I 



BATTA SETTLEMENTS. 261 



good spirits, or Sumongot, the immortal souls of great fore- 

 fathers, who reside on the high mountain tops. The souls 

 only of such persons as die of a violent death ascend into the 

 invisible land of immortality, and this may be some consolation 

 to the poor wretches whom they horribly cut up at their 

 cannibal feasts, while all persons dying of illness are con- 

 sidered as having fallen into the power of the Bogus, and as 

 totally annihilated. They have no idea of a Supreme Being, and 

 their only religious ceremony, if such it may be called, is that 

 on festival occasions they scatter rice to the four quarters of the 

 wind, in order to propitiate the Begus. 



In consequence of the general state of anarchy in which their 

 unfortunate country is plunged, they live in small fortified 

 villages, surrounded by palisades and deep ditches so as to leave 

 but two gates for a passage. 



As in the feudal times, eminences strong by nature are 

 frequently selected for the sites of these settlements, where the 

 Batta, though removed from the more fruitful plains, cultivates 

 his small field of mountain rice in greater security. In some 

 districts, where hostile invasions are less to be feared, he 

 possesses, besides his village residence, a detached hut in a 

 forest clearance near some river navigable by canoes. To be 

 out of the reach of wild animals or inundations, these huts are 

 frequently built on trees whose central branches have been 

 lopped off, while the outer ones have been left standing, so as 

 to afford a grateful shade to the little aerial dwelling. 



From this eminence, which the proprietor reaches by a 

 ladder from twenty-five to thirty feet high, he looks down 

 complacently upon his paddy field below, and as he is no 

 sportsman, the undisturbed denizens of the forest afford him 

 many a pastime. Monkeys gambol without fear on the trees 

 around him ; long-tailed squirrels leap from bough to bough ; 

 elephants bathe in the river ; lemurs and fox-bats fly about in 

 the evening ; stags feed in the thicket beneath ; and the only 

 enemy he seeks to destroy is the Leguan lizard, who, intent on 

 plundering his hen-roost, lies concealed among the reeds on 

 the river's bank. 



The Battas, having frequently suffered by foreign invasions, 

 suspect all strangers of evil intentions, and desire to be as little 

 as possible disturbed by their visits. For tliis reason, as well 



