Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (191 5 J, No. 10. 107 



as a receptacle for the body while it is undergoing the 

 process of mummification " (p. 269). This association of 

 the use of a canoe with a method of preservation 

 obviously Egyptian in origin naturally provokes com- 

 parison with the use of boats in the Egyptian funeral 

 ceremonies. An instance is the boat found in the tomb 

 of Amenophis II. (81). The platform is probably a type 

 of bed found elsewhere in the region under consideration 

 (see, for instance, Roth's account of the Queensland 

 sleeping-platform) and represents the bier found so often 

 elsewhere {vide supra). This is in no way inconsistent 

 with Rivers' view that " exposure of the dead on plat- 

 forms is only a survival of preservation in a house " 



(P- 2 73)- 



Earlier in this memoir I have explained why the 



Egyptians came to attach special importance to the head, 

 and how the less cultured people of Africa, when faced 

 with the difficulties of preserving the body, saved the 

 skull (or in some cases the jaw). When it is recalled how 

 widespread this custom is in other parts of the "heliolithic 

 area," and how deep-rooted were the ideas which prompted 

 so curious a procedure, Rivers' independent inference in 

 regard to this matter is fully confirmed. " Many practices 

 become intelligible as elements of a single culture if we 

 suppose that a people imbued with the necessity for the 

 preservation of the body after death acquired .... the 

 further idea that the skull is the representative of the 

 body as a whole ; if they came to believe that the purpose 

 for which they had hitherto preserved the body could be 

 fulfilled as well if the head only were kept" (p. 273). This 

 is unquestionably true: but I dissent from Rivers' qualifi- 

 cation that this modification happened "perhaps in the 

 course of their wanderings towards Oceania," because it 

 has already been seen that it had occurred before the 



