The man went into the
jungle and killed a deer, which he presented to her;
but the fair lady turned away in disdain. He went again
and returned with a _mias_, the great monkey [_sic_]
who haunts the forest; but this present was not more to
her taste. Then, in a fit of despair, the lover went
abroad, and killed the first man that he met, and
throwing his victim's head at the maiden's feet, he
exclaimed at the cruelty she had made him guilty of;
but to his surprise, she smiled, and said that now he
had discovered the only gift worthy of herself."
Roth cites a correspondent who says:
"At this moment there are two Dyaks in the Kuching jail
who acknowledge that they took the heads of two
innocent Chinese with no other object in view when
doing so than to secure the pseudo affections of women,
who refused to marry them until they had thus proved
themselves to be men."
Here is what a sweet Dyak maiden said to a young man who asked for her
hand and heart:
"Why don't you go to the Saribus Fort and there take
the head of Bakir (the Dyak chief), or even that of
Tuan Hassan (Mr. Watson), and then I will deign to
think of your desires with some degree of interest."
Says Captain Mundy (II., 222):
"No aristocratic youth dare venture to pay his
addresses to a Dyak demoiselle unless he throws at the
blushing maiden's feet a netful of skulls! In some
districts it is customary for the young lady to desire
her lover to cut a thick bamboo from the neighboring
jungle, and when in possession of this instrument, she
carefully arranges the _cadeau d'amour_ on the floor,
and by repeated blows beats the heads into fragments,
which, when thus pounded, are scraped up and cast into
the river; at the same time she throws herself into the
arms of the enraptured youth, and so commences the
honeymoon.
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