some implements for common purposes, bags of juniper,
English wine-bottles and glasses, with tufts of Abies
Webbiana, rhododendron flowers, and peacock’s feathers,
besides various trifles, clay ornaments and offerings,
SIMONBONG TEMPLE.
and little Hindoo idols. On the altar were ranged
seven little brass cups, full of water; a large conch
shell, carved with the sacred lotus; a brass jug from
Lhassa, of beautiful design, and a human thigh-bone,
hollow, and perforated through both condyles.*
considered to have repeated his prayers as often as the bell rings. Representations
of these implements will he found in other parts of these volumes.
* To these are often added a double-headed rattle, or small drum, formed
of two crowns of human skulls, cemented back to back; each face is then
covered with parchment, and encloses some pebbles. Sometimes this
instrument is provided with a handle.
Facing the altar was a bench and a chair, and on one
side a huge tambourine, with two curved iron drumsticks.
The bench was covered with bells, handsomely
carved with idols, and censers with juniper-ashes; and
on it lay the dorge, or double-headed thunderbolt,
which the Lama holds in his hand during service. Of
all these articles, the human thigh-bone is by much the
TRUMPET MADE OF A HUMAN THIGH-BONE.
most curious; it is very often that of a Lama, and is
valuable in proportion to its length* As, however, the
Sikkim Lamas are burned, these relics are generally
procured from Tibet, where the corpses are cut in pieces
and thrown to the kites, or into the water.
Two boys usually reside in the temple, and their
beds were given up to us, which being only rough
planks laid on the floor, proved clean in one sense, but
contrasted badly with the springy couch of bamboo the
Lepcha makes, which renders carrying a mattress or
aught but blankets superfluous.
* I t is reported at Dorjiling, that one of the first Europeans buried a t
this station, being a tall man, was disinterred by the resurrectionist
Bhoteas for his trumpet-bones.