to be the vehicle
of feeling and knowledge, the exchange of blood or the offering of blood
to the community was a reasonable method for initiating anyone into the
wider knowledge of and sympathy with his fellow-men.

Blood-letting, therefore, played a part in a great variety of
ceremonies, of burial and of initiation, and also those of a
therapeutic[256] and, later, of a religious significance.

But from Aurignacian times onwards, it seems to have been admitted that
substitutes for blood might be endowed with a similar potency.

The extensive use of red ochre or other red materials for packing around
the bodies of the dead was presumably inspired by the idea that
materials simulating blood-stained earth, were endowed with the same
life-giving properties as actual blood poured out upon the ground in
similar vitalizing ceremonies.

As the shedding of blood produced unconsciousness, the offering of blood
or red ochre was, therefore, a logical and practical means of restoring
consciousness and reinforcing the element of vitality which was
diminished or lost in the corpse.

The common statement that primitive man was a fantastically irrational
child is based upon a fallacy. He was probably as well endowed mentally
as his modern successors; and was as logical and rational as they are;
but many of his premises were wrong, and he hadn't the necessary body of
accumulated wisdom to help him to correct his false assumptions.

If primitive man regarded the dead as still existing, but with a reduced
vitality, it was a not irrational procedure on the part of the people of
the Reindeer Epoch in Europe to pack the dead in red ochre (which they
regarded as a surrogate of the life-giving fluid) to make good the lack
of vitality in the corpse.

If blood was the vehicle of consciousness and knowledge, the exchange of
blood was clearly a logical procedure for establishing communion of
thought and feeling and so enabling an initiate to assimilate the
traditions of his people.

If red carnelian was a surrogate of blood the wearing of bracelets or
necklaces of this life-giving material was a proper means of warding off
danger to life and of securing good luck.

If red paint or the colour red brought these magical results, it was
clearly justifiable to resort to its use.

All these procedures are logical. It is only the premises that were
erroneous.

The persistence of such customs in Ancient Egypt makes it possible for
us to obt