VALS.

At these festivals a goat, a buffalo, or several, according to the rank
of the parties, are killed, to entertain not only the relations and
invited guests but all the inhabitants of the neighbouring country who
choose to repair to them. The greater the concourse the more is the
credit of the host, who is generally on these occasions the father of the
girl; but the different branches of the family, and frequently all the
people of the dusun, contribute a quota of rice.

ORDER OBSERVED.

The young women proceed in a body to the upper end of the balei where
there is a part divided off for them by a curtain. The floor is spread
with their best mats, and the sides and ceiling of that extremity of the
building are hung with pieces of chintz, palampores, and the like. They
do not always make their appearance before dinner; that time, with part
of the afternoon, previous to a second or third meal, being appropriated
to cock-fighting and other diversions peculiar to the men. Whilst the
young are thus employed the old men consult together upon any affair that
may be at the time in agitation; such as repairing a public building or
making reprisals upon the cattle of a neighbouring people. The bimbangs
are often given on occasions of business only, and, as they are apt to be
productive of cabals, the Europeans require that they shall not be held
without their knowledge and approbation. To give authority to their
contracts and other deeds, whether of a public or private nature, they
always make one of these feasts. Writings, say they, may be altered or
counterfeited, but the memory of what is transacted and concluded in the
presence of a thousand witnesses
must remain sacred. Sometimes, in token of the final determination of an
affair, they cut a notch in a post, before the chiefs, which they call
taka kayu.

AMUSEMENT OF DANCING.

In the evening their softer amusements take place, of which the dances
are the principal. These are performed either singly or by two women, two
men, or with both mixed. Their motions and attitudes are usually slow,
and too much forced to be graceful; approaching often to the lascivious,
and not unfrequently the ludicrous. This is I believe the general opinion
formed of them by Europeans, but it may be the effect of prejudice.
Certain I am that our usual dances are in their judgment to the full as
ridiculous. The minuets they compare to the fighting of two game-cocks,
alternately approaching