M. Carl Vogt, in considering the crescents which have been discovered in such large quantities in the lacustrine habitations, cannot admit that they indicate that any religious belief existed among these ancient nations. He attributes to these objects a very different kind of use, and, as we shall presently show, rather an odd one. In the lectures on _pre-historic man_ which were delivered by Prof. Carl Vogt at Antwerp, in 1868, and have been reported by the Belgian journals,[37] when speaking on the subject of the crescents belonging to the bronze epoch, he expresses himself as follows:-- "My opinion is that these crescents were used as resting-places for the head during the night. Among many savage tribes we find the attention paid to the dressing of the hair carried to a high pitch, especially among the men; it was not until a later period that woman also devoted her cares to the culture of her _coiffure_. Now this care is, by many nations, carried out to a really curious extent. They inflict the most severe tortures on themselves in order to satisfy their vanity. Everyone has seen, in the 'Magasin Pittoresque' and other illustrated journals, the strange head-dresses of the Abyssinian soldiers. They really seem to form a kind of fleece, and it may be noticed that each soldier carries in this hairy construction a large pin. "Well, all this tends to explain the use of these crescents. In Abyssinia, as soon as a young girl is married it becomes her duty to devote herself to her husband's head of hair. This head of hair is made to assume a certain shape, which it has to retain during his whole lifetime. The labour which this process necessitates lasts for three years. Each hair is twisted round a stem of straw, and remains so until the straw perishes. The man's head is thus covered with a whole system of spirals, the top of which is a foot from the surface of his head. During the whole remainder of his life this _coiffure_ must never be again disturbed. When asleep, the Abyssinian rests the nape of his neck on a triangle which he carries about everywhere with him. He has also a long pin, as it would be impossible for him to reach the skin of his head with the end of his finger. "The same custom exists among the New Zealanders, who also have an apparatus upon which they rest their necks, in order, when asleep, to save their _coiffures_. They wear an enormous chignon, two feet high and ornamented with ribbons, of which they are very proud. The only difference between this chignon and certain others which I need not mention is, that the former cannot be removed at will. This object, thus adorned, rests, during the sleep of its owner, on a sort of framework. "The Chinese and Japanese sleep, in the same way, on a bedstead bevelled off at the head; and in the Egyptian hieroglyphical drawings we find instruments evidently meant for the same use.