasioning all the mischief that was felt. The alligators also are highly destructive, owing to the constant practice of bathing in the rivers, and are regarded with nearly the same degree of religious terror. Fear is the parent of superstition, by ignorance. Those two animals prove the Sumatran's greatest scourge. The mischief the former commit is incredible, whole villages being often depopulated by them, and the suffering people learn to reverence as supernatural effects the furious ravages of an enemy they have not resolution to oppose.

The Sumatrans are firmly persuaded that various particular persons are what they term betuah (sacred, impassive, invulnerable, not liable to accident), and this quality they sometimes extend to things inanimate, as ships and boats. Such an opinion, which we should suppose every man might have an opportunity of bringing to the test of truth, affords a humiliating proof of the weakness and credulity of human nature, and the fallibility of testimony, when a film of prejudice obscures the light of the understanding. I have known two men, whose honesty, good faith, and reasonableness in the general concerns of life were well established, and whose assertions would have weight in transactions of consequence: these men I have heard maintain, with the most deliberate confidence and an appearance of inward conviction of their own sincerity, that they had more than once in the course of their wars attempted to run their weapons into the naked body of their adversary, which they found impenetrable, their points being continually and miraculously turned without any effort on the part of the orang betuah: and that hundreds of instances of the like nature, where the invulnerable man did not possess the smallest natural means of opposition, had come within their observation. An English officer, with more courage and humour than discretion, exposed one imposture of this kind. A man having boasted in his presence that he was endowed with this supernatural privilege, the officer took an opportunity of applying to his arm the point of a sword and drew the blood, to the no little diversion of the spectators, and mortification of the pretender to superior gifts, who vowed revenge, and would have taken it had not means been used to keep him at a distance. But a single detection of charlatanerie is not effectual to destroy a prevalent superstition. These impostors are usually found among the Malays and not the more simple country people.

NO MISSIONARIES.

No attempts, I have reason to think, have ever been made by missionaries or others to convert the inhabitants of the island to Christianity, and I have much doubt whether the most zealous and able would meet with any permanent success in this pious work. Of the many thousands baptized in the eastern islands by the celebrated Francis Xavier in the sixteenth century not one of tdff descendants are now found to retain a ray of the light imparted to them; and probably, as it was novelty only and not conviction that induced the original converts to embrace a new faith, the impression lasted no longer than the sentiment which recommended it, and disappeared as rapidly as the itinerant apostle. Under the influence however of the Spanish government at Manila and of the Dutch at Batavia there are many native Christians, educated as such from children. In the Malayan language Portuguese and Christians are confounded under the same general name; the former being called orang Zerani, by corruption for Nazerani. This neglect of missions to Sumatra is one cause that the interior of the country has been so little known to the civilized world.

LAWS OF INHERITANCE.

If the father leaves a will, or declares before witnesses his intentions relative to his effects or estate, his pleasure is to be followed in the distribution of them amongst his children.

If he dies intestate and without declaring his intentions the male children inherit, share and share alike, except that the house and pusako (heirlooms, or effects on which, from various causes, superstitious value is placed) devolve invariably to the eldest.

The mother (if by the mode of marriage termed jujur, which, with the other legal terms, will be hereafter explained) and the daughters are dependant on the sons.

If a man, married by semando, dies, leaving children, the effects remain to the wife and children. If the woman dies, the effects remain to the husband and children. If either dies leaving no children the family of the deceased is entitled to half the effects.

LAWS REGARDING MARRIAGE.

The modes of marriage prevailing hitherto have been principally by jujur, or by ambel-anak, the Malay semando being little used. The obvious ill consequences of the two former, from the debt or slavery they entailed upon the man that married, and the endless lawsuits they gave rise to, have at length induced the chiefs to concur in their being as far as possible laid aside; adopting in lieu of them the semando malayo, or mardiko, which they now strongly recommend to their dependants as free from the encumbrances of the other modes, and tending, by facilitating marriage, and the consequent increase of population, to promote the welfare of their countrygfff. Unwilling, however, to abolish arbitrarily a favourite custom of their ancestors, marriage by jujur is still permitted to take place, but under such restrictions as will, it is hoped, effectually counteract its hitherto pernicious consequences. Marriage by ambel-anak, which rendered a man and his descendants the property of the family he married into, is now prohibited, and none permitted for the future, but, by semando, or jujur, subject to the following regulations.

The jujur of a virgin (gadis) has been hitherto one hundred and twenty dollars: the adat annexed to it have been tulis-tanggil, fifteen dollars; upah daun kodo, six dollars, and tali kulo, five dollars:

The jujur of a widow, eighty dollars, without the adat; unless her children by the former marriage went with her, in which case the jujur gadis was paid in full.

It is now determined that, on a man's giving his daughter in marriage by jujur for the future, there shall, in lieu of the above, be fixed a sum not exceeding one hundred and fifty dollars, to be in full for jujur and all adat whatever. That this sum shall, when the marriage takes place, be paid upon the spot; that if credit is given for the whole, or any part, it shall not be recoverable by course of law; and as the sum includes the tali kulo, or bond of relationship, the wife thereby becomes the absolute property of the husband. The marriage by jujur being thus rendered equivalent to actual sale, and the difficulty enhanced by the necessity of paying the full price upon the spot, it is probable that the custom will in a great measure cease, and, though not positively, be virtually abolished. Nor can a lawsuit follow from any future jujur.

The adat, or custom, of the semando malayo or mardiko, to be paid by the husband to the wife's family upon the marriage taking place, is fixed at twenty dollars and a buffalo, for such as can afford it; and at ten dollars and a goat, for the poorer class of people.

Whatever may be acquired by either party during the subsistence of the marriage becomes joint property, and they are jointly liable to debts incurred, if by mutual consent. Should either contract debts without the knowledge and consent of the other the party that contracts must alone bear them in case of a divorce.

If either party insists upon, or both agree in it, a divorce must follow. No other power can separate them. The effects, debts, and credits in all cases to be equally divided. If the man insists upon the divorce he pays a charo of twenty dollars to the wife's family, if he obtained her a virgin; if a widow, ten dollars. If the woman insists on the divorce no charo is to be paid. If both agree in it the man pays half the charo.

If a man married by semando dies--Vide Inheritance.

If a man carries off a woman with her consent, and is willing either to pay her price at once by jujur, or marry her by semando, as the father or relations please, they cannot reclaim the woman, and the marriage takes place.

If a man carries off a girl under age (which is determined by her not having her ears bored and teeth filed--bulum bertinde berdabong), though with her own consent, he pays, exclusive of the adat jujur, or semando, twenty dollars if she be the daughter of a pambarab, and ten dollars for the daughter of any other, whether the marriage takes place or not.

If a risau, or person without property and character, carries off a woman (though with her own consent) and can neither pay the jujur, nor adat semando, the marriage shall not take place, but the man be fined five dollars and a goat for misdemeanour. If she be under age, his fine ten dollars and a goat.

If a man has but one daughter, whom, to keep her near him, he wishes to give in marriage by semando; should a man carry her off, he shall not be allowed to keep her by jujur, though he offer the money upon the spot. If he refuses to marry her by semando, no marriage takes place, and he incurs a fine to the father of ten dollars and a goat.

If a man carries off a woman under pretence of marriage he must lodge her immediately with some reputable family. If he carries her elsewhere, for a single night he incurs a fine of fifty dollars, payable to her parents or relations.

If a man carries off a virgin against her inclination (me-ulih) he incurs a fine of twenty dollars and a buffalo: if a widow, ten dollars and a goat, and the marriage does not take place. If he commits a rape, and the parents do not choose to give her to him in marriage, he incurs a fine of fifty dollars.

The adat libei, or custom of giving one woman in exchange for another taken in marriage, being a modification of the jujur, is still admitted of; but if the one be not deemed an equivalent for the other the necessary compensation (as the pangalappang, for nonage) must be paid upon the spot, or it is not recoverable by course of law. If a virgin is carried off (te-lari gadis) and another is given in exchange for her, by adat libei, twelve dollars must be paid with the latter as adat ka-salah.

A man married by ambel-anak may redeem himself and family on payment of the jujur and adat of a virgin before-mentioned.

The charo of a jujur marriage is twenty-five dollars. If the jujur be not yet paid in full and the man insists on a divorce he receives back what he has paid, less twenty-five dollars. If the woman insists no charo can be claimed by her relations. If the tali kulo is putus (broken) the wife is the husband's property and he may sell her if he pleases.

If a man compels a female debtor of his to cohabit with him her debt, if the fact be proved, is thereby discharged, if forty dollars and upwards: if under forty the debt is cleared and he pays the difference. If she accuses her master falsely of this offence her debt is doubled. If he cohabits with her by her consent her parents may compel him to marry her, either by jujur or semando, as they please.

If an unmarried woman proves with child the man against whom the fact is proved must marry her; and they pay to the proattins a joint fine of twenty dollars and a buffalo. This fine, if the parties agree to it, may be levied in the country by the neighbouring proattins (without bringing it before the regular court).

If a woman proves with child by a relation within the prohibited degrees they pay to the proattins a joint fine of twice fifty dollars and two buffaloes (hukum duo akup).

A marriage must not take place between relations within the third degree, or tungal nene. But there are exceptions for the descendants of females who, passing into other families, become as strangers. Of two brothers, the children may not intermarry. A sister's son may marry a brother's daughter; but a brother's son may not marry a sister's daughter.

If relations within the prohibited degrees intermarry they incur a fine of twice fifty dollars and two buffaloes, and the marriage is not valid.

On the death of a man married by jujur or purchase, any of his brothers, the eldest in preference, if he pleases, may succeed to his bed. If no brother chooses it they may give the woman in marriage to any relation on the father's side, without adat, the person who marries her replacing the deceased (mangabalu). If no relation takes her and she is given in marriage to a stranger he may be either adopted into the family to replace the deceased, without adot, or he may pay her jujur, or take her by semando, as her relations please.

If a person lies with a man's wife by force he is deserving of death; but may redeem his head by payment of the bangun, eighty dollars, to be divided between the husband and proattins.

If a man surprises his wife in the act of adultery he may put both man and woman to death upon the spot, without being liable to any bangun. If he kills the man and spares his wife he must redeem her life by payment of fifty dollars to the proattins. If the husband spares the offender, or has only information of the fact from other persons, he may not afterwards kill him, but has his remedy at law, the fine for adultery being fifty dollars, to be divided between the husband and the proattins. If he divorces his wife on this account he pays no charo.

If a younger sister be first married, the husband pays six dollars, adat pelalu, for passing over the elder.

LAWS OR ADAT OF MANNA.

Having procured likewise a copy of the regulations sanctioned by the chiefs of the Passummah country assembled at Manna, I do not hesitate to insert it, not only as varying in many circumstances from the preceding, but because it may eventually prove useful to record the document.

INHERITANCE.

If a person dies having children these inherit his effects in equal portions, and become answerable for the debts of the deceased. If any of his brothers survive they may be permitted to share with their nephews, but rather as matter of courtesy than of right, and only when the effects of the deceased devolved to him from his father or grandfather. If he was a man of rank it is common for the son who succeeds him in title to have a larger share. This succession is not confined to the eldest born but depends much on private agreement in the family. If the deceased person leaves no kindred behind him the tribe to which he belonged shall inherit his effects, and be answerable for his debts.

CHAPTER 16.

THE COUNTRY OF LAMPONG AND ITS INHABITANTS.
LANGUAGE.
GOVERNMENT.
WARS.
PECULIAR CUSTOMS.
RELIGION.

Having thus far spoken of the manners and customs of the Rejangs more especially, and adverted, as occasion served, to those of the Passummah people, who nearly resemble them, I shall now present a cursory view of those circumstances in which their southern neighbours, the inhabitants of the Lampong country, differ from them, though this dissimilitude is not very considerable; and shall add such information as I have been enabled to obtain respecting the people of Korinchi and other tribes dwelling beyond the ranges of hills which bound the pepper-districts.

LIMITS OF THE LAMPONG COUNTRY.

By the Lampong country is understood a portion of the southern extreme of the island, beginning, on the west coast, at the river of Padang-guchi, which divides it from Passummah, and extending across as far as Palembang, on the north-east side, at which last place the settlers are mostly Javans. On the south and east sides it is washed by the sea, having several ports in the Straits of Sunda, particularly Keysers and Lampong Bays; and the great river Tulang-bawang runs through the heart of it, rising from a considerable lake between the ranges of mountains. That division which is included by Padang-guchi, and a place called Nassal, is distinguished by the name of Briuran, and from thence southward to Flat Point, by that of Laut-Kawur; although Kawur, properly so called, lies in the northern division.

TULANG BAWANG RIVER.

Upon the Tulang-bawang, at a place called Mangala, thirty-six leagues from its mouth, the Dutch have a fortified post. There also the representative of the king of Bantam, who claims the dominion of the whole country of Lampong, has his residence, the river Masusi, which runs into the former, being the boundary of his territories and those of the sultan of Palembang. In the neighbourhood of these rivers the land is so low as to be overflowed in the rainy season, or months of January and February, when the waters have been known to rise many feet in the course of a few hours, the villages, situated on the higher spots, appearing as islands. The houses of those immediately on the banks are built on piles of ironwood timber, and each has before it a floating raft for the convenience of washing. In the western parts, towards Samangka, on the contrary, the land is mountainous, and Keyser's Peak, as well as Pugong, are visible to a great distance at sea.

INHABITANTS.

The country is best inhabited in the central and mountainous parts, where the people live independent, and in some measure secure from the inroads of their eastern neighbours, the Javans, who, from about Palembang and the Straits, frequently attempt to molest them. It is probably within but a very few centuries that the south-west coast of this country has been the habitation of any considerable number of people; and it has been still less visited by strangers, owing to the unsheltered nature of the sea thereabouts, and want of soundings in general, which renders the navigation wild and dangerous for country vessels; and to the rivers being small and rapid, with shallow bars and almost ever a high surf. If you ask the people of these parts from whence they originally came they answer, from the hills, and point out an inland place near the great lake from whence they say their forefathers emigrated: and further than this it is impossible to trace. They of all the Sumatrans have the strongest resemblance to the Chinese, particularly in the roundness of face and constructure of the eyes. They are also the fairest people of the island, and the women are the tallest and esteemed the most handsome.

LANGUAGE.

Their language differs considerably, though not essentially, from that of the Rejangs, and the characters they use are peculiar to themselves, as may be observed in the specimens exhibited.

GOVERNMENT.

The titles of government are pangeran (from the Javans), kariyer, and kiddimong or nebihi; the latter nearly answering to dupati among the Rejangs. The district of Kroi, near Mount Pugong, is governed by five magistrates called Panggau-limo, and a sixth, superior, called by way of eminence Panggau; but their authority is said to be usurped and is often disputed. The word in common signifies a gladiator or prizefighter. The pangeran of Suko, in the hills, is computed to have four or five thousand dependants, and sometimes, on going a journey, he levies a tali, or eighth part of a dollar, on each family, which shows his authority to be more arbitrary and probably more strictly feudal than among the Rejangs, where the government is rather patriarchal. This difference has doubtless its source in the wars and invasions to which the former people are exposed.

WARS.

The Javanese banditti, as has been observed, often advance into the country, and commit depredations on the inhabitants, who are not, in general, a match for them. They do not make use of firearms. Beside the common weapons of the island they fight with a long lance which is carried by three men, the foremost guiding the point and covering himself and his companions with a large shield. A compact body thus armed would have been a counterpart of the Macedonian phalanx, but can prove, I should apprehend, of but little use among a people with whom war is carried on in a desultory manner, and more in the way of ambuscade than of general engagement, in which alone troops so armed could act with effect.

Inland of Samangka, in the Straits of Sunda, there is a district, say the Lampongs, inhabited by a ferocious people called orang Abung, who were a terror to the neighbouring country until their villages were destroyed some years ago by an expedition from the former place. Their mode of atoning for offences against their own community, or, according to a Malayan narrative in my possession, of entitling themselves to wives, was by bringing to their dusuns the heads of strangers. The account may be true, but without further authentication such stories are not to be too implicitly credited on the faith of a people who are fond of the marvellous and addicted to exaggeration. Thus they believed the inhabitants of the island Engano to be all females, who were impregnated by the wind, like the mares in Virgil's Georgics.

MANNERS.

The manners of the Lampongs are more free, or rather licentious, than those of any other native Sumatrans. An extraordinary liberty of intercourse is allowed between the young people of different sexes, and the loss of female chastity is not a very uncommon consequence. The offence is there however thought more lightly of, and instead of punishing the parties, as in Passummah and elsewhere, they prudently endeavour to conclude a legal match between them. But if this is not effected the lady still continues to wear the insignia of virginity, the fillet and arm-rings, and takes her place as such at festivals. It is not only on these public occasions that the young men and women have opportunities of forming arrangements, as in most other parts of the island. They frequently associate together at other times; and the former are seen gallantly reclining in the maiden's lap, whispering soft nonsense, whilst she adjusts and perfumes his hair, or does a friendly office of less delicacy to a European apprehension. At bimbangs the women often put on their dancing dress in the public hall, letting that garment which they mean to lay aside dexterously drop from under, as the other passes over the head, but sometimes, with an air of coquetry, displaying as if by chance enough to warm youthful imaginations. Both men and women anoint themselves before company when they prepare to dance; the women their necks and arms, and the men their breasts. They also paint each others faces; not, seemingly, with a view of heightening or imitating the natural charms, but merely as matter of fashion; making fantastic spots with the finger on the forehead, temples, and cheeks, of white, red, yellow, and other hues. A brass salver (tallam) covered with little china cups, containing a variety of paints, is served up for this purpose.

Instances have happened here, though rarely, of very disagreeable conclusions to their feasts. A party of risaus among the young fellows have been known suddenly to extinguish the lights for the purpose of robbing the girls, not of their chastity, as might be apprehended, but of the gold and silver ornaments of their persons. An outrage of this nature I imagine could only happen in Lampong, where their vicinity to Java affords the culprits easier and surer means of escape, than in the central parts of the island; and here too their companies appear to be more mixed, collected from greater distances, and not composed, as with the Rejang people, of a neighbourly assemblage of the old men and women of a few contiguous villages with their sons and daughters, for the sake of convivial mirth, of celebrating a particular domestic event, and promoting attachments and courtship amongst the young people.

PARTICULAR CUSTOMS.

In every dusun there is appointed a youth, well fitted by nature and education for the office, who acts as master of ceremonies at their public meetings, arranges the young men and women in their proper places, makes choice of their partners, and regulates all other circumstances of the assembly except the important economy of the festival part or cheer, which comes under the cognizance of one of the elders. Both parts of the entertainment are preceded by long complimentary speeches, delivered by the respective stewards, who in return are answered and complimented on their skill, liberality, and other qualities, by some of the best bred amongst the guests. Though the manner of conducting, and the appendages of these feasts, are superior in style to the rustic hospitality of some of the northern countries, yet they are esteemed to be much behind those in the goodness and mode of dressing their food. The Lampongs eat almost all kinds of flesh indiscriminately, and their guleis (curries or made dishes) are said, by connoisseurs, to have no flavour. They serve up the rice divided into portions for each person, contrary to the practice in the other countries; the tallam being covered with a handsome crimson napkin manufactured for that use. They are wont to entertain strangers with much more profusion than is met with in the rest of the island. If the guest is of any consequence they do not hesitate to kill, beside goats and fowls, a buffalo, or several, according to the period of his stay, and the number of his attendants. One man has been known to entertain a person of rank and his suite for sixteen days, during which time there were not less than a hundred dishes of rice spread each day, containing some one, some two bamboos. They have dishes here, of a species of china or earthenware, called batu benauang, brought from the eastward, remarkably heavy, and very dear, some of them being valued at forty dollars a piece. The breaking one of them is a family loss of no small importance.

RECEPTION OF STRANGERS.

Abundantly more ceremony is used among these people at interviews with strangers than takes place in the countries adjacent to them. Not only the chief person of a party travelling, but every one of his attendants, is obliged, upon arriving at a town, to give a formal account of their business, or occasion of coming that way. When the principal man of the dusun is acquainted by the stranger with the motives of his journey he repeats his speech at full length before he gives an answer; and if it is a person of great consequence, the words must pass through two or three mouths before they are supposed to come with sufficient ceremony to his ears. This in fact has more the air of adding to his own importance and dignity than to that of the guest; but it is not in Sumatra alone that respect is manifested by this seeming contradiction.

The terms of the jujur, or equivalent for wives, is the same here, nearly, as with the Rejangs. The kris-head is not essential to the bargain, as among the people of Passummah. The father of the girl never admits of the putus tali kulo, or whole sum being paid, and thereby withholds from the husband, in any case, the right of selling his wife, who, in the event of a divorce, returns to her relations. Where the putus tali is allowed to take place, he has a property in her, little differing from that of a slave, as formerly observed. The particular sums which constitute the jujur are less complex here than at other places. The value of the maiden's golden trinkets is nicely estimated, and her jujur regulated according to that and the rank of her parents. The semando marriage scarcely ever takes place but among poor people, where there is no property on either side, or in the case of a slip in the conduct of the female, when the friends are glad to make up a match in this way instead of demanding a price for her. Instances have occurred however of countrymen of rank affecting a semando marriage in order to imitate the Malayan manners; but it has been looked upon as improper and liable to create confusion.

The fines and compensation for murder are in every respect the same as in the countries already described.

RELIGION.

The Mahometan religion has made considerable progress amongst the Lampongs, and most of their villages have mosques in them: yet an attachment to the original superstitions of the country induces them to regard with particular veneration the ancient burying-places of their fathers, which they piously adorn and cover in from the weather.

SUPERSTITIOUS OPINIONS.

In some parts, likewise, they superstitiously believe that certain trees, particularly those of a venerable appearance (as an old jawi-jawi or banyan tree) are the residence, or rather the material frame of spirits of the woods; an opinion which exactly answers to the idea entertained by the ancients of the dryads and hamadryads. At Benkunat in the Lampong country there is a long stone, standing on a flat one, supposed by the people to possess extraordinary power or virtue. It is reported to have been once thrown down into the water and to have raised itself again to its original position, agitating the elements at the same time with a prodigious storm. To approach it without respect they believe to be the source of misfortune to the offender.

The inland people of that country are said to pay a kind of adoration to the sea, and to make to it an offering of cakes and sweetmeats on their beholding it for the first time, deprecating its power of doing them mischief. This is by no means surprising when we consider the natural proneness of unenlightened mankind to regard with superstitious awe whatever has the power of injuring them without control, and particularly when it is attended with any circumstances mysterious and inexplicable to their understandings. The sea possesses all these qualities. Its destructive and irresistible power is often felt, and especially on the coasts of India where tremendous surfs are constantly breaking on the shore, rising often to their greatest degree of violence without any apparent external cause. Add to this the flux and reflux and perpetual ordinary motion of that element, wonderful even to philosophers who are acquainted with the cause, unaccountable to ignorant men, though long accustomed to the effects; but to those who only once or twice in their lives have been eyewitnesses to the phenomena, supernatural and divine. It must not however be understood that anything like a regular worship is paid to the sea by these people, any more than we should conclude that people in England worship witches when they nail a horseshoe on the threshold to prevent their approach, or break the bottoms of eggshells to hinder them from sailing in them. It is with the inhabitants of Lampong no more than a temporary sentiment of fear and respect, which a little familiarity soon effaces. Many of them indeed imagine it endowed with a principle of voluntary motion. They tell a story of an ignorant fellow who, observing with astonishment its continual agitation, carried a vessel of sea water with him, on his return to the country, and poured it into a lake, in full expectation of seeing it perform the same fanciful motions he had admired it for in its native bed.*

(*Footnote. The manners of the natives of the Philippine or Luzon Islands correspond in so many striking particulars with those of the inland Sumatrans, and especially where they differ most from the Malays, that I think no doubt can be entertained, if not of a sameness of origin, at least of an intercourse and connection in former times which now no longer exists. The following instances are taken from an essay preserved by Thevenot, entitled Relation des Philippines par un religieux; traduite d'un manuscrit Espagnol du cabinet de Monsieur Dom. Carlo del Pezzo (without date), and from a manuscript communicated to me by Alex Dalrymple, Esquire. "The chief Deity of the Tagalas is called Bathala mei Capal, and also Diuata; and their principal idolatry consists in adoring those of their ancestors who signalised themselves for courage or abilities, calling them Humalagar, i.e. manes: They make slaves of the people who do not keep silence at the tombs of their ancestors. They have great veneration for the crocodile, which they call nono, signifying grandfather, and make offerings to it. Every old tree they look upon as a superior being, and think it a crime to cut it down. They worship also stones, rocks, and points of land, shooting arrows at these last as they pass them. They have priests who, at their sacrifices, make many contortions and grimaces, as if possessed with a devil. The first man and woman, they say, were produced from a bamboo, which burst in the island of Sumatra; and they quarrelled about their marriage. The people mark their bodies in various figures, and render them of the colour of ashes, have large holes in their ears, blacken and file their teeth, and make an opening which they fill up with gold, they used to write from top to bottom till the Spaniards taught them to write from left to right, bamboos and palm leaves serve them for paper. They cover their houses with straw, leaves of trees, or bamboos split in two which serve for tiles. They hire people to sing and weep at their funerals, burn benzoin, bury their dead on the third day in strong coffins, and sometimes kill slaves to accompany their deceased masters.")

The latter account is more particular, and appears of modern date.

They held the caiman, or alligator, in great reverence, and when they saw him they called him nono, or grandfather, praying with great tenderness that he would do them no harm, and to this end, offered him of whatever they had in their boats, throwing it into the water. There was not an old tree to which they did not offer divine worship, especially that called balete; and even at this time they have some respect for them. Beside these they had certain idols inherited from their ancestors, which the Tagalas called Anita, and the Bisayans, Divata. Some of these were for the mountains and plains, and they asked their leave when they would pass them: others for the corn fields, and to these they recommend them, that they might be fertile, placing meat and drink in the fields for the use of the Anitos. There was one, of the sea, who had care of their fishing and navigation; another of the house, whose favour they implored at the birth of a child, and under whose protection they placed it. They made Anitos also of their deceased ancestors, and to these were their first invocations in all difficulties and dangers. They reckoned amongst these beings, all those who were killed by lightning or alligators, or had any disastrous death, and believed that they were carried up to the happy state, by the rainbow, which they call Balan-gao. In general they endeavoured to attribute this kind of divinity to their fathers, when they died in years, and the old men, vain with this barbarous notion, affected in their sickness a gravity and composure of mind, as they conceived, more than human, because they thought themselves commencing Anitos. They were to be interred at places marked out by themselves, that they might be discovered at a distance and worshipped. The missionaries have had great trouble in demolishing their tombs and idols; but the Indians, inland, still continue the custom of pasing tabi sa nano, or asking permission of their dead ancestors, when they enter any wood, mountain, or corn field, for hunting or sowing; and if they omit this ceremony imagine their nonos will punish them with bad fortune.

Their notions of the creation of the world, and formation of mankind, had something ridiculously extravagant. They believed that the world at first consisted only of sky and water, and between these two, a glede; which, weary with flying about, and finding no place to rest, set the water at variance with the sky, which, in order to keep it in bounds, and that it should not get uppermost, loaded the water with a number of islands, in which the glede might settle and leave them at peace. Mankind, they said, sprang out of a large cane with two joints, that, floating about in the water, was at length thrown by the waves against the feet of the glede, as it stood on shore, which opened it with its bill, and the man came out of one joint, and the woman out of the other. These were soon after married by consent of their God, Batkala Meycapal, which caused the first trembling of the earth; and from thence are descended the different nations of the world."