DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52552#0056
40 THE THUNDERWEAPON
(Sal. Reinach, Bronzes figztres, p. 167). The so-called
“ symbolical axes ” point in the same direction; they are
imitations in amber of real axes (see Aarboger for nordisk
Oldkyndighed, 1896, p. 388), or small reproductions in stone (see
Sophus Muller, Stenalderen, p. 11), of which we now have
several examples from Denmark and other countries. Relying
on the evidence adduced, and other evidence of a similar
nature, various scholars long ago put forward the hypothesis
that the European and Asiatic peoples of the stone age
practised a fetish-worship of weapons and implements (LONG-
P^RIER, Congres prthist. de Paris, 1867; PiGORINl, Bull, di
paletn. ital. XL p. 33).
It is probable that the development of the thunderstone
cult as a worship of stone axes was aided or at any rate
influenced by this fetish-worship. But even without it there
was nothing to prevent the worship of the thunderstone
springing up and developing independently. Primitive man
need not necessarily have reasoned thus :—“ The stone axe I
have found is exactly like the one I make myself; it must
therefore have been made by another man like myself.” He
may just as well have argued:—“Yesterday it thundered in
the east, and the thundergods descended to the earth; we
crouched in our huts in fear; but to-day when the hunt took
us to the fields in the east, we immediately found one of the
thunderstones on the ground.” No stone age is so remote
that it has been impossible to find implements in places
unvisited within the memory of man ; and with the above
conception of the phenomena of lightning already in the mind,
to explain such finds as thunderstones would be perfectly
natural. Even the highly civilized period of the ancient
world abounded in kindred ideas. Here we need only recall
the Roman ancilia (sacred shields). They were supposed (all
or one of them) to have fallen from heaven ; yet men did not
refuse to accept this theory on the ground that they were
shields of the same material and construction as those used by
the warriors of the time, and must therefore have been made
by the hand of man. In Greece the old belief that stones
which were worshipped as gods had fallen from the sky, was
(Sal. Reinach, Bronzes figztres, p. 167). The so-called
“ symbolical axes ” point in the same direction; they are
imitations in amber of real axes (see Aarboger for nordisk
Oldkyndighed, 1896, p. 388), or small reproductions in stone (see
Sophus Muller, Stenalderen, p. 11), of which we now have
several examples from Denmark and other countries. Relying
on the evidence adduced, and other evidence of a similar
nature, various scholars long ago put forward the hypothesis
that the European and Asiatic peoples of the stone age
practised a fetish-worship of weapons and implements (LONG-
P^RIER, Congres prthist. de Paris, 1867; PiGORINl, Bull, di
paletn. ital. XL p. 33).
It is probable that the development of the thunderstone
cult as a worship of stone axes was aided or at any rate
influenced by this fetish-worship. But even without it there
was nothing to prevent the worship of the thunderstone
springing up and developing independently. Primitive man
need not necessarily have reasoned thus :—“ The stone axe I
have found is exactly like the one I make myself; it must
therefore have been made by another man like myself.” He
may just as well have argued:—“Yesterday it thundered in
the east, and the thundergods descended to the earth; we
crouched in our huts in fear; but to-day when the hunt took
us to the fields in the east, we immediately found one of the
thunderstones on the ground.” No stone age is so remote
that it has been impossible to find implements in places
unvisited within the memory of man ; and with the above
conception of the phenomena of lightning already in the mind,
to explain such finds as thunderstones would be perfectly
natural. Even the highly civilized period of the ancient
world abounded in kindred ideas. Here we need only recall
the Roman ancilia (sacred shields). They were supposed (all
or one of them) to have fallen from heaven ; yet men did not
refuse to accept this theory on the ground that they were
shields of the same material and construction as those used by
the warriors of the time, and must therefore have been made
by the hand of man. In Greece the old belief that stones
which were worshipped as gods had fallen from the sky, was