160 Megalithic Structures [April, 



of cordage) are fastened around it, and amidst the vociferations of 

 the slaves it is dragged away. In ascending a hill they place 

 wooden rollers under the stone, and move them forward as it 

 advances. Sometimes five or six hundred men are employed in 

 dragging a single stone. A man usually stands on the stone acting 

 as director. He holds a cloth in his hands, and waves it, with loud 

 and incessant shouts, to animate those who are dragging the 

 ponderous block. At his shout they pull in concert, and so far his 

 shouting is of real service. Holy water is also sprinkled on the 

 stone as a means of facilitating its progress, till at length, after 

 immense shouting, sprinkling, and pulling, it reaches its destination. 

 When the tomb is erected for a person deceased, but not buried, no 

 noise is made in dragging the stones for its construction ; profound 

 silence is regarded as indicating respect. Sometimes a corpse is 

 buried in a dwelling-house till the new tomb is finished, when it is 

 removed to its final resting-place. 



The dead body wrapped in a red lamba is placed on a bier, and 

 a grave is dug for its reception within the vault, which is not 

 paved : the corpse is placed in the grave without delay, and covered 

 with earth, so that it is a grave within a stone tomb : a quantity of 

 fresh charcoal is placed on the body to resist rapid decomposition : 

 the wooden bier is left within the tomb by the side of the grave. 

 It is customary at the interment of any man of note to deposit 

 large quantities of property in the tomb with the corpse, especially 

 of articles to which the deceased was known to be attached ; thus, 

 at the funeral of the first Kadama, six of his favourite horses were 

 killed and buried with him, a brass cannon was burst and, with a 

 cask of wine, also buried with him, besides 10,309 silver dollars and 

 upwards of 1000 articles of personal property, jewellery, &c. 



The tombs are sometimes enclosed with stone walls, and within 

 the enclosure are often two or three large upright stones. 



The Hovas also erect stone pillars not dissimilar to our 

 Menhirs, some of which are of a considerable size : they have no 

 marks on them, and are called " fahatsiarovana" i. e. causing to 

 remember. A name is also given them, derived from their position, 

 " mitsangan'ibato" an elevated stone. 



Mr. Lukis, in examining some of the cromlechs and kists in the 

 island of Herm, near Guernsey, suspects that some were merely 

 ossuaries ; that the bodies had been subjected to maceration else- 

 where, and their bones deposited where found ; so, also, Sven Nilsson* 

 tells us that the Eev. M. Bruzelius found in the Asagrafven 

 gallery-tomb in Scania, a vast quantity of human bones, from which 

 he was of opinion that the flesh had been stripped off before being 

 deposited in the vault, as he found in one place only the bones 

 of the extremities and no vertebras and in another a quantity 



* P. 161. 



