CHAPTER VIII MARRIAGE CUSTOMS

The Point of View of the Aborigines regarding Sex—Courtship preceding Marriage—Consultation of the Bird Omen and of Bamboo Strips as to the Auspicious Day for the Wedding—The Wedding Ceremony—Mingling by the Priestess of Drops of Blood taken from the Legs of Bride and Groom; Ritual Drinking from a Skull—Honeymoon Trips and the setting-up of House-keeping—Length of Marriage unions.

Turning from the subject of religious observances to that of marriage customs, one finds the same close association between the two in Formosa as in other lands. Indeed, the association is more close than in countries like England and America, or present-day Russia; since among the aborigines of Formosa there exists no registry office or other place where a civil marriage can be performed. In Formosa marriage means always a religious ceremony, one demanding the presence of the most powerful priestess of the local group. In some cases, several priestesses take part in the ceremony. This is especially true of certain of the groups among the Taiyal tribe, or nation.

Among those tribes, including the Taiyal, that have come least into touch with alien culture—Chinese, Japanese, or European—the religious side of the marriage ceremony seems to consist largely in purificatory rites—rites which tend to[153] neutralize, as it were, the difference between the sexes. Sex is, to the aborigines of Formosa—as to many primitive peoples,—a thing of mystery, and one fraught with danger—danger not only to the man and woman chiefly concerned, but also to the tribal group, or whole tribe. The welfare or “ill-fare” of the tribal unit is a consideration which seems always taken into account, even in connection with matters which people at a different stage of evolution would regard as being purely personal and private; these primitive folk being in some respects practical socialists, in spite of the fact that they are under the domination of a theocracy.

Before going on to speak in detail of the marriage ceremony, it may be well to say a few words in regard to the courtship which precedes it.

To one who has never been in the Orient, it may seem a matter of course that courtship should precede marriage. This, however, is very far from being the case in most Oriental countries, as all know who have been “east of Suez.” Certainly both in China and Japan, marriages are arranged entirely by the parents of the young people, often with the aid of a professional “go-between,” the bride and bridegroom-to-be sometimes not even knowing each other. The idea that a young woman should express any preference on her own part as to the choice of a husband would be considered most indelicate.

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This, then, makes it the more surprising that a people not only geographically so near to China and Japan, but one that is evidently so closely akin racially to the Japanese—a fact that is now recognized by practically all scientific Japanese ethnologists—should observe customs of courtship which resemble those prevailing in the Western world, rather than those characteristic of the Orient. Nor is this true of one or two tribes only. It is true of all the tribes of the Chin-huan (“green savages”), and even also of those sections of the Ami, Piyuma, and Paiwan tribes that live directly on the east coast, and that have, through contact with the Chinese, become in other respects partly Sinicized. Their own customs of courtship and marriage, however, have remained up to this time intact.

“When a young man’s fancy”—not lightly, but seriously, always, in the case of the aborigine—“turns to thoughts of love,” he begins to pay court to the maiden of his choice by going each evening about sunset to her home. Instead, however, of calling, Occidental fashion, upon the young lady or upon her parents, he contents himself with—not exactly sitting upon her doorstep, since she, in the first place, has no doorstep, and since he, in the second place, being a Malay, never sits, as we of the West think of that attitude; but, rather, with squatting in front of the door-way of her hut and beginning to play upon a bamboo musical instrument which somewhat[155] resembles a jews’-harp, and which is played in much the same way. The sound produced is, to the Western ear, more like a wail or lament than like a love-song. However, in Formosa it is—as far as the aborigines are concerned—the practically universal method of serenading one’s lady-love, and is apparently enjoyed both by the serenading warrior and by the young lady. The lover often keeps up the performance for hours at a time, and returns the next evening, and for many succeeding evenings, to repeat it. All this time he makes no attempt to pay any other form of address to the young lady, or to ingratiate himself with her parents. Finally, after some weeks of this nightly serenading, he leaves the bamboo jews’-harp one evening at the lady’s door. When he returns next evening if he finds it still lying there, he knows that his suit has been rejected; and as in Formosa a woman’s “No” apparently means “No,” the swain makes no further attempts to renew the courtship, as far as that particular lady is concerned. At least, this has been the case as far as my observation has extended; and apparently to attempt to do otherwise would be one of the things that is “not done” in the best Formosan society; the etiquette of primitive peoples being—as is well known by those who have been among them—curiously rigid on many points.

On the other hand, if the swain finds that the harp which he left has been taken into the house[156] of the young lady, he regards it as an indication that his suit has been successful, and that he will be acceptable as a husband to the maiden of his choice. He thereupon enters the hut, where he is welcomed by the young lady as her formally betrothed, and by her parents as a future son-in-law.

With the Tsuou tribe, it is customary for the lover to leave an ornamental hair-pin, called susu, carved from deer-horn, in front of the door of his beloved, either in place of the musical instrument or together with it. The young braves of the Paiwan tribe leave food and water, as well as the jews’-harp, before the young lady’s door.

Among the Ami—or at least among certain tribal groups of this people—the devotion of the lover takes a utilitarian turn. On the night that he begins the musical serenade he brings with him four bundles of fuel—wood cut into sticks of convenient length for burning under the cooking-pots. A number of these sticks—such as would form a good armful for a woman—are bound together into a bundle, and wrapped about with wild vine. The four bundles the serenader deposits at his inamorata’s door. The second night he brings another bundle, which—on departing after the serenade—he adds to those left the night before. The third night he brings still another; and so on, until a pile of twenty bundles (never either more or less) stand as a monument[157] testifying to his affection for the lady of his choice. On the night that the twentieth bundle is added to the pile, the jews’-harp is also left. This is the night that decides his fate. Next day he returns to find whether the monument is still standing, or whether the lady, by using it as firewood, has seen fit to reward his devotion. The wood of which these bundles are made is always from a tree of a certain kind.[78] Two or three of these trees—young saplings—are planted, or transplanted, with certain ceremonies, by every boy of the tribal groups among whom this fuel-offering custom exists, when he is about ten years old.

In all cases, and among all the tribes, the acceptance on the part of the lady of the offerings of the love-lorn swain means acceptance of himself as a husband.

“What would happen,” I asked several members—men and women—of the Taiyal tribe, “if an engagement were broken? Would the young lady return the presents?”

“Break an engagement?” They all looked puzzled. “That would mean breaking a promise that had been made, would it not? But that is not the custom.” The voice of the priestess, who was the spokeswoman of the group, was shocked.

“It is a thing not unheard of in some parts of the world,” I explained.

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“I speak not of savages,”[79] the old woman disdainfully replied.

Almost immediately after the acceptance of the suitor a priestess is consulted, and she, in turn, consults the bird-omen—for in Formosa to-day it is considered quite as true as it was in Greece, in the days of Hesiod, that—

“Lucky and bless’d is he who, knowing all these things,

Toils in the fields, blameless before the Immortals,

Knowing in birds and not over-stepping tabus.”[80]

Whether or not in Hesiodic Greece birds were supposed to be mouthpieces of ancestors, I do not know; but certainly this is the case in present-day Formosa. The ancestors of bride and groom are supposed to indicate through the cries of birds of a certain species—the same species that is consulted on head-hunting expeditions—the auspicious day for the wedding.

Sometimes, in order to “make assurance doubly sure,” or to decide a moot point in regard to the exact day, should there be any difference of opinion among the priestesses as to the interpretation of the bird-omen, strips of bamboo, some uncoloured, some blackened with soot, are thrown by the priestesses into the air. Upon the way in which these fall—the relative numbers of blacks and whites, and also, apparently, upon the pattern that is supposed to be formed by these strips as[159] they fall to the ground—the final decision as to the day is made.

At the wedding ceremony, bride and groom in their best regalia—this on the groom’s part including the successful warrior’s cap and long knife—squat in the centre of a circle formed by relatives and friends. Among most of the tribes the bride and groom are back to back. A priestess, or more frequently several priestesses, dance, swaying and chanting, about the young couple, cutting the air with their knives, to drive away evil spirits, which would otherwise attack a newly married couple. Before the knife-dance ends the chief priestess usually makes a slight cut in one of the legs of both bride and bridegroom, presses out a few drops of blood from each and mingles this blood on her knife. This also seems to be done with the idea of neutralizing evil influences that would otherwise attend the consummation of a marriage.

Feasting and drinking follow the ceremony proper—or at least that part of the ceremony just described. The concluding portion of the ceremony consists in the drinking by bride and groom together from a skull. This skull is preferably one which has been taken from an enemy by the bridegroom himself, and among the Taiyal this is usually the case even to-day. The Bunun and Paiwan often content themselves with drinking from skulls taken by the father, or grandfather, of the groom; while the other tribes, especially[160] the Ami and Piyuma, have so far departed from the ways of their fathers that a monkey’s skull, or occasionally a deer’s skull, is now often substituted—for which effeminacy they are held in great contempt by the Taiyal.

The newly married couple, among most of the aboriginal tribes of Formosa, do not live with the parents of either bride or groom, their custom in this respect also being more in accord with that of the Occident than with that of most parts of the Orient.

After marriage they “set up housekeeping” for themselves, in a bamboo or stone hut, according to the tribe.[81] As a matter of fact, among the Taiyal, the newly married couple seem often to retire into the forest or jungle for several days after the marriage ceremony,[82] and only upon their return from this sylvan honeymoon does the bridegroom build the hut, while the bride has her face tattooed by the priestesses with the insignia of matronhood—a design which extends from lip to ear, and which will be described at greater length under the head of Tattooing. The Taiyal women, alone, have their faces tattooed[161] at puberty and at marriage. Among the other tribes the state of matronhood seems to be designated by the wearing of a turban, or head-cloth.

The Piyuma tribe presents the only exception to the rule that after marriage young people are expected to set up house-keeping on their own account. In this tribe, which is matrilocal, as well as matripotestal, the bridegroom transfers himself and all his belongings to the home of the bride, and is thenceforth known as a member of her family.[83]

Among none of the tribes did I find evidence of exogamy—in the usually accepted sense of that word. The regulations restricting the marriage of near relatives are, however, rigid. Marriage of first cousins is forbidden; or rather it is “frowned upon,” as regards the marriage of cousins on either side of the family. But among the Ami, Piyuma, Tsarisen, and Paiwan tribes marriage with the first cousin on the mother’s side is absolutely forbidden. Among the other tribes it is marriage with the first cousin on the father’s side that is strictly tabu. Nor does it ever seem to occur to the young people even to attempt to defy these tribal tabus.

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Regarding the permanency of marriage-unions. Among the “Savages of the North”—the Taiyal and Saisett—the separation of husband and wife is almost unknown, with the exception of those few unions, already referred to, where the woman is apparently of mixed pigmy blood. With the tribes of the South, however, separation is more frequent, based apparently—in many cases certainly—on “mutual incompatibility.” In such cases the separation is usually a peaceful one, both husband and wife frequently remarrying. It is among the Ami that the frequency of separation and remarriage reaches its height, marriages in this tribe often not lasting more than two years; that is, among young people. A marriage that occurs between people of thirty-five years or over (in which case, naturally, according to the custom of this tribe, both have been married before) is usually a lasting one.

The children of temporary unions, such as have been described, go sometimes with one parent, sometimes with the other. The arrangement seems always an amicable one, the grandparents of the children often deciding the matter. Priestesses are also usually consulted on this point, as on others that affect either individual or tribal welfare.