IN SUMATBA. 



m 



is cooked in a great pot. Then h© who is to take the oath 

 hohliiig hts haiul,oi' a long kriss of the finest sort, over the grave- 

 stone ami over the cwiked aninml, says : " If siieh and such be 

 not the case, mayl be aflJicted with the worst eviW The whole 

 of the coni}*any then partake of the food. If the man has swora 

 falsely they Iwlieve that in a short time after he will be seized 

 with some dire sickness, and will die; if he plants his fields 

 they w ill not grow, or will produce barren stems ; but not only 

 will he himself be crushed by niisfortnne, but, in an affair of 

 magnitude, all who were of his village who ate of the feast, if 

 not the village also, will be overtaken by disaster. The people 

 of Passumah TJhi Manna, which lies between the broad 

 Passumab and the town of ililanua on the sea-coast, have the 

 same origin as those of the broad Passumah, and consequently 

 their most solemn oath must be taken over the same grave, 

 Kow where a cause is before the magistrate, and it is necessary to , 

 swear a witness, it costs a journey of some twenty days. There 

 has been bronght, however, I am told, a stone from the grave of 

 their anee.'^tor to the comi; of the magistrate, which the people 

 respect and swear over. One can perceive that ere long the oath 

 of the district may be sworn over any stone, and in time to 

 come it may be forgotten why they swear over a stone at all. 



When a man dies his body is brought Into the Balai and there 

 laid out by the head man of the village, with various ceremo- 

 nial observances, accompanied by a certain form of words, 

 differing with, and appropriate to, each act, their ritual for 

 the dead. Having ivonnd a cord about the body, he takes the 

 dead man's head between his hands, and rolls it gently from 

 side to side ; the teeth are rnbbed with a piece of sapotaceous 

 wood ; the tongue is pulled forward and touched with it, the 

 nostrils and the ears also; the eyelid is raised to permit a 

 last look ; the arm is rotated by tutning the forefinger ; each 

 toe and finger is flexed ; the nails are gently scraped ; the 

 juice of a lemon is squeezed over the body, which is finally 

 sprinkled with water and wrapped in white cloth. The dead 

 are buried without the village in a square plot — ^men, women, 

 and chilflren side by side, or they are placed in some imre- 

 membered spot quite in the wilderness. " Are they not dead? 

 That is the end of them, and what is the good of knowing 

 more about them," 



