I860.] Kett on Prehistoric Records. 243 



and with the amount of elaborate ornamentation that we find at a 

 later date. 



The sole wealth of this pastoral people consisted of cattle and 

 slaves, with the few simple utensils referred to above ; raids, we may 

 well imagine, were not more uncommon than we find them at later 

 periods, and accordingly we find that military terms are widely 

 diffused. The warrior was armed with the lance, the javelin, the bow- 

 and-arrow, sword, mace, battle-axe, perhaps the sling. He defended 

 himself with a shield, but we cannot trace other defensive armour. 

 Horses were yoked to chariots, but do not seem to have been used for 

 riding. In fact, riding was an accomplishment acquired about the 

 time of the early settlements in Europe, but shortly before we come 

 to some trace of actual history. Instruments of music gave signals of 

 war and encouraged the combatants. Little, probably, was known of 

 navigation before the arrival of the nations at the Caspian, or even at 

 the Black Sea or Hellespont. 



Family ties were recognized and respected in this early condition 

 of our race. The ceremonials common at marriage-festivals prove the 

 importance attached to that event. Brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, 

 nephews, nieces, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, and 

 sister-in-law, each had their names and their position. Families in- 

 creased into clans, and clans into tribes. The father developed into 

 the chieftain ; the chieftain into the war leader, — the king ; and the 

 heads of families into elders and senators ; but the rights of the 

 younger men, freemen and not slaves, were respected. Territorial 

 possessions were fixed and bounded, property descended by inherit- 

 ance ; buying, selling, and exchange, were resorted to. Nor had life 

 only a serious aspect. Besides the amusements of the chase, these 

 early peoples cultivated music, dancing, poetry. The reed-flute and a 

 stringed instrument were added to their martial music. Dice, and 

 possibly some game like draughts, were the pastimes of the chiefs. 



Of their religious feelings it is more difficult to speak. They 

 seem to have recognized the soul as something to be distinguished 

 from the mere breath of life. They had terms to express knowledge, 

 will, memory, thought, and these abstract words were removed from 

 their original concrete signification. It is clear that all abstract terms 

 are derivable from sensuous ideas, but this step of derivation was 

 made by the early Aryans. In their early realization of the abstract, 

 no nation approached this race so early destined to be vigorous in 

 philosophic culture and penetration. 



A decimal system of notation, founded probably, as amongst most 

 other races, on numeration by the fingers, was current before the Dis- 

 persion. The year consisted of 360 days, and was divided by the 

 revolutions of the moon. The Great Bear* had received its name, 

 though planets were not as yet distinguished from fixed stars. By the 

 Milky Way souls were conducted to the sky. A tradition of a deluge 

 that destroyed the human race was handed down, but their religion 

 had become a polytheism, a worshipping of the powers of nature per- 



* Max Muller's ' Lectures on the Science of Language,' 2nd series, p. 361. 



