WOOING UNDER OTHER SKIES

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 5288, 28 May 1904, Page 10

WOOING UNDER OTHER SKIES

Tliero are more ways ot wooing thaw there are nations, and to most people many of thorn may well seem very strange indeed, says “Oassell’s Magazine.” The etiquette of love among the Hungarian gipsies, for instance, ii as follows:—Cakes 1 are • used as lev*, letters. A coin is baked into the cake, which at the first.- opportunity is flung to the favoured object. The retention of this is looked upon as a vircual .-i ‘‘acceptance”; its forcible return,mi 1 intimation that the “attentions” are undesired. This, of course, require* no eloquence on tie lover’s part. In some parts of the world, indeed, all that is demanded of a lover is physical force. Among the semi-savage tribes in the. Arabian desert, round about Sinai, the lover trios to seize ths girl while she is pasturing her fatharH flocks. She pelts him with mud, sticks, and stones, and will be held in lifelong repute if she succeeds in wounding bint Once driven into her father’s tent, tht lover’s object is attained, and the betrothal is proclaimed.

There is considerably more poetry in the method of the Yao Midos, one of the many Burmose-Tartar people, who woo their/ wives absolutelywithout words, but to the sound of music. O* thd first day, of winter they hare s great feast, at which all the marriageable girls gather and listen to the musi* made by the. bachelors, who sit under the “desire tree,” each playing bit favourite instrument. As the maiden he loves passes him the youth play* the louder and more feelingly. If the girl ignores him and passes on h« knows that she will have none of him; if she steps up to him and lays a flower upon lie instrument he Jumps up, taking care not to drop the flower, and they wander off. A remarkable custom prevails among the Dyaks of 1 Borneo. When one of them would woo the maiden of hi* heart ho chivalreusly helps her in the hardest portion of her daily toil. If she smiles upon him, no matter how sweetly, he does not immediately respuml, but waits until the next dark night. Then he steals to her house and lightly wakens her as she lies asleep beside her sleeping parents. Ih* parents, if they approve, make no sign, but sleep on —or pretend to. If thi rl accepts she rises and takes from her lover the betel and sweetmeats h* has brought her. That seals their betrothal, and ho departs as he ' came, neither speaking nor being spoken to.