f them.

"The men of this tribe marry but one wife, and that not until they have
attained the age of seventeen or eighteen. Their wedding ceremony is
curious; and, as related, is performed by the bride and bridegroom
being brought in procession along the large room, where a brace of
fowls is placed over the bridegroom's neck, which he whirls seven
times round his head. The fowls are then killed, and their blood
sprinkled on the foreheads of the pair, which done, they are cooked,
and eaten by the new-married couple _alone_, while the rest feast
and drink during the whole night.

"Their dead are put in a coffin, and buried; but Sejugah informed
me that the different tribes vary in this particular; and it would
appear they differ from their near neighbors the Dyaks of Lundu.

"Like these neighbors, too, the Sibnowans seem to have little or no
idea of a God. They offer prayers to Biedum, the great Dyak chief of
former days. Priests and ceremonies they have none; the thickest mist
of darkness is over them: but how much easier is it to dispel darkness
with light than to overcome the false blaze with the rays of truth!

"The manners of the men of this tribe are somewhat reserved, but
frank; while the women appeared more cheerful, and more inclined to
laugh and joke at our peculiarities. Although the first Europeans
they had ever seen, we were by no means annoyed by their curiosity:
and their honesty is to be praised; for, though opportunities were
not wanting, they never on any occasion attempted to pilfer any
thing. Their color resembles the Malay, and is fully as dark; and
the cast of their countenance does not favor the notion that they are
sprung from a distinct origin. They never intermarry with the Malays,
so as to intermingle the two people, and the chastity of their women
gives no presumption of its otherwise occurring. Their stature, as I
have before remarked, is diminutive, their eyes are small and quick,
their noses usually flattened, and their figures clean and well
formed, but not athletic. Both sexes generally wear the hair long
and turned up, but the elder men often cut it short. As is natural,
they are fond of the water, and constantly bathe; and their canoes
are numerous. I counted fifty, besides ten or twelve small prahus,
which they often build for sale to the Malays, at a very moderate
price indeed. The men wear a number of fine cane rings, neatly worked
(which we at first mistook for hair), below the k