28 ANCESTRAL MAN. 



When Ophelia, who had drowned herself, has to be buried, 

 the grave-diggers say — " Is she to be buried in christian burial, 

 " that wilfully seeks her own salvation?" "I tell thee, she is; 

 " therefore make her grave straight." Afterwards the priest 

 objects. Even in those days there were conscientious difficulties 

 about interments. " Her death," says the ecclesiastic, " was 

 " doubtful ; and, but that great command o'ersways the order 

 " she should in ground unsanctified have lodged, till the last 

 " trumpet ; for charitable prayers, shards,* flints, and pebbles 

 " should be thrown on her." 



V.— LINGUISTIC VESTIGES OF THE 

 STONE AGE. 



We have now been able to see, with considerable distinctness, 

 that the ancestors of all nations lived in a stone age when 

 they were unacquainted with metals, and when their implements 

 of wood, horn, or bone were tipped and strengthened by hard 

 substances like flint and obsidian. 



As this was universally the case, it is of course to be expected 

 that a careful examination into the languages and customs of 

 mankind would lead to much corroborative evidence of a highly 

 interesting nature : and perhaps even the very imperfect way in 

 which we are able to deal with the historical and linguistic part of 

 our subject may not be without a certain value. 



Mr. E. B. Tylor, in his Early History of Mankind, says 

 " superstition is the standing over of old habits into the midst of a 

 "new and changed state of things — the retention of ancient 

 " practices for ceremonial purposes, long after they have been 

 " superseded for the uses of ordinary life." 



Thus in ancient Egypt, in embalming, though the brain was 

 removed by a crooked iron, the body was incised by a sharp 

 Ethiopian stone. 



Among the Guanches of Teneriffe, though iron was in common 

 use, the bodies of the chiefs were cut open with obsidian knives. 



* That is pot-sherds, or broken pieces of earthenware. With the dead were buried 

 dead things— broken weapons, and vessels in fragments. 



