Fig. 75 represents a funeral ceremonial during the reindeer epoch.
[Illustration: Fig. 75.--A Funeral Ceremony during the Reindeer Epoch.]
The corpse is borne on a litter of boughs, a practice which is still in use among some modern savages. Men provided with torches, that is branches of resinous trees, preceded the funeral procession, in order to light the interior of the cavern. The cave is open, ready to receive the corpse, and it will be closed again after it is deposited there. The weapons, ornaments, and utensils which he had prized during his lifetime, are brought in to be laid by the side of the dead.
We will sum up the principal facts which we have laid before our readers in this account of the condition of mankind during the reindeer epoch, by quoting an eloquent passage from a report addressed by M. Édouard Dupont to the Belgian Minister of the Interior, on the excavations carried on by this eminent Belgian geologist in the caves in the neighbourhood of Furfooz.
"The data obtained from the fossils of Chaleux, together with those which have been met with in the caves of Furfooz, present us," says M. Dupont, "with a striking picture of the primitive ages of mankind in Belgium.
"These ancient tribes and all their customs, after having been buried in oblivion for thousands and thousands of years, are again vividly brought before our eyes; and, like the wondrous bird, which, in its ashes, found a new source of life, antiquity lives again in the relics of its former existence.
"We may almost fancy that we can see them in their dark and subterranean retreats, crouching round their hearths, and skilfully and patiently chipping out their flint instruments and shaping their reindeer-horn tools, in the midst of all the pestilential emanations arising from the various animal remains which their carelessness has allowed to remain in their dwellings. Skins of wild beasts are stripped of their hair, and, by the aid of flint needles, are converted into garments. In our mind's eye, we may see them engaged in the chase, and hunting wild animals--their only weapons being darts and spears, the fatal points of which are formed of nothing but a splinter of flint.
"Again, we are present at their feasts, in which, during the period when their hunting has been fortunate, a horse, a bear, or a reindeer becomes the more noble substitute for the tainted flesh of the rat, their sole resource in the time of famine.