* * * * *
THE GREAT ROUND WORLD AND THE
PEOPLE WHO LIVED ON IT.
(Continued from page 1234.)
And so, next to the dwellings for life, they built dwellings for
death--built them larger and stronger, too, since so many graves are
left in excellent preservation, while no houses at all have survived to
satisfy our curiosity. A universally favorite form of grave is the
so-called "mound" (known in England as "barrow"). These mound-tombs, to
judge from what is found in them, were constructed to hold the remains
of the wealthy and powerful among the people, often of their kings.
They differ greatly in size and richness, but all are alike in this:
that the place for the body or bodies is dug more or less deep in the
ground, then closed tight with stones or slabs and hard-stamped soil,
above which is raised an earthen mound, on which the grass grows--hence
the name.
The "mound-builders" have been busy all over the world. There is no flat
country on any part of the earth where these strange monuments have not
been found, singly or in groups, and it taxes at times a sharp eye to
know them from the natural grass-grown knolls or hillocks on a so-called
rolling plain, for which, indeed, they were taken until some accident
made known what they really were.
Let us look at the interior of one of the most royal among these palaces
of death--or, rather, in the builders' minds, vestibules of a renewed
life.
In the middle--or toward one end--of a large, rather low chamber,
flagged and cased with stone masonry, lies the chieftain's skeleton,
with golden armlets and necklet, possibly a golden band encircling the
skull, and some choice weapons by his side, within reach of the hand.
Not infrequently tatters of some tissue show where the mantle was folded
around the form; but that falls to dust at the lightest touch, and,
indeed, at a longer contact with air, as do sometimes the bones
themselves. A smaller skeleton--a woman's--likewise adorned, shares the
honors of the gloomy abode. It is the wife, or perchance the favorite
wife, polygamy (the custom of having many wives) having long been
universal. In a circle around the two principal figures, but at a
respectful distance, indicating their subordinate station, are disposed
other skeletons, unclothed and unadorned, evidently slaves, probably
favorite attendants. Not infrequently a horse is found in a corner--the
chief's own charger; and even sometimes a dog at the master's feet.
Every skull, of man, woman, or animal, shows the heavy single blow which
severed life. Not without due state and seemly retinue shall the hero
enter on the new life which awaits him; his own best-loved companion
shall minister to him; his own tried servants shall follow him as of
yore; the steed which bore him safely out of many a battle, the hound
which shared with him the joys of many a glorious chase, shall bear him
into the fray with new and unknown foes, shall hunt down with him the
game that roams the forests of the Unknown Land. As the way thither may
be very long, the travellers shall not go unprovided. So around the wall
are ranged dishes, platters, bowls--each containing dried-up food,
various kinds of grains; also jars and tall vessels with handles, which
evidently had held liquids. It is easy to see that the choicest pieces
of fine and artistically ornamented pottery have been selected from the
household stores. In mounds of the later periods some of the dishes and
bowls are of bronze, even of gold and silver, and show considerable
beauty of form and workmanship; but the jars are invariably of
earthenware, as water and wine keep better in such than in metal.
We must not forget that, among the countless mounds which have been
opened, only a very few are like that we just looked into. The general
run are much plainer, and the majority contain only one silent inmate.
It was not every one could afford the luxury of a wholesale slaughter
in his household. The chambers, too, are very different in size and
construction, and the furnishings vary quite as much in richness and
beauty.
Putting away the dead in mound-graves, besides being a universal custom,
was one which endured through a long series of centuries, since their
contents illustrate for us the Age of Bronze through all its gradations
and a goodly portion of the Age of Iron--_i.e._, the beginnings of the
age in which we live ourselves.
To decide which mound belongs to a later and which to an earlier period
is easy, from the variety and quality of the articles, which bear
witness to the degree of culture of the builders, though it is of course
difficult even to give a guess in figures at just _how_ long ago, at
least, the earlier mounds were built.
These are all times which knew not of writing. Therefore we have no
history of them; for history is made up of two elements: things that
happen, and writers who record them. So when we speak of "historic
times," we mean the times since writing came into general use. All that
went before we class as "prehistoric" times, _i.e._, times of which we
can have no history. It is clear, then, that if, of two countries, one
knows writing and uses it to register what happens to it, while the
other does not, the former will be living in historic, the latter in
prehistoric times.
More than that: there are plenty of peoples now living in--for
them--prehistoric times. Take all the savage tribes still scattered over
land and sea in many parts of the world. Just as there are enough South
Sea Islanders for whom the Age of Stone is not over yet, since they
still use flint, bone, and fishbone for their tools and weapons, and
what metal they have comes to them through barter from Europeans or
Americans. Captain Cook--or some other noted voyager and
discoverer--received as a present from a South Sea chieftain a flint
axe, beautifully shaped and polished like a mirror. The chief told his
white friend it had taken _fifty years_ to produce that polish, his
grandfather, his father, and himself having worked on it at odd moments
of leisure!
And yet, when we speak of "historic" and "prehistoric" times, we never
think of all these races; they do not count among the so-called
"culture-races," because they have produced no civilization of their
own, have done nothing to advance the work of the world, added nothing
to its treasury; in short, they have not helped to make history.
Just one word more about these prehistoric ages and the memorials they
have left of themselves. No matter how various the stages of human
culture which these latter betray, one feature is common to all, back to
the most primitive feasting-places of the cave-dwellers; it is--the
knowledge and use of fire. Yet there most certainly was a time when men
had not yet learned to produce and to handle this marvellous force of
nature, their most helpful friend and most destructive foe. Can we
picture to ourselves _how_ miserable and degraded, _how_ distressingly
like that of other forest animals must have then been the condition of
those who yet were the fathers of the coming human race? Hardly. Our
imagination itself stands still, helpless and puzzled, before a state of
things so remote, so utterly beyond our power to realize and compare.