PllOTECTION OF THE BODY. 13 



on the south aud east than ou the north and west ; indeed they 

 are but rarely found on the last-mentioned sides. It is probable 

 that the desire to face the sun guided them in this, as it has other 

 peoples. The feeling- still exists among-st ourselves ; for the preju- 

 dice against burying on the norths the dark, side of the churchyard 

 is strong- in most parts of Eng-land, and it is only where the crowded 

 state of the burial-ground has compelled it, that others than un- 

 baptised children and suicides have been buried there. The same 

 rule has held in ancient times in other places. Nearly all the 

 dolmens of Brittany have the openings between the south and east 

 points of the compass ; and the avenues in the same country appear 

 to have a like orientation ^ 



In most cases there is nothing- to protect the body ag-ainst the pres- 

 sure of the overlying soil, but now and then a few large blocks of flint 

 or thin slabs of chalk have been placed round it, thus forming a kind 

 of rude covering; and, from the appearance of the earth immediately 

 in contact with the bones, it would seem that turfs had sometimes 

 been laid over the corpse. The interring in cists^ that is, in coffiiis, 

 made of four or more stones set on edge, with a cover, so common 

 in other parts ^, is, as might indeed be expected, almost entirely 

 wanting upon the wolds. In a chalk district like the wolds it was 

 impossible to procure the requisite slabs, except by bringing them 

 from a distance with great toil. I only know of one instance, at 

 Rudstone, where cists have occurred, there placed in a deep grave, 

 sunk in the chalk rock, and where the stones of which they were com- 

 posed must have been brought from a place at least twelve miles 

 distant. In some rare cases wood was used as a protection to the 

 body, after the fashion of a coffin, made out of a split and hollowed 

 tree trunk, of which the well-known Gristhorpe burial is an 

 example. The bottom of a grave has sometimes been laid with 

 slabs of wood ; and in one instance a wooden flooring had been 

 placed upon short posts, driven in at the head and foot of the grave, 

 the sides of which also showed, by the impression on the clay, that 



^ See a paper by the Eev. W. C. Liikis, M.A., F.S.A., on the * Stone Avenues of 

 Carnac,' in the Transactions of the Geological and Polytechnic Society of the West 

 Riding of Yorkshire, 1869. 



^ The very natural mode of interring in cists of stone, of gi-eater or less size, and of 

 different shapes, has prevailed in almost all parts of the Old World, where suitable 

 stone was to be had ; nor is it necessary to give references. The same mode was 

 adopted in the New World. Mr. Chai-les Ran says that in Illinois the cemeteiies are 

 ger.ei-ally situated on high gxound, and the graves usually consist of rough limestone 

 slabs, placed in a rectangular form, no rule as to the cardinal points being observed. 

 Jones, Antiqiiities of the Southern Indians, p. 219. 



