women is based on the principle of complete equality of rights with the men, their material condition is miserable. On them devolves all the labour of the household, the fields, etc. They work from dawn like beasts of burden, carrying water and wood, grinding rice, cooking, weeding, planting, weaving, plaiting, and dyeing, under the calm eye of their husbands, who pass most of their time drinking or smoking on the doorstep of the common house. In spite of real affection for his wife, the savage would feel degraded if he did any. thing but fish, hunt, or fight. His duty is to protect the home, and to provide sustenance in time of famine, when he can show extreme bravery and devotion. original dwelling; the body alone is in the ground with its vital needs. This is the reason why the widow or the children As a result of the spirit of anarchical indepen- come back and torment the living, the mourners retire. They eat and drink till sunset, when they return home to wait until the next moon. This ceremony is called glom por, 'throwing down cooked rice,' among the Bahnars. The old men are very much respected, but in spite of this their importance in the life of the village is diminished by their physical uselessness. Their number is very small, however, on account of the hardness of the savage life. 6. Death and disposal of the dead.—When a Bavage dies, his family proclaim their grief by cries and tears, and among certain southern tribes, particularly the Bahnars, by laceration of their bodies and faces with their nails or even with weapons. Young men have been known to wound themselves even mortally in such circumstances. In the north, under the influence of the Laotians, death soon loses its mournful character; and relatives and friends flock to the house of the deceased in order to prevent the near relatives from giving themselves over to too keen sorrow, as well as to mourn. Hence the Bolovens, Niahöns, etc., hold great feasts, with generous supplies of alcohol, at which the survivors get intoxicated in honour of the dead. In the south, as well as in the north, burial, not cremation, is the rule; the ceremony is more or less complicated according to the wealth and position of the dead man. In the case of the death of a poor man, as soon as he has breathed his last, his relatives or his children wash him, put on his best clothes, and, leaving his eyes wide open, wrap him in a mat, along with several small axes, pots, necklaces, and baskets for his use. They close the mat with a strong piece of rattan, and then bury him in a grave with the remainder of his personal goods, within 24 hours, taking care to put beside him two baskets of rice and two jars of alcohol, one of each at his head and one at his feet. The grave is filled up and covered with tree-trunks to prevent wild animals from disinterring the body. For a chief or a rich man a coffin is always made, hollowed out of a tree-trunk. The use of coffins is becoming more prevalent throughout the south, and the shape of the coffin is improving the nearer the savages come to civilized races. The making of the coffin of a chief requires from 48 to 72 hours, that of a poor man 24 hours: this is what settles the time of burial. Before laying the dead man in his coffin, the Bahnars bind up his lower jaw with a cotton thread fastened on the top of his bead, his arms are stretched by his sides, and his great toes are tied together with a cotton thread. The Radès bind the dead man's hands and feet with a cotton thread. Among these two tribes the coffin is filled to the brim with the dead man's most precious belongings, closed up with a resinous substance, or, more simply, with a paste of glutinous rice, and carried out of the house to the sound of gongs. At the burial place, while one party of mourners digs the grave, the other kills the buffalo, ox, pig, or chicken (according to the station of the survivors) which is to be given to the dead man. A bamboo, pierced from one end to the other, is fitted into a little opening made in the coffin at the place where the head is. When the grave is sufficiently deep, the coffin is lowered into it with the customary two baskets of rice and two jars of alcohol; then, besides these, part of the buffalo, ox, pig, or chicken, raw; and, finally, various utensils for the dead man's use. The generosity with which the relatives deprive themselves for his sake shows the depth of their sorrow at his death. The grave is filled up, everything being covered except the bamboo tube. But the soul of the dead man is not yet supposed to have left his completed by a ceremony which marks the final separation of This worship hardly ever lasts for more than a year, and it is the deceased from his terrestrial parentage and his entrance into the kingdom of the dead. It varies in grandeur and imis very costly; the families of all those who have died within the year in a village unite in celebrations at the common expense. A month or two before the appointed day, the cleverest artisans of the neighbourhood carve wooden statuettes representing each of the dead to be honoured, and bearing the name of kon ngai, eyeball.' These puppets are dressed in mourning costume, ornamented with hair or beards of grass tufts, and set up in a row side by side on a common burial-mound covered with a roof of bamboo trellis-work. Each one has its arms stretched out, laden with little pieces of food, and holds in its left hand a wax torch, and in its right a piece of meat; and a pipe rests on each one's breast. At their feet are little wheels, baskets, axes, cross-bows, pots, and cups-all the utensils which the dead had used during life. This common tomb is surmounted by other kon ngai, seated, with their heads in their surrounded by a strong enclosure of stakes, many of which are hands as if weeping. On the morning of the ceremony the relatives and friends wine-the rich sometimes bringing a pig. A large opening come great distances, each bringing a chicken and a jar of rice allows the mourners to enter the enclosure and present their offerings to the dead. Buffaloes, oxen, and pigs are killed; and the frontal bones of the buffaloes and the jaws of the pigs are carefully fastened to the arms of the kon ngai. The mourners dance, laugh, play most unmusical instruments, and make most licentious jokes, all to entertain the dead, to whom they offer wooden platters of carefully prepared food. The living in their intoxicated; then, as the day advances, they plant bananaturn eat and drink by the side of the tomb until they are quite trees, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes in the enclosure, the fruit of which nobody will dare to eat. Any person impious enough to risk it, besides incurring the anger of the gods, must pay a heavy fine to the village. Before departing the mourners tie a chicken to a little stake by a cotton thread and imprison it in the enclosure. The creature soon breaks its feeble bonds: if it escapes into the forest, it is a good sign; if it returns to the village, it is pursued with bows and arrows, and, when killed, is thrown into the forest. There is no more thought of the dead after this feast. The period of mourning varies with the different tribes and circumstances. Mourning for a chief always lasts longer than that for an ordinary man. The rules regarding re-marriage are also very variable. Among the Radès the widow may give a feast after three months at her own expense in the home of her deceased husband's parents, and, if they have another son, she may ask him in marriage. If refused, she marries any man whom she chooses. Among the Kha-Pi the duration of mourning and, consequently, of inability to contract a fresh marriage is two years. Of course, these rules do not affect the poor; they may re-marry whenever they get the opportunity. One of the characteristics of mourning among all the tribes that wear long hair is that they keep their heads shaved during the whole period. From what has been said, it is clear that ancestorworship is by no means general among the savages, and that, as far as death is concerned, all that takes place is a few funeral rites performed at the time of death and at intervals comparatively soon thereafter. There is a vague notion among certain tribes that the soul of the dead relative wanders round his former dwelling-place, on the threshold of which the son places offerings for his acceptance; but this practice is neither fundamental nor general. At the end of a year the dead are supposed to have gone to join their fellows 'in the mysterious regions of the South.' If they return, they are feared rather than honoured, and it is not necessary to offer sacrifices except to the manes of those who have been very rich or powerful during their lives and might be able to transmit a little of their good luck to their descendants. Suicide is very rare, though not unknown, among the savages. It entails, particularly among the Bahnars, an isolated burial, in the forest, far from the haunts of men. Those who have buried a suicide must not enter the village again until they have performed certain purificatory rites and a sacrifice. 7. Eschatology.-If ancestor-worship is vague among the savages, their ideas of what follows death are even more so. They almost all believe that the personality subsists after death and continues its terrestrial life in another place and another way; but among many of the tribes the idea of a judgment of the dead and a reward for good deeds in this world is very confused. The Bolovens, the Kha-Pi, and the Radès do not, as a rule, believe in the rewards and punishments of a future life. The Kalangs believe in these things, but without any clear notion as to what they may be. The Bahnars believe in a whole mang lung, 'kingdom of the dead,' which the dead enter, a year after their burial, by means of the feast described above and called mut to kiek, to enter the cemetery.' This kingdom is hidden in the depths of the earth. The dead do not reach it until after they have crept in fear and trembling between two huge stones which continually strike against each other. They must slip through at the instant when the stone which is acting as hammer is raised in the air. They have next to avoid the formidable motion of two gigantic scissor-blades, and then to cross a frightful precipice on a bridge of tree-trunks, stripped of their bark, and animated by a constant rotatory movement which makes the smallest step dangerous. The bridge, moreover, does not reach across the whole abyss; there is a considerable empty space, which the dead man must leap across. Only those who have done good deeds on earth can accomplish this leap; thieves and liars fall into the chasm, without hope of resurrection. When a person issues victorious from this third trial, he finds himself standing before the cottage of an old witch or sorceress who is busy pounding rice from morning till night, and who in return for glass-ware or little axes provides the manes with fire and light, which are absolutely necessary in these gloomy realms. If the ghost cannot pay in current coin, he must allow his ears to be cut off. They immediately attach themselves to the sorceress's ears, which, as a result of additions of this kind, reach down to the ground. Equipped with safe fire, the dead man reaches a cross-road-the junction of two roads leading to two cities. One of these roads, strewn with brambles and briars, is for men who died a natural death; the other, very smooth and bordered with red flowers, is taken by those who have met a violent death-e.g., warriors slain by the enemy, in expedition, or by their own arms, or from wounds inflicted by a dart. Dressed in brilliant red, because of the blood which they have shed, they dwell in a specially privileged village. In both the cities and the village, life is much the same as it was on earth, and the dead there are happy in proportion to the abundance of the supplies of meat, flocks, utensils, slaves, and necklaces which their relatives place in their coffins or on their tombs, of glom por, and, above all, of mut to kiek. Slaves are represented by rough little figures placed along with pots, cross-bows, wooden sabres, etc., at the foot of the kon ngai. The Bahnars have no definite idea of a judgment of men after death, but their traditions imply that only the good can reach the cities of the kingdom of the dead; the wicked succumb to the trials of the journey. 8. Sorcerer-chiefs and sorcerers.-Although the savages of Indo-China do not recognize any constituted power, it is worthy of mention that there are among them three individuals with mysterious moral power. The best known are the water king' and the 'fire king.' We have only vague information about the wind king.' The designation sadetes, which they receive in Indo-China, is simply the Laotian sadet (= Khmer sdeč), 'king.' They belong to the powerful Jarai tribe. In spite of their title, they have no effective power, and their authority, which is purely spiritual, is not even recognized except by the few villages bordering on their own territory. But all the savages know them by name, and dread them. They seem to offer an analogy with the god-kings of whom Frazer speaks (GB i. 164). Their influence can greatly facilitate the movements of an explorer if he manages to approach them and to get into their good graces. The sadete who is most feared is the fire sadete, known especially by the savages of the Annamese slope; the water sadete exercises a less perceptible sway over the Laotian slope; the power of the wind sadete seems insignificant. The sadetes live in the neighbouring villages, and it is believed that at least those of fire and water are always at hand in a certain pair of families which are related to each other. They possess objects endowed with magic power. The fire king has a sacred sword, or magic blade, badly hewn, and carefully rolled in white cotton rags. No savage would dare to approach it. If the sadete drew this blade half-way, they say it would be enough to make the sun disappear and men and animals fall into a profound sleep; if he were to draw it full length, the whole world would be devoured by flame. The traditions of Chams, Cambodians, and Laos claim that this magic sword was stolen from them long ago. The Cambodians, monks and laymen, and even a rebel chief, it would appear, have several times gone right into these inhospitable regions to ask for it or to try to get it back again. They never returned, being destroyed, the savages say, by fire from heaven in punishment of their unjust claim. The water sadete has a magic cup and wand, according to some authorities, and, according to others, a rattan bearing flowers that never fade, and a bindweed saved from the Deluge, but still green. Armed with these objects, the sadete, if he is roused to anger, is able to bury the earth under the waters. Although legends of the most confused kind are current about the sadetes, and although the savages shrink from giving explanations of the subject to strangers, and the sadetes themselves are very difficult to approach, it seems certain that, in spite of their occult power, they live the simple life of the other savages, and go through the villages asking a tribute of alms, which is seldom refused them, but still more rarely offered. Certain Radè villages, of their own accord, present the fire sadete every year with a little cotton, some rice, and a chicken. The sadetes must never die a natural death. When one of them falls ill, the chiefs and the old men assemble to examine his condition. If this is judged to be very serious, the invalid is dispatched by spear-thrusts. The sadetes, alone among the savages, are cremated, not buried. The ashes are gathered, and honoured for five years. The widow receives some of them, which she has to carry on her back in an urn when she goes to mourn at the tomb of her husband. It is certain that, in spite of its prerogatives, the office of sadete seems to be forced upon the members of families which benefit from it. To succeed the sadete a descendant on the female side is always sought; and the nomination of the new sadete often meets with undisguised unwillingness from the privileged family. This has given rise to several stories. It has been claimed that immediately after the death of s sadete, all his relatives eligible for succession flee to the forest to escape this honour. The village inhabitants set out to look for them, and the first one discovered is nominated. Another tale is that all go to sleep in the common house; an old man enters quietly during the night, and asks the sleepers in a loud answer, 'I.' The old man ties a cotton thread, as a guarantee voice, 'Who will succeed?' The spirits prompt one of them to of the will of the spirits, to the wrist of the chosen one, who is thus recognized next day. Surer and more numerous testi monies lead us to believe that the new sadete is chosen by the old men from the appointed family. Until the time of king Norodom, predecessor of the present king Sisowath, the sovereigns of Cambodia, at their accession, used to send expensive presents to the fire sadetes: elephants, silk stuffs to wrap round the sacred sword, glass trinkets, etc. The two savage chiefs in return sent several rural presents to Phnom Penh rhinoceros-tusks, rice, sesame, and cakes of unwrought wax, on which was seen the impress of a finger as signature. Rice, sesame, and wax were sent to the bakus, or Brahman priests of the royal palace, who used them in certain ritualistic ceremonies. In spite of the objections of the sadete, Norodom put an end to these traditional customs without giving any reason for his action. Perhaps he saw in this gift a form of disguised tribute to Cambodia, which doubtless recalled either the services rendered long ago to the Khmer kings in the evolu tionary epoch, or a relation of kinship between the sovereigns and the savages. The sadetes or pataos, still so little known, remain, as regards both origin and attributes, one of the most interesting problems to be solved in the political and religious organization of the IndoChinese. The extremely wavering beliefs and the complicated worship of the savages have given rise also to a whole class of sorcerers expert in soothsaying and in nullifying the evil designs of the yang. They may be grouped in two categories: (a) wizard-doctors, who are employed in exorcizing diseases and prescribing remedies and sacrifices; they are in greatest demand, and best paid, but not most influential; (b) wizard-soothsayers; they alone know how to burst eggs, and their business is to discover by this means theft, murder, or death by witchcraft. All-powerful among these superstitious tribes, they are very much feared, for their word alone is sufficient to have a man convicted of witchcraft and reduced to slavery. Naturally many sorcerers abuse their terrible power. Certain wizard-soothsayers practise casting spells by means of wax figures, and belief in the effects of this practice is general among the Indo-Chinese savages. A man is either born a sorcerer or may become one; there is, in the one case, direct inspiration of the spirits, and, in the other, preliminary initiation. The wizard-soothsayers who practise divination by means of the crushing of eggs receive their mission directly in a dream from the spirit of the lightning. The wizard-doctor (böjāu) may also be directly inspired by a special spirit called yang gru. When the yang takes possession of a man, the latter becomes aware of it from the fact that he can no longer eat certain foods without becoming sick or fevered: dogs, frogs, lizards, and mice, from which sorcerers always abstain. Soon he is seized with a sort of hysterical delirium, which often lasts five or six days, and flees into the forest to follow the yang; then he has paroxysms of fever, refuses to eat, and holds long conversations with his yang gru, who reveals to him all the diseases with which such and such inhabitants of the village are to be smitten; and then he goes to sleep, overcome by fatigue. These paroxysms seize him periodically for several months, but each time becoming feebler, and at last the initiated one appears to have returned to his normal condition, except that he has become a bojau, i.e. seer and healer. He always has with him in a little bag his special domong, one of which contains the yang gru, or spirit which inspires him. The bojāu may also be initiated by another Sorcerer. He first of all feels himself becoming feverish after having which are undergone in the presence of a sorcerer. The most usual, the water test, is a custom still in vogue among the Khmers: The accused and the accuser, both holding on to a post firmly fixed in the river, plunge at the same time underneath the water. If the accuser remains longest under the water, the accused is judged to be guilty; if the accused, he is innocent. The savages firmly believe that the hemorrhage which occurs Other ordeals consist in making the culprit a sorcerer or a sorceress. When, by superstition, ignorance, or brazen-faced falsehood, a savage of any village accuses a member of the same village, or, more usually, of a neighbouring village weaker than his own, of illness or of death, the two villages assemble to decide the of having stolen something from him, or cast over him a spell issue. As a rule the accused is a poor man or woman, or one of no lineage; and it also very often happens that, having no faith in the fairness of the ordeal, and fearing that he will be abandoned by his village or that he may involve it in war, the victim pleads guilty rather than resist, and, though innocent, allows himself to be sold as a slave to the Annamese or the Laotians. When the accused is rich and of influential family, the attitude of his relatives and of the whole village sometimes makes the accuser beat a rapid retreat. When the parties are about equal in rank, the case is nearly always decided by the egg-test. The böjäu takes an egg between his thumb and forefinger and asks it if there has really been deng, witchcraft.' The egg, if cleverly pressed, never fails to break if the sorcerer wishes it. Other eggs are then taken to find out in which village the deng is; generally one of the eggs collapses with a crackle at the name of the guilty village. A third time the sacred eggs are interrogated, to find out which person in this village, the inhabitants of which are all enumerated by name, has the power of casting spells (deng); when the egg breaks at the mention of one of these names, the unfortunate individual, irrefutably convicted, is immediately bound, and handed over as a slave to the accuser. It is evident that the greed or wickedness of the böjāu may draw great profit from such a custom. Another very repugnant test is to make the accused lick the decomposed corpse of the person he is suspected of having poisoned, while saying: eaten the foods mentioned above. An initiated sorcerer examines him, and then, lifting up his eyelids, by the light of a May I die within the year if I am guilty of the small candle, and repeating a certain incantation, communicates death of this man!' If he reaches the end of the the magic power to him. Thereupon the yang makes sure that year without accident, he is pronounced innocent. the initiated man finds several domongs, and he immediately When the body has been buried for some time, the becomes a perfect sorcerer. But many of the savages show greater confidence in the sorcerer who has waited till the spirit accused may clear himself of the accusation of possessed him than in one who compels it by means of a fellow-poisoning by repeating the same formula while Borcerer. It is a remarkable fact that the majority of these sorcerers, the soothsayers as well as the doctors, are women. The bojau of the Bahnars, Röngaos, and numerous other tribes, with her hysterical stamping and her cataleptic sleeps, resembles the pajau, the pythoness of the Chams. swallowing some of the earth taken from under the coffin and pounded with dry leaves. Very often the peaceable tribes, e.g. the Bahnars, are satisfied with a more kindly ordeal. The families of the deceased and of the accused and the accused himself go into the cemetery. A little earth is taken from the grave, and a model of a tombstone is made with it. This is sprinkled with rice-wine and the blood of a chicken, while one of the company pronounces the following imprecation: Thoué! We are making libations of chicken's blood and wine in order that this business may be ended! May the perjurer die, slain by the axe or the knife! May he be caught in a snare! May he be drowned in the water! May the lightning strike him! May his enemies pierce him with arrows! May they slay him with the sword in battle! May cancer eat him away! May the blood gush from his nostrils and his mouth!' Then they mix the earth, moist with the blood and 9. Penal law. The crime most severely punished is theft, especially of domestic animals or of rice; the latter is sometimes punishable by death. A less serious theft is punished by a fine, almost always equal to double the value of the stolen object. If the thief cannot pay, his debt makes him the slave of the man whom he has robbed. Crimes of passion-adultery, rape, and murder-wine, with a little ground stag-horn, each one present swallows are, as a rule, punished with a variable fine, which is handed over to the injured family or person. death, because a man can always be useful to the The laws of the savages are averse to punishing by village. Crucifixion, however, is practised among certain tribes, and cudgelling to death is allowed. Slavery for debt is fairly frequent, but the slave may always regain his freedom by paying the sum due. 10. Oaths and ordeals.-When a person denies his guilt, the savages have recourse to ordeals, some of it, and a bumper of alcohol all round closes the ceremony. According to the savages' ideas, the culprit, if there is it serves to create a bond as sacred as kinship The oath of friendship is a complicated one, for between those who exchange it. one, is sure to die within the year. Intermediaries are chosen between two persons who wish to swear allegiance to each other, and are charged with sounding their intentions. They receive two jars of rice-wine and two chickens from the contracting parties; one half is to pay them for their trouble, and the other is required for the ceremony. One of the chickens is roasted, and each of the future friends receives an equal share of the heart, the liver, and the legs, which he must eat. Then both drink together from the same jar of rice-wine by means of a flexible bamboo tube, while the spectators utter the usual imprecations: 'Remember that today you become brothers. If one of you betrays his brother, may he be struck by lightning! May he be reduced to slavery! May he die miserably, and may his unburied body become the prey of the ravens !' In most cases they prick the arms of the two friends with the point of a dagger, in order to mix their blood with the wine, which they have to drink together. The solemnity is greater still when not two individuals, but two villages, swear indissoluble friendship after a war. Into the jar of rice-wine are put a boar's tusks, spearheads, and arrows; above it are hung fish, ropes, fetters, and a serpent's head. Then the whole assembly drinks, after having uttered the most terrible maledictions against the village which should try to break the peace. The savages are somewhat extravagant with their oaths when they wish to affirm or convince. They eat their sword, their spear, their pipe, or their clothing-which means that, if they lie, they give themselves over to be killed by the sword or by the spear, or to smoke their last pipe, or wear their last dress in this world. 11. Religion. The religion of the Indo-Chinese savages appears to be Animism strongly tinged with fetishism and polytheistic naturalism. It is both public and private, demands an infinite number of duties, often very onerous, and constitutes a utilitarian worship based on the fear of evil powers and the desire to conciliate them in order to obtain satisfaction of personal interests. The savages give souls or spirits to animals, objects, plants, and phenomena; these evil spirits take vengeance for even involuntary neglect of a rule or an offering. Famine, bad luck at fishing, hunting, etc., illness, accidents, and death are the result. Everything that the savage does to guard his wretched life must be preceded or followed by rites and sacrifices to baffle these formidable powers. These spirits, which are very numerous, are the possessors of considerable but not hierarchical power, and are dependent on one another. Having the same passions as men, they are in constant rivalry, contending for the offerings of men. Among the savages all manifestations of a supernatural power -genii, souls, spirits-bear the generic name of yang, a word of Malayo-Polynesian origin. The spirits, or genii, are divided into two great categories: the good and the wicked. Among the good are those whose mission is to make the fruits of the earth grow, who dispense light and heat, rain, cold, or wind as there is occasion, and who bestow rich harvests, health, and happiness. Although much honoured (for their anger might become dangerous in a case of neglect of an offering), yet they are less honoured than the maleficent spirits, who hate men, and try to torment them in every possible way, or to make them die, and whose neutrality must be conquered by means of sacrifices. These evil genii live in large trees, in huge rocks, or in mountain caves. A savage would not dare to cut down a large tree or begin to cut wood in the forest without first having killed a dog, dipped some arrows in its blood, and drawn them across the tree. Then the tree may be cut down; the yang has changed its abode. These spirits vary in power, attributes, and dwelling-place. First of all, there are the most powerful, the spirits of the sky. At their head is the god of lightning, whose voice is the thunder. This god, called by the Bahnars Bōk Glaiḥ, the Grandfather who thunders,' comes down to the earth in the guise of the storm, and with a stone axe strikes those who have offended him; hence the veneration among the savages for cut flints and meteoric stones. He is also the god of war, and then he assumes the form of a goat or of a shaggy old man with a long beard. He lives in the sky with the goddess of the harvest (Bahnar Yang söri; cf. Skr. Śrī, and Malayo-Polynesian Seri) and her mother, who has a pair of wings, and is ugly, dirty, and poor, but very fond of the liver of victims, and who comes down to earth to test the enthusiasm of men. The person who gave her a good welcome, in spite of her repulsive appearance, was immediately loaded with fortune's gifts, but he who turned her away through pride came to misery. Between the sky and the earth, in a zone of space, live certain ill-intentioned spirits, of whom the most famous is Grandfather Nu, who, without a rag to cover him, tries to snap up the livers of victims, the blood, and the wine offered to other gods. These deities hurl their wrath on the unfortunate savage who is believed not to have offered anything, and becomes the prey of mischance. This spirit is by nature such a thief and so maleficent that it would be useless to attempt to stop his depredations by heaping him with sacrifices. The inferior spirits live in holes under the earth. Wounded unwittingly by the savage who is ploughing his field, they have their revenge by inflicting internal diseases upon him, which become fatal unless they are disarmed by means of offerings. Along with these should be mentioned the earthspirit and the water-spirit. Among the inferior spirits, many become incarnated in the form of human beings or enter inanimate objects. There are certain crickets whose cry always foretells a successful hunting expedition to the savage. In order to thank them, an offering is made in their honour of certain hairs of the captured game (these hairs are roasted and a libation of rice-wine is then poured out) and of birds whose singing is taken as an omen. Omens are also taken from the kite-the sight of which in time of war fills all hearts with joy-and certain sparrows, whose flight, to right, to left, in front, or behind, decides what action the savage is to take. He never starts on any expedition or voyage without consulting the birds. The savages also worship rocks which have roughly the shape of a man or an animal; they are supposed to harbour a yang. There is nearly always a legend attached to them. Libations are offered to them, or a leaf from a neighbouring tree is plucked in passing. Practically all the Bahnars, Sedangs, Jarais, and Hadrongs still believe that spirits reside in those huge jars which, along with the gongs, constitute the chief wealth of the savages. The presence of spirits in the jar is shown by some external sign, but they are not incontestably ge yang, 'spirit-jars,' nor are they honoured as deities, until a dream reveals their value to the savage who possesses them or wishes to buy them. On holidays the mouths of these jars are coated with blood and rice-wine. When a Sedang makes up his mind to sell a very expensive one, he breaks off one handle of the jar in the hope of keeping the yang in the handle, and continues to worship it in the same way as before. We have still to mention the protecting spirit of villages. The coarse figure which represents him is made of wood and adorned with a plume of grass, and he is armed with a sword and a bow, bound to his diminutive arms. As soon as the grain is cut and the rice stored, the images of this spirit, carefully sprinkled with the blood of a chicken and with rice-wine, are fixed on the palisade of the village and on the roofs of the houses, with the notion that he will pierce with his arrows the evil genii who might kill or ruin the inhabitants. The next year the little figure, very much worn out, is replaced by another of the same kind without ceremony, the spirit having left the old one when it became too dilapidated. More formidable is a malevolent spirit with human form, his body torn with wounds, his en trails hanging out of his lacerated body, and his heart visible in his open breast. He wanders about unceasingly through the mountains and forests, chuckling and groaning alternately, leaving large bloodstains as he goes. The savages are in mortal terror of him, and never dare to ask: What blood is this?' The angry yang would pursue them, seize them by craft, and drown them in a sea of blood. Perhaps we may recognize in these spirits, whom the Bahnars call laih lem kleng bri, spirits which bar the forest,' the souls of men who have died a violent death and lain unburied in the forest or been devoured by wild animals: for these and the souls of women who have died in child-birth are particularly malevolent spirits in the eyes of the savages. This last belief is very wide-spread throughout the whole of the Far East, and is found among the Malaysians, the Khmers, aud the Annamese. The worship of the savages consists chiefly in sacrifices and offerings, varying according to the circumstances and rank of the yang to whom they are offered. Almost every action of their life entails a sacrifice: the choice of the site of a village, the building of a house (there are special rites for the erection of the first pillar and for the arrangement of the hearth), the act of drawing water from a well for the first time, birth, marriage, death, war, hunting, fishing, sowing, reaping, the gathering of roots in the forest, etc. These sacrifices include several ritual actions, an invocation, and the presentation of certain offerings and certain dishes to the gods. They are always concluded by a feast, at which the savages consume almost the whole of the victims and drink ricewine until they are quite intoxicated. The principal animals offered in sacrifice are the buffalo (for expeditions of war, to celebrate a victory, in cases of serious illness, and at funerals), the pig, the goat (in cases of reparation of a crime or to celebrate a gorgeous glom por), and the chicken (in all the many daily occasions). The share of the yang is the victim's liver, a little of its blood, and some rice-wine. In sacrifices made after a successful chase, the hunter generally adds to the liver and the blood an ear or the tip of an ear of the quarry. Offerings of food are usually presented to the yang by the sorcerer on a board adorned with little candles stuck on the edge; he then throws several grains of rice over his left shoulder, reciting formulas which the bystanders repeat in chorus. In several villages small buildings are erected with a miniature roof and a platform, on which are placed dishes of meat for wandering or hungry spirits. The Radès still remember the human sacrifices which they used to offer at the funerals of great chiefs; but this custom has disappeared everywhere except among the Sedangs, who, at the construction of a common house, cast a prisoner of war alive into the hole dug for the first post, and crush him under the post. 12. Cosmogony.-Almost all the savages of Indo-China have ideas, identical in their confusion, of the creation of beings and of the world. The sky and the earth existed always, but the human race comes, in their opinion, from the Grandfather and Grandmother with the big box.' These two survivors of a deluge which destroyed everybody long ago were saved in a large box, where they took refuge along with a pair of animals of every species. Warned by the cry of a chicken sent by the yang, they came out at last from their floating prison, and, while the animals again spread over the earth, from their union was born a new race of human beings-a race happy in every way, for another messenger from the yang, a big black ant, had brought to the 'Grand parents of the big box' two grains of celestial rice which grew without cultivation, and a single grain of which filled a pot. By the help of a magic fire, which burned without fuel and made savoury dishes-a fire which one of the sons of the Grandfather of the big box had stolen from a powerful fairy-the Golden Age reigned on the earth; the dead, buried at the foot of a certain tree, were restored to life in adult state; the earth abounded in happy beings. Then credulity and the malice of the yang deprived them of order; the magic fire, the celestial rice, and the tree of resurrection disappeared. Since then the savages have been troubled, and suffer famine, cold, and death. The evil was aggravated by the confusion of tongues which, among the direct sons of the Grandparents of the big box, followed the building of a vague tower of Babel. This confusion led to the dispersion of the races, or, rather, of the different savage tribes. The legends of the savages still mention the existence of heroes of gigantic size who declared war against the gods. All were killed except their chief, Diong, a Bahnar who conquered Bōk Glaiḥ, the god of lightning. This Diōng also became reconciled with the yang, for he fought the Jarais, who sought a quarrel with him, by getting the gods to stop the sun in order to allow him to obtain his victory. In order to console him into a constellation-an honour granted to several other the Jarai chief, trampled in the mêlée, the yang transformed people famous for their misfortunes or their bravery in the savages' traditions. Although the savages do not know how or by whom the world was created, they hold that it will come to an end by a terrible fire due to a giant who lives in the centre of the earth. 13. Fetishes.-Pebbles of uncommon shape or colour, pre-historic axes or arrows of flint, and splinters of meteoric stones are the favourite fetishes of the Indo-Chinese savages. When a savage comes upon one of these objects, he picks it up, wraps it in cotton thread, and puts it into a basket which he carefully closes. He waits until the spirit of his fetish manifests itself in a dream and shows him by what sacrifice it wishes to be honoured. If the yang of the fetish-pebble does not reveal itself during the night in human form, or if it demands a sacrifice as costly as, e.g., a buffalo, the savage throws the pebble away in the forest, and there the matter ends. Otherwise he offers it a chicken and a jar of rice-wine; then the pebble, rubbed with the chicken's blood and sprinkled with wine, is put, along with similar objects, into a bag made of bamboo fibre, and the bag is attached to one of the pillars of the house. These fetish-pebbles, which among the Bahnars receive the name of dömong, are not peculiar to any individual; the village possesses a large number of them, carefully preserved in the common house, on a little altar placed on the principal pillar, or jörang. They are the cityprotectors, and a savage is specially employed to sprinkle them with blood and wine during the ceremonies. Those most reverenced are the dömong of war, which are generally picked up on the return from an expedition, and whose spirits manifest themselves in the form of strong shaggy men. After the return from a successful razzia, they are coated with the blood of a sacrificed buffalo. When fire breaks out, if the flames reach the domong, they are thrown away, for it is believed that the yang must have gone away before the fire had reached them. These dömong are the protectors of the rice, of fishing, hunting, health, etc. Each one has his own particular sacrifice by which the others also benefit, receiving after him their share of blood and wine. Perhaps the domong who is most worshipped is the rice domong, but great care is taken not to sprinkle him with |