RELIGION.

Their religion, like that of all other inhabitants of the island who are not Mahometans, is so obscure in its principles as scarcely to afford room to say that any exists among them.  Yet they have rather more of ceremony and observance than those of Rejang or Passummah, and there is an order of persons by them called guru (a well-known Hindu term), who may be denominated priests, as they are employed in administering oaths, foretelling lucky and unlucky days, making sacrifices, and the performance of funeral rites.  For a knowledge of their theogony we are indebted to M. Siberg, governor of the Dutch settlements on the coast of Sumatra, by whom the following account was communicated to the late M. Radermacher, a distinguished member of the Batavian Society, and by him published in its Transactions.

MYTHOLOGY.

The inhabitants of this country have many fabulous stories, which shall be briefly mentioned.  They acknowledge three deities as rulers of the world, who are respectively named Batara-guru, Sori-pada, and Mangalla-bulang.  The first, say they, bears rule in heaven, is the father of all mankind, and partly, under the following circumstances, creator of the earth, which from the beginning of time had been supported on the head of Naga-padoha, but, growing weary at length, he shook his head, which occasioned the earth to sink, and nothing remained in the world excepting water.  They do not pretend to a knowledge of the creation of this original earth and water, but say that at the period when the latter covered everything, the chief deity, Batara-guru, had a daughter named Puti-orla-bulan, who requested permission to descend to these lower regions, and accordingly came down on a white owl, accompanied by a dog; but not being able, by reason of the waters, to continue there, her father let fall from heaven a lofty mountain, named Bakarra, now situated in the Batta country, as a dwelling for his child; and from this mountain all other land gradually proceeded.  The earth was once more supported on the three horns of Naga-padoha, and that he might never again suffer it to fall off Batara-guru sent his son, named Layang-layang-mandi (literally the dipping swallow) to bind him hand and foot.  But to his occasionally shaking his head they ascribe the effect of earthquakes.  Puti-orla-bulan had afterwards, during her residence on earth, three sons and three daughters, from whom sprang the whole human race.

The second of their deities has the rule of the air betwixt earth and heaven, and the third that of the earth; but these two are considered as subordinate to the first.  Besides these they have as many inferior deities as there are sensible objects on earth, or circumstances in human society; of which some preside over the sea, others over rivers, over woods, over war, and the like.  They believe likewise in four evil spirits, dwelling in four separate mountains, and whatever ill befalls them they attribute to the