Fingers.

This is coolbert:

Regarding the missing fingers in the pre-historic cave paintings, it may well be that Eric Hoffer was in part right and part wrong.

"Years ago, Eric Hofer, the longshoreman-philosopher, entered the debate about the significance of the hand patterns in Cro-Magnon caves like Altamira. The anthropologists were having a merry debate about why so many digits were missing from the prints, which were made by placing the palm on the wall and blowing pigment over the hand: tribal identifiers? religious sacrifices?

Go down to the docks, Hofer sniffed, and you'll find many digits missing.

True enough. College professors probably average pretty close to 10 fingers, farmers and carpenters and other people who use their hands in rough work considerably fewer."

It is correct that cave men and prehistoric peoples did suffer a lot of injuries consistent with persons who work [hunt] and live around big strong dangerous animals. There was a study made of Neanderthal skeletons and the injuries to the skeletal remains were statistically almost identical in a manner almost never found in real life with the same type of injuries as found in modern rodeo cowboys.

It is also known that in pre-historic hunter/gatherer societies, sacrifice of body parts was common. Used to guarantee success when either leading a hunting party OR A WAR PARTY.

From the myth guru Joseph Campbell:

[from the reminisces of One Blue Bead [a Crow American Indian]].

"'When I was a boy', he said, 'I was poor. I saw war parties come back with leaders in front and having a procession. I used to envy them and I made up my mind to fast and become like them. When I saw the vision I got what I had longer for . . . I killed eight enemies.' If a man has bad luck, he knows that his gift of supernatural power simply is insufficient; while, on the other had the great shamans and war leaders have acquired power . . . Perhaps they have chopped off and offered their finger joints. Such offerings were common among the Indians of the plains, on some of whose hold hands there remained only fingers and joints enough to enable them to notch an arrow and draw the bow."

It is a known fact that prior to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Chief Sitting Bull offered ONE HUNDRED PIECES OF HIS OWN HUMAN FLESH AS A SACRIFICE. To guarantee success against Custer. MUST HAVE WORKED!!

Damn, if George Bush wants to beat Al Qaeda and Osama, get that knife out.

coolbert.