30 ELLIOT SMITH, Distribution of Mummification. 



ancient Egypt carrying its dead in boats across the sacred 

 Nile'' has a much deeper and more real significance than 

 he intended. The analogy which at once sprang to his 

 mind was not merely a chance resemblance, but the ex- 

 pression of a definite survival amongst these simple people 

 in the Far East of customs their remote ancestors had 

 acquired, through many intermediaries no doubt, from 

 the Egyptians of the ninth century B C. 



At the time when Dr. Haddon asked for the evidence 

 for the connection between Egypt and Papua, I was aware 

 only of the Burmese practices {vide infra) in the inter- 

 vening area, and the problem of establishing the means 

 by which the Egyptian custom actually spread seemed to 

 be a very formidable task. 



But soon after my return from Australia all the links 

 in the cultural chain came to light. Mr. W. J. Perry, who 

 had been engaged in analysing the complex mixture of 

 cultures in Indonesia, kindly permitted me to read the 

 manuscript of the book he had written upon the subject. 

 With remarkable perspicuity he had unravelled the appar- 

 ently hopeless tangle into which the social organisation 

 of this ethnological cockpit has been involved by the 

 mixture of peoples and the conflict of diverse beliefs and 

 customs. His convincing demonstration of the fact that 

 there had been an immigration into Indonesia (from the 

 West) of a people who introduced megalithic ideas, sun- 

 worship and phallism, and many other distinctive practices 

 and traditions, not only gave me precisely the informa- 

 tion I needed, but also directed my attention to the fact 

 that the culture (for which, so he informed me, Professor 

 Brockwell, of Montreal, had suggested the distinctive 

 term " heliolithic ") included also the practice of mummi- 

 fication. In the course of continuous discussions with 

 him during the last four months a clear view of the whole 



