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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[SOLY, 1907.
across the water, the thread which is let loose from the pawn-sëng bamboos that were burnt along with the corpse at the cremation; for the shades of the little chicken and of this thread have accompanied the deceased on his journey to his comfort and assistance. Then, after the thread has been duly fastened, the spirit goes across to receive lis judgment for the deeds done in the body, Sometimes a spirit is terrified on account of his past misdeeds, and will endeavour to escape. But thongh the spirit may ron, there is no remedy; for Pói Kleuk has dog, who will bite the runaways, and they dare not face him. In his terror the spirit will climb the tree of hell; but the mighty Pói Kleuk will shake the branches, and the poor wretch will fall into the cauldron of hell, which is full of boiling water. Or, if he climb to the top of the tree, the dreadful vulture, hak-kyl, will devour his vitals. There is no escape. He must come down and receive his just punishment. There is no need to utter the sentence of condemnation. Pói. Kleuk merely points to them with his fourth, called the nameless," finger, aud they go away to be roasted in hell.
The Clins have some belief in a happier land, but their ideas on this subject are not very tangible; and it is difficult to know how far the hope, which they sometimes express, that they may be enabled to go by the straight and narrow way into the presence of the Great Parent of all good, and there for ever abide, is derived, directly or indirectly, from Christian teaching,
BOOK-NOTICE. Die Mon-KHMER-VÖLKYR EIN BIN DEGLIED ZWISCHEN those who employed them. To this group of
VÖLKERN ZENTRALASIENE UND AUSTRONESTEN Mon-Kbmer- Malacca-Mund-Nicobar-Kbasi lang. Vos P. W. SCHMIDT, S.V. D. Brunswick, 1903.
uages Pater Schmidt has given the Dame of (Reprinted from the Archiv für Anthropologie, Neue
"Austroasiatic," and he shows that not only are all Folge, Band v, Heft 1 u. 2.)
the different forms of speech mutually related, but This work, also from the pen of Pater Schmidt,
that their speakers have the same physical type. appeared originally in the Archiv für Anthropologie, and has been reprinted in another
(6) In former works the learned author showed form at Brunswick in the same year. In it, we
the existence of another group of languages, the
"Austronesic," which included three related have the summing up of the author's researches
sub-groups, the "Indonesic," the "Melanesi," into the Mon-Khmer languages and his final
and the "Polynesic," conclusions as to their relationship, whether
covering the areas mutual or to other forms of speech. A detailed
indicated by their respective names. In a second account of its contents would occupy too much
part of the work under notice, he undertakes the
task of comparing, by rigorously scientific space, and moreover can be found in the pages of
methods, the Austroasiatic and the Austronesie the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for
languages, and of proving that these two groupe January 1907 by those who are interested in the
of speeches are ultimately related to each other, subject. I confine myself here to stating the
and form together one great united whole which results to which bis enquiries have led Pater
he calls the "Austrio" family. Schmidt, and which, in my opinion, he has
This speech
family is the most widely spread of those whose conclusively proved. Briefly, they are these :
existence has been established since the birth of (a) There is a group of languages called Mon
comparative philology. The tract over which it Khmer, which is closely connected not only with
extends reaches from the Panjab in the West to several tongues spoken on the Burma-Chinese
Easter Island, of the coast of South America, in frontier, such as Palaung, Wa, and others, but
the East; and from the Himalaya in the North to also with the speeches of certain aboriginal
New Zealand in the South. Such a result, - and tribes of Malacca, with Nicobarese, with the
I do not think that any one can seriously impugn Khasi of Central Assam, and with the Munda
the argumenta on which it is founded, - amply languages of Central India. It is further to be
justify us in maintaining that Pater Schmidt's remembered that under the last head must be
work is one of the most important contributions included a number of extinct sub-Himalayan dialects, reaching as far west as Kanwar, traces
to comparative philology which has issued from of which still plainly survive in the Tibeto
the press in recent years. Burman languages spoken by the descendants of
GEORGE A. GRIERSON.
