62 A Note on some Hill Tribes [No. 169. 



seven days, sentinels are placed on all the surrounding heights to 

 prevent the ingress or egress of any person, and sacrifices of fowls, 

 and pigs are made. Around each stone is wound some cotton thread, 

 coloured yellow with turmeric* These objects however are still further 

 curious, for it will be perceived by inspecting the plate that they are 

 rough representations of the lingum, and yoni. The colouring with 

 turmeric is Boodhistic, for yellow is the sacred and royal colour of 

 Boodhism. In the simpler types of Boodhism which have come under 

 my observation, whenever the worship of the powers of nature has been 

 introduced, it has been invariably that of the united male and female ; 

 of which the latter has been the most powerful. This is the true ex- 

 planation of those monuments which abound in the Cossyah hills, 

 figured in a very interesting paper from the pen of Lieut. Yule, in a 

 volume of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. Another inter- 

 esting fact illustrated by these objects, is the invariable predilection of 

 the human mind to identify the object of its worship with the realities 

 of its every- day life. This circumstance might be exemplified by 

 instances throughout the whole history of man ; whether we take the 

 objects of worship themselves, as that god, " downwards fish, and 

 upwards man," worshipped in the fish coasts of Azotus ; or their conse- 

 crated residences from the dark cave temples of the Troglodyte, to the 

 spired fanes of the dweller in tents. And, as we shall see, whilst the 

 Toungtha, or " Son of the Hill," looks for sustenance to the clearings 

 of the forest patch, or the scant verdure of his rock-bound hills, and 

 conformably represents the idea of his adoration ; so here we find the 

 "Child of the Stream" fitly choosing from the rolled pebbles of his 

 parent flood a simple fetich, wherewith to identify the object of his 



worship, and his love. 



THE KHUMIS. 



The Khumis, as I have already remarked, are a member of the general 

 family of the Toungthas, or " Sons of the Hill." They are a numer- 

 ous tribe, having several villages, each under a distinct Toungmeng, 

 or " mountain chief." This authority appears originally to have been 



* These stones are represented two-thirds their real size in Plate I, fig. a being the 

 female, and fig. b the male. They are shewn erect for tbe sake of giving their forms; 

 they are in reality however placed lying down in a flat position ; each having a sort of 

 baby house erected to receive it ; they are in the Plate shewn in their relative positions 

 with one another. 



