7.V J A VA. 



101 



from their peculiar stot^k. When the Xalangs moved- from 

 one place to anotlier, they were conveyed in cart*!, with two 

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

 bnA'aloeH, aceording to the circuragtancos of the party. In 

 these were phiced • the materials of huts, implements * of 

 Imsbandry, &c. In this manner, until forty or fifty yeara ago, 

 they were continnully moving from one part of the island to 

 another. They have still tiiutr separate chiefe, and preserve 

 many of their customs. They are treated with contempt by 

 their Sumlanese neiijhbours, so that ' Kakng * 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 supertititious 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 eelebra* 

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

 Yoni, 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 gubk*ts in 

 the hands of 8iva in the Image of this god in Indian temples 

 in central Java." Kot less significant is the upright stone 

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

 rude and ignorant villagers, following their blind tmilitious, 

 weave to this day hangings, *vjust as the women did for 

 the Ashera in the Jewish temple, and the Athenian maidens 

 [following their old traditions] embroidered the sjicred jteplos 

 for the ships presented to Athene at the Dionysiac festival " 

 (Cox). 



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

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

 antiquity; these relic^stiU warm, as they were, with the inter- 

 mittent fires which have been kept alive from the dim 

 I)ast till nowj and echoing with the footsteps of the rude 

 worsiii[>pers who, unafTected 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 tratlitions, before 

 which they torpidly mutter a litany they do not comprehend, 



