533 
inclined to believe that in the earliest times, as indeed is 
natural, the body was buried unburnt, that to this succeeded 
a time of burning, to be again succeeded by the first mode. 
During all these periods it appears probable that the belief 
in a future state of existence was prevalent, as will be seen 
sufficiently as I detail the circumstances of the burial. 
And to take that of burning first. After the body was 
more or less consumed, which it appears to have been in most 
cases, accompanied with certain of the deceased person's arms, 
implements or ornaments, the ashes were gathered and placed 
either in an urn of badly-baked clay, or in a stone kist, a hol- 
low made in the ground, or merely placed upon the surface. 
Sometimes this was done on the very place of the burning, but 
more frequently at a little distance apart from it. Over the 
deposit of calcined bones was then raised a mound of earth, 
or -stones, according to the nature of the locality. Whilst 
this mound was being raised, the friends or relatives appear 
to have thrown in, from time to time, chippings of flint or 
quartz, and broken shreds of pottery, it is probable with some 
symbolical meaning. Was flint, the producer of fire, emble- 
matical of regeneration and a new life ; and was the potsherd, 
the vessel, broken, and its use gone, a type of the old life 
departed, of dissolution, and decay ? * With the burnt bones, 
besides the weapons and implements which have been burnt 
with the body, are not unfrequently deposited unburnt arrow- 
* "What are pious rites in one religion are frequently accounted accursed in a 
new one, and it is not impossible that this, a sacred Pagan custom, Was remem- 
bered in Christian times, but was then associated with what is irreligious and 
unholy. A passage in Hamlet may have reference to this ancient practice, where 
the priest, answering Laertes relative to the burial of Ophelia, a suicide, and so 
unholy, says : — 
" Her death was doubtful ; 
And, but that great command o'ersways the order, 
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd 
Till the last trump ; for charitable prayers, 
Shards, flints, and pebbles, should be thrown 011 her." 
