Elopements also occur in cases where parental consent is withheld.  Brooke Low thus describes an old custom which permits a man to carry off a girl: 

“She will meet him by arrangement at the water-side and step into his boat with a paddle in her hand, and both will pull away as fast as they can.  If pursued he will stop every now and then to deposit some article of value on the bank, such as a gun, a jar, or a favor for the acceptance of her family, and when he has exhausted his resources he will leave his own sword.  When the pursuers observe this they will cease to follow, knowing he is cleared out.  As soon as he reaches his own village he tidies up the house and spreads the mats, and when his pursuers arrive he gives them food to eat and toddy to drink, and sends them home satisfied.  In the meanwhile he is left in possession of his wife.”

HEAD HUNTERS A-WOOING

In one of the introductory chapters of this volume a brief account was given of the Dyak head-hunters.  Reference was made to the fact that the more heads a man has cut off, the more he is respected.  He cannot marry until he has killed a man, woman, or child, and brought home the head as a trophy, and cases are known of men having to wait two years before they could procure the skull necessary to soften the heart of the gentle beloved.  “From all accounts,” says Roth (II., 163),

“there can be little doubt that one of the chief incentives to getting heads is the desire to please the women ...  Mrs. McDougall relates an old Sakaran legend which says that the daughter of their great ancestor, who resides in heaven near the great Evening Star, refused to marry until her betrothed brought her a present worth her acceptance.  The man went into the jungle and killed a deer, which he presented to her; but the fair lady turned away in disdain.  He went again and returned with a mias, the great monkey [sic] who haunts the forest; but this present was not more to her taste.  Then, in a fit of despair, the lover went abroad, and killed the first man that he met, and throwing his victim’s head at the maiden’s feet, he exclaimed at the cruelty she had made him guilty of; but to his surprise, she smiled, and said that now he had discovered the only gift worthy of herself.”

Roth cites a correspondent who says: 

“At this moment there are two Dyaks in the Kuching jail who acknowledge that they took the heads of two innocent Chinese with no other object in view when doing so than to secure the pseudo affections of women, who refused to marry them until they had thus proved themselves to be men.”

Here is what a sweet Dyak maiden said to a young man who asked for her hand and heart: 

“Why don’t you go to the Saribus Fort and there take the head of Bakir (the Dyak chief), or even that of Tuan Hassan (Mr. Watson), and then I will deign to think of your desires with some degree of interest.”

Says Captain Mundy (II., 222):