Messrs. Burton and Ward's Jouimey into the Batak Country. 507 



as disputants or as leaders of the public entertainments, it is indispensable that 

 their memories be well stored with these compositions. To sing them in alter- 

 nate contest is an amusement of which they are extremely fond, and which will 

 often be supported by two young persons, to the entertainment of a numerous 

 meeting, for ten or twelve successive hours, without either of them appearing 

 for a moment at a loss for a reply. But it is not on set occasions only that 

 paniuns are employed : they use them largely in common conversation, to give 

 weiglit or point to their remai'ks ; and in general so well are their memories 

 supplied, that scarcely any subject can be introduced for which they have 

 not an appropriate rhyme. They arrange them in four classes : for lovers, 

 for the instruction of the young, for the poor, and for aspirations to the gods. 



Laws and Cannibalism. 



As far as we have observed, the laws of the Bataks are not generally 

 severe; and the penalties they enjoin, with a few exceptions, are just, and 

 generally put in execution. Almost all crimes are punished with fines pro- 

 portioned to the offence and to the rank of the criminal ; and since the 

 chief, who acts as judge, may always be bribed, and usually receives the 

 fines himself, oppression must no doubt exist to a considerable extent. They 

 have no written code which is universally received ; but in most of the 

 districts is found one or more books of laws and usages, which vary in their 

 weight of authority, according to the estimation in which the person who 

 first committed them to writing may be held. • 



Persons caught in the act of house-breaking or highway robbery are pub- 

 licly executed with the knife or matchlock, and then immediately eaten : no 

 money can save them. But if the delinquents are fortunate enough to escape 

 immediate seizure, they are only fined. A man taken in adultery is instantly 

 devoured, and may be lawfully eaten piecemeal without first depriving 

 him of life. Men killed, or prisoners taken, in a great war, are also 

 publicly eaten ; but, if only two villages be engaged, this is not allowed : the 

 dead are then left on the field to be buried by their respective parties, and 

 the prisoners may be redeemed. Twelve months ago twenty persons were 

 entirely eaten in one day, in the village where we resided in Silindiing, the 

 skulls of whom are still preserved. They were inhabitants of a village 

 situated near the patii leading to. the coast, whom our host represented as 

 liaving so often ])lundercd the passengers that their conduct became at lengtli 

 intolerable. Tliese were the last who had tiius suffered in Silindung, 



