SEPULCHRAL FEASTS. SACRIFICES. 115 



the barrow had not been disturbed. Of the remaining six 

 tumuli, two contained beautiful drinking vessels, of a very 

 well marked type, certainly in use during the Bronze age, 

 if not peculiar to it ; and in both these instances, as well as 

 in a third, the interment was accompanied with burnt human 

 bones, suggestive of dreadful rites. Even, however, if these 

 cases cannot be referred to the Bronze age, we still see that 

 out of the two hundred and ninety- seven interments only 

 sixty-three contained metal, or about twenty-one per cent., 

 while out of the eighteen cases of horses' remains twelve, 

 or about sixty-six per cent., certainly belonged to the me- 

 tallic period. This seems to be a prima facie evidence that 

 the horse was very rare, if not altogether unknown, in Eng- 

 land during the Stone age. Both the horse and bull appear 

 to have been sacrificed at graves during later times, and 

 probably formed part of the funeral feast. The teeth of 

 oxen are so common in tumuli, that they are even said by 

 Mr. Bateman to be " uniformly found with the more ancient 

 interments." 



The very frequent presence of the bones of animals in 

 tumuli appears to show that sepulchral feasts were generally 

 held in honor of the dead, and the numerous cases in which 

 interments were accompanied by burnt human bones tend 

 to prove the prevalence of still more dreadful customs, and 

 that not only horses* and dogs, but slaves also, were fre- 

 quently sacrificed at their masters' graves ; it is not impro- 

 bable that wives often were burnt with their husbands, as 

 in India and among many savage tribes. For instance, 

 among the Feegees it is usual on the -death of a chief to sacri- 

 fice a certain number of slaves, whose bodies "are called 

 'grass' for bedding" the grave.f "It is probable," says 



* Even so lately as in 1781, Frederick Casimir was laid in his grave with his 

 slaughtered horse. Horse ferales, p. 66. 



f Manners and Customs of the Feegees, by T. Williams, 1860, vol. i. p. 189. 



