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whoso transgresses this rule of adat is sure, according to popular superstition, to be devoured by crocodiles (buya kab).
On the ninth day the husband as a rule comes to his new home, but unaccompanied by the companions who on the previous occasion carried the great sirih-bag behind him. On this occasion, too, there is no ceremonial idang prepared for his reception.
Biays.After the 10th or 12th night the bridegroom retires for a time to his parents' house, to give his parents-in-law needful repose and an opportunity to gossip over the events of the wedding feast. An "elder" is sent to him, generally at the new moon, on behalf of the parents of his spouse, to press him to return to his wife. The young man yields to the invitation, and now brings with him the first real biaya for his wife; this is understood to mean a monthly present of money brought by the husband to the wife, so long as she continues (in conformity with certain rules which we shall presently notice) to be maintained by her parents. This monthly allowance amounts on the average to about four dollars.
This visit of the husband usually lasts about eight days, and is separated from the next by an interval of about fourteen days. He continues going backwards and forwards in this way for about six months; not till then does he become a habitual inmate of his wife's house[1], if his original home is in a gampōng close at hand. Where the paternal homes of the young couple lie at a great distance from one another, it will depend entirely on circumstances whether the man continues to be a mere occasional visitor to his wife's house or entirely exchanges the abode of his parents for that of his wife.
Gift of the man to his wife.After they have commenced to live as man and wife, the husband gives to the woman who has sacrificed her maiden state to him three gifts, fashioned of gold or silver according to the circumstances of the giver. These comprise a waist-belt (telòë kiʾiëng), which consist of a golden chain closing in front with a clasp made of gold or suasa (a compound of gold and tin), a wrist-chain (talòë jaròë) worn like a bracelet, and a finger-ring (eunchiën). At a distribution of effects in consequence of divorce or the death of one of the pair, these objects remain the property of the woman, whilst all other personal ornaments,
- ↑ Thus the wife is very properly called prumòh = pò rumòh, the "mistress of the house".
