CRANIAL AMULETS. 609 



Etudes two skulls from Roknia, Algiers, with traces of this opera- 

 tion. Mr. Squier presented to the Society of Anthropology a skull 

 from an ancient Peruvian grave, upon which are distinctly seen the 

 eicfht extremities of these saw-cuts. The traces of inflammation around 

 the bone prove that the operation was performed about a week before 

 death. If the person had survived some years, the traces of incision 

 would have been effaced, the four angles would have become rounded, 

 and the result would have resembled those which we now find upon the 

 skulls of Lozere. 



M. Chil related, at the Congres at Lille, that there had been found 

 a perforated skull resembling those discovered by M. Prunieres in the 

 Canary Islands a fact of great importance, if confirmed, for it would 

 indicate that these islands were peopled by African negroes. 



The Medical Times assures us that the medicine-men of the South- 

 Sea Islands practise, with a bit of glass, trepanning for troubles of the 

 head, such as vertigo, neuralgia, etc. The remedy consists in making 

 a T-shaped incision in the scalp, and scraping the skull with a frag- 

 ment of glass, until the dura mater is reached, and a hole made one 

 inch in diameter. In the minds of these savages the healing art is 

 mixed up with a multitude of singular religious ideas. In their eyes 

 the maladies of the body are caused by demoniacal possession. There- 

 fore, when one suffers in the head, we must open a passage to let the 

 demon out. It was thus that Jupiter, suffering from headache, es- 

 caped the malady by causing Vulcan to strike him so violently that 

 Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, sprang from the opening. 



Hence it may be that, for medical reasons, the men of the Stone 

 Age trepanned the skull. But this does not account for all the facts. 

 Why trepan the dead? Why introduce into some skulls the round 

 plates of bone ? It is clear that the healing art had nothing to do 

 with these post-mortem operations, and that here our forefathex'S were 

 simply acting in obedience to some religious ideas which it is hard for 

 us to imagine. 



In the first place, we would observe that, in all probability, these 

 people bad a religion. M. Joseph, of Baye, has communicated to the 

 Societe d' Anthropologic a discovery made at Baye (Marne) of artifi- 

 cial grottoes excavated in the chalk during the Neolithic Age. He 

 saw upon the walls of these caverns rude and almost shapeless sketches 

 representing divinities in human form ; and in these same caverns he 

 found skulls perforated similarly to those of M. Prunieres. Upon these 

 grounds we may safely argue the existence of a system of religion. 

 It has been observed that all the operations of trepanning were per- 

 formed either upon infants or upon youths. " Why were not all ages 

 subject to it ? why only infants or youths ? I hazard the conjecture 

 that it was connected with some superstition, that it formed a part 

 of the ceremony of initiation to some pi'iestly order. This, it is true, 

 presupposes the existence of a religious caste ; but there is no doubt 



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