Dr. Munro writes of "the carved figurines, 'idols,' or 'totems,' six in
number," four from Dumbuck, one from Langbank. {119a} Now, first, nobody
knows the purpose of the rude figurines found in many sites from Japan to
Troy, from Russia to the Lake Dwellings of Europe, and in West Africa,
where the negroes use these figurines, when found, as "fetish," knowing
nothing of their origin (_Man_, No. 7, July, 1905). Like a figurine of a
woman, found in the Dumbuck kitchen midden, they are discovered in old
Japanese kitchen middens. {119b}
The astute forger, knowing that figurines were found in Japanese kitchen
middens, knowing it before Y. Koganei published the fact in 1903, thought
the Dumbuck kitchen midden an appropriate place for a figurine. Dr.
Munro, possibly less well-informed, regards the bottom of a kitchen
midden at Dumbuck as "a strange resting place for a goddess." {120a} Now,
as to "goddess" nobody knows anything. Dr. Schliemann thought that the
many figurines of clay, in Troy, were meant for Hera and Athene. Nobody
knows, but every one not wholly ignorant sees the absurdity of speaking
of figurines as "totems"; of course the term is not Dr. Munro's.
{ Fig. 19: p120a.jpg}
We know not their original meaning, but they occur "all over the place";
in amber on the Baltic coast, with grotesque faces carved in amber. In
Russia and Finland, and in sites of prehistoric Egypt, on slate, and in
other materials such grotesques are common. {120b} Egypt is a great
centre of the Early Slate School of Art, the things ranging from slate
plaques covered with disorderly scratchings "without a conscience or an
aim," to highly decorated _palettes_. There is even a perforated object
like the slate crooks of M. Cartailhac, from Portugal, but rather more
like the silhouette of a bird, {121a} and there are decorative mace-heads
in soft stone. {121b} Some of the prehistoric figurines of human beings
from Egypt are studded with "cups," _cupules_, _ecuelles_, or whatever we
may be permitted to name them. In short, early and rude races turn out
much the same set of crude works of art almost everywhere, and the
extraordinary thing is, not that a few are found in a corner of Britain,
but that scarce any have been found.
{ Figs. 20, 21: p120b.jpg}
As to the Russo-Finnish flint figurines, Mr. Abercromby thinks that these
objects may "have served as household gods or personal amulets," and Dr.
Munro regards Mr. Abercromby's as "the most rational explanation of their
meaning and purpose." He speaks of figurines of clay (the most usual
material) in Carniola, Bosnia, and Transylvania. "Idols and amulets were
indeed universally used in prehistoric times." {121c} "Objects which
come under the same category" occur "in various parts of America." Mr.
Bruce {121d} refers to M. Reinach's vast collection of designs of such
figurines in _L'Anthropologie_, vol. v., 1894. Thus rude figurines in
sites of many stages are very familiar objects. The forger knew it, and
dumped down a few at Dumbuck. His female figurine (photographed in fig.
19), seems to me a very "plausible" figurine in itself. It does not
appear to me "unlike anything in any collection in the British Isles, or
elsewhere"--I mean _elsewhere_. Dr. Munro admits that it discloses "the
hand of one not altogether ignorant of art." {122} I add that it
discloses the hand of one not at all ignorant of genuine prehistoric
figurines representing women.
But I know nothing analogous from _British_ sites. Either such things do
not exist (of which we cannot be certain), or they have escaped discovery
and record. Elsewhere they are, confessedly, well known to science, and
therefore to the learned forger who, nobody can guess why, dumped them
down with the other fraudulent results of his researches.
If the figurines be genuine, I suppose that the Clyde folk made them for
the same reasons as the other peoples who did so, whatever those reasons
may have been: or, like the West Africans, found them, relics of a
forgotten age, and treasured them. If their reasons were religious or
superstitious, how am I to know what were the theological tenets of the
Clyde residents? They may have been more or less got at by Christianity,
in Saint Ninian's time, but the influence might well be slight. On the
other hand, neither men nor angels can explain why the forger faked his
figurines, for which he certainly had a model--at least as regards the
female figure--in a widely distributed archaic feminine type of "dolly."
The forger knew a good deal!
Dr. Munro writes: "That the disputed objects are amusing playthings--the
sportive productions of idle wags who inhabited the various sites--seems
to be the most recent opinion which finds acceptance among local
antiquaries. But this view involves the contemporaneity of occupancy of
the respective sites, of which there is no evidence. . . ." {123a}
There is no evidence for "contemporaneity of occupancy" if Dunbuie be of
300-900 A.D., and Dumbuck and Langbank of 1556-1758. {123b} But we, and
apparently Dr. Munro (p. 264) have rejected the "Corporation cairn"
theory, the theory of the cairn erected in 1556, or 1612, and lasting
till 1758. The genuine undisputed relics, according to Dr. Munro, are
such as "are commonly found on crannogs, brochs, and other early
inhabited sites of Scotland." {124a} The sites are all, and the genuine
relics in the sites are all "of some time between the fifth and twelfth
centuries." {124b} The sites are all close to each other, the remains
are all of the same period, (unless the late Celtic comb chance to be
earlier,) yet Dr. Munro says that "for contemporaneity of occupancy there
is no evidence." {124c} He none the less repeats the assertion that they
are of "precisely the same chronological horizon." "The chronological
horizon" (of Langbank and Dumbuck) "_seems to me to be precisely the
same_, _viz._ a date well on in the early Iron Age, posterior to the
Roman occupation of that part of Britain" (p. 147).
Thus Dr. Munro assigns to both sites "precisely the same chronological
horizon," and also says that "there is no evidence" for the
"contemporaneity of occupancy." This is not, as it may appear, an
example of lack of logical consistency. "The range of the occupancy" (of
the sites) "is uncertain, probably it was different in each case," writes
Dr. Munro. {124d} No reason is given for this opinion, and as all the
undisputed remains are confessedly of one stage of culture, the "wags" at
all three sites were probably in the same stage of rudimentary humour and
skill. If they made the things, the things are not modern forgeries. But
the absence of the disputed objects from other sites of the same period
remains as great a difficulty as ever. Early "wags" may have made
them--but why are they only known in the three Clyde sites? Also, why
are the painted pebbles only known in a few brochs of Caithness?
Have the _graffiti_ on slate at St. Blane's, in Bute, been found--I mean
have _graffiti_ on slate like those of St. Blane's, been found elsewhere
in Scotland? {125} The kinds of art, writing, and Celtic ornament, at
St. Blane's, are all familiar, but not their presence on scraps of slate.
Some of the "art" of the Dumbuck things is also familiar, but not, in
Scotland, on pieces of slate and shale. Whether they were done by early
wags, or by a modern and rather erudite forger, I know not, of course; I
only think that the question is open; is not settled by Dr. Munro.