82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



dead, for when an article is broken, it belongs to the spirits. On Haugmena night, 

 New Year's Eve (for " Haug " meaiis a " ghost," and the spirits then pay the earth 

 a visit, as they do also at Hallow-eve, and the Eve of May-Day), it is a; custom 

 among Highlanders to drink a toast, and then to thiow the wine-glasses over the 

 left shoulder, no doubt once a mode of making an offering to ancestral ghosts. 

 The Maori used to always offer a grace to ancestors by throwing a little food over 

 the left shoulder. On spilling salt, many people, to avert ill-luck, throw salt over 

 the left shoulder. All this dates back to an era when our ancestors were some- 

 what like the old aborigines at Pedro. 



The ashes and a few bones were quite consistent with funeral, or memorial 

 feasts. There were indications that the place had been opened before, and it is 

 possible that skeletons may have been carried av/ay^ 



The pottery we found was of singular interest. There were some dishes about 

 six inches long, very shallow and graceful in shape, with handles formed of frogs' 

 heads most artistically executed. I have not seen anything of the sort to equal 

 them in the Peabody Museum collection from Central America. 



The frog was the symbol of rain and of the rain-god in Mexico and in Central 

 America. The pottery was evidently intended to be hung up, as it was pierced, or 

 had handles for that purpose, like Guanche pottery. The gypsies, who, lika' the 

 Berber tribes on the coast opposite the Canaries, hang up their drinking cups, believe 

 that if they are allowed to touch the ground they are thereby consecrated to the 

 dead, and must be broken in pieces. 



Before I dismiss the subject of destroying articles as a mode of offering them 

 to spirits, I may mention a singular custom of the Spanish gypsies, who at a cer- 

 tain feast collect many .bushels of confections made (if I remember right) of white 

 powdered sugar. These are thrown on the floor of the dancing room, until it is 

 covered with a layer two or three inches deep. Of course the cost of this pro- 

 ceeding is a ver>' heavy one. The Gypsies then, men and women, commence a 

 weird, frenzied dance, in which they work themselves up into a delirium and then 

 sink down exhausted. The sugar clogs their feet, and covers their legs and 

 garments, and when they cease dancing, they present a most singular and sorry 

 picture. 



Though archaeologists cannot conjecture the origin of this custom, we may 

 form a shrewd guess as to what this dance means. The ghosts are in for a big 

 candy frolic, and the sweetmeats must be destroyed before the spirits can own them. 

 The rationale of these ideas is, I think, capable of a very simple explanation. With 

 primitive races of men everything in nature has its spiritual dotible. The soul of 

 the hunter's dog goes to the Land of the Blessed and hunts game there for his master, 

 just as he did on earth ; and the warrior fights, loves, and feasts as heartily as he 

 did when in the flesh, (i) 



In the Peabody Museum of Anthropology there is to be seen half a bushel of 

 pearls, some of large size, that have been subjected to the action of fire. They 

 have not been destroyed ; they have only been translated to the necks and arms 

 of tawny warriors. Who knows that the only pale-faced ghost, that of the late 

 George Washington, that ever found its way into the Red Man's Paradise, may 

 not have often seen and admired them ? 



All this serves to explain the meaning of the Mysteries, or initiations of pre- 

 historic man, and of antiquity. With Christians admission to the' society of the 

 blessed must be obtained through the atonement. With primitive man this was 



(i) Maspero in "The Struggle of the Nations," a translation of which has ju?t been published byApplelr n 

 & Co. (N. Y., 1897), since the above paper was read, says (p. 523) of the mummies of pets of the deceased placed 

 in Egyptian tomljs, "A few of the principal objects were broken or damaged, in the belief that by thus 

 destroying them their double would go forth and accompany the human double, and render him their accustomed 

 service during the whole of his posthumous existence." 



This is a singular confirmation of my conjecture, and shows how much of prehistoric man survived in 

 the Egyptian. 



