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These stone cromlechs contain the bones of the dead, and the menhirs and table-stones are intimately connected with them, inasmuch as memorial stones to deceased ancestors are erected when the ceremony of depositing bones in the cineraria has been completed. The cineraria are built of blocks of stone, sometimes on stone platforms, and sometimes resting on the ground.
The Laitlyngkot stone measures 28 1/2 by 13 3/4 ft., and that at Nartiang 16 1/2 by 14 3/4 ft. The Laitlyngkot stone is 1 ft. 8 in. thick. Sometimes two table-stones are found parallel to one another. The table-stones are always placed towards the centre of the group, generally in front of the great central menhir.
It was the custom in former days to make offerings of food upon the flat table-stones to the spirits of the deceased ancestors, and this is still the case in places in the interior of the district.
Yet I do not think it at all unlikely that this is the stone, locally called Mynlep, which is referred to in the folk-tale. At Jaintiapur and Nartiang, both of which places were the headquarters of the kings of Jaintia, there are very large table-stones. We know for a fact that human sacrifices used to take place at Jaintiapur. Is it possible that human beings were immolated on these table-stones?
Stones with top coverings or carved heads are however rare. In front of the line of menhirs is a large flat table-stone resting on stone supports, the top of the uppermost plane being some 2 to 2 1/2 ft. from the ground; this flat stone is sometimes as much as a foot or more thick. The largest table-stones are to be seen at Nartiang, in the Jaintia Hills, and Laitlyngkot in the Khasi Hills.
The flat table-stones are some 2 to 2 1/2 ft. from the ground, and it is difficult to resist the impression that they were originally sacrificial stones, i.e. that animals or even human beings were actually sacrificed upon them. In connection with this theory I would refer to the interesting folk-tale about the Kopili river.
Waring in his book gives an illustration of several lines of stone monuments with two table-stones, either in front or in rear according to the position of the photographer or draftsman in taking the picture, which would appear to be very similar to the lines of menhirs we find in the Khasi Hills. In plate XLII, fig. 6, of Waring's book, are the lines of stones to which I refer.
We need not record the existence of dolmens, or table-stones, the remains of burial mounds, which have been washed away by denudation, nor of what the French folk call alignements, or lines of stones, which have suffered like other megalithic monuments. Barrows or tumuli are still plentiful, great mounds of earth raised to cover the prehistoric dead. But many have disappeared.
This, apparently, was the practice in Japan before the "spirit tablet" had been introduced from China, when the worship of the ancestors was transferred from the tomb to the home. We have an exactly similar instance of evolution amongst the Khasis of the present day, i.e. the transfer of the ancestor cult from the flat table-stones erected in honour of deceased ancestors to the home.
There are, however, some clans which erect more than three upright stones, as mawlynti, or mawkjat. The stones are called mawkjat, or stones of the leg, because it is supposed that the spirits of the departed sit and rest their limbs on the flat table-stones. The upright stones are not as a rule more than 3 or 4 ft high, and are not massive like the great mawbynna, or memorial stones.
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