The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1906-03-23
WHEN A MALAY WEBS
SOME REMARKABLE FESTIVITIES DE-
SCRIBED BY AN ENGLISH VISITOR.

/ Week of Nightly Feasting = Affair
Ends With Ceremonial Bathing,
! Supposed to Avert III Luck.
! A week of nightly festivities general
| ly precedes the actual wedding day,
and in the case of rajah two months
of festivity may follow it. In Singa-
pore, where cosmopolitanism has in
| fected everything, the guests will be in
| yited to feed one night on white mans
fare and yet another on curry, Malay
| fashion, with their fingers; the bride
will appear one night in an English
gown, the next as a Chinese lady, and
then gray robed, gay sashed, as
geisha girl; the bridegroom will be
| driven around town in buggy. But
up country in Malayland proper, where
these corruptions have hardly as yet
crept in, there will be only the decora-
| lions of houses with curtains and flow
ers, feasting, the staining of finger tips,
palms and soles Of the feet red with
henna Ia performance without magic
| import and borrowed from the Arabs,
whose ladies consider fingers SO cOlored
beautiful and always affect this henna
dye); and there will be the brushing OF
| forehead and hands with rice paste,
which forms an indispensable ingredi-
ent of the medicine mans pot and
which is used on so many occasions to
avoid i'll luck. This is preliminary.
Finally the morning before the sand
ing, which is the essential lay part Of
the wedding and the part was to see,
the legal and religious rite is perform
ed, a kind Of registry Office business,
where the dowry is paid over, conduct
ed before the kathi, or Mohammedan
priest, and in the absence of bride and
women folk The sword dance by the
two Patanis finished, the bridegroom
was escorted away, and the people
turned homeward; also, to don native
dress and be present by invitation at
a Malay dinner at the rajah's house
and the subsequent marriage ceremony
or sanding. About 9 o'clock the wed
ding procession collected to escort the
bridegroom, attired just as he had been
in the afternoon, in pilgrims flowing
Arab robes, across to the house of his
bride. After describing the ceremony
the writer proceeds: On the next day
at o'clock In the afternoon the mar
rage party reassembled, this time for
the ceremonial bathing, mandi tOlak
bola, or mandi sampat, to avert i'll
luck. The bridegroom, dressed in his
holiday silks and escorted by his
friends, went over to the brides house,
where he has to live awhile under the
eyes of his mother-in-law. There he
changed his attire for the shabby
clothes that are always reserved for
ablution and, with towel over his
shoulders, passed into the inner room,
where his newly welded bride, also
dressed in old clothes, awaited his COM
| ing. Amid the buzzing, Gathering and
laughing of the mothers of the KAN
pong the pair grasp each the end Of
| handkerchief and so united march out
| into the passage. The narrow passage
| with the split bamboo floor is crowded
with excited women, and every one ex-
cept the mazed victims is laughing
and talking They, poor things, sit
with down turned faces, dumb, mo-
tionless, walking, sitting, standing, not
of their own accord, but mechanically
and under the compulsion of eager
hands.
Bowl after bowl Of water is poured
| over the bedraggled pair, strained
through the cocoanut fronds and the
cloth. The milk of the young cocoa
nut is emptied after it. The cocoanut
| shoots and cloth are soaked and drip
ping. Two women continue to drench
the couple, but for the sheer comedy
enacted by the rest had not been pre-
pared, though had expected some
thing from seeing my friend the rajah
doff his official European khaki for
something less elaborate than his silks
OF yesterday. / was soon to learn.
The excited women having finished
| with the victims in chief, turned their
attention to the audience and vented
their feelings by dousing every one
| within reach, the rajah and myself in
cluded. We could only retort with In
| effectual handfuls, while they were
! Of practiced arm and equipped with
basins. However, fortune favored us.
Often bamboo squirts. sailed or pep
pered water or rice water are employ
ed. The women lead the bride away
| for fresh toilet. The groom dons his
silks again and waits, no short time, in
the passage till his spouse shall have
had her toilet completed to the salts
faction of the matrons. Once more the
bridegroom is ushered inside, and he
and his bride are seated side by side,
as on the previous evening. The nasi
dami or rice of accord is brought in and
placed before them. They just taste
it, the circle of women indulging the
while in piquant reflections on the mar
ried state and the newly married couple
in particular. An old latah woman is
galvanized into grotesque activity,
clapping her hands and chuckling in
gruff voice. The audience shrek with
/ laughter, their attention diverted for
\ fhn =, 500 t..