1 6 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



ailments. The ancient varieties sometimes take the form of stone 

 rings which Air. Wood-Martin labels, " enormous wedding rings." 

 Circular " secondary holed-stones " known to have been " lying for 

 ages in the church yard of Kirk Braddan in the Isle of Man," remain, 

 according to Mr. Wood-Martin, " ready for use by any bewildered 

 bridegroom who may have forgotten to bring the ring for his bride." 

 It is a far cry from the Manx stone rings to the stone " collars " of 

 the aborigines of Porto Rico, but both may have been connected with 

 rites of similar intention. 1 



Fig. 9. — Holed-Stone, Ireland, from Wood-Martin 

 Irish Views). 



(Welsh's 



For obvious reasons I shall not attempt to consider the phallic side 

 of the study of monoliths, but my presentation would be incomplete if 

 it were not mentioned. It is self evident that the mystery of the 

 origin of life made a profound impression on the mind of the primitive 

 as well as on the most hisrhlv educated mind. 



1 In a short article in the American Anthropologist (Vol. 1.3, No. 3, 191 1) 

 Mr. Herbert Janvrin Browne interprets the Porto Rican slender stone collars 

 as representing the female sex organ used in auto-suggestion at birth. He also 

 identifies on them the different anatomical parts. It is not unlikely that these 

 enigmatical objects may be connected with germination ceremonies, but how far 

 we can go in comparing them in detail with the organ mentioned is not wholly 

 satisfactorily determined. 



