
Myanmar (Burma) still has hill tribes with old cultural traditions,
like the Chin in the hilly west part of the country. We visited this
area (near the 3000 m. Mt. Victoria) in March 2003, and were invited by
a local family in a small village into their house. We talked about
their old animistic traditions (the ox is very important here) and how
life has changed. To my enormous surprise , a small megalith was
erected in their backyard. Upon questioning it appeared that this was
the site where the ashes of died family members were deposited after
cremation. The last burial in this tomb was that of the grandfather
only a couple of years before.
Even when not covered by earth, the similarity to gallery graves in
Holland (the hunebedden)
seems striking.
The capstone was about .60 x 1.20 m. and the height of the tomb about
50 cm.