Indian Antiquary Vol 07

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 64

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUART, 1878.
width was 9 feet 2 inches, and thickness from Chaibasa. They are almost grotesque in apten inches to a foot. Its weight was estimated pearance, the highest 8 feet 4 inches above at about six tons. This slab was procured in the ground; the first in the group is to the memory of bed of a river about three miles off. It was Khunda pater, the father of Paseng, the brought on a wagon constructed for the pur. present mánki (head-man) of Pokaria; the next pose, from three to four hundred men having two are to the memory of Kanchi and Samari, been engaged in its transit.
young daughters of the manki, and the last in Now here was a stone of truly megalithic memory of his son. This practice of erecting proportions, placed over a sepulchral urn, just memorial stones may throw some light on the in the same way as so frequently occurs in the origin of Menhirs and of stone-worship : for British Islands, Northern and Southern Europe, it is easy to imagine how worship might come Northern Africa, Western Asia, and Southern to be paid to the memorial stone of a famous India. In all those regions, however, such monu- man; and indecil one of the very wildest of ments are ascribed to prehistoric peoples and these jungle tribes, the Kharrias, are described periods of which nothing certain is known; but as "setting up in the immediate vicinity of in the wilds of Central India we find them used their houses tall rough slabs of stone, and to to-day, with rites nothing inconsistent with these, as representing the deceased, they make what may have prevailed in megalithic periods, daily oblations." by tribes who may in all probability have Colonel Dalton also reports another prehischanged but little since those times, with which toric practice prevailing amongst the A bors these tribes, rites, and monuments may quite on the Dibong river, in the valley of the possibly display an unbroken thread of connec- Brahmaputra, on the N.E. frontier of India, tion. Neither does it seem too strained an infer- which European antiquaries will at once recogence that the urn-covering megaliths in Britain nize as the contracted form of burial :-" The may have been procured and placed in a manner, ragged rocky soil on which their villages are and with ceremonies, nearly resembling those built has probably originated a unique custom we hear of prevailing to-day in the most primi. of sepulture, by which very small graves are tive region of the oldest country of Asia.' required. The dead are trassed up so that the
In addition to the slabs on the tomb, Colonel chin rests on the knees, and are placed in the Dalton reports that “a megalithic monument is small chamber prepared for them, in a sitting set up to the memory of the deceased in some posture." Could the desire to save labour, to conspicnous spot outside the village. The which Colonel Dalton ascribes this now existing pillars vary in height from 5 or 6 to 15 feet, custom, have had any weight in determining and apparently fragment of rock of the most the contracted posture and small cists of prefantastic shape are most favoured. Close to the historic interments in Europe? It is notestation of Chaibasa, on the road to Keon- worthy, that the anti-Brahmaņical sect known ghar, may be seen a group of cenotaphs ofunusual as Jangams, Vira Saivas, or Liñgavants, size-one 11 feet 2 inches, another 13 feet, and a also bury their dead in a sitting attitude. This third 14 feet above the earth, and many others is noticed by the Roman knight and traveller of smaller dimensions. The groups of suchPietro della Valle, who, when at the court of stones that have come under my observation in Venkatapa Nayik at Ikkeri, writes, under the Munda and H o country are always in line. date November 13th, 1623,"Returning home The circular arrangement so common elsewhere I met a corpse going to be burned without the I have not seen."
city, with drums sounding before it. It was Colonel Dalton gives a sketch by Mr. Ball, carried sitting in a chair, whereunto it was of the Geological Survey of India, of a group of tied that it might not fall, clothed in its four such memorial stones at Pokuria, near ordinary attire, exactly as if it had been
Elsewhere Col. Dalton describes similar customs pre- stone placed over it. Then all must batt. The money vailing amongst the Oraons or Dhangars of Chůtis Nagpur, that was placed in the mouth of the corpee, and saved Singbhum, and Sambalpur. After burning the dead, the from the ashes, ia the fee of the musicians. The person fragments of bones are collected and placed in an urn. "The who carried the bones to the grave has to undergo purificaburial-ground is always near a river, stream, or tank. As tion by incense and the sprinkling of water." the procession proceeds with music to this place, offerings of rice are continually thrown over the cinerary urn till it Figured in Ind. Ant. vol. I. p. 292, with account by is deposited in the grave prepared for it, and a large flat | Mr. Ball