

SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. 291 



sign to which great consequence was attached by the Jewish priests, and which, in common with many 

 other things in the customs, manners, and modes of life among these people, reminds us very much of the 

 ancient eastern nations. The antiquarian would perhaps find in these dice the tali and astrayali of the 

 ancients." 



The description of the Divining Dice, and the mode of using them by the 

 Bechuanas, near Kuruman, given at page 317, is as follows : 



" Among the few things that I wished earnestly to possess was a pair of dice, if so they might he called, 

 which one of the most distinguished among them wore, fastened to a leather thong, round his neck. I say, 

 if they might be called dice, because, though they were employed much in the same way, the form of the 

 objects in question was not cubical like that of a die ; they had the figure of equal-sided pyramids, and 

 were cut out of the cloven foot of an Antelope, being stuck upon small thin quadrangular plates of the same 

 material. The use of these things, as I learned, was to determine, when any thing of importance was to 

 be undertaken, whether it would terminate happily or not. But few persons (the priests only, as far as I 

 could collect) know how to prepare them ; they descend as an inheritance in families ; and the more ancient 

 they are, the greater reliance may be placed on their prophetic spirit. In order to sec how they were used, 

 I entreated the owner to tell me whether our journey would be happily ended or not. He immediately 

 bent himself down on one knee, smoothed the ground with his hand, and then held the dice between the 

 points of his fingers, one in each hand, and after making several movements with his hands up and down, 

 and pronouncing some incomprehensible words, threw them on the ground. He then bent himself down, 

 appeared to examine very carefully the situation of each, and their direction towards each other, and, in 

 about two minutes, pronounced that we should reach home without any accident. My very great desire to 

 possess these magical objects made me not object to the high price required for them ; and, after purchasing 

 two young oxen with some beads and knives, I gave the oxen for my dice, recollecting, as a balance against 

 this somewhat unreasonable bargain, many other very equal ones which I had concluded." 



Page 201. Tfie Ornamental Markings on the Aquitdnian Implements. Besides 

 the use of the Significant Marks above described, the general application of orna- 

 mental figures and patterns to their bone Implements by the Aborigines of Aqui- 

 tania, and even to isolated pieces of stone, bone, and ivory, may really have arisen 

 from the several impulses, habits, and intentions indicated in the foregoing pages. 

 There is, however, another possible source of this custom, not there alluded to, but 

 intimated by Dr. Broca in his Essay on the Cave-men of the V6zere (' La Revue 

 Scientifique de la Prance' &c., 2 e ser., vol. ii. pp. 457 &c., 1872; and 'Nature,' 

 March, 1873), namely that, as regards weapons of war and the chase and imple- 

 ments of superstition, under the social order and state-culture which he supposes 

 to have existed among them, the grades of rank may have had special signs and 

 symbols on their characteristic arms and official implements and sceptres. 



In reference to these possibilities, we may add a suggestive note from the Rev. 

 A. M. Fairbairn's remarks on the Semitic Races in their religious aspect (' The 



Contemporary Review,' Oct. 1873, vol. viii. p. 792): 



2 R 2 



