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Detailed description of megalithic remains around Kartong |
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To Kartong, passing first of all a "bat" shaped monolith carved with some rough elephants which may be recent as there are also letters and initials cut in it: further on a circular mound (at the top of a knoll) with a depression in the middle just like those in the Jaintia Hills, and with a monolith at the south side facing east, and to the north of the circle a small monolith perhaps indicating a complete circle of small stones with one larger menhir outside it. On the top of a lower knoll to the west a pair of twin tanks. From the circular mound was a marvellous view in all directions, looking at the Barail range on the east and the Jaintia Hills across the Kopili on the west. The west slope of the knoll had two or three small menhirs on it. A little further west were the remains of a row of menhirs two of which were of the "bat" type - i.e. with a flat face and a rounded back, and the biggest of these had a representation on the back of it of the female organ of generation. There were twin tanks here and single ones scattered about everywhere. |
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A little further on was a sitting place made by chiselling away the upper strata of a flattish outcrop of rock, and nearby a fallen "bat" stone. On a flat stone beyond was carved a female head with bust and pudenda and one or two footprints. |
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At Kartong itself were two knolls which had been covered with groups of hollow monoliths obviously female in sex, but a good deal smaller on the whole than the Bolasan male ones. They were hollow with flat bases like stone buckets with narrow tops. One knoll had a grazier's cattle sheds built over it and all the stones visible were mutilated. On the other a row of small menhirs was found in one place, made from split "bucket" stones. These "bucket" stones reminded me most of the Wakching and Wanching skull cists. A small complete stone measured 3 feet in height and had a circumference at the base of 7 feet, the long diameter being 2 feet 7 inches and the short diameter 1 foot 7 inches. The circumference at the lip was 3 feet. A larger one, much broken, had an approximate height of 4 feet 8 inches, and the base diameters were 3 feet and 2 feet 2 inches respectively. The bases were elliptical rather than circular. The menhirs made from split stones had very crude carvings of the human figure. Another large menhir near a tank near Kartong had the remains of a carving of a human figure, showing the legs and waist in very typical Nzemi style. |
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West of Kartong is a small fort defended with ditches and embankments and marked by a triangulation point. Many tanks, twin and single, in the vicinity, one pair of them being circular. |
