bones

• Primates made spicules of

63:1.2The par­ents of this first hu­man cou­ple were ap­par­ently lit­tle dif­fer­ent from the av­er­age of their tribe, though they were among its more in­tel­li­gent mem­bers, that group which first learned to throw stones and to use clubs in fight­ing. They also made use of sharp spicules of stone, flint, and bone.

• primitives revered leaders’

88:2.1It was a sup­posed pref­er­ence of ghosts to in­dwell some ob­ject which had be­longed to them when alive in the flesh. This be­lief ex­plains the ef­fi­cacy of many mod­ern relics. The an­cients al­ways revered the bones of their lead­ers, and the skele­tal re­mains of saints and heroes are still re­garded with su­per­sti­tious awe by many. Even to­day, pil­grim­ages are made to the tombs of great men.

• of dead believed very magical

88:5.2Mag­i­cal charms were con­cocted from a great va­ri­ety of things: hu­man flesh, tiger claws, croc­o­dile teeth, poi­son plant seeds, snake venom, and hu­man hair. The bones of the dead were very mag­i­cal. Even the dust from foot­prints could be used in magic. The an­cients were great be­liev­ers in love charms. Blood and other forms of bod­ily se­cre­tions were able to in­sure the magic in­flu­ence of love.

• Latins preserved b. of heroes; later saints

98:3.4The re­li­gious ini­ti­a­tion of Ro­man youths was the oc­ca­sion of their solemn con­se­cra­tion to the ser­vice of the state. Oaths and ad­mis­sions to cit­i­zen­ship were in re­al­ity re­li­gious cer­e­monies. The Latin peo­ples main­tained tem­ples, al­tars, and shrines and, in a cri­sis, would con­sult the or­a­cles. They pre­served the bones of heroes and later on those of the Chris­tian saints.