Now, in a certain modified sense, I should be quite prepared to admit a stone age. Nothing more probable than that in the dispersion certain families would have taken only what came readiest to hand. Those who made long marches, and came to countries where minerals were scarce, would have been in the way of losing the knowledge of metals altogether, except in so far as they preserved the tradition of them; and this would much depend upon how far they preserved other traditions.[243] Some instance should be given us—and as there are savages who are still using nothing but flint, there is still the chance—of some set of savages who have spontaneously hit upon the plan of fusing different metals, or even of smelting metals which were under their eye? Certainly not our supposed flint ancestors, who, as Professor Nillson and Sir J. Lubbock agree, must have got their knowledge of bronze from Asia: Sir J. Lubbock inclining to an Indo-European, Professor Nillson to a Phœnician “origin of the bronze age civilisation.” (“Pre-historic Times,” p. 49.) All this perfectly coincides with the view I have indicated, that the contrast arose through the divergence of the lines of the dispersion, leading the tribes to varied fortunes, some losing and others retaining the tradition; and those who retained it eventually communicating it to those who had lapsed. But then there are those unfortunate Bashkirs, who, Professor Nillson tells us, are still in their stone age, and who have remained Bashkirs since Herodotus described them as such 2300 years ago. As they have resisted the contact of civilisation so long, one can only watch with careful curiosity the transitionary process by which they will pass by internal development from their stone to their bronze age.[244]
I must now revert to what I at present wish to limit the discussion, viz. Sir J. Lubbock’s views on the subject of tradition.
Sir John says that history can throw no light upon the question of the stone and bronze age, “because the use of metals has in all cases preceded that of writing.” I should like to know whether Sir John is prepared to adhere to this “dictum” under all circumstances, inasmuch as, if he does, he must allow me to trace the use of metals in Assyria even beyond the date at which Professor Rawlinson seems actually to have found evidence of their use; for (pp. 80, 198) “in the ruins of Warka, the ancient Huruk or Erech” (the city of Nimrod) we find inscriptions on bricks of the date of the reign of Urukh or Orchamus, who, according to classical tradition, was the seventh in succession from Bel or Nimrod; which tradition, says Rawlinson (p. 189), “accords very curiously with the information derived from the inscriptions.” There is nothing to indicate that the bricks here discovered were the first bricks ever inscribed; on the contrary, wherever we find bricks and metals there will be a prima facie presumption as to their previous use.[245] Only upon Sir John Lubbock’s “dictum,” finding evidence of writing at this date, we must necessarily conclude that the use of metals preceded it. This would bring us well up the seven reigns, and into close contact with the time of Nimrod.
“Nor,” says Sir J. Lubbock (p. 335), “will tradition supply the place of history. At best it is untrustworthy and shortlived. Thus in 1770 the New Zealanders had no recollection of Tasman’s visit. Yet this took place in 1643, less than one hundred and thirty years before, and must have been to them an event of the greatest possible importance and interest.... I do not mean to say that tradition would never preserve for a long period the memory of any remarkable event. The above-mentioned facts (De Soto’s expedition is also referred to) prove only that it will not always do so; but it is unnecessary for us to discuss this question, as there is in Europe no tradition of the Stone Age, and when arrow-heads are found the ignorant peasantry refer them to the elves or fairies; stone axes are regarded as thunderbolts, and are used not only in Europe but also in various other parts of the world for magical purposes” (p. 336).
“Relieved” then “from the embarrassing interference of tradition, the archæologist can only follow the methods which have been so successfully pursued in geology” (p. 336).[246]
This is partly a limitation of the question to oral tradition, and partly an anticipated denial of what I shall now venture to assert, namely, that we can only look for the savages’ traditions of things known to them before they were savages, religious impressions which have not been effaced from their minds, legends connected with their race, facts which have determined their destiny. The very characteristic of the savage is that he lives only for the present; that he has little memory for the past, and no forecast for the future; that his mind is stricken with a hopeless sterility and fixedness, so that he only seems to remember things that are bred in the bone, and the tradition of which he cannot divest himself.[247]
And so the ignorant peasantry when these flints were first dug up, although they had “no tradition,” rushed instinctively upon these hatchets and considered them magical, apparently on no better grounds than that they had belonged to a former race of men whom they associated with elves and fairies. Was not this their way of saying with Cicero, “Antiquitas proxime accedit ad deos.”[248]
And so far from tradition supplying us with no clue to solve the problem of the stone age, does it not in this way suggest a very decided though an antagonistic view to that of Sir John Lubbock. The superstitious regard of the peasantry for these newly found relics—which I presume came under Sir John’s own observation when exploring the northern coast-finds—is really very curious, because it shows that their ideas and feelings in these matters were, after the lapse of at any rate a thousand years, identical with those of their ancestors. In evidence of which I adduce the following passage from Professor Nillson, having reference to the legend of the “guse arrows” or “Orvar Odd’s saga”:—
“This ancient romance shows very clearly that at the time when it was composed, neither arrows, nor other weapons of stone were in common use as weapons, but that even then the opinion was generally current that these stone weapons, which owed their existence to the dwarf race skilled in sorcery, were endowed with a magic power against witches and witchcraft which no other weapons possessed.”—Professor Nillson, “Stone Age,” p. 199.
But this suggests the further reflection, whether this stone age among certain tribes was not as much in rejection as in ignorance of metals. Professor Nillson (p. 97, 98) shows that flint was used for sacred sacrificial purposes by the Jews, Egyptians, Phœnicians, and Latins, long after they were acquainted with weapons of metal. Among these the traditional idea about flint, whatever it was, was kept in due subordination; but among tribes that had sunk into savagery it is conceivable that it may have become a superstition, and dominated.