VII.] THE OCEANIC MONGOLS. 243 



in fact that "it is said to be within a trifle of reaching heaven." 

 The good people have little difficulty in getting to the top, from 

 which they are ushered into heaven, while the wicked are doomed, 

 somewhat like Sisyphus, to be for ever hopelessly struggling and 

 scrambling up the rocky sides of the mountain 1 . 



The good of course are those who have collected most human 

 heads in this world for provision in the next ; but in other parts 

 of the island, where the mountains are not so high, even the elect 

 have to undergo many adventures during their long peregrinations 

 up hill and down dale, across rivers, through fire and water, in 

 one place meeting a woman with ears large enough to shelter 

 them from the rain, until " at last they are safely landed in the 

 heaven of their tribe 2 ." Some of these fancies are so full of 

 horrors, and at the same time so widely diffused, that they 

 may well be regarded as reminiscences of the early Javanese 

 missionaries, whose presence in Borneo is attested by the Hindu 

 ruins still to be seen in some of the southern districts. 



In Sumatra also occur some remains of Hindu temples 3 , as 

 well as other mysterious monuments in the Passumah lands inland 

 from Benkulen, relics of a former culture, which goes back to 

 prehistoric times. They take the form of huge 



Early Man 



monoliths, which are roughly shaped to the likeness and his works 



.. ,.,-,- in Sumatra. 



of human figures, with strange features very different 

 from the Malay or Hindu types. The present Sarawi natives of 

 the district, who would be quite incapable of executing such 

 works, know nothing of their origin, and attribute them to certain 

 legendary beings who formerly wandered over the land, turning 

 all their enemies into stone. Further research may possibly 

 discover some connection between these relics of a forgotten past 



1 Pryer, p. 233. 



2 Bock, p. 223. 



3 Not only in the southern districts for centuries subject to Javanese 

 influences, but also in Battaland, where they were first discovered by H. von 

 Rosenberg in 1853, and figured and described in Der Malay ische Archipel, 

 Leipzig, 1878, vol. i. p. 27 sq. " Nach ihrer Form und ihren Bildwerken zu 

 urtheilen, waren die Gebaude Tempel, worin der Buddha- Kultus gefeiert 

 wurde" (p. 28). These are all the more interesting since Hindu ruins are 

 otherwise rare in Sumatra, where there is nothing comparable to the stupendous 

 monuments of Central and East Java. 



16 2 



