And into these words they put what they were thinking most about,
or hoping for. They believed that the whispered wish went into the
thing they sang to, and helped to bring about the thing they hoped for.
So the old axmaker, in time to his chipping, sings over and over to the
arrow head:
"I give you the eye of the eagle,
To find the rabbit's heart.
I give you the eye of the eagle,
To find the rabbit's heart."
And the mother sings to the child:
"Though a baby,
Soon a-hunting after berries
Will be going."
Early men believed that since they themselves are alive and move, all
other things that move also are alive, and have feelings and likes and
dislikes as men have. The rustling leaves, the waving grass, a rolling
stone, a drifting cloud, the rising moon--all are to them alive, and
many of them are to be feared.
The speech of the cave and the shell men was made up of few words, and
the meaning was helped out by motions of the hands and body. They knew
little outside of their forest life, and probably could not count
beyond three. But the power to grow was in them, and from such rude
beginnings came the men who built the cities of Paris and London.
CHAPTER XIX
THE PEOPLE OF OUR TIME WHO WERE MOST LIKE THE CAVE MEN
Up to a short time ago, on the island of Tasmania, near Australia,
there lived a people more nearly like the cave men than any people we
know about.
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