We Have Next To Inquire What Is The Cause Of The Small Number Of
Births And Of Living Children In A Family.
Climate and race may have
something to do with this, but a more real and efficient cause seems
to me to be the hard labour of the women, and the heavy weights they
constantly carry.
A Dyak woman generally spends the whole day in the
field, and carries home every night a heavy load of vegetables and
firewood, often for several miles, over rough and hilly paths; and
not unfrequently has to climb up a rocky mountain by ladders, and
over slippery steppingstones, to an elevation of a thousand feet.
Besides this, she has an hour's work every evening to pound the rice
with a heavy wooden stamper, which violently strains every part of
the body. She begins this kind of labour when nine or ten years old,
and it never ceases but with the extreme decrepitude of age. Surely
we need not wonder at the limited number of her progeny, but rather
be surprised at the successful efforts of nature to prevent the
extermination of the race.
One of the surest and most beneficial effects of advancing
civilization, will be the amelioration of the condition of these
women. The precept and example of higher races will make the Dyak
ashamed of his comparatively idle life, while his weaker partner
labours like a beast of burthen. As his wants become increased and
his tastes refined, the women will have more household duties to
attend to, and will then cease to labour in the field - a change which
has already to a great extent taken place in the allied Malay,
Javanese, and Bugis tribes.
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