Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP, vm GENERAL REMARKS yji
perform such work as actually requires their strength
{e.g. the felling, transporting, and erection of the
heavier timbers), and the women complete it. On
the other hand, the men are very generally, I believe,
if not invariably, both the makers and decorators of
their own weapons {e.g. the blowpipe and the bow,
quivers and arrows) as well as their own implements
{e.g. axe-handles, knife -handles, and spear- shafts),
whilst the work of making bags and baskets, mats,
wallets, and pouches, and in fact all kinds of mat and
bark-cloth making, and basket-work, commonly fall to
the lot of the women.
The men, again, do most of the hunting and trap-
ping, but the women take a large share in the fishing,
and in the collecting of roots and fruits. All the
cooking, on the other hand, is performed by the
women and girls of the tribe, as is also, naturally
enough, the nursing and care of the children.
The catechism addressed to the bridegroom at a
Besisi wedding contains a fairly exhaustive category
of the duties of the would-be husband, and does not,
to my mind, bear out the general assumption that the
women are burdened with an unfair share of the work.
On the contrary, it appears to me that the division of
labour among these children of nature is very fairly
equitable, and that the man cannot reasonably be
expected to do more. Can it be that it is in a more
advanced stage of civilisation that the real oppression
of the woman begins .-*
Manufacture of Bark-cloth.
The bark-cloth which forms the ordinarv worka-
day wear of all the wilder branches of these tribes is