The Clyde Mystery Part 5

{ Fig. 6: p80b.jpg}

It suffices me to have tried to prove the parallelism between Australian and Clyde things, and to record Dr. Munro's denial thereof--"I unhesitatingly maintain that there is no parallelism whatever between the two sets of objects." {80b}

{ Fig. 7: p80c.jpg}

XX--UNMARKED CHARM STONES

It must be kept in mind that churinga, "witch stones," "charm stones," or whatever the smaller stones may be styled, are not necessarily marked with any pattern. In Australia, in Portugal, in Russia, in France, in North America, in Scotland, as we shall see, such stones may be unmarked, may bear no inscription or pattern. {81} These are plain magic stones, such as survive in English peasant superst.i.tion.

In Dr. Munro's _Ancient Lake Dwellings of Europe_, plain stone discs, perforated, do occur, but rarely, and there are few examples of pendants with cupped marks. Of these two, as being cupped pendants, might look like a.n.a.logues of the disputed Clyde stones, but Dr. Munro, owing to the subsequent exposure of the "Horn Age" forgeries, now has "a strong suspicion that he was taken in" by the things. {82a}

To return to Scottish stones.

In Mr. Graham Callander's essay on perforated stones, {82b} he publishes an uninscribed triangular stone, with a perforation, apparently for suspension. This is one of several such Scottish stones, and though we cannot prove it, may have had a superst.i.tious purpose. Happily Sir Walter Scott discovered and describes the magical use to which this kind of charm stone was put in 1814. When a person was unwell, in the Orkney Isles, the people, like many savages, supposed that a wizard had stolen his heart. "The parties' friends resort to a cunning man or woman, who hangs about the [patient's] neck a triangular stone in the shape of a heart." {82c} This is a thoroughly well-known savage superst.i.tion, the stealing of the heart, or vital spirit, and its restoration by magic.

This use of triangular or heart-shaped perforated stones was not inconsistent with the civilisation of the nineteenth century, and, of course, was not inconsistent with the civilisation of the Picts. A stone may have magical purpose, though it bears no markings. Meanwhile most churinga, and many of the disputed objects, have archaic markings, which also occur on rock faces.

XXI--QUALITY OF ART ON THE STONES

Dr. Munro next reproduces two _wooden_ churinga (_churinga irula_), as being very unlike the Clydesdale objects _in stone_ {84a} (figures 5, 6).

They are: but I was speaking of Australian _churinga nanja_, of _stone_.

A stone churinga {84b} presented, I think, by Mr. Spencer through me to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries (also reproduced by Dr. Munro), is a much better piece of work, as I saw when it reached me, than most of the Clyde things. "The Clyde amulets are," says Dr. Munro, "neither strictly oval," (_nor are very many Australian samples_,) "nor well finished, nor symmetrical, being generally water-worn fragments of shale or clay slate.

. . ." They thus resemble ancient Red Indian pendants.

As to the art of the patterns, the Australians have a considerable artistic gift; as Grosse remarks, {85a} while either the Clyde folk had less, or the modern artists had _not_ "some practical artistic skill."

But Dr. Munro has said that any one with "some practical artistic skill"

could whittle the Clyde objects. {85b} He also thinks that in one case they "disclose the hand of one not altogether ignorant of art" (p. 231).

Let me put a crucial question. Are the archaic markings on the disputed objects better, or worse, or much on a level with the general run of such undisputably ancient markings on large rocks, cists, and cairns in Scotland? I think the art in both cases is on the same low level. When the art on the disputed objects is more formal and precise, as on some s.h.i.+vered stones at Dunbuie, "the stiffness of the lines and figures reminds one more of rule and compa.s.s than of the free-hand work of prehistoric artists." {85c} The modern faker sometimes drew his marks "free-hand," and carelessly; sometimes his regularities suggest line and compa.s.s.

Now, as to the use of compa.s.ses, a small pair were found with Late Celtic remains, at Lough Crew, and plaques of bone decorated by aid of such compa.s.ses, were also found, {85d} in a cairn of a set adorned with the archaic markings, cup and ring, concentric circles, medial lines with shorter lines sloping from them on either side, and a design representing, apparently, an early mono-cycle!

For all that I know, a dweller in Dunbuie might have compa.s.ses, like the Lough Crew cairn artist.

If I have established the parallelism between Arunta churinga nanja and the disputed Clyde "pendants," which Dr. Munro denies, we are reduced to one of two theories. Either the Picts of Clyde, or whoever they were, repeated on stones, usually small, some of the patterns on the neighbouring rocks; or the modern faker, for unknown reasons, repeated these and other archaic patterns on smaller stones. His motive is inscrutable: the Australian parallels were unknown to European science,--but he may have used European a.n.a.logues. On the other hand, while Dr. Munro admits that the early Clyde people might have repeated the rock decorations "on small objects of slate and shale," he says that the objects "would have been, even then, as much out of place as surviving remains of the earlier Scottish civilisation as they are at the present day." {86}

How can we a.s.sert that magic stones, or any such stone objects, perforated or not, were necessarily incongruous with "the earlier Scottish civilisation?" No civilisation, old or new, is incapable of possessing such stones; even Scotland, as I shall show, can boast two or three samples, such as the stone of the Keiss broch, a perfect circle, engraved with what looks like an attempt at a Runic inscription; and another in a kind of cursive characters.

XXII--SURVIVAL OF MAGIC OF STONES

If "incongruous with the earlier Scottish civilisation" the use of "charm stones" is not incongruous with the British civilisation of the nineteenth century.

In the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries_ (Scot.) (1902-1903, p.

166 _et seq._) Mr. Graham Callander, already cited, devotes a very careful essay to such perforated stones, circular or triangular, or otherwise shaped, found in the Garioch. They are of slate, or "heather stone," and of various shapes and sizes. Their original purpose is unknown. The perforation, or cup not perforated, is sometimes in the centre, in a few cases in "near the end." Mr. Graham Callander heard of a recent old lady in Roxburghs.h.i.+re, who kept one of these stones, of irregularly circular shape, behind the door for luck. {88} "It was always spoken of as a charm," though its ancient maker may have intended it for some prosaic practical use.

{ Fig. 8: p88.jpg}

I take the next example that comes to hand.

"Thin flat oolite stones, having a natural perforation, are found in abundance on the Yorks.h.i.+re coast. They are termed "witch stones," and are tied to door keys, or suspended by a string behind the cottage door, "to keep witches out." {89} "A thin flat perforated witch stone,"

answers to an uninscribed Arunta churinga; "a magic thing," and its use survives in Britain, as in Yorks.h.i.+re and Roxburghs.h.i.+re. We know no limit to the persistence of survival of superst.i.tious things, such as magic stones. This is the familiar lesson of Anthropology and of Folk Lore, and few will now deny the truth of the lesson.

XXIII--MODERN SURVIVAL OF MAGICAL WOOD CHURINGA

I take another example of modern survival in magic. Dr. Munro, perhaps, would think wooden churinga, used for magical ends, "incongruous with the earlier Scottish civilisation." But such objects have not proved to be incongruous with the Scottish civilisation of the nineteenth century.

The term _churinga_, "sacred," is used by the Arunta to denote not only the stone churinga nanja, a local peculiarity of the Arunta and Kaitish, but also the decorated and widely diffused elongated wooden slats called "Bull Roarers" by the English. These are swung at the end of a string, and produce a whirring roar, supposed to be the voice of a supernormal being, all over Australia and elsewhere.

I am speaking of _survivals_, and these wooden churinga, at least, _survive_ in Scotland, and, in Aberdeens.h.i.+re they are, or were lately called "thunner spells" or "thunder bolts." "It was believed that the use of this instrument during a thunderstorm saved one from being struck by the thunner bolt." In North and South America the bull roarer, on the other hand, is used, not to avert, but magically to produce thunder and lightning. {91} Among the Kaitish thunder is caused by the churinga of their "sky dweller," Atnatu.

Wherever the toy is used for a superst.i.tious purpose, it is, so far, _churinga_, and, so far, modern Aberdeens.h.i.+re had the same _churinga irula_ as the Arunta. The object was familiar to palaeolithic man.

XXIV--CONCLUSION OF ARGUMENT FROM SURVIVALS IN MAGIC

I have made it perfectly certain that magic stones, "witch stones,"

"charm stones," and that _churinga irula_, wooden magical slats of wood, exist in Australia and other savage regions, and survive, as magical, into modern British life. The point is beyond doubt, and it is beyond doubt that, in many regions, the stones, and the slats of wood, may be inscribed with archaic markings, or may be uninscribed. This will be proved more fully later. Thus Pictish, like modern British civilisation, may a.s.suredly have been familiar with charm stones. There is no _a priori_ objection as to the possibility.

Why should Pictish stones _not_ be inscribed with archaic patterns familiar to the dwellers among inscribed rocks, perhaps themselves the inscribers of the rocks? Manifestly there is no _a priori_ improbability. I have seen the archaic patterns of concentric circles and fish spines, (or whatever we call the medial line with slanting side lines,) neatly designed in white on the flag stones in front of cottage doors in Galloway. The cottagers dwelt near the rocks with similar patterns on the estate of Monreith, but are not likely to have copied them; the patterns, I presume, were mere survivals in tradition.

The Picts, or whoever they were, might a.s.suredly use charm stones, and the only objection to the idea that they might engrave archaic patterns on them is the absence of record of similarly inscribed small stones in Britain. The custom of using magic stones was not at all incongruous with the early Pictish civilisation, which retained a form of the Family now long outworn by the civilisation of the Arunta. The sole objection is that _a silentio_, silence of archaeological records as to _inscribed_ small stones. That is not a closer of discussion, nor is the silence absolute, as I shall show.

Moreover, the appearance of an unique and previously unheard-of set of inscribed stones, in a site of the usual broch and crannog period, is not invariably ascribed to forgery, even by the most orthodox archaeologists.

Thus Sir Francis Terry found unheard-of things, not to mention "a number of thin flat circular discs of various sizes" in his Caithness brochs. In Wester broch "the most remarkable things found" were three egg-shaped quartzite pearls "having their surface painted with spots in a blackish or blackish-brown pigment." He also found a flattish circular disc of sandstone, inscribed with a duck or other water-fowl, while on one side was an attempt, apparently, to write runes, on the other an inscription in unknown cursive characters. There was a boulder of sandstone with nine cup marks, and there were more painted pebbles, the ornaments now resembling ordinary cup marks, now taking the shape of a cross, and now of lines and other patterns, one of which, on an Arunta rock, is of unknown meaning, among many of known totemic significance.

Dr. Joseph Anderson compares these to "similar pebbles painted with a red pigment" which M. Piette found in the cavern of Mas d'Azil, of which the relics are, in part at least, palaeolithic, or "mesolithic," and of dateless antiquity. In _L'Anthropologie_ (Nov. 1894), Mr. Arthur Bernard Cook suggests that the pebbles of Mas d'Azil may correspond to the stone churinga nanja of the Arunta; a few of which appear to be painted, not incised. I argued, on the contrary, that things of similar appearance, at Mas d'Azil: in Central Australia: and in Caithness, need not have had the same meaning and purpose. {95a}

It is only certain that the pebbles of the Caithness brochs are as absolutely unfamiliar as the inscribed stones of Dumbuck. But n.o.body says that the Caithness painted pebbles are forgeries or modern fabrications. Sauce for the Clyde goose is not sauce for the Caithness gander. {95b}