12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



in its bearings on the former religious use of the megalithic monu- 

 ments. 



Windle, 1 in considering- the use of monoliths, writes : 

 Such stones have been in other countries not merely memorials of 

 some great deed or departed hero, but objects of worship, and the 

 same was probably the case in this country. 



Mr. Gomme, in an instructive work, " Survivals of Worship," 

 shows how the reverence once attached to them persists in folk prac- 

 tices. 



At the village of Holme situated on one of the moors of Dartmoor is a 

 field of about twu acres, the property of the parish and called Plog Field. In 

 the center of this field stands a granite pillar (menhir) 6 feet or 7 feet high. 

 On May mornings before daybreak the young men of the village used to 

 assemble there and then proceed to the moor where they released a ram lamb, 

 and after running it down brought it in triumph to the Plog Field, fastened it 

 to the pillar, cut its throat and then roasted it whole. 



The relation of megalithic chambers and burial tumuli is shown 

 by a writer in the following quotation from the Edinburgh Review : 



It may probably be assumed that the dolmen or cromlech was originally a 

 stone cist in the center of a tumulus meant to contain either one or more bodies. 

 This, afterwards, was expanded into a chamber for the accommodation of 

 several. In the third stage it was furnished with a passage or avenue of 

 entrance so as to be permanently accessible. In the fourth stage, the covering 

 tumulus was dispensed with ; but the last form most probably was when the 

 cromlech was placed externally on the top of the mound as a mere ornament 

 or simulated tomb, as we find in France and Algiers. 



The evidence drawn from a study of the monoliths known as men- 

 hirs, dolmens, and cromlechs seems conclusive that they were con- 

 nected with religious beliefs and always related in some way to the 

 dead or mortuary ceremonials. In western Europe these stones have 

 long since ceased to be used in religious rites, although survivals of 

 former ceremonials persisting in peasant folk lore, are significant. 

 We must look elsewhere in other lands where similar objects occur 

 for light upon the meaning of monoliths. Asia and Africa furnish 

 important aid in this study. 



Herr Kremer in his accounts of the ancient cults of Arabia makes 

 frequent allusions to natural stone worship, and in the village of Tarf 

 there was worshipped a great irregular stone block identical with a 



1 B. C. A. Windle, Life in Early Britain. London, 1897. This author also 

 writes : " The observation of Aristotle, to which Dr. Thurman calls attention, 

 that the Iberians used to place as many obelisks around the tomb of the dead 

 warrior as he had killed enemies perhaps gives a clue to the origin of this 

 custom." 



