Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/403

 3 68 THE' HI 5'T.O'R Y .Mfeofc* nant, fhe was bound about' with : a ian&ified girdle- ; This, was luppofed to alleviate the pains and' to expedite the; birth. Such girdles are particularly mentioned in a remarkable pafiage of the Britiih Poems, in which an hundred of them are prom i fed by a chief as ufeful " to hind- high*boibined women** and as thp 4 * friends of the birth of heroes/* Such girdles have been pre r ferved nearly to the prefent times in-many families of the nor- thern Britons 3 The parental appellations among the primitive Britons were exa£Uy the fame as they remain among the infe- rior ranks of our people at prefent, Tat or Dad being the Bri- tish name for a father> and Mam being the Rritiflv terra for a mother. And the parental appellations . among the Romai* Bri- tons were exa&ly the lame as they ftiirreixlaiii among the fupet- rior orders of: our people at prefent,. the Tat and Mam of t he Britiih being changed : iatp the Tata, Pap& and M^onia of the Rcffan Uagu^ge. - The mode of interment among *^e primitive Britons and jthe primitive Gajuls was either by configning the remains entire .and undefuced to the gmund or by previoufly i reducing them into afhes 3 .. The former is undoubtedly the mod natural and .obvious, and muft therefore have .been the original, form of fepul- ture in -the world". The latter is evidently a refinement upon the other, introduced at firft in all probability to prevent- any accidental indignities or to preclude arty deliberate outrages upon the venerable remains of the dead. Thus introduced, the latter became frequent among the Britons, as the afhes that have been difcovered in the Brittfh fepulchers upon Salilbury Plain abun- dantly teftify 2 But the primitive rite of burial was ftill gene- rally retained in the ifland. . In this manner pretty certainly was the illuftrious Boadicia magnificently interred 3$ . In this man- ner undoubtedly were all the heroes of Oflian buried ,6 . And under both forms the body Was either repofited in a cavity or was laid uppn the furface of the ground, and a barrow was con-, ftru&ed over it. Thus formed are all the Britifh burying-placcs u|>on the downs of Wiltfhire, the raoors of Cornwall, and the plains oJLIreland "• And thus formed in Ireland was the grav$ of Lamdarg in particular, which compofed a considerable knoll S on