that there are no traces of
burial or graves in the immediate neighbourhood, and that native
tradition, not lightly to be set aside, assigns a different origin to
the monument. Against the solar interpretation of the trilithon it may
be alleged, first, that the monument faces north and south, not east and
west, as it might be expected to do if it were a temple of the sun or a
gateway leading into such a temple; second, that, while a circle of
trilithons, as at Stonehenge, with an opening towards the sunrise may be
plausibly interpreted as a temple of the sun, such an interpretation
cannot so readily be applied to a solitary trilithon facing north and
south; and, third, that no trace of sun-worship has been discovered in
the Tonga islands. So far as I have observed, the Tongan pantheon is
nowhere said to have included a sun-god, and the Tongans are nowhere
reported to have paid any special respect to the sun. Savages in
general, it may be added, appear to be very little addicted to
sun-worship; it is for the most part among peoples at a much higher
level of culture, such as the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and
Peruvians, that solar worship becomes an important, or even the
predominant, feature of the national faith.[200] Perhaps the impulse to
it came rather from the meditations of priestly astronomers than from
the random fancies of common men. Some depth of thought was needed to
detect in the sun the source of all life on earth; the immutable
regularity of the great luminary's movements failed to rouse the
interest or to excite the fear of the savage, to whom the elements of
the unusual, the uncertain, and the terrible are the principal
incentives to wonder and awe, and hence to reflexion. We are all
naturally more impressed by extraordinary than by ordinary events; the
fine edge of the mind is dulled by familiarity in the one case and
whetted by curiosity in the other.

[199] Lord Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_, Seventh Edition
(London, 1913), pp. 132 _sqq._; Sir Norman Lockyer, _Stonehenge
and other British Stone Monuments astronomically considered_
(London, 1906); C. Schuchhardt, "Stonehenge," _Zeitschrift fuer
Ethnologie_, xlii. (1910), pp. 963-968; _id._ in _Zeitschrift
fuer Ethnologie_, xliii. (1911) pp. 169-171; _id_., in
_Sitzungsberichte der koenigl. preuss. Akademie der
Wissenschaften_, 1913, pp. 759 _sqq._ (for the sepulchral
interpretation); W. Pastor, "Stonehenge," _Z