XXIX - WEAPONS

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XXIX - WEAPONS

Dr. Munro is less than kind to the forger in the matter of the "weapons" found at Dunbuie and Dumbuck. They are "absolutely worthless as real weapons," he says, with perfect truth, for they are made of slate or shale, not of hard stony slate, which many races used to employ for lack of better material. {112a}

The forger was obviously not thinking of dumping down serviceable sham weapons. He could easily have bought as many genuine flint celts and arrow-heads and knives as he needed, had his aim been to prove his sites to be neolithic. So I argued long ago, in a newspaper letter. Dr. Munro replies among other things, that "nothing could be easier than to detect modern imitations of Neolithic relics." {112b} I said not a word about "modern imitations." I said that a forger, anxious to fake a Neolithic site, "would, of course, drop in a few Neolithic arrow-heads, 'celts' and so forth," meaning genuine objects, very easily to be procured for money.

As the forger did not adopt a device so easy, so obvious, and so difficult of detection, (if he purchased Scottish flint implements) his aim was not to fake a Neolithic site. He put in, not well-known genuine Neolithic things, but things of a character with which some of his critics were not familiar, yet which have analogues elsewhere.

Why did he do that?

As to the blunt decorated slate weapons, the forger did not mean, I think, to pass off these as practicable arms of the Neolithic period. These he could easily have bought from the dealers. What he intended to dump down were not practical weapons, but, in one case at least, armes d'apparat , as French archaeologists call them, weapons of show or ceremony.

The strange "vandyked" crozier-like stone objects of schist or shale from Portugal were possibly armes d'apparat , or heads of staves of dignity. There is a sample in the American room at the British Museum, uninscribed. I submit that the three very curious and artistic stone axe- heads, figured by M. Cartailhac, {114} representing, one an uncouth animal; another, a hooded human head, the third an extremely pretty girl, could never have been used for practical purposes, but were armes d'apparat . Perhaps such stone armes d'apparat , or magical or sacred arms, were not unknown, as survivals, in Scotland in the Iron Age. A "celt" or stone axe-head of this kind, ornamented with a pattern of inter- crossing lines, is figured and described by the Rev. Mr. Mackenzie (Kenmore) in the Proceedings of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries (1900-1901, p. 310 et seq. ). This axe-head, found near a cairn at Balnahannait, is of five inches long by two and a quarter broad. It is of "soft micaceous stone." The owners must have been acquainted with the use of the metals, Mr. Mackenzie thinks, for the stone exhibits "interlaced work of a late variety of this ornamentation." Mr. Mackenzie suggests that the ornament was perhaps added "after the axe had obtained some kind of venerated or symbolical character." This implies that a metal-working people, finding a stone axe, were puzzled by it, venerated it, and decorated it in their late style of ornament.

In that case, who, in earlier times, made an useless axe-head of soft micaceous stone, and why? It could be of no practical service. On the other hand, people who had the metals might fashion a soft stone into an arme d'apparat . "It cannot have been intended for ordinary use," "the axe may have been a sacred or ceremonial one," says Mr. Mackenzie, and he makes the same conjecture as to another Scottish stone axe-head. {115}

Here, then, if Mr. Mackenzie be right, we have a soft stone axe-head, decorated with "later ornament," the property of a people who knew the metals, and regarded the object as "a sacred or ceremonial one," enfin , as an arme d'apparat .

Dr. Munro doubtless knows all that is known about armes d'apparat , but he unkindly forgets to credit the forger with the same amount of easily accessible information, when the forger dumps down a decorated slate spear-head, eleven inches long.

Believe me, this forger was no fool: he knew what he was about, and he must have laughed when critics said that his slate spear-heads would be useless. He expected the learned to guess what he was forging; not practicable weapons, but armes d'apparat ; survivals of a ceremonial kind, like Mr. Mackenzie's decorated axe-head of soft stone.

That , I think, was our forger's little game; for even if he thought no more than Dr. Munro seems to do of the theory of "survivals," he knew that the theory is fashionable. "Nothing like these spear-heads . . . has hitherto been found in Scotland, so that they cannot be survivals from a previous state of things in our country," says Dr. Munro. {116a} The argument implies that there is nothing in the soil of our country of a nature still undiscovered. This is a large assumption, especially if Mr. Mackenzie be right about the sacred ceremonial decorated axe-head of soft stone. The forger, however, knew that elsewhere, if not in Scotland, there exist useless armes d'apparat , and he obviously meant to fake a few samples. He was misunderstood. I knew what he was doing, for it seems that "Mr. Lang . . . suggested that the spear-heads were not meant to be used as weapons, but as 'sacred things.'" {116b} I knew little; but I did know the sacred boomerang-shaped decorated Arunta churinga, and later looked up other armes d'apparat . {116c}

Apparently I must have "coached" the forger, and told him what kinds of things to fake. But I protest solemnly that I am innocent! He got up the subject for himself, and knew more than many of his critics. I had no more to do with the forger than M. Salomon Reinach had to do with faking the golden "tiara of Saitaphernes," bought by the Louvre for 8000 pounds. M. Reinack denies the suave suggestion that he was at the bottom of this imposture. {117a} I also am innocent of instructing the Clyde forger. He read books, English, French, German, American, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

From the Bulletino di Palaetnologia Italiana , vol. xi. p. 33, 1885, plate iv., and from Professor Pigorini's article there, he prigged the idea of a huge stone weapon, of no use, found in a grotto near Verona. {117b} This object is of flint, shaped like a flint arrow-head; is ten inches and a half in length, and "weighs over 3.5 pounds." "Pigorini conjectured that it had some religious signification."

Inspired by this arrow-head of Gargantua, the Clyde forger came in with a still longer decorated slate spear-head, weighing I know not how much. It is here photographed (figs. 17, 18). Compare the decoration of three parallel horizontal lines with that on the broken Portuguese perforated stone (figs. 9, 10). Or did the Veronese forger come to Clyde, and carry on the business at Dumbuck? The man has read widely. Sometimes, however, he may have resorted to sources which, though excellent, are accessible and cheap, like Mr. Haddon's Evolution in Art . Here (pp. 79, 80) the faker could learn all that he needed to know about armes d'apparat in the form of stone axe-heads, "unwieldy and probably quite useless objects" found by Mr. Haddon in the chain of isles south-east of New Guinea. Mr. Romilly and Dr. Wyatt Gill attest the existence of similar axes of ceremony. "They are not intended for cleaving timber." We see "the metamorphosis of a practical object into an unpractical one." {118}

The forger thus had sources for his great decorated slate spear-head; the smaller specimens may be sketches for that colossal work.

{112a} Munro, p. 158, pp. 223-227.

{112b} Munro, p. 261.

{114} Op. cit. , p. 111-114.

{115} Proceedings , vol. xxiii. p. 272.

{116a} Munro, p. 255.

{116b} Ibid .

{116c} Native Tribes of Central Australia , p. 150.

{117a} L'Anthropologie , vol. xiv. p. 362.

{117b} Cf. Munro, p. 57.

{118} Op. cit. , p. 84. _

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