II.] 



SACRIFICIAL PLACES. 



named, commonly quite modest flowers, are here so luxuriant 

 that they form an important part of the flower covering. 

 Trees are wholly wanting. Even bushes are scarcely two feet 

 high, and that only at sheltered places, in hollows and at the 

 :foot of steep slopes looking towards the south. The sacrificial 

 mound consisted of a cairn of stones some few metres square, 

 situated on a special elevation of the plain. Among the stones 

 there were found : — 



1. Reindeer skulls, broken in pieces 

 for the purpose of extracting the brains, 

 but with the horns still fast to the coronal 

 bone ; these were now so arranged among 

 the stones that the}^ formed a close thicket 

 of reindeer horns, which gave to the 

 sacrificial mound its peculiar character. 



2. Reindeer skulls with the coronal 

 bone bored through, set up on sticks 

 which were stuck in the mound. Some- 

 times there was carved on these sticks a 

 number of faces, the one over the other. 



3. A large number of other bones of rein- 

 deer, among them marrow bones, broken 

 for the purpose of extracting the marrow. 



4. Bones of the bear, among which 

 were observed the paws and the head, 

 only half flayed, of a bear which had been 

 shot so recently that the flesh had not 

 begun to decompose ; alongside of this 

 bear's head there were found two lead 

 bullets placed on a stone. 



5. A quantity of pieces of iron, for 

 instance, broken axes, fragments of iron 

 puts, metal parts of a broken harmonicon, 

 &c. ; and finally, 



6. The mighty beings to which all this 

 splendour was ottered. 



They consisted of hundreds of small 

 wooden sticks, the upper portions of which 



were carved very clumsily in the form of the human counte- 

 nance, most of them from fifteen to twenty, but some of them 

 370 centimetres in length. They were all stuck in the ground 

 on the south-east part of the eminence. Near the place of 

 sacrifice there were to be seen pieces of driftwood and remains 

 of the fireplace at which the sacrificial meal was prepared. 

 Our guide told us that at these meals the mouths of the idols 

 were besmeared with blood and wetted with brandy, and the 

 former statement was confirmed by the large spots of blood 



IDOLS FEOM THE SACRIFICl.iL 

 CAIRN. 



One-twelfth of natural .size. 



