140 



REV, D. GATH WHITLEY, ON 



It has been thought that these Palaeolithic carvings of 

 animals were allied to the fetishes of the Western African 

 tribes. It may have been so, but many of the Negroes of West 

 Africa who attach a superstitious reverence to these fetishes 

 adore a supreme god also. 



Supreme Gods. 



If these figures represented minor divinities and guardian 

 spirits, is there any evidence that Primeval Man had any higher 

 beliefs, and adored supreme gods ? Let us see what can be said 

 on this point. 



There are some theorists who hold that in Palaeolithic times 

 the worship of the sun was practised by the earliest men. On 

 the " staffs of office " carried by these ancient men we often find 

 a representation of the disc of the sun, with rays spreading from 

 it on all sides. M. Girocl has described a carving of the sun 

 with diverging rays found in the cave of Laugerie-Basse in 

 the Dordogne.* M. Piette has found a similar representation 

 of the sun in the cave of Gourdan in the Pyrenees, and has 

 found the sun three times engraved on another baton which 

 either belonged to a chief or a priest. Possibly these were 

 Totems, but the sun must have been — as it always is — the Totem 

 of the Supreme God. A strange theory concerning the worship 

 of the sun in Palaeolithic times has been put forward by 

 M. Eochebrune.f He states that all the caves which he had 

 explored in Charente, and which contained the remains of 

 Palaeolithic Man, opened to the north-east. This was — so he 

 declares — because Palaeolithic Man could, from the mouth of 

 these caverns, worship the rising sun. I make no comment on 

 this theory. The carvings of the sun on the sceptres of office 

 used in Palaeolithic times may indicate that the chief was the sun 

 of his tribe for power, wisdom, and glory, and that his people 

 were delighted to enjoy the sunshine of his favour. But besides 

 this there are indications that the worship of the serpent, as the 

 great deity of evil, prevailed in Palaeolithic times. The evidence 

 for this is striking : let us examine it in detail. 



MM. Christy and Lartet found in the cave of La Madelaine 

 in the Dordogne, in an undoubted Palaeolithic deposit, a fragment 

 of a reindeer horn on which was carved a remarkable picture.^ 



* Les Invasions Paleolithiques, Plate XX. 



t Memoirs sw les /testes aV Industrie aux Temps Primodiaux de la fiace 

 Ilumaine recuelles dans le Department de la Charante, pp. 26, 27. 

 | See Reliquiae Acquitania 3 , Book II, Plate II, fig. 8, p. 16. 



