152 W. Doherty: — TJie Butterflies of Suiuba and Samhawa, ^c. [No. 2, 



abuse and defiances in tlie Homeric fashion, till the proper degree of 

 excitement is reached, upon which they charge, fighting with spears 

 and shields. As soon as anyone gets speared, his side acknowledges 

 itself beaten and pays a fine, while the others celebrate their victory 

 with much noise and feasting. The horses on these occasions are 

 decorated with collars of white horse-hair, and immense frontal tufts, 

 giving them a most ferocious look, and are said to enjoy the fighting 

 thoroughly. Sham fights, very similar to the real ones, and quite as 

 dangerous, are often held. But horse-fights are the characteristic 

 amusement of Sumba. Two stallions and a mare are placed in a little 

 enclosure, and the former fight till one is dead. On great occasions 

 there is dancing, generally performed by women, and sometimes a poet 

 will sing the praise of his forefathers, exhibiting the skulls of their 

 conquered enemies which have descended to him. The mnsical in- 

 struments in use are drums, gongs, and a guitar with two copper strings. 



The dead are buried,* household articles being broken and thrown 

 into the gi*ave as in the Nicobars. A large oval horizontal slab of 

 stone surrounded by small upright ones, marks the grave. The bodies 

 of chiefs are exposed on the mountains for months after their death. 

 When a propitious time for the funeral comes, a great feast is held, 

 many buffaloes, pigs and mares are killed and eaten, and a number of 

 slaves, both men and women, are strangled and thrown into the grave.f 

 When I was in Sumba, the body of the late king of Taimanu had 

 been lying exposed at Semparingu for more than a year. 



I cannot say much about the religion of Sumba. The island 

 presents a remarkable contrast to Sambawa in this respect. In Sumba, 

 though there are a few ratus or professional magicians of little influence, 

 the chiefs are the real religious leaders, and it seems to me that the 

 union of church and state in the hands of practical men managing large 

 temporal affairs has kept superstition in bounds. In Sambawa, both in 

 the heathen and in the Muhammadan parts, the juhis or sorcerers are 

 the descendants of the old local chiefs, now replaced by a centralized 

 bureaucracy. Reduced to mere tricksters and jugglers dependent for 

 their food on the popular faith in their magic powers, they have made 

 the people as superstitious as any in the world. The same is the case 



* The Do Donggo in Sambawa are buried sitfcingj but I can find no note of the 

 Snmbanese custom. 



+ On the death of a Saltan of Mbojo (Bimaj in Sambawa, 199 bnffaloea are 

 sacrificed. A new flagstaff is raised by his saccessor, and a slave is said to be 

 strangled and buried beneath it. This, if true, illustrates the extreme conservatism 

 of the East, for the people of Bima may be almost called a civilized race, and have 

 been Muhammadans for some centuries. 



