Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles — John Shaqi
Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean JunglesGomes, Edwin Herbert
History
Seventeen Years Among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo: A Record of Intimate Association with the Natives of the Bornean Jungles
Gomes, Edwin Herbert
Iban (Bornean people); Sarawak (Malaysia) -- Description and travel
If a married man commits adultery with a married woman, the husband of
the woman is allowed to strike him with a club or otherwise maltreat him,
while the wife of the adulterer has the right to treat the adulteress in
the same way. The innocent husband supposes the one most to be blamed
is not his wife, but her tempter, and _vice versâ_. This striking must
not, however, take place in a house; it must be done in the open. The
club used must not be of hard wood. Very often this striking is merely a
means of publishing the fact that adultery has been committed, and no one
is much hurt, but I have known cases where the man has been very badly
wounded. No striking can take place after the matter has been talked
about or confessed, and if one knew for certain of a case of adultery,
one could easily stop this maltreatment of each other by talking about
it publicly. The case is then settled by fining the guilty parties.
Where both parties are married, and no divorce follows, the fining is no
punishment, because each party pays to the other.
The Dyak view of the marriage state, especially where there are children,
is by no means a low one. Though an Oriental people living in a tropical
climate, their own traditional law allows a man to have only one wife.
If, as sometimes is the case, a couple continue to live together after
one of them has committed adultery, it is due to the fact that there are
little children whom they do not want to part with, and not because they
think lightly of the crime of adultery.
The Dyaks are very unselfish, and show a great deal of consideration
for each other. They live together under one roof in large communities.
Though each family has a separate room, all the rooms are usually
connected one with another by little windows in the partition walls.
This communal life accounts for the good-nature and amiability of the
Dyaks. The happiness and comfort, to say nothing of the safety, of the
community in times past, depend largely on their getting on well one with
another. Therefore, as a natural result, there has grown up a great deal
of unselfish regard for each other among the inmates of the Dyak village
house.
Domestic affection between the different members of one family is very
great. Especially is this the case between parents and children. An old
father or mother need never work unless they like. Their children will
provide for them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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