The savage and the sacred: The primal duality of the cave in human history

“ A cave formed naturally in the deepest clefts and hollows of some rock constituted, in every climate, the earliest habitation of man. In cold climates it was necessary for him to find some retreat in which to pass the night, and in warmer latitudes he had to ward off the heat of the day. But these natural dwellings could only be met with in districts where rocks existed which offered facilities for cover in the way of clefts and holes. When man took up his abode in a level country, he was compelled to construct for himself some place of shelter. ”

“ But it may be asked, How in such a period of terror and calamity--as we must conceive the comet to have caused-would men think of finding refuge in caves?
The answer is plain: either they or their ancestors had lived in caves.
Caves were the first shelters of uncivilized men. It was not necessary to fly to the caves through the rain of falling débris; many were doubtless already in them when the great world-storm broke, and others naturally sought their usual dwelling-places.
"The cavern," says Brinton, "dimly lingered in the memories of nations."
Man is born of the earth ”

“ Many ages have elapsed since the commencement of the quaternary geological epoch. The mighty animals which characterised the commencement of this period have disappeared, or are on the point of becoming extinct. The great bear (Ursus spelæus) and the cave-hyæna (Hyæna spelæa) will soon cease to tread the soil of our earth. It will not be long before the final term will be completed of the existence of the cave-lion (Felis spelæa) , the mammoth, and the Rhinoceros tichorhinus. Created beings diminish in size as they improve in type. ”

“ Another excellent proof, which demonstrates the existence of man at a geological epoch anterior to the present era, is to be deduced from the intermixture of human bones with those of antediluvian animals. It is evident that if we meet with the bones of the mammoth, the cave-bear, the cave-tiger, &c.,—animals which lived only in the quaternary epoch and are now extinct—in conjunction with the bones of man or the relics of his industry, such as weapons, implements, utensils, &c., we can assert with some degree of certainty that our species was contemporaneous with the above-named animals. ”

“ Man must have lived during the time in which the last representatives of the ancient animal creation—the mammoth, the great bear, the cave-hyæna, the Rhinoceros tichorinus, &c.—were still in existence. ”

“ On the morrow I was to die some sort of nameless death for the diversion of a savage horde, but the morrow held fewer terrors for me than the present, and I submit to any fair-minded man if it is not a terrifying thing to lie bound hand and foot in the Stygian blackness of an immense cave peopled by unknown dangers in a land overrun by hideous beasts and reptiles of the greatest ferocity. At any moment, perhaps at this very moment, some silent-footed beast of prey might catch my scent where it laired in some contiguous passage, and might creep stealthily upon me. ”

“ Here’s the other. Bar to wade across–sharks and alligators; then swampy ground–malaria, mosquitoes, thorn jungle. Guess the hands of both of you are still sore enough, by their look.”
“If only I had a pot of cold cream!” sighed Miss Leslie.
“If only I had a hunk of jerked beef!” echoed Blake.
“I say, why couldn’t we chance it for the night around on the seaward face of the cliff?” asked Winthrope. “I noticed a place where the ledges overhang–almost a cave. Do you think it probable that any wild beast would venture so close to the sea?” ”

“ But when the bright star rose that tells of the approach of day, the ship drew near the island of Ithaca. There is a haven there between two steep headlands which break the waves, so that ships can ride in safety without a mooring rope, and at the head of it an olive-tree, and a shadowy cave where the water fairies come and tend their bees and weave their sea-blue garments on the hanging looms and mix their wine in bowls and jars of stone. There are springs of water in the cave, and two ways into it, one to the north for men to enter, and one to the south where none but the Gods may pass. ”

“ I too, miserable sinner though I am, have been accounted worthy to kiss the manger in which the Lord cried as a babe, and to pray in the cave in which the travailing virgin gave birth to the infant Lord. “This is my rest” for it is my Lord’s native place; “here will I dwell” [75] for this spot has my Saviour chosen. “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ.” [76] “My soul shall live unto Him and my seed shall serve Him.” ”

“ Her first act was to beckon me to follow her outside, and there she pointed to the explanation of our rescue from the bear—a huge saber-tooth tiger, its fine coat and its flesh torn to ribbons, lying dead a few paces from our cave, and beside it, equally mangled, and disemboweled, was the carcass of a huge cave-bear. To have had one's life saved by a saber-tooth tiger, and in the twentieth century into the bargain, was an experience that was to say the least unique ”

“ Yet in every case, when we go back far enough in time, or, what comes practically to the same thing, when we go down low enough in culture toward the savage level of primitive man, we find always that we stand nearer face to face with these the earliest naked realities of religion—that the ghost counts for most; that the temple has not progressed beyond the stage of the hut or underground dwelling; that the sacred stone is still the actual tombstone; that the altar is still the actual grave slab; that the sacred tree is still directly and intimately connected with the ghost or the tumulus. ”

“ In man, the last term of advancement in the animate series, ameliorations and modifications of his primal savage propensities have gone on, until there has grown up a set of feelings that are kindly, merciful, sympathetic, and benevolent ”

“ If it be a fact that the man of the epoch of the great bear and the mammoth had a more robust leg, and a more largely developed thigh-bone than most of the races of existing man, the reason simply is, that his savage life, which was spent in the midst of the wild beasts of the forest, compelled him to make violent exertions, which increased the size of these portions of his body. ”

“ Among those savage nations who have not as yet bent their necks beneath the yoke of civilisation, we might expect to find—and, in fact, we do find—the weapons and utensils which were peculiar to man in primitive ages. ”

“ Some were the dens of wild beasts, others formed the habitations of man, and others again were used as burial-places.
There is no difficulty in the idea that dens of wild beasts might very readily be occupied by man, after he had killed or driven out the fierce inhabitants; no discovery, however, has as yet confirmed this supposition. It can hardly be doubted that primitive man seldom dared to take up his abode in dens which had been, for some time, the refuge of any of the formidable carnivora ”

“ Here we have the proof that man inhabited these caves for ages before the Drift; that he perished with the great mammals and disappeared; and that the twelve feet of stalagmite were formed while no men and few animals dwelt in Europe. But some fragment of the human race had escaped elsewhere, in some other region; there it multiplied and replenished the earth, and gradually extended and spread again over Europe, and reappeared in the cave-deposits above the stalagmite. And, in like manner, the animals gradually came in from the regions on which the Drift had not fallen. ”

“ Such diversity of names for the common acquisition proves that fire is no recent novelty derived from a single source by the savage tribes of that strange southern continent.
Amid all the remarkable evidence recently disclosed relative to the antiquity and the rude arts of primitive man, nothing has yet appeared suggestive of a condition inferior to the savages of Tierra del Fuego or Australia; while much tends to an opposite conclusion. Alike in physical development and in arts, the Troglodytes of the Dordogne caves were undoubtedly far in advance of either ”

“ The artistic instinct is of all ages and of all climes; it springs up naturally in all countries, and takes its origin alike everywhere in the imitative faculty of man. Evidences of this instinct at the earliest period have been discovered among the relics of primitive men; rough sketches on slate and on stone of the mammoth, the deer, and of man, have been found in the caves of France; the American savage traces rude hunting scenes, or the forms of animals on the covering of his tents, and on his buffalo robes ”

“ Expense and trouble are incurred to convey a corpse from one end of Europe to England, that it may repose in the family vault. We decorate our graves with flowers as though the dead appreciated them; they are but the representatives of the ancient sacrifice to the dead. We drink to the memory of the deceased as though pouring out libations to them. Our tombstones are direct descendants of the menhir and the obelisk, our altar-tombs of the dolmen, our family vault of the primeval cave ossuary. ”

“ In order to explain the presence of so many foreign objects by the side of the human skeletons—such as animals' bones—implements of flint and reindeers' horn—necklaces or bracelets—we must admit as probable that a funeral custom existed among the men of the great bear and mammoth epoch, which has been preserved in subsequent ages. They used to place in the tomb, close to the body, the weapons, hunting trophies, and ornaments of all sorts, belonging to the defunct. ”

“ Instead of passing over as of no account, or else regarding as purely mischievous, the superstitions of the primitive man, we must inquire what part they play in social evolution; and must be prepared, if need be, to recognize their usefulness. Already we have seen that the belief which prompts the savage to bury valuables with the corpse and carry food to the grave has a natural genesis ”

“ The manner of eating is that which distinguishes the men of that epoch; they suck the marrow from the long bones which have previously been split lengthwise, and eat the flesh of the animals cooked on the hearth. The dead body is left at the entrance of the cavern; the primitive grave-stone will soon close on it for ever.
The relics found in the interior of the sepulchral cave of Aurignac have led to a very remarkable inference, which shows how interesting and fertile are the studies which have been made by naturalists on the subject of the antiquity of man. ”

“ Towards the south of the island are lofty portals of rock, which rear themselves, in solitary grandeur, out of the sea. After rowing along the shores sufficiently to see the general aspect of the island, we approached that side where is situated the entrance to the far-famed grotto or cave, called by the country-people the Witches’ Cave. Before entering, it may be well to say something respecting its discovery, as for many centuries it was entirely unknown, at least to travellers, though strange traditions respecting it existed amongst the inhabitants from a very remote date. ”

“ The boatmen entertained us with many a curious legend respecting the enchanted cave. Some of the older inhabitants of the island still believe in the evil influence that a visit to the cave exercises over the ill-fated person who is so rash as to penetrate into the witches’ domain. There is a very curious fish to be found in the beautiful silvery water, very small, and with an odd, square-shaped head ”

“ The ugly shape: for feare of whose most feerce and cruell looke,
His armes he from her body twicht. And at his going thence,
In honour of the watry Goddes he burned frankincence,
And powred wyne uppon the sea, with fat of neate and sheepe:
Untill the prophet that dooth dwell within Carpathian deepe,
Sayd thus: Thou sonne of Aeacus, thy wish thou sure shalt have
Alonely when shee lyes asleepe within her pleasant Cave,
Cast grinnes to trappe her unbewares: hold fast with snarling knot:
And though shee fayne a hundreth shapes, deceyve thee let her not. ”

“ When the dwarf awoke it was to find himself lying on the floor of the cave, but not alone, for by his side, twisted into a last and hideous contortion, lay the Snake god—dead! The upper part of the double knife had worked itself into its brain, and, with a dying effort, it sought the den where it had lived for centuries, dragging Otter with it, and there expired, how or when he knew not. But the dwarf had triumphed. Before him was stretched the ancient terror of the People of the Mist, the symbol and, indeed, the object of their worship, slain by his skill and valour. ”

“ When we have been prowling at midnight through the gloomy crevices they call streets, where no footfalls but ours were echoing, where only ourselves were abroad, and lights appeared only at long intervals and at a distance, and mysteriously disappeared again, and the houses at our elbows seemed to stretch upward farther than ever toward the heavens, the memory of a cave I used to know at home was always in my mind, with its lofty passages, its silence and solitude, its shrouding gloom, its sepulchral echoes, its flitting lights, and more than all, its sudden revelations of branching crevices and corridors where we least expected them.
We are not tired of the endless processions of cheerful, chattering gossipers that throng these courts and streets all day long, either; ”

“ Yet, tell me, how does Minos treat the captives from Athens, kindly or unkindly?'
'None has ever come back to tell the tale,' said Medea, 'but the sailors of Minos say that he places the captives in a strange prison called the Labyrinth. It is full of dark winding ways, cut in the solid rock, and therein the captives are lost and perish of hunger, or live till they meet a Thing called the Minotaur. This monster has the body of a strong man, and a man's legs and arms, but his head is the head of a bull, and his teeth are the teeth of a lion, and no man may deal with him. ”

“ A priestess conducts the ritual, and with her the youngest of the three citizens who are called Sacrificing Priests. Round the cave is a grove of oak trees, and warm water bubbles up from a spring. The statue made by Onatas was not there in my time, nor did most people at Phigalia know that it had ever existed, but the oldest of those I met with informed me that 3 generations before his time some stones from the roof fell on to it, and that it was crushed by them and altogether smashed up, and we can see plainly even now traces in the roof where the stones fell in. ”

“ Descending still through an irregular passage, we suddenly entered a roomy vault with stalactites on the roof. Here the glories of Lamb's Lair begin. In a few moments we shall be at the threshold of the incomparable Beehive Chamber, and thence, to a point far beyond what we can attain to-day, the poetry and witchery of cave scenery are at their finest. Stumbling over the irregularities of the crystal floor, we see dimly, by the light of our candles, great luminous arcs bending over our heads ”

“ The three islands about the lagoon are long, but they are flat and narrow. The bush is thick in places, but not too thick to be searched as one searches for a dropped fishhook in a canoe. Where, then? Listen, and I will tell you—in the Cave of the Shark! Is it not possible that in his boyhood Rairi found the cavern even as we found it, or that the woman Turia showed it to him as an ancient sacred place? He would believe that no other man on the island knew of it; that he might lie hidden there for months, stealing out by night to catch fish and to gather coconuts for food and drink. ”

“ Hide yourselves closely somewhere, not far from the cavern's mouth, whence you may see, unseen yourselves, whatever passes. I will carry my light hunting horn; and if you hear its blast rush down and surround the cave, but hurt no man, nor strike a blow save in self-defence, until I bid you. Do you comprehend me?"
"I comprehend, and will obey you to the letter, Paullus," answered the grave freedman, "but will not you be armed?"
"I will, my Thrasea. Leave thou a leathern hunting helmet here on the table, and light scaled cuirass, which I will do on under my toga. ”

“ The great cave, lighted by electricity, was certainly a remarkable sight, filled as it was with a picturesque crowd of men, some of them in what looked like stage costumes, nearly all chattering like excited children anticipating a treat as they watched some of their fellows erecting a whipping-post in the centre of the place, while another was busy working the bellows of what looked like a blacksmith's furnace and making irons red-hot. ”

“ I, busy polishing my sword or mending my belt, he sitting opposite, the long stem of his pipe between his lips, blowing out the curling wreaths of the fragrant tobacco from his teeth. Wonderful tales would he tell as we sat there; tales of [Pg 208] savage warfare and of the chase; strange stories of savage love and hate. How when a young brave would wish a squaw from among some neighboring tribe, he would steal out and capture her by force or cunning, and carry her back with him to the lodges of his people; how they hunted the savage bear and panther among the trackless forests. ”

“ Any fool can see we’re in a tight hole, and we’re like to keep company for a while–probably long as we last.”
“What–ah–may I ask, do you mean by that?”
Blake laughed harshly, and pointed from the reef-strewn sea to the vast stretches of desolate marsh. Far inland, across miles of brackish lagoons and reedy mud-flats, could be seen groups of scrubby, half-leafless trees; ten or twelve miles to the southward a rocky headland jutted out into the water; otherwise there was nothing in sight but sea and swamp. ”

“ Get a pot on. We’ll–”
“No, no; it’s not that! It’s only–I’ve been frightened!”
“Frightened?”
“By a–a dreadful beast!”
“Beast!” repeated Blake, and his pale eyes flashed as he sprang across to where his bow and arrows and his club leaned against the baobab. “I’ll have no beasts nosing around my dooryard! Must be that skulking lion I heard last night. I’ll show him!” He caught up his weapons and stalked off down the cleft.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Winthrope; “the man really must be mad. Call him back, Miss Genevieve. ”

“ We have seen how, to clothe himself, the savage robs the beast; how, like animals, primitive man constructs his habitation, provides food, rears a family, exercises authority, holds property, wages war, indulges in amusements, gratifies social instincts; and that in all this, the savage is but one remove from the brute. ”

“ What peacefulness for the world if their wearers should disappear forever! He preferred the simple and primitive barbarity of the savage to the refined, deliberate and merciless barbarity of the greedy sage;—it did less harm and was not so hypocritical. ”

“ The primitive man may have taken a pleasure in beating women as well as in drawing animals; all we can say is that the drawings record the one but not the other. It may be true that when the cave-man’s finished jumping on his mother, or his wife as the case may be, he loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling, and also to watch the deer as they come down to drink at the brook. ”

“ Even so primitive man has drawn himself many times over, not indeed on this particular piece of reindeer horn, but on several other media to be seen elsewhere, in the original or in good copies. One of the best portraits is that discovered in the old cave at Laugerie Basse by M. Elie Massénat, where a very early pre-Glacial man is represented in the act of hunting an aurochs, at which he is casting a flint-tipped javelin. In this, as in all other pictures of the same epoch, I regret to say that the ancient hunter is represented in the costume of Adam before the fall. ”

“ In the modern alliance between archæology and geology, and the novel views which have resulted as to the antiquity of man, the characteristic disclosures of primitive art, alike among ancient and modern races, have given a significance to familiar phases of savage life undreamt of till very recently. ”