Four Wives, Free Board, No Worries

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1058, 23 August 1930, Page 18

Four Wives, Free Board, No Worries

Who’s For Sumatra? . . . Husbands Get Spending Money From Each Spouse ... Women Do Most of Work While Husbands Gamble . . . Matriarchal Rule Predominates . . . SHE healthiest, wealthiest, | happiest and best-gov- , erned primitive people on ■ earth —theMenang-kabau of the central highlands of Sumatra —are ruled by their women. Their blessed condition is due to the fact that the women govern, hold the family purse-strings and, incidentally, do an equal if not a greater share of the work. The men of this tribe have no homes of their own, but are permitted to spend their time under the roofs of their various wives. They have noth ing to say about questions pertaining to the home, and they are not supposed to be related to their own children. The women harvest the crops, take them to market and pocket the money The men get their board and what money their wives give them. But the women save the money and convert it into gold. When working in the rice fields the average housewife of the Menang-lcabau will be wearing a veritable treasure in gold pieces and other gold ornaments. The laws are made to please the womenfolk, and all descent and inheritance are through the mother. Lived in Jungles

These are some of the striking observations of Mrs. Mabel Cook Cole, who, with her husband, Dr. Fay Cooper Cole, anthropologist, has lived in the jungles among pigmies and visited the courts of the Malay Sultans. She has perhaps seen more primitive peoples of the earth than any other woman. Dr. Cole’s particular field of research is the wild peoples of the South-eastern Orient. His scientific expeditions have taken her to Java. Central Borneo, one of the least-known regions of the world; Nias, a little knoW'n island off the coast of 'Sumatra, and the interior of the Philippines Wherever Dr. Cole has gone his wife has gone with him and lived the lives of the people whom they were studying. Very few white persons have ever visited the Menang-kabau. For 200 years this people held the Dutch at bay. Within recent years a few Dutch scientists have visited them, but Dr. and Mrs. Cole are among the first, if not the first, English-speaking white persons to remain for any time among them. There are a million and a-half happy Malays living in the mountainous country of Central Sumatra. They earned their name Menang-kabau (won carabao) because their carabao, or water buffalo, won in a content with the Javanese to determine which owned the best animals. “The Menang-kabau are the most highly developed of all the primitive peoples,” Mrs. Cole said. “Dr. Cole and I entered by way of the w'est coast of Sumatra and drove in an automobile fifty miles inland up to the centre of the Padang Highland, which crosses the equator But be cause it is high the climate is ideal and fevers prevalent in the lowlands are seldom known. Recently the Dutch have completed a paved highway over this route, and before long this fascinating region wil’ be open to the tourist. In a way this is to be regretted, because at the present time the Menang-kabau are so happy and unspoiled. “All-Powerful Mother” “We found it interesting that the matriarchal form of government was flourishing among this tribe which is nominally Mohammedan. A Menangkabau home usually consists of one

long front room, which is the fanny living room. Opening off from that in the back are the individual rooms of the mother and her daughters. The husband is permuted to visit his wife here. Each husband, according to the Mohammedan custom, can have four wives, but he must spend exactly the same amount of time with each wife, regardless of 'what his preferences and his prejudices may be. “But doesn’t this arrangement cause trouble?" Mrs. Cole was asked. “Most of the fusses and quarrels do seem to be about the preferences of husbands,” she laughed. “But the women under the same roof seem to get along very well together. I ro member having heard of but one quar rel between a mother and daughter, in which case a separate house was built for the daughter. In discussing the matter .!ho natives put it in their usual poetic fashion. They said, ’The pot and the spoon had a fight,’ mean ing that the mother and daughter had disagreed. “They use a great many parables or imaginative Expressions in the : r ordinary conversation. For instance, they say, ‘No matter how far a heron flies from home, he will always come back to his pools, which means that a son can always come home and sleep in his mother’s living room if he hasn’t his wives. “The head of the house is the matn arch. Her daughters and her daughters’ children are reared in her house. She is the head of the family. When the counsel of a male member of the family is deemed necessary, it is oot a husband but an eldest son or the mother’s brother who is called on to furnish it. But even after his advice has been given, it is not necessarily followed. The women literally have the last word in any question concerning the welfare of the family. “A brother, not a husband, is chosen by the women to represent them at a government council, but the women attend the council also, and if their male representative does not act to suit them they recall him and send another. The men of the lower council choose one of their number to go to a higher council, but the women go along to that council also, and again they can recall the representative if he does not please them. At no time do they relinquish their power in government matters to their menfolk. Not Henpecked “But the men are by no means henpecked in their personal freedom, and ‘they certainly do not have to work very hard. Tho distribution of work between men and women Is about equal; with perhaps the heavier burden falling on the women. “Each man must help his wife in preparing the rice fields, and since most of them have four wives, they are kept pretty busy,” she said. “The sides of the mountains have been terraced, and the soil is exceedingly rich. As a consequence, the people are well

fed—perhaps better fed than any other tribe of Malay people. “The husband must also help fi, jg. pairing the houses of his wives or in building new houses. The woodwork of the houses is beautifully carved. But even with that duty imposed npon them, the men have lots of leisure time for dressing themselevs tp and attending cock fights, pigeon fights and gambling-places. The Malay fe a great gambler, but when his weekly allowance from his wives has been lost he can gamble no further. As the. result of this restraint placed by the hand of the matriarchs on the pursestrings, there is little concentration of wealth in one family or individual. and all families are comfortably well off. “Their wealth is converted into gold coins, some of which are hammered into jewellery. The women wear these about their persons. “Most of the women have gorgeous ceremonial robes, which ere handed down from mother to daughter. many of them woven from solid gold threads, but, ordinarily, during working hours they wear dresses of white cloth they buy from traders. They wash their clothes in the muddy streams, and consequently they are soon dingy. Against such ugliness the gorgeousness of their jewellery stands out in strange contrast. “Pin Money” “The Menang-kabau women are harf workers, but they have a good time, too. After their husbands have prepared the fields they stand knee-deep in the muddy flooded fields, and plant the rice, which they have already sprouted in beds near their houses. They must scare the birds away from the growing grain, and finally harvest it, thresh it, and take it to market Incidentally, they collect the money for it. A husband gets his board at the home of the wife he happens to bo living with, and his weekly allotment—a sum determined by her generosity—which might be as much as 50 cents a week. The importance of the women of the tribe is nowhere made so evident as during a wedding ceremony, in which the groom hardly figures at all. Mrs. Cole said. He is present for a short while on the first day of the religious man of the tribe to ask him some questions in accordance with the marriage ceremony prescribed in the Koran. That ends his part in the wedding, and he goes home to his mother. The feasting and dancing go on as long as the girl's family can afford it The bride, with her attendants, meanwhile takes this opportunity to call oil her various relatives. “I once attended a wedding which lasted eight days.” Mrs. Cole related. "When the feasting and dancing are over, the bride goes to his mother’s house and gets her husband, and takes him to her own home. Never in his entire life does the poor fellow own a home of his own.”