Seeing Red & Pig Ignorance
February 7, 2007 - 5:00 pm
It surely cannot be possible to conjure up a detailed and credible vision of precisely how our ancestors used Stonehenge unless we minutely examine all the evidence available to us. If we come across a promising path of enquiry, then all well and good, but any conclusions about one particular activity must fit in seamlessly with everything we already know about the monument and the surrounding landscape. I do not see any realistic future in ignoring what we know of the timber phase of Stonehenge or the anomaly of Stone 11, for example, while there are many other enigmatic and apparently incongruous elements of the ruins to take into consideration as well.
The combined efforts of archaeologists, antiquarians, astronomers, surveyors and many others have provided us with a great deal of material to consider, the vast majority of which is contained within the pages of Stonehenge in its Landscape, the mammoth history of twentieth century excavations at Stonehenge. Nonetheless, significant discoveries continue to come to light, such as those of the Boscombe Bowmen and Amesbury Archer, while the recent excavations by the Stonehenge Riverside Project have unearthed many fascinating discoveries, some of which are documented in earlier entries in this journal.
If we fail to fully apply ourselves to an impartial study of each and every aspect of the ruins, then we are almost certainly overlooking something of great value. In our apparently enlightened times, when an answer to the mysteries of Stonehenge continues to elude us, one would suppose that nothing was outside the scope of the serious investigator, yet a surprising number of possibly relevant subjects remain taboo; Druids, human sacrifice, cannibalism, astronomy and the deliberate ingestion of hallucinogenic substances while Stonehenge was in active use being just five that readily spring to mind. Taken individually, they are all engaging subjects that have been studied in depth by respected academics over the years, but when they are placed in the context of Stonehenge, they are suddenly deemed to be unworthy of serious attention.
While we may be handicapped in some areas of our enquiry, there are still a number of promising avenues that we can pursue, and one of these is the matter of the pigs at Durrington Walls that we looked at briefly in the previous entry. Many of the pigs that were eaten during the midwinter feasts at Durrington Walls had had arrows fired at them, so as there seems to be compelling evidence that these midwinter gatherings were connected in some way with funerary ceremonies at nearby Stonehenge, then the bizarre act of firing arrows at pigs would appear to an extremely important element of the proceedings.
We usually think of feasting as being an activity that takes place after a particular event such as a battle, a wedding or a sacrifice. If the midwinter feasts within Durrington Walls took place later than the enactment of ceremonies at Stonehenge, then the act of firing arrows at pigs before killing them would seem to be irrelevant and furthermore unlikely to throw any light on what took place at Stonehenge. However, it seems to me that these curious feats of archery were a pivotal element in rituals that took place before a select group of our ancestors ventured down the winding river, then back up the Avenue towards the brooding stone monument on the hill.
The act of firing a flint-tipped arrow at a nine month old pig is highly unlikely to produce an instantaneous kill, while we can be sure that the skilled bowmen of the time would have known this. So, this brings to mind two options that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One is that the shafts were not intended to kill, but to produce the maximum amount of noise from the wounded animals, while in light of what we know of later Druid ceremonies involving humans, it is perfectly possible that some form of divination was being practised from the death-struggles of these creatures. A nine month old pig is a fairly hefty animal that could create havoc by rampaging around an environment of wooden dwellings, plaited screens, fragile pottery and open fires, so unless these creatures were securely tethered prior to being shot at, it seems to be asking for trouble to deliberately enrage a creature that was also capable of delivering a fearsome bite.
If the creatures were tethered in place awaiting slaughter, then it would have been simpler to stun them by clubbing them on the head, then to cut their throats, but instead, arrows were fired at them. How many bowmen were involved in this activity at any one gathering? If the creatures were tethered and if there were more than one bowman, then it would strongly suggest to me that some kind of a competition were taking place among the archers. If there were a competition, then it’s perfectly reasonable to infer that there was a winner and that this person received an “award” of a kind. If, on the other hand, only one person were doing the firing, then it would also imply that an act of unleashing a not-necessarily lethal flint-tipped shaft against a living creature was a central element in the proceedings. It would also suggest that this sole archer had an elevated status in the company gathered at Durrington Walls.
What are the alternatives? Everyone who could lay their hands on a bow & arrow were indulging in a free for all at a given signal? Unlikely, given the evidence of the human femur found by the Stonehenge Riverside Project, as this one bone was struck by two arrows in roughly the same place, which suggests either incredibly bad luck on the part of the person to whom the femur belonged, or else that they were deliberately targeted by their fellows.
Was everyone involved dosed up to the eyeballs on hallucinogenic substances while this display of archery was taking place? My knowledge of consciousness-altering substances in prehistory is woefully incomplete, while those archaeologists who have made a serious study of this matter are keeping their studies to themselves with an eye to their future careers and reputations.
Are we making too much of this matter? Well, there seems to be a parallel between the Druid practise of inflicting a lethal wound on a prisoner so as to divine the future from his death-struggles, and the act of firing arrows at an animal unlikely to immediately succumb to the wound. Furthermore, these acts of archery took place within a strictly circumscribed area that appears to have been the focus of funerary rituals intimately connected with nearby Stonehenge. The more we look into this matter, the clearer it becomes that any feasting on the flesh on the pigs was a welcome development for those who had made the journey to Durrington Walls in midwinter, but it was a development that was secondary to the manner in which the creatures met their deaths.
In addition to the ancient British Druids choosing to inflict a deliberate wound on a human for a highly specific purpose, there is no shortage of other broadly similar rituals for us to ponder. The American Indians of the Great Plains indulged in a practise known as counting coup, whereby a warrior attempted to touch an opponent with a stick or with his hands. This was a non-lethal act designed to demonstrate the bravery of the person counting coup, as it carried with it a highly significant risk of mortal wounding or death when the opponent retaliated. The person counting coup could later go on to kill or try to kill his opponent, but what is of interest is that before the attempt to kill was made, a non-lethal action took place that was regarded as being of the greatest significance because it conferred a notable status on the person performing it.
In our own times, we can look at bullfighting in France, Mexico or Spain, where the object is not to despatch the bull in the quickest, cleanest way possible, but rather to run through a highly elaborate set of rituals beforehand. Unless these rituals are scrupulously observed, then the death of the bull is deemed to be invalid. However, to assess modern bullfighting in these terms is to afford the practise a dignity it does not deserve, as these so-called contests are hopelessly one-sided, protracted displays of wanton cruelty, while they also bring to mind Professor Richard Atkinson’s scathing observation about the builders of Stonehenge.
Bullfighting aside, we have the separate concepts and practises of halal and kosher to consider. Both these terms refer to a form of animal butchery practised by Muslims and Jews, wherein the precise manner in which an animal meets its death is deemed to be of the utmost importance. Indeed, it is of such paramount importance that if the procedures are not carried out in accordance with the strict rituals, then the meat is deemed to be unfit for consumption, regardless of whether or not a non-Jew or non-Muslim could later consume it without suffering physical ill-effects of any kind.
There are many other codes that we know of concerning inflicting death on either animals or on human beings. Hanging is considered a shameful way to die in some societies, but it was the standard means of execution in Britain for centuries. In the American “Wild West”, it was considered to be perfectly good form to shoot a man dead, as long as you didn’t shoot an unarmed man or shoot a man in the back. In Roman times, captive barbarian leaders were paraded through the streets of Rome in a triumphal procession before being taken to the arena and executed, when a realistic and less costly alternative would have been to kill them immediately after they were captured.
We could go on, but it is undeniable that strict rituals concerning the taking of animal or human life have been in place for millennia and it is very difficult to see the firing of arrows at pigs at Durrington Walls as being anything other than a firm part of this pattern of behaviour. However, we can go further than this.
When someone fires an arrow into a pig, two things will certainly happen – the pig will bleed and it will utter a shrill, piercing scream. The archaeological evidence suggests that this took place on a large scale around the time of the Winter Solstice, itself a time of death. The archaeological evidence suggests that the ceremonies at Durrington Walls were funerary rituals somehow connected with Stonehenge, a location where the remains of around 250 people were buried. With all this in mind, it is impossible to avoid some connection with ghosts, demons, spirits, gods, goddesses or the souls of the departed, so is there any possible link between the dying pigs and our ancestors’ perception or awareness of the night being infested by supernatural entities? Is this mention of the supernatural in connection with Stonehenge a step too far? Does it merit a place in a serious discussion of Stonehenge?
Most certainly, yes. As Mike Pitts writes in page 125 of Hengeworld, “At this stage in its long history, around 4,900 – 4,400 years ago, Stonehenge was dedicated to funeral ceremony, the earth replete with the dead, the air above alive with spirits.”
Of all the creatures in Britain, with the possible exception of the screech owl, the sound made by a pig is the closest to a human voice, particularly when the animal screams as it is dying. It is not an exact copy, of course, but it is close enough. If you are curious about what this sounds like, you can go to the link provided opposite, but I must warn you that you will have to sit through nightmares before you come to the section dealing with pigs, while the section devoted to these poor creatures is truly horrific. It is the single most unpleasant, distressing and vile piece of footage I’ve ever seen, but you will have to make your own minds up about this if you wish to listen to the sounds in question. “Babe” it is not.
The nineteenth century writer William Hope Hodgson was one of the greatest ever exponents of supernatural story telling. In one of Hodgson’s books entitled Carnacki the Ghost Finder, the final story is The Hog, which deals with an exorcism. One of Hodgson’s great gifts was his ability to evoke an atmosphere of dread and he did this in The Hog by describing the malevolent voices of pigs. I can’t hope to do his work justice here, so if you’re curious about this, you will have to read the story for yourself. Another novel entitled The Night Land was arguably Hodgson’s greatest literary achievement, garnering generous praise from none other than H.P Lovecraft. Once again, as a highly successful device to evoke an atmosphere of dread and of supernatural terror, Hodgson employed the device of pigs and pigs’ voices, but we also have a striking example of this from the modern era.
The Exorcist is widely regarded as the greatest horror film ever made and one of the aspects that most captured the attention of shocked audiences and critics back in the early 1970s was the voice of the demon, in reality the voice of the actress Mercedes McCambridge. However, McCambridge’s voice was augmented by Buzz Knudson and Jack Nitzsche, the sound engineers on the production, who also mixed the sound of pigs being slaughtered in with the actress’s voice, as they rightly believed that this chilling, evocative element would add considerably to the effect of the horrific soundtrack they’d produced. I don’t doubt that there are other examples of the resonance of pigs’ voices – there is the infamous scene in the film Deliverance, of course, while I seem to remember reading of someone a few centuries ago who designed a church organ that produced music comprised of the squeals of pigs.
I know little of anatomy or physiology, but I understand that pigs are similar to humans in a number of other ways beside their vocalisations, while they are highly intelligent creatures. Were our ancestors aware of this? I cannot say, but there is also the matter of how human flesh is reputed to taste like pork, to such an extent that humans were referred to as ‘long pig’ by societies that indulged in cannibalism. This brings to mind the human femur pierced by arrows that was found at Durrington Walls, but if there are any British archaeologists with a particular interest in cannibalism and prehistory who could throw some light on this matter, I must admit that I’m unaware of them. By a bizarre coincidence, the trial is currently taking place in Vancouver of a pig farmer accused of killing and butchering 49 women.
We cannot know for certain if our ancestors saw or heard the resemblance between human screams and the screams of dying pigs, but I somehow doubt that the similarity was lost on them. What we can be certain of is that the act of firing arrows at nine month old pigs at Durrington Walls would have produced a shrill, hellish chorus that could be heard from a great distance away, so it is impossible to see that this pandemonium was an accidental, unintended or superfluous by-product. With the exception of any possible divination carried out by the struggles of the dying animals, it seems that provoking a deluge of screams that would split the midwinter air around Stonehenge was the primary goal of those people gathered there, with feasting being a welcome by-product of the “voices in the night.”
Who was responsible for this? And who was most likely to have played a central part in any funerary ceremonies at Stonehenge? The answer is prehistoric bowmen and archers, while by an amazing coincidence, the graves of people named by the archaeologists as the Boscombe Bowmen, or Builders of Stonehenge, and the Amesbury Archer or King of Stonehenge were dug up a few years ago just a short distance away from Durrington Walls. It stands to reason, therefore, that if anything is going to shed further light on the precise nature of the ceremonies that our ancestors devised and participated in at Stonehenge, then it is a minute, methodical and informed examination of every last detail of these notable burials.
Words by Dennis Price. Photographs copyright Pete Glastonbury 2006.
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