Falling in Love; With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of ScienceAllen, Grant
Science
Falling in Love; With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science
Allen, Grant
Science
The only weapons or implements we could discover in the barrow were two
neatly chipped flint arrowheads, and a very delicate ground greenstone
hatchet, or tomahawk. These were the weapons of the dead chief, laid
beside him in the stone chamber where we found his skeleton, for his
future use in his underground existence. A piece or two of rude
hand-made pottery, no doubt containing food and drink for the ghost, had
also been placed close to his side: but they had mouldered away with
time and damp, till it was quite impossible to recover more than a few
broken and shapeless fragments. There was no trace of metal in any way:
whereas if the tribesmen of our friend the skeleton had known at all the
art of smelting, we may be sure some bronze axe or spearhead would have
taken the place of the flint arrows and the greenstone tomahawk: for
savages always bury a man's best property together with his corpse,
while civilised men take care to preserve it with pious care in their
own possession, and to fight over it strenuously in the court of
probate.
The chief's own skeleton lay, or rather squatted, in the most
undignified attitude, in the central chamber. His people when they put
him there evidently considered that he was to sit at his ease, as he had
been accustomed to do in his lifetime, in the ordinary savage squatting
position, with his knees tucked up till they reached his chin, and his
body resting entirely on the heels and haunches. The skeleton was
entire: but just outside and above the stone vault we came upon a number
of other bones, which told another and very different story. Some of
them were the bones of the old prehistoric short-horned ox: others
belonged to wild boars, red deer, and sundry similar animals, for the
most part skulls and feet only, the relics of the savage funeral feast.
It was clear that as soon as the builders of the barrow had erected the
stone chamber of their dead chieftain, and placed within it his honoured
remains, they had held a great banquet on the spot, and, after killing
oxen and chasing red deer, had eaten all the eatable portions, and
thrown the skulls, horns, and hoofs on top of the tomb, as offerings to
the spirit of their departed master. But among these relics of the
funeral baked meats there were some that specially attracted our
attention--a number of broken human skulls, mingled indiscriminately
with the horns of deer and the bones of oxen. It was impossible to look
at them for a single moment, and not to recognise that we had here the
veritable remains of a cannibal feast, a hundred centuries ago, on
Ogbury hill-top.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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