I have myself heard the tale told, nearly as Raffles tells
it of the Battas, of some of the wild tribes adjoining Arakan. (Balbi,
f. 130; Raffles, Mem. p. 427; Wallace, Malay Archip. 281; Bickmore's
Travels, p. III; Cathay, pp. 25, 100).
The latest and most authentic statement of the kind refers to a small
tribe called Birhors, existing in the wildest parts of Chota Nagpur and
Jashpur, west of Bengal, and is given by an accomplished Indian
ethnologist, Colonel Dalton. "They were wretched-looking objects ...
assuring me that they had themselves given up the practice, they admitted
that their fathers were in the habit of disposing of their dead in the
manner indicated, viz., by feasting on the bodies; but they declared that
they never shortened life to provide such feast, and shrunk with horror at
the idea of any bodies but those of their own blood relations being served
up at them!" (J.A.S.B. XXXIV. Pt. II. 18.) The same practice has been
attributed recently, but only on hearsay, to a tribe of N. Guinea called
Tarungares.
The Battas now bury their dead, after keeping the body a considerable
time. But the people of Nias and the Batu Islands, whom Junghuhn considers
to be of common origin with the Battas, do not bury, but expose the bodies
in coffins upon rocks by the sea. And the small and very peculiar people
of the Paggi Islands expose their dead on bamboo platforms in the forest.
It is quite probable that such customs existed in the north of Sumatra
also; indeed they may still exist, for the interior seems unknown. We do
hear of pagan hill-people inland from Pedir who make descents upon the
coast, (Junghuhn II. 140; Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal, etc. 2nd
year, No. 4; Nouv. Ann. des. V. XVIII.)
[1] Marsden, 1st ed. p. 291.
[2] Veth's Atchin, 1873, p. 37.
[3] It might be supposed that Varthema had stolen from Serano; but the
book of the former was published in 1510.
[4] Castanheda speaks of Pacem as the best port of the land: "standing on
the bank of a river on marshy ground about a league inland; and at
the mouth of the river there are some houses of timber where a customs
collector was stationed to exact duties at the anchorage from the
ships which touched there." (Bk. II. ch. iii.) This agrees with Ibn
Batuta's account of Sumatra, 4 miles from its port. [A village named
Samudra discovered in our days near Pasei is perhaps a remnant of the
kingdom of Samara. (Merveilles de l'Inde, p. 234.) - H.C.]
[5] If Mr. Phillips had given particulars about his map and quotations, as
to date, author, etc., it would have given them more value.
