indness of the President, his secretary, and Mr. C. M. Pleyte,
Lecturer of Indonesian Ethnology at the Gymnasium of William III.,
at Batavia, for some interesting as well as valuable information. With
reference to possible Malay influence in the countries inhabited by the
people who speak the Mon-Khmer group of languages in Further India, it
was thought desirable to ascertain whether any of the people inhabiting
the Dutch East Indies possessed anything in common with the Khasis, who
also belong to the Mon-Khmer group. There are, according to Mr. Pleyte,
pure matriarchal customs to be found amongst the Minangkabe Malays
inhabiting the Padang uplands and adjacent countries, in Sumatra,
in Agam, the fifty Kotas, and Tanah Datar, more or less mixed with
patriarchal institutions; they are equally followed by the tribes
inhabiting parts of Korinchi and other places. The apparently strong
survival of the matriarchate in parts of the island of Sumatra,
as compared with this corresponding most characteristic feature
of the Khasis, is a point for consideration. Mr. Pleyte goes on
to state "regarding ancestor-worship, it may be said that this
is found everywhere throughout the whole Archipelago; even the
tribes that have already adopted Islam, venerate the spirits of
their departed." The same might be said of some of the Khasis who
have accepted Christianity, and much more of the Japanese. I would
here refer the reader to the chapter on "Ancestor-worship." In the
Southern Moluccas the placenta is mixed with ashes, placed in a pot,
and hung on a tree; a similar custom is observed in Mandeling, on
the west coast of Sumatra. This is a custom universally observed
amongst the Khasis at births. Teknonomy to some extent prevails
amongst some of these Malay tribes as with the Khasis. It will be
seen from the above notes that there are some interesting points
of affinity between the Khasis and some of the Malay tribes, and if
we add that the Khasis are decidedly Malay in appearance, we cannot
but wonder whether the Malays have any connection not only with the
Mon-Khmer family, but also with the Khasis, with the Ho-Mundas, and
with the Naga tribes mentioned by Mr. Peal in his interesting paper
published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, already
referred to. We will study the strong linguistic affinities between
these peoples in the section which deals with language.

M. Aymonier in "Le Cambodge" mentions the matriarchate as h