116 E. T. Dalton —Rude Stone Monuments. [No. 2, 
seven thousand three hundred and sixty tombs, mostly of the dolmen or 
cromlech form, almost covering an area of 22 blghas and 16 kattas, more 
than seven statute acres, and so close together, that you might traverse the 
ground in different directions stepping from grave to grave. 
Many of the slabs appeared level with, some even below, the surface. 
Their sunken condition proclaimed their age, as we may presume that origi¬ 
nally they were like the others above ground, supported on vertical stones. 
The horizontal slabs are many of them, huge masses of gneiss of various 
irregular forms. One, 15 feet 3 inches in length, by 4 feet 6 inches in breadth, 
was supported on five square pillars, 18 inches above ground ; one half-buried 
slab, nearly elliptical in form, measured 12 feet 9 inches by 9 feet 10 inches ; 
one nearly circular, like a table, 33 feet in circumference ; another 18 feet in 
length had seven legs. A triangular slab properly appeared as a tripod, and 
one 13 feet 4 inches by 6 feet 8 inches had six legs. 
I do not know that I have given the dimensions of the largest; there 
were many that appeared at least as large as those I measured. 
There is no question as to the object of these raised slabs. Chokahatu, 
the ‘ place of mourning,’ is still used by the Mundas of the village so-called, 
and nine of the surrounding villages, for the interment of their cinerary 
urns, and I believe one need not be long there to witness the ceremony. 
Many of the cromlechs appeared to have been freshly set up, many had 
about them a look of hoary age. 
I obtained a list of villages which have places allotted to them in the 
burial-ground, and from the census returns, these villages contain nearly two 
thousand Mundas who by their faith, if they preserve it, must there deposit 
their cinerary urns. The mortuary statistics of the selected areas of the 
Lohardagga District give an annual average death-rate of under 20 per 
mille. If the population and the death-rate were always the same, and every 
cromlech covered the ashes of only one person, the number of slabs (which we 
may assume to be 8000, including buried and broken up graves not counted) 
would represent a period of only 200 years ; but if, as with the Kasias, each 
cromlech is a family vault, and we allow for increase of population as years 
advanced, and make corresponding deduction in the number of deaths annu¬ 
ally, as we count back we might give 1000 to 2000 years as the age of the 
oldest now existing, and probably excavation would disclose an understratum 
of similar graves. 
I was told on the spot that some of the slabs were known to cover the 
ashes of several members of a family, but the ashes of one or two great men 
reposed in solitude. In Singbhum, the latter custom is prevalent; but 
amongst the Mundas of Lohardagga, the family grouping of ashes is prac¬ 
tised. 
It is, of course, hard to say what changes may have taken place, likely 
