Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-01

No"u III ~, puE sne N6s 700 large. 4Ao
sacrlstau arrived carrying a small black
cloth edged with silver, and in his loudest
voice scolded the children, asking: "Who
disturbed the cofin?'
OF course no one had done it. These chill
dren knew perfectly the destination of their
plaything.
This people, still to-day speaking the
Celtic tongue, change, perhaps, with more
difficulty than. any other; tenacity is
their most striking characteristic. l said
just now that the foundation of their relig-
ion Is neither the Eucharist, the 1mmacu-
late Conception nor the infallibility OF the
Pope, but simply respect for the dead, as
was the case twenty centuries ago and more.
The superstitions Of to-day are the same
as those of the remote past I was there
during the sutumnal equinox, and one even
ing about 9 o'clock heard plaintive sounds
and measured steps; the country people
silently bringing their herds Of cattle
came near the church and, slowly passing
round it, stopped before the large entrance
where Saint Cornely is enthroned between
two oxen; they then went to an old foun-
tain and passed around that; afterward
some lustral water was poured on the heads
of the oxen, when they returned in silence.
Such nocturnal pilgrimages are extremely
dismal and strange. Cattle, and especially
oxen, are associated with their religion,
and they pray for their healing just as they
pray for themselves At the side Of the
church pieces of rope that have been
blessed for the healing of cattle are sold
at high price, and are source of great
revenue. Saint Cornely is proprietor here,
and his income is very often q, 900 francs.
Saint Cornelius and the Ok.
The part that the OK plays in the simple
religion of the present inhabitants of Car
mao does not date from our epoch, but is
older than Saint Cornelius himself, the
Pope, who, on account Of his euphonious
name, was chosen patron of the people and
of the cattle, and who is represented in
company with the oxen he protects. This
pagan superstition was in the country long
before the foundation of its church, and all
races have more or less participated in it.
A curious discovery quite recently made
striEinglv confirms these deductions Mr..
Min, learned Scotch archaologist, who
comes to Carnac every summer to make ex-
cvations has just found a little bronze OK
beautifully cast and perfectly preserved.
On comparing this statuette with the present
practices and ideas of the inhabitants, it is
difficult not to see in it little tutelary deity
ofthe past ages. 1t is certainlyrelated to the
bull Apis.
The rite of the lustral water is also an
inheritance from past ages. On certain
days the peasants 60 to the fountain which
has just been spoken of and mediate in
silence, taking good care that no stranger
shall watch them; they then take water in
their hands Joined together, or receive some
poured out by a child, and, raising their
arms vertically in the air, gently move their
fingers, SO that the water runs down their
arms and bodies. Not far away women
have been seen receiving regular douches of
ice water on their bare chests; and during
tempests sailors wives sometimes go to
these sacred high places, and, taking up
dust in their hands, looking all the time at
the sea, throw it over their heads to the
wind, to charm away the dangers to which
their husbands are exposed.
They Left No Written Record.
These old customs, continued in spite of
ecclesiastical prohibitions, the tenacious
and serious character of this people, their
silent temperament, their Celtic tongue,
their life familiar with death, all show
plainly that if successive invasions have
placed other races in different cantons of
Gaul, here there has been scarcely any
mingling. These rocks, this brushwood,
this sea, these islands, shores and roads,
this rugged nature, all belong to the same
country that the Celts looked upon and
loved. They walked where we walk to-
dav, they raised these menhirs that have
become sphinxes and have left invulnera-
BILE witnesses of their old republic: but why
have they written nothing? and why can
not these mysterious stones give some reply
to our eager questions?
What were these menhirs, dolmens and
cromlechs, with which the sacred land of
Carnac is covered in every direction; these
stone mountains more numerous here than
in all places put together? Although they
have been known from time immemorial,
and traaItions are lasting on this granite
soil, their nature is far from being settled
question.
On this archaeological journey to the
fields Of Carnac, had the advantage of
having as guide Monsieur du Cleuzion, who
perhaps knows them better than anyone
else, and who conducted us among the
Druidical sphinxes of geography with the
assurance of an astronomer glancing at the
consultations. He had just been again
surveying with compass all the lines of
Carnac and the position of all the menhirs
in these lines Three centuries ago their
number was Il, 900, and 1856 still remain,
but their number diminishes every year;
for centuries the peasants have used them
in walls round their fields, and now build
ers are demolishing them still more rapidly.
Size or the stone monuments.
Their height varies from 20 inches to 16
feet; some are still higher and measure 10
feet, as at Kermario, or 30 and 4S feet as at
Locmariaquer, where the colossal menhir 81
feet high and weighing over 220 tons lies
broken. The menhirs of Carnac stand in Ii
rows 2% miles long, the distance between
the rows varying from to 10 yards. Their
general direction is eastward Gin some places
southeast and in others northeast), Coward
the rising of the sun-god," to use the ex-
preston of our eminent historian, Henri
Martin. The rows are arranged in sections /:
Menec Kermario, Kerlescant and Menec
Vihan. There are still other rows at Erde-
ven (Kerzero), at VieuI-Moulin, Sainte-
Barbe, inte-Pierre-de-Q Quiberon, ETC., etc.
We are reduced to conjecture when We
wish to explain the purpose of the erection
of these stones. The most probable hypo-
thesis is that they are funeral monuments,
since it is known that graves were thus
marked from remotest antiquity. In the
cemeteries OF certain oriental Hebrews each
tomb is surmounted by tall stone rising
vertically like menhir, and the following
passage from the Bible proves their ancient
use: "Rachel died and was buried ON the
way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem, and
Jacob set pillar on her grave which is the
pillar of RachePs grave unto this day"
(Gen., chap. XXXW. Nevertheless, when
excavations are made where the fallen men,
hirs stood, or about those still standing, no
human bones are found. Sometimes ashes
and the debris of human incineration, vase
and axes of polished stone are discovered;
we conclude therefore that our ancestors
may have burned their dead and marked
with stones the places where their ashes
were laid; but the number of these stones is
so great that it becomes necessary to sup