The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-11-06
The ueLIEsT PEOPLE KNOWN.
The Bataks of sumatra-The Doom of
Their Old People.
london Field.l

Lpnuou fitlu
The population of Serapit turned out to
see us. The women were a strange con-
trast to the men in appearance. While
the latter were as lean as whipping-posts
and uglier than most monkeys, the former
at least those under twenty or severe
plump, solidly built, full-bosomed Great
ures, and there were at least half a dozen
in the crowd before us who might fairly be
termed good looking.
But the older members of the commu-
nifty, the women especially, almost sur
pass my powers OF description to give an
idea OF their weird ugliness. X. tersely
summed them up as baked monkey"
but monkey would at least have have
had a covering of hair whereas these
dreadful persons had nothing but their
very scantv clothing TO conceal any part
of the leathery integument that was so
tightly shrunken over their skeleton
bodies, and looked so hard and dry that
you expected TO hear them crackle when
they moved. Their faces seemed to con-
sist solely of skin drawn over a skull with
out a particle of flesh, and looked precisely
as if some one had tried TO make a mask
out of old leather, and, failing, had
thrown it down in disgust and stamped on
it. Yet they seemed neither decrepit nor
idiotic The men carried their compile
ment of arms; one old fellow had girded
on the largest and crookedest sword there.
He looked like Death with his scythe. A
woman who resembled one of the dried
mummies of blacks found in North Queens
land, terminated, was pounding paddy in
a wooden mortar, so / concluded that APP
pearances We're deceptive, and that they
were not nearly so old as they looked. In
Ia01 tho Maloyan lnnc-lfvaH
and really old people are very scarce, such
an instance as the late sultan of Brunei,
who lived to nearly hundred, being al
most unheard of.
And here is the appropriate place to
speak of the strange and unnatural prac-
tice, universally ascribed 10 the Bataks,
and confirmed bv Dutch travellers, though
/ do not understand that any European
has actually witnessed the ceremony.
When the elder members OF family have
reached the stage of decrepitude and use
lessness land what their appearance must
be one shoulders TO contemplate, a general
meeting of relations is held, and the senile
one is invited to ascend small tree, which
the afectionate relatives then shake with
all their might, chanting a song expressive
OF hunger the while. Ii he can succeed in
holding on until the shakers are tired out,
he is reprieved; but If, as is most likely, he
tumbles of, he is promptly dispatched.
A Dutch author, Junghuhns, | think,
grimly remarks that this ceremony usually
takes place at the time OF the year when
lines are ripe, this fruit being very plenti-
full, and forming large ingredient in the
cuisine of both Malays and Bataks. But
il the natives OF the interior resemble
those whom ] am describing. the meal
must he a mere form, had forgotten to
state that the Bataks file or grind all their
incsor teeth down TO the level OF the
gums, and only the jaws of a hyena could
have disposed OF one of the elders Of
Serapit AS to their cannibalism there
can be no doubt.