Yet were they also used to inculcate fear, and moreover had significance as expressions of sorrow and woe.
Thus the emotions, at first, were rather inextricably intermingled, nor are they yet entirely untangled and straightened out.
Not to inquire too closely into the vague stories of these prehistoric men, not to differentiate too exactly between Cro-Magnards and Grimaldis, we at least know a few things about the late Palæolithic people, and one indicative fact is that they had a leaning toward paint.
They buried their dead after painting the body, and they also painted the weapons and ornaments that were interred with him.
It is owing to this addiction to paint that scientists have been enabled to learn so much of primordial life, for the pigments of black, brown, red, yellow and white still endure in the caves of France and Spain.
And, since it is known that they painted their own faces and bodies we can scarce help deducing that they presented grotesque appearances and moved their fellows to laughter.
But any earnest thinker or student is very likely to get out of his subject what he brings to it, at least, in kind. And so, archæologists and antiquarians, being of grave and serious nature, have found no fun or humor in these early peoples,—perhaps, because they brought none to their search.
It remains, therefore, for us to sift their findings, and see, if by a good chance we may discover some traces of mirth among the evidential remains of prehistoric man.
It would not be, of course, creative or even intentional humor, but since we know he was a clever mimic, we must assume the appreciation of his mimicry by his fellows.
Moreover, he was deeply impressed by his dreams, and it must have been that some of those dreams were of a humorous nature.