The Hos of Chota Nagpur were accustomed to place large slabs of stone
as tombstones over their graves, and a collection of these massive
gravestones indelibly marks the site of every Ho or Mundari village,
being still found in parts of the country where there have been no
Kols for ages. In addition to this slab, a megalithic monument is
set up to the deceased in some conspicuous spot outside the village;
the pillars vary in height from five or six to fifteen feet, and
apparently fragments of rock of the most fantastic shape are most
favoured. All the clothes, ornaments and agricultural implements of
the dead man were buried with the body. The funeral rites were of a
somewhat touching character: [552] "When all is ready, a funeral party
collects in front of the deceased's house, three or four men with
very deep-toned drums, and a group of about eight young girls. The
chief mourner comes forth, carrying the bones exposed on a decorated
tray, and behind him the girls form two rows, carrying empty or broken
pitchers or battered brass vessels, while the men with drums bring up
the rear. The procession advances with a ghostly dancing movement,
slow and solemn as a minuet, in time to the beat of the deep-toned
drums, not straight forward, but mysteriously gliding--now right,
now left, now marking time, all in the same mournful cadence. In
this manner the remains are taken to the house of every friend
and relative of the deceased within a circle of a few miles, and
to every house in the village. As the procession approaches each
house in the manner described, the inmates all come out, and the
tray having been placed on the ground at their door, they kneel over
it and mourn. The bones are also thus conveyed to all his favourite
haunts, the fields he cultivated, the grove he planted, the tank he
excavated, the threshing-floor where he worked with his people, the
Akhara or dancing-arena where he made merry with them, and each spot
which is hallowed with reminiscences of the deceased draws forth fresh
tears." In Sambalpur [553] the dead body of a Munda is washed in wine
before interment, and a mark of vermilion is made on the forehead. The
mourners drink wine sitting by the grave. They then bathe, and catch
a small fish and roast it on a fire, smearing their hands with oil
and warming them at the fire. It would appear that this last rite
is a purification of the hands after contact with the dead body, but
whether the fish is meant to represent the deceased and the roasting
of it is a substitute for the rite of cremation is not clear. During
the eight days of mourning the relatives abstain from flesh-meat,
but they eat fish. The Kols of Jubbulpore now bury or burn the dead,
and observe mourning exactly like ordinary Hindus.