Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (191 5), No. 10. 73 



In his " Himalayan Journal " Sir Joseph Hooker 

 described how the Khasias temporarily embalm their 

 dead in honey before cremating them. 



Pettigrew (56, p. 245) quotes Captain Coke's account 

 of the embalming of a Burman priest. The body, as 

 witnessed by him, was lying exposed to public view upon 

 a stage constructed of bamboos. This is the bier which 

 is so invariably associated with mummification. 



" The entrails of the deceased (who had been dead 

 upwards of a month) had been taken out a few hours 

 after death by means of an incision in the stomach, and 

 the vacuum being filled with honey and spices the opening 

 was sewed up. The whole body was then covered over 

 with a slight coating of resinous substance called dhamma, 

 and wax, to preserve it from the air, after which it was 

 richly overlaid with gold leaf, thus giving the body the 

 appearance of one of the finely moulded images so 

 common in the temples of the worshippers of BOODH." 



Then it was cremated. 



This is a curious instance of the blending of the 

 custom of mummification with the later practice of cre- 

 mation, which was inspired by entirely different ideals. 

 Throughout the whole area in which Egyptian methods 

 of embalming were adopted there are found numerous 

 instances of such syncretism with avarietyof burial customs. 



"Another method which I have known to be practised, 

 but not as common as the one above detailed, of em- 

 balming bodies in the Burman country, is by forcing two 

 hollow bamboos through the soles of the feet, up the legs 

 and into the body of the deceased ; then by dint of 

 pressing and squeezing the fluid is carried off through the 

 bamboos into the ground." 



This practice is an important link between the 

 Egyptian and the Indonesian methods. 



