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NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS

stories refer to popular (often newly invented) wayai3 tales, and they are crudely coloured by means of crayon. The original colours have not been reproduced in the plates for the sake of economy. 2

2 Plates with reproductions of similar drawings also made in Yogyakarta at Mr. Moens request were published in the present author’s “Javaanse Volksvertoningen, Bijdrage tot de beschrijving van land en volk", Batavia, 1938. They refer to popular theatricals, entertainments and folkdances, and are borrowed from albums at present in the possession of the Museum Pusat Kebudayaan Indonesia in Jakarta. The same book contains also some plates with reproductions of stone masks (“stenen koppen") found in the district of Gunu^ Kidul south of Yogyakarta and collected by Mr. Moens between 1930 and 1940. LOr 12.542 and 12.577, two of Mr Moens albums with information on Yogyakarta folklore, contain descriptions of naked men and women circumam bulating in the fields in small processions, carrying images of spirits, mostly carved on wooden boards, as a means to fight pests in the crops. It seems likely that the stone masks, which have demoniacal features, once functioned as images of spirits in similar processions. It is worthy of note that the processions escorting the Javanese kings of Surakarta and Yogyakarta when they appeared in public on the occasion of the periodical state festivals (garëbêg) were opened by girls carrying the upacaras, golden images of phantastic animals. Banak Dalag, the gander (male goose) was one of them, Sawurj Galirj, the cock, another. Both appear (in LOr 12.543 and 12.547) as spirits. It seems likely that the vanguard of upacaras was a means to counteract evil influences on the way of the royal progress. In Bali a drake (male duck) has an important function in lustration ceremonies (see Hooykaas, Religion in Bali, 1973, plate d.-2).