Fig. 228.—Stone Crescent found in one of the Swiss Lakes
Several archæologists consider these crescents to have been religious emblems or talismans which were suspended either outside or inside the habitations. Dr. Keller is of opinion that they bear some relation to the worship of the moon—an hypothesis which is not at all an impossible one; for all nations who have not attained to a certain degree of moral and intellectual culture adore the heavenly bodies as the sources of light and heat.
M. Carl Vogt, in considering the crescents which have been discovered in such large quantities in the lacustrine habitations, cannot admit that they indicate that any religious belief existed among these ancient nations. He attributes to these objects a very different kind of use, and, as we shall presently show, rather an odd one.
In the lectures on pre-historic man which were delivered by Prof. Carl Vogt at Antwerp, in 1868, and have been reported by the Belgian journals,[37] when speaking on the subject of the crescents belonging to the bronze epoch, he expresses himself as follows:—
"My opinion is that these crescents were used as resting-places for the head during the night. Among many savage tribes we find the attention paid to the dressing of the hair carried to a high pitch, especially among the men; it was not until a later period that woman also devoted her cares to the culture of her coiffure. Now this care is, by many nations, carried out to a really curious extent. They inflict the most severe tortures on themselves in order to satisfy their vanity. Everyone has seen, in the 'Magasin Pittoresque' and other illustrated journals, the strange head-dresses of the Abyssinian soldiers. They really seem to form a kind of fleece, and it may be noticed that each soldier carries in this hairy construction a large pin.
"Well, all this tends to explain the use of these crescents. In Abyssinia, as soon as a young girl is married it becomes her duty to devote herself to her husband's head of hair. This head of hair is made to assume a certain shape, which it has to retain during his whole lifetime. The labour which this process necessitates lasts for three years. Each hair is twisted round a stem of straw, and remains so until the straw perishes. The man's head is thus covered with a whole system of spirals, the top of which is a foot from the surface of his head. During the whole remainder of his life this coiffure must never be again disturbed. When asleep, the Abyssinian rests the nape of his neck on a triangle which he carries about everywhere with him. He has also a long pin, as it would be impossible for him to reach the skin of his head with the end of his finger.
"The same custom exists among the New Zealanders, who also have an apparatus upon which they rest their necks, in order, when asleep, to save their coiffures. They wear an enormous chignon, two feet high and ornamented with ribbons, of which they are very proud. The only difference between this chignon and certain others which I need not mention is, that the former cannot be removed at will. This object, thus adorned, rests, during the sleep of its owner, on a sort of framework.
"The Chinese and Japanese sleep, in the same way, on a bedstead bevelled off at the head; and in the Egyptian hieroglyphical drawings we find instruments evidently meant for the same use.
"It is very probable that during the bronze epoch great attention was devoted to the hair, and this is the more probable as in every tomb belonging to this period we find pins from 2 feet to 2½ feet in length, furnished with large knobs, and of the same shape as the pins used by the Abyssinian soldiers; and also, because during the Stone Age, as well as the Bronze Age, a kind of comb is found which is similar to that which is now used by the New Zealanders to scratch, rather than to comb, their heads. The heads of the pins are often very richly ornamented; they are of the most varied shapes, and are extremely common both in the tombs and also in the lacustrine dwellings.
"We have the less right to be astonished at our ancestors sleeping with their heads resting on such a machine as we have just described, knowing, as we do, that the hussars of Frederick the Great used to spend the whole night in arranging their coiffures!"