118 
E. T. Dalton —Rude Stone Mo laments. 
[No. 2, 
had at first supposed, the cinerary. The pen and ink sketches herewith sent 
are of similar monuments in and near the village of Pegadili in Kursaon. 
As the monolithic monuments throughout the Kol country, nominally, 
bear no proportion to the cromlechs, we must infer that the erection of the 
former in the name of the deceased is a much greater and rarer honor than 
the construction of the latter. In Singbhum, the Mundas and Mankis are 
even now ruminating on the expediency of cutting on the pillar at least 
a name and date to shew to posterity in whose honor it was set up and 
when; for they admit that the object is not attained under the present sys¬ 
tem, as the name does not survive to a third or fourth generation. 
The same remark applies to many pillars which have been set up to 
commemorate some solemn compact or action of importance, of which the 
stone itself now tells nothing. The art of making the stone tell its own 
story must be taught at the Chaibasa Industrial School. 
In some parts of the country, suitable stones are not readily procurable. 
The first alternative is a cairn, a heap of stones usually constructed round 
a post, the second the post alone ; but the top of the post, if set up in honor 
of some deceased friend or hero, is credibly carved into the representation of 
some animal. It looks like a cross between a camel-leopard and a horse. 
It is, I believe, the Bir Sadom of the Kols, the jungle horse, the Nilgai, 
Antelope picta. 
It is obvious that a people thus addicted to the use of these milestones 
of ages, (without figures unfortunately) must have left traces of themselves 
in all places which they have successively occupied ; and from all I have 
heard and read and also from what I have seen, I am of opinion that such 
traces of Kolarian occupation may be found wherever the cognates of the 
Mundas of Cliutia Nagpur have been located. 
There are traditions of the pre-Aryan Kol occupation of the Bihar and 
Gaya districts, and Mr. T. E. Peppe, Sub-Deputy Agent, who takes great 
interest in these questions, has seen the monolithic monuments in Japla, and 
Balaunja, in Siris Kutumba, in the wilder parts of the Gaya district, and 
about Shergliati. We thus have them up to the Son Diver and in the 
Gangetic provinces. Mr. Peppe’s note to me on the subject is appended. 
From the western parts of the Manbhiim district, the Kurmis, it is said, 
expelled the Kols. We have good proof of this in the fact that the Kur¬ 
mis are now there in possession, and within their boundaries we find the 
sites of the old Munda villages clearly indicated by their old cemeteries and 
occasional monolithic monuments. 
In a southerly direction, I have found these Munda footprints as far as 
the confines of the Sambhalpur district, and indeed in that district, and in 
Bamra. 
In all the places above mentioned, we have either the Mundas in situ , or 
traditions of their occupation and the stone monuments to attest the tradi- 
