90 



their real use is much disputed ; the most probable idea is that 

 they were chafers in which a piece of lighted touchwood was 

 carried for the purpose of igniting the funeral pyre : the holes 

 would cause a draft, which would keep the touchwood burning. 



3 and 4. The food vessels and the drinking vessels are rather 

 hard to discriminate between : some are undoubtedly drinking 

 cups ; others may be either. They exhibit great diversity of 

 form. They contained some provision for the departed brother 

 on his unknown journey, and the fact that such provision 

 was made proves that the race who made this pottery — the 

 ancient Britons — had a belief in a future state. As we also 

 find weapons buried with the bodies, their notion of a future 

 state was that it probably was one like that the deceased had 

 just gone through, and in which he would again require his 

 weapons of war and of the chase, and would still wear his decor- 

 ations of beads and bones. 



Before I leave this the first or Celtic period, I will recur to the 

 "craggans," which I have before mentioned. These "craggans" 

 exactly resemble the domestic division of this Celtic pottery, which 

 is unornamented, and is better baked than the funeral stuff. The 

 craggans are made to this day on the Isle of Lewis, and Professor 

 Mitchell thus describes the making of one by a woman at Barras, 

 whom he engaged to show him the process of manufacture. 



This she duly did. The clay she used underwent no careful preparation. 

 She chose the best she could get, and picked out of it the larger stones, leaving 

 the sand and the finer gravel which it contained. With her hands alone she 

 gave to the clay its desired shape. She had no aid from anything of the nature 

 of a potter's wheel. In making the smaller craggans with the narrow necks, 

 she used a stick with a curve on it to give form to the inside. All that her 

 fingers could reach was done by them. Having shaped the craggan, she let it 

 stand for a day to dry, then took it to the fire in the centre of the floor of her 

 hut, filled it with burning peats, and built burning peats all round it. WHien 

 sufficiently baked, she withdrew it from the fire, emptied the ashes out, and 

 then poured slowly into and over it about a pint of milk, in order to make 

 it less porous. The craggan was then ready for use and sale. 



This was no doubt the method employed by the prehistoric 



