216 . THE STONE AGE — PAST AND PRESENT. 



ticed that this (in the form of a sharp splinter of bamboo) was 

 the regular instrument with which circumcision was performed 

 in the Fiji islands.^ And as to the use of the stone circum- 

 cising knife, it is stated by Leutholf, who is looked upon as a 

 good authority, that it was in use in Ethiopia in his time, — 

 " The Alnajah, an ^Ethiopian race, perform circumcision with 

 stone knives." " Alnajah gens -^Ethiopum cultris lapideis cir- 

 cumcisionem peragit."^ This would be in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. And though the modern Jews generally use a steel 

 knife, there appears to be a remarkable exception to this cus- 

 tom ; that when a male child dies before the eighth day, it is 

 nevertheless circumcised before burial, but this is done, not 

 with the ordinary instrument, bu.t with a fragment of flint or 

 glass.^ 



Under the reservation just stated, a recognition among the 

 Jewish ordinances of the practice of slaughtering a beast with 

 a [sharp] stone, may here be cited from the Mishna : — 



" If a person has slaughtered [a beast] with a hand-sickle, a 

 [sharp] stone, or a reed, it is caslwr," i.e. clean, or fit to be 

 eaten. Here not only the context, but the necessity of shed- 

 ding the animal's blood, proves that a proper cutting instrument 

 of stone, or at least a sharp-edged piece, is meant. 



Before drawing any inference from these pieces of evidence, 

 it will be well to bring together other accounts of the use of 

 cutting instruments of stone, glass, etc., by people who, though 

 in possession of iron knives, for some reason or other did not 

 choose to apply them to certain purposes. Thus the practice 

 of sacrificing a beast, not with a knife or an axe, but with a 

 sharp stone, has been observed on the West Coast of Africa 

 during the last century, as will be more fully detailed in page 

 222. 



^ Mariner, vol. i. p. 329; vol. ii. p. 252; Yocab. s.vv. " camo," "tefe." 

 Williams, ' Fiji,' vol. i. p. 166. 



2 Ludolfi ' Ilistoria iEtliiopica ;' Frankfort-on-Maine, 1581, iii. 1. 21. 



' My autliority for this statement is Mr. Philip Abraham, Secretary of the 

 Eefoniaed Synagogue in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square. 

 - ■» Mishna, Treatise Cholin, ch. i. 2. 



