IN JAVA. 101 



from their peculiar stock. When the Kalangs moved from 

 one place to another, they were conveyed in carts, with two 

 solid wheels with a revolving axle, drawn by two pairs of 

 buffaloes, according to the circumstances of the party. In 

 these were placed the materials of huts, implements of 

 husbandry, &c. In this manner, until forty or fifty years ago, 

 they were continually moving from one part of the island to 

 another. They have still their separate chiefs, and preserve 

 many of their customs. They are treated with contempt by 

 their Sundanese neighbours, so that ' Kalang ' is considered an 

 epithet of contempt and disgrace." 



Living despised and secluded in villages apart by them- 

 selves, they follow the rites and customs that have descended 

 to them from their forefathers with the superstitious awe 

 that comes of ignorance. The pillars in the centre of rudely 

 circular heaps, as perhaps also the ovoid blocks resting on 

 tablets and other shaped slabs, point no doubt to the celebra- 

 tion here of phallic rites and to the worship of the Linga and 

 Toni, the emblems of Siva and Vishnu. It is interesting to 

 find the goblets or vases at the base of the upright pillars ; 

 they point probably to the " mystic vessels or goblets in 

 the hands of Siva in the image of this god in Indian temples 

 in central Java." Not less significant is the upright stone 

 decked with palm-leaf fringe, a symbol round which these 

 rude and ignorant villagers, following their blind trailitions, 

 weave to this day hangings, "just as the women did for 

 the Ashera in the Jewish temple, and the Athenian maidens 

 [following their old traditions] embroidered the sacred peplos 

 for the ships presented to Athene at the Dionysiac festival " 

 (Cox). 



In standing under the forest amid these ancient remains, I felt 

 as if I were having an unbroken view down the ages to distant 

 antiquity ; these relics still warm, as they were, with the inter- 

 mittent fires which have been kept alive from the dim 

 past till now, and echoing with the footsteps of the rude 

 worshippers who, unaffected by the incessant waves of change 

 that have broken about them, are themselves as much ancient 

 monuments as the very blocks of weather-beaten, lichen- 

 matted trachyte, whose purpose is lost to their traditions, before 

 which they torpidly mutter a litany they do not comprehend 



