principle of fructification or generation. He was flour
because flour was the fine or valuable part of the plant of
Ceres, or wheat, the pollen which, I am told, in this plant,
and in this plant alone, renews itself when destroyed. When
the flour, pollen, is killed, it grows again several times.
This is a very beautiful type or symbol of the resurrection.
On this account the flour of wheat was the sacrifice offered
to the Χρης or Ceres in the Εὐχαριστια. In this pollen we have
the name of pall or pallium and of Pallas, in the first
language meaning _wisdom_.... When the devotee ate the bread
he ate the pollen, and thus ate the body of the God of
generation; hence might come transubstantiation.
Lupton,[402] in 1660, describes a "powder of the flowers [pollen?] of
elder, gathered on a midsummer day," which was taken to restore lost
youth. Brand, it may be as well to say, traces back the custom of
throwing flour into the faces of women and others on the streets at
Shrovetide, in Minorca and elsewhere, to the time of the Romans.[403]
In writing the description of the Snake Dance of the Moquis of
Arizona, I ventured to advance the surmise that the corn flour with
which the sacred snakes were covered, and with which the air was
whitened, would be found upon investigation to be closely related to
the crithomancy or divination by grains of the cereals, as practiced
among the ancient Greeks. Crithomancy, strictly speaking, meant a
divination by grains of corn. The expression which I should have
employed was alphitomancy, a divination "by meal, flower, or
branne."[404] But both methods of divination have been noticed among
the aborigines of America.
In Peru the medicine-men were divided into classes, as were those of
ancient Egypt. These medicine-men "made the various means of
divination specialities." Some of them predicted by "the shapes of
grains of maize taken at random."[405] In Guatemala grains of corn or
of chile were used indiscriminately, and in Guazacualco the
medicine-women used grains of frijoles or black beans. In Guatemala
they had what they called "ahquij." "Este modo de adivinar se llama
ahquij, malol-tzitè, malol-ixim, esto es: el que adivina por el sol,
ó por granos de maiz ó chile."[406]
In Guazacualco the medicine-women "hechaban suertes con granos de
Frisoles, a manera de Dados, i hacian sus invocaciones, porque eran
Hechiceros: i si el Dado decia bien, proseguian en la cura, diciendo
que sanaria: i si mal, no bolvian al enfermo."[407]
Herrera in the preceding paragraph recognizes the close similarity
between this sacred ceremony of casting lots or divining, and the more
orthodox method of gambling, pure and simple, which has in every case
been derived from a sacred origin.
"Les Hachus [one class of Peruvian priests] consultaient l'avenir au
moyen de grains de maïs ou des excréments des animaux."[408]
The Mexicans "para saber si los enfermos habian de morir, ó sanar de
la enfermedad que tenian, echaban un puñado de maiz lo mas grueso que
podian haber, y lanzábanlo siete ó ocho veces, como lanzan los dados
los que los juegan, y si algun grano quedaba enhiesto, decian que era
señal de muerte."[409]
Father Brebœuf relates that at the Huron feast of the dead, which
occurred every 8 or 10 years and which he saw at Ossossane, "a few
grains of Indian corn were thrown by the women upon the sacred
relics."[410]
THE DOWN OF BIRDS IN CEREMONIAL OBSERVANCES.
No exhaustive and accurate examination of the subject of hoddentin
could be made without bringing the investigator face to face with the
curious analogue of "down" throwing and sprinkling which seemingly
obtains with tribes which at some period of their history have been
compelled to rely upon birds as a main component of their diet.
Examples of this are to be met with on both sides of the Pacific as
well as in remote Australia, and were the matter more fully examined
there is no doubt that some other identifications might be made in
very unexpected quarters. The down used by the Tchuktchi on occasions
of ceremony had a suggestion of religion about it.[411] "On leaving
the shore, they sung and danced. One who stood at the head of the boat
was employed in plucking out the feathers of a bird's skin and blowing
them in the air."
In Langsdorff's Travels[412] we learn that some of the dancers of the
Koluschan of Sitka have their heads powdered with the small down
feathers of the white-headed eagle and ornamented with ermine; also,
that the hair and bodies of the Indians at the mission of Saint
Joseph, New California, were powdered with down feathers.[413]
The Indians from the North Pacific coast seen visiting the mission of
San Francisco, by Kotzebue in 1816, "had their long disordered hair
covered with down."[414]
Bancroft says of the Nootka of the northwest coast of British America:
"the hair is powdered plentifully with white feathers, which are
regarded as the crowning ornament for manly dignity in all these
regions."[415]
The bird's down used by the Haida of British North America in their
dances seems very closely related to hoddentin. They not only put it
upon their own persons, but "delight to communicate it to their
partners in bowing," and also "blow it into the air at regular
intervals through a painted tube." They also scattered down as a sign
of welcome to the first European navigators.[416]
In all these dances, ceremonial visits, and receptions of strangers
the religious element can be discerned more or less plainly. The
Indians west of the Mississippi with whom Father Hennepin was a
prisoner in 1680, and who appear to have been a branch of the Sioux
(Issati or Santee and Nadouessan), had a grand dance to signalize the
killing of a bear. On this occasion, which was participated in by the
"principaux chefs et guerriers," we learn that there was this to be
noted in their dress: "ayant même leurs cheveux frottez d'huile d'ours
& parsemez de plumes, rouges & blanches & les têtes chargées de duvet
d'oiseaux."[417]
"Swan's and bustard's down" was used by the Accancess [i.e., the
Arkansas of the Siouan stock] in their religious ceremonies.[418]
Of the war dress of the members of the Five Nations we learn from an
early writer: "Their heads [previously denuded of all hair except that
of the crown] are painted red down to the eye-brows and sprinkled over
with white down."[419]
The Indians of Virginia at their war dances painted themselves to make
them more terrible: "Pour se rendre plus terriblee, ils sément des
plumes, du duvet, ou du poil de quelque bête sur la peinture toute
fraiche."[420] Down was also used by the medicine-men of the
Carib.[421] The down of birds was used in much the same way by the
tribes of Cumaná, a district of South America not far from the mouth
of the Orinoco, in the present territory of Venezuela;[422] by the
Tupinambis, of Brazil, who covered the bodies of their victims with
it;[423] by the Chiribchi, of South America,[424] and by the tribes
of the Isthmus of Darien.[425] This down has also been used by some of
the Australians in their sacred dances.[426] "The hair, or rather the
wool upon their heads, was very abundantly powdered with white
powder.... They powder not only their heads, but their beards
too."[427]
In China "there is a widespread superstition that the feathers of
birds, after undergoing certain incantations, are thrown up into the
air, and being carried away by the wind work blight and destruction
wherever they alight."
The down of birds seems not to have been unknown in Europe. To this
day it is poured upon the heads of the bride and groom in weddings
among the Russian peasantry.[428]
This leads up to the inquiry whether or not the application of tar and
feathers to the person may not at an early period have been an act of
religious significance, perverted into a ridiculous and infamous
punishment by a conquering and unrelenting hostile sect. The subject
certainly seems to have awakened the curiosity of the learned Buckle,
whose remarks may as well be given.
Richard, during his stay in Normandy (1189), made some singular laws
for regulating the conduct of the pilgrims in their passage by sea. "A
robber, convicted of theft, shall be shaved in the manner of a
champion; and boiling pitch poured upon his head, and the feathers of
a pillow shaken over his head to distinguish him; and be landed at the
first port where the ships shall stop."[429]
The circumstances mentioned in the text respecting tarring and
feathering is a fine subject for comment by the searchers into popular
antiquities.[430]
HAIR POWDER.
Speaking of the "duvet" or down, with which many American savage
tribes deck themselves, Picart observes very justly: "Cet ornement est
bizare, mais dans le fond l'est il beaucoup plus que cette poudre d'or
dont les Anciens, se poudroient la tête, ou que cette poudre composée
d'amidon avec laquelle nos petits maitres modernes affectent de
blanchir leurs cheveux ou leurs perruques?"[431]
Picart does not say, and perhaps it would not be wise for us to
surmise, that these modes of powdering had a religious origin.
The custom of powdering the hair seems to be a savage "survival;" at
least, it is still to be found among the Friendly Islanders, among
whom it was observed by Forster.[432] These islanders used a white
lime powder, also one of blue and another of orange made of turmeric.
The Sandwich Islanders plastered their hair over "with a kind of lime
made from burnt shells,"[433] and Dillon speaks of the Friendly
Islanders using lime, as Forster has already informed us.[434] The
Hottentots made a lavish use of the medicinal powder of the buchu,
which they plastered on their heads, threw to their sacred animals,
and used liberally at their funerals.[435] Kolben dispels all doubt by
saying: "These powderings are religious formalities." He also alludes
to the use, in much the same manner, of ashes by the same people.[436]
The use of ashes also occurs among the Zuñi, the Apache (at times),
and the Abipone of Paraguay. Ashes are also "thrown in the way of a
whirlwind to appease it."[437]
In the Witches' Sabbath, in Germany, "it was said that the witches
burned a he goat, and divided its ashes among themselves."[438]
In all the above cases, as well as in that of the use of ashes in the
Christian churches, it is possible that the origin of the custom might
be traced back either to a desire to share in the burnt offering or
else in that of preserving some of the incinerated dust of the dead
friend or relative for whom the tribe or clan was in mourning. Ashes
in the Christian church were not confined to Lent alone; they "were
worn four times a year, as in the beginning of Lent."[439]
Tuphramancy or divination by ashes was one of the methods of forecast
in use among the priests of pagan Rome.[440]
In Northumberland the custom prevailed of making bonfires on the hills
on St. Peter's day. "They made encroachments, on these occasions, upon
the bonfires of the neighbouring towns, of which they took away some
of the ashes by force: This they called 'carrying off the flower
(probably the flour) of the wake.'[441] Moresin thinks this a vestige
of the ancient Cerealia."
The mourning at Iddah, in Guinea, consists in smearing the forehead
"with wood ashes and clay water, which is allowed to dry on. They
likewise powder their hair with wood ashes."[442]
DUST FROM CHURCHES--ITS USE.
The last ceremonial powder to be described is dust from the ground, as
among some of the Australians who smear their heads with pipe-clay as
a sign of mourning.[443]
The French writers mention among the ceremonies of the Natchez one in
which the Great Sun "gathered dust, which he threw back over his head,
and turned successively to the four quarters of the world in repeating
the same act of throwing dust."[444]
Mention is made of "an old woman who acted as beadle" of a church, who
"once brought to the bedside of a dying person some of the sweepings
from the floor of the altar, to ease and shorten a very lingering
death."[445]
Altar dust was a very ancient remedy for disease. Frommann says that,
of the four tablets found in a temple of Esculapius, one bore this
inscription: "Lucio affecto lateris dolore; veniret et ex ara tollerit
cinerem et una cum vino comisceret et poneret supra latus; et
convaluit," etc.[446]
It seems then that the mediæval use of altar dust traces back to the
Roman use of altar ashes.
So hard is it to eradicate from the minds of savages ideas which have
become ingrafted upon their nature that we need not be surprised to
read in the Jesuit relations of affairs in Canada (1696-1702) that, at
the Mission of Saint Francis, where the Indians venerated the memory
of a saintly woman of their own race, Catheraine Tagikoo-ita, "pour
guérir les malades que les rémèdes ordinaires ne soulagent point, on
avale dans l'eau ou dans un bouillon un peu de la poussière de son
tombeau."
A few persons are to be found who endeavor to collect the dust from
the feet of one hundred thousand Brahmins. One way of collecting this
dust is by spreading a cloth before the door of a house where a great
multitude of Brahmins are assembled at a feast, and, as each Brahmin
comes out, he shakes the dust from his feet as he treads upon this
cloth. Many miraculous cures are declared to have been performed upon
persons using this dust.[447]
A widow among the Armenian devil-worshipers is required "to strew dust
on her head and to smear her face with clay."[448]
CLAY-EATING.
The eating of clay would appear to have once prevailed all over the
world. In places the custom has degenerated into ceremonial or is to
be found only in myths. The Aztec devotee picked up a pinch of clay
in the temple of Tezcatlipoca and ate it with the greatest
reverence.[449]
Sahagun is quoted by Squier[450] as saying that the Mexicans swore by
the sun and "by our sovereign mother, the Earth," and ate a piece of
earth.
But the use of clay by the Mexicans was not merely a matter of
ceremony; clay seems to have been an edible in quite common use.
Edible earth was sold openly in the markets of Mexico; "yaun tierra,"
says Gomara in the list of foods given by him.[451]
The eating of clay was forbidden to Mexican women during pregnancy.
Diego Duran describes the ceremonial eating of clay in the temples of
Mexico; "Llegó el dedo al suelo, y cogiendo tierra en él lo metió en
la boca; á la cual ceremonia llamaban comer tierra santa."[452] And
again he says that in their sacrifices the Mexican nobles ate earth
from the feet of the idols. "Comian tierra de la que estaba á los pies
del Ydolo."[453] But the Mexicans did not limit themselves to a
ceremonial clay-eating alone. Thomas Gage relates that "they ate a
kind of earth, for at one season in the yeer they had nets of mayle,
with the which they raked up a certaine dust that is bred upon the
water of the Lake of Mexico, and that is kneaded together like unto
oas of the sea."[454]
Diego Duran[455] mentions the ceremonial clay-eating at the feast of
Tezcatlipoca agreeing with the note already taken from Kingsborough.
There is reference to clay-eating in one of the myths given in the
Popol-Vuh. The Quiche deities Hunahpu and Xbalanqué, desiring to
overcome the god Cabrakan, fed him upon roasted birds, but they took
care to rub one of the birds with "tizate" and to put white powder
around it. The circle of white powder was, no doubt, a circle of
hoddentin or something analogous thereto, intended to prevent any
baleful influence being exercised by Cabrakan. "Mais ils frottèrent
l'un des oiseaux avec du _tizate_ et lui mirent de la poussière
blanche à l'entour."[456]
In a footnote the word "tizate" is explained to be a very friable
whitish earth, used in polishing metals, making cement, etc.: "Terre
blanchâtre fort friable, et dont ils se servent pour polir les métaux,
faire du ciment, etc."
Cabeza de Vaca says that the Indians of Florida ate clay--"de la
terre."[457] He says also[458] that the natives offered him many
mesquite beans, which they ate mixed with earth--"mele avec de la
terre."[459]
The Jaguaces of Florida ate earth (tierra).[460]
At the trial of Vasco Pocallo de Figueroa, in Santiago de Cuba, in
1522, "for cruelty to the natives," he sought to make it appear that
the Indians ate clay as a means of suicide: "el abuso de los Indios en
comer tierra ... seguian matandose de intento comiendo tierra."[461]
The Muiscas had in their language the word "jipetera," a "disease from
eating dirt."[462] Whether the word "dirt" as here employed means
filth, or earth and clay, is not plain; it probably means clay and
earth.
Venegas asserts that the Indians of California ate earth. The
traditions of the Indians of San Juan Capistrano, California, and
vicinity show that "they had fed upon a kind of clay," which they
"often used upon their heads by way of ornament."[463]
The Tátu Indians of California mix "red earth into their acorn bread
... to make the bread sweet and make it go further."[464]
Long[465] relates that when the young warrior of the Oto or Omaha
tribes goes out on his first fast he "rubs his person over with a
whitish clay," but he does not state that he ate it.
Sir John Franklin[466] relates that the banks of the Mackenzie River
in British North America contain layers of a kind of unctuous mud,
probably similar to that found near the Orinoco, which the Tinneh
Indians "use occasionally as food during seasons of famine, and even
at other times chew as an amusement.... It has a milky taste and the
flavour is not disagreeable."
Father de Smet[467] says of the Athapascan: "Many wandering families
of the Carrier tribe ... have their teeth worn to the gums by the
earth and sand they swallow with their nourishment." This does not
seem to have been intentionally eaten.
"Some of the Siberian tribes, when they travel, carry a small bag of
their native earth, the taste of which they suppose will preserve them
from, all the evils of a foreign sky."[468]
We are informed that the Tunguses of Siberia eat a clay called "rock
marrow," which they mix with marrow. "Near the Ural Mountains,
powdered gypsum, commonly called 'rock meal,' is sometimes mixed with
bread, but its effects are pernicious."[469]
"The Jukabiri of northeastern Siberia have an earth of sweetish and
rather astringent taste," to which they "ascribe a variety of sanatory
properties."[470]
There is nothing in the records relating to Victoria respecting the
use of any earth for the purpose of appeasing hunger, but Grey
mentions that one kind of earth, pounded and mixed with the root of
the _Mene_ (a species of Hæmadorum), is eaten by the natives of West
Australia.[471]
The Apache and Navajo branches of the Athapascan family are not
unacquainted with the use of clay as a comestible, although among the
former it is now scarcely ever used and among the latter used only as
a condiment to relieve the bitterness of the taste of the wild potato;
in the same manner it is known to both the Zuñi and Tusayan.
Wallace says that eating dirt was "a very common and destructive habit
among Indians and half-breeds in the houses of the whites."[472]
"Los apassionados à comer tierra son los Indios Otomacos."[473]
"The earth which is eaten by the Ottomacs [of the Rio Orinoco] is fat
and unctuous."[474]
Waitz[475] cites Heusinger as saying that the Ottomacs of the Rio
Orinoco eat large quantities of a fatty clay.
Clay was eaten by the Brazilians generally.[476]
The Romans had a dish called "alica" or "frumenta," made of the grain
zea mixed with chalk from the hills at Puteoli, near Naples.[477]
According to the myths of the Cingalese, their Brahmins once "fed on
it [earth] for the space of 60,000 years."[478]
PREHISTORIC FOODS USED IN COVENANTS.
It has been shown that the Apache, on several occasions, as when going
out to meet strangers, entering into solemn agreements, etc., made use
of the hoddentin. A similar use of food, generally prehistoric, can be
noted in other regions of the world.
It was a kind of superstitious trial used among the Saxons to purge
themselves of any accusation by taking a piece of barley bread and
eating it with solemn oaths and execrations that it might prove
poisonous or their last morsel if what they asserted or denied was not
true.[479] Those pieces of bread were first execrated by the priest,
from which he infers that at a still earlier day sacramental bread may
have been used for the same purpose.
At Rome, in the time of Cicero and Horace, a master who suspected that
his slaves had robbed him conducted them before a priest. They were
each obliged to eat a cake over which the priest had "pronounced some
magical words (_carmine infectum_)."[480]
The people living on the coast of Coramandel have an ordeal
consisting in the chewing of unboiled rice. No harm will attach to him
who tells the truth, but the perjurer is threatened with condign
punishment in this world and in that to come.[481] Bread is bitten
when the Ostaaks of Siberia take a solemn oath, such as one of fealty
to the Czar.[482]
SACRED BREADS AND CAKES.
Since the employment of hoddentin, or tule pollen, as a sacred
commemorative food would seem to have been fairly demonstrated, before
closing this section I wish to add a few paragraphs upon the very
general existence of ritualistic farinaceous foods in all parts of the
world. They can be detected most frequently in the ceremonial
reversion to a grain or seed which has passed or is passing out of
everyday use in some particular form given to the cake or bread or
some circumstance of time, place, and mode of manufacture and
consumption which stamps it as a "survival." So deeply impressed was
Grimm[483] with the wide horizon spreading around the consideration of
this topic that he observed: "Our knowledge of heathen antiquities
will gain both by the study of these drinking usages which have lasted
into later times and also of the shapes given to _baked meats_, which
either retained the actual forms of ancient idols or were accompanied
by sacrificial observances. A history of German cakes and bread rolls
might contain some unexpected disclosures.... Even the shape of cakes
is a reminiscence of the sacrifices of heathenism."
The first bread or cake to be mentioned in this part of the subject is
the pancake, still so frequently used on the evening of Shrove
Tuesday. In antiquity it can be traced back before the Reformation,
before the Crusades were dreamed of, before the Barbarians had
subverted Rome, before Rome itself had fairly taken shape.
There seems to have been a very decided religious significance in the
preparation of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. In Leicestershire, "On
Shrove Tuesday a bell rings at noon, which is meant as a signal for
the people to begin frying their pancakes."[484]
"The Norman _Crispellæ_ (Du Cange) are evidently taken from the
_Fornacalia_, on the 18th of February, in memory of the method of
making bread, before the Goddess _Fornax_ invented ovens."[485]
Under "Crispellæ," Du Cange says: "Rustici apud Normannos vocant
Crespes, ova pauca mixta cum farina, et in sartagine frixa," and says
that they are "ex herba, farina et oleo."[486] These same Crispellæ
are to be seen on the Rio Grande during Christmas week.
In the Greek Church and throughout Russia there is to the present time
a "pancake feast" at Shrovetide.[487]
At one time a custom prevailed of going about from one friend's house
to another, masked, and committing every conceivable prank. "Then the
people feasted on blinnies--a pancake similar to the English
crumpet."[488]
In the pancake we have most probably the earliest form of farinaceous
food known to the nations which derived their civilization from the
basin of the Mediterranean. Among these nations wheat has been in use
from a time far beyond the remotest historical period, and to account
for its introduction myth has been invoked; but this wheat was cooked
without leaven, or was fried in a pan, after the style of the tortilla
still used in Spanish-speaking countries, or of the pancake common
among ourselves. Pliny[489] says that there were no bakers known in
Rome until nearly six hundred years after the foundation of the city,
in the days of the war with Persia; but he perhaps meant the public
bakers authorized by law. The use of wheat and the art of baking
bread, as we understand it to-day, were practically unknown to the
nations of northern Europe until within the recent historical
period.[490]
Nothing would be more in consonance with the mode of reasoning of a
primitive people than that, at certain designated festivals, there
should be a recurrence to the earlier forms of food, a reversion to an
earlier mode of life, as a sort of propitiation of the gods or
goddesses who had cared for the nation in its infancy and to secure
the continuance of their beneficent offices. Primitive man was never
so certain of the power of the gods of the era of his own greatest
development that he could rely upon it implicitly and exclusively and
ignore the deities who had helped him to stand upon his feet. Hence,
the recurrence to pancakes, to unleavened breads of all kinds, among
various peoples. This view of the subject was made plain to me while
among the Zuñi Indians. Mr. Frank H. Cushing showed me that the women,
when baking the "loaves" of bread, were always careful to place in the
adobe ovens a tortilla with each batch of the newer kind, and no doubt
for the reason just given.
UNLEAVENED BREAD.
The unleavened bread of the earliest period of Jewish history has come
down to our own times in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, still observed
by the Hebrews in all parts of the world, in the bread used in the
eucharistic sacrifice by so large a portion of the Christian world,
and apparently in some of the usages connected with the
half-understood fast known as the "Ember Days." Brand quotes from an
old work in regard to the Ember Days: "They were so called 'because
that our elder fathers wolde on these days ete no brede but cakes made
under ashes.'"[491]
The sacred cake or "draona" of the Parsi "is a small round pancake or
wafer of unleavened bread, about the size of the palm of the hand. It
is made of wheaten flour and water, with a little clarified butter,
and is flexible."[492] A variety of the "draona," called a "frasast,"
is marked with the finger nail and set aside for the guardian spirits
of the departed.[493]
Cakes and salt were used in religious rites by the ancients. The Jews
probably adopted their appropriation from the Egyptians.[494] "During
all the Passover week--14th to 21st Nisan, i.e., during this week's
moon--Shemites fast, only eating unleavened bread, and most
diligently--not without reason--cleansing their houses." "And
especially had all leavened matter to be removed, for the new leavener
had now arisen, and prayers with curses were offered up against any
portions which might have escaped observation. The law of their fierce
Jahveh was that, whoever during all this festival tasted leavened
bread, 'that soul should be cut off,' which Godwyn mollifies by urging
that this only meant the offender should die without children; which
was still a pretty considerable punishment for eating a piece of
bread!"[495]
"The great day of Pentecost is the 6th of Sivan, or, say, the 22d of
May, 1874. From the first barley _two loaves_ were then made, 'the
offering of which was the distinguishing rite of the day of
Pentecost.'"[496]
On St. Bridget's Eve every farmer's wife in Ireland makes a cake,
called _bairinbreac_; the neighbors are invited, the madder of ale and
the pipe go round, and the evening concludes with mirth and
festivity.[497] Vallencey identifies this as the same kind of offering
that was made to Ceres, and to "the queen of heaven, to whom the
Jewish women burnt incense, poured out drink offerings, and made cakes
for her with their own hands."[498]
THE HOT CROSS BUNS OF GOOD FRIDAY.
The belief prevailed that these would not mold like ordinary
bread.[499]
"In several counties [in England] a small loaf of bread is annually
baked on the morning of Good Friday and then put by till the same
anniversary in the ensuing year. This bread is not intended to be
eaten, but to be used as a medicine, and the mode of administering it
is by grating a small portion of it into water and forming a sort of
panada. It is believed to be good for many disorders, but particularly
for a diarrhœa, for which it is considered a sovereign remedy. Some
years ago a cottager lamented that her poor neighbour must certainly
die of this complaint, because she had already given her two doses of
Good Friday bread without any benefit. No information could be
obtained from the doctress respecting her nostrum, but that she had
heard old folks say that it was a good thing and that she always made
it."[500]
Brand quotes a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine who shows that they
were "formerly, at least, unleavened," p. 156. They "are constantly
marked with the form of the cross." "It is an old belief that the
observance of the custom of eating buns on Good Friday protects the
house from fire, and several other virtues are attributed to these
buns," p. 156. "Hutchinson, in his History of Northumberland,
following Bryant's Analysis, derives the Good Friday bun from the
sacred cakes which were offered at the Arkite Temples, styled Boun,
and presented every seventh day," p. 155. A very interesting
dissertation upon these sacred cakes as used by the Greeks, Egyptians,
and Jews in the time of their idolatry, is to be found in Brand's
work, pp. 155-156.[501]
Practices analogous to those referred to are to be noted among the
Pueblo Indians. They offer not only the kunque, but bread also in
their sacrifices.
In the sacred rabbit hunt of the Zuñi, which occurs four times a year
and is carried on for the purpose of procuring meat for the sacred
eagles confined in cages, a great fire was made on the crest of a
hill, into which were thrown piles of bread crusts and in the smoke of
which the boomerangs or rabbit sticks were held while the hunter
recited in an audible tone and with downcast head the prayers
prescribed for the occasion. One of the early Spanish writers informs
us that the women of the pueblo of Santo Domingo, on the Rio Grande,
offered bread on bended knees to their idols and then preserved it for
the remainder of the year, and the house which did not have a supply
of such blessed bread was regarded as unfortunate and exposed to
danger.[502]
A prehistoric farinaceous food of the Romans survives in our bridecake
or wedding cake. It is well understood that among the Romans there
were three kinds of marriage: that called "coemptio," that called
"concubitu" or "usu," and the highest form of all, known as
"confarratio," from the fact that bride and groom ate together of a
kind of cake or bread made of the prehistoric flour, the "far." We
have preserved the custom of having bridecake, which is still served
with many superstitious ceremonies: "it must be cut by the bride
herself; it must be broken in pieces (formerly these pieces were cast
over the heads of the bridesmaids), and, after being passed through a
wedding ring a certain number of times, it must be placed under the
pillow of the anxious maiden to serve as a basis for her dreams."[503]
Exactly what this prehistoric food was it is now an impossibility to
determine with exactness. Torquemada shows that long after the Romans
had obtained the use of wheat they persisted in the sacrificial use of
the "nola isla," "farro," and "escanda," forms of wild grain once
roasted and ground and made into bread by their forefathers.[504] A
similar usage prevailed among the Greeks. Pliny speaks of "the bearded
red wheat, named in Latin 'far,'" and tells us that rye was called
"secale" or "farrago."[505] The radical "far" is still to be found all
over Europe in the word for flour, "farina," "farine," or "harina,"
while it is also possible that it may be detected in the
ever-to-be-honored name of Farragut.[506]
In the eight marriage rites described by Baudhâyana, the initiatory
oblation in the fourth (that in which the father gives his daughter
away) consists of "parched grain." This rite is one of the four which
are lawful for a Brahman. The parched grain to be used would seem to
be either sesamum or barley, although this is not clear. Vasish_th_a
says, chapter 27, concerning secret penances: "He who ... uses barley
(for his food) becomes pure."[507]
The pages of Brand[508] are filled with references to various forms of
cake which seem properly to be included under this chapter. In England
there formerly prevailed the custom of preparing "soul cakes" for
distribution among visitors to the family on that day and to bands of
waifs or singers, who expected them as a dole for praying and singing
in the interests of the souls of the dead friends and relatives of the
family. On the island of St. Kilda the soul cake was "a large cake in
the form of a triangle, furrowed round, and which was to be all eaten
that night."[509] In Lancashire and Hertfordshire the cake was made of
oatmeal, but in many other parts it was a "seed cake"[510] and in
Warwickshire, "at the end of barley and bean seed time, there is a
custom there to give the plowmen _froise_, a species of thick
pancake."[511] "All-soul cakes" were distributed at time of All Souls'
Day.
In England and Scotland the old custom[512] was to have a funeral
feast, which all friends and relations were expected to attend. Wine,
currant cake, meat, and other refreshments, varying according to the
fortune of the family, were served liberally. The bread given out was
called "arvil-bread." There is no special reason for believing that
this could be called a hoddentin custom, except that the writer
himself calls attention to the fact that in the earlier times the
bread was in the form of "wafers."[513]
The Romans had a college of priests called the "Fratres Arvales,"
nine, or, as some say, twelve in number, to whose care were committed
the sacrifices in honor of Ceres at the old limits of the city, to
propitiate that goddess and induce her to bestow fertility upon the
fields. These ceremonies, which are believed by the editor of Bohn's
Strabo to survive in the Rogation Day processions of the Roman
Catholic Church, recall the notes already taken upon the subject of
the Arval bread of the Scotch.[514] The sacrifices themselves were
designated "Ambarva" and "Ambarvalia."
In Scotland and England it was customary for bands of singers to go
from door to door on New Year's Eve, singing and receiving reward. In
the latter country "cheese and oaten cakes, which are called _farls_,
are distributed on this occasion among the cryers." In the former
country "there was a custom of distributing sweet cakes and a
particular kind of sugared bread."[515]
A fine kind of wheat bread called "wassail-bread" formed an important
feature of the entertainment on New Year's Day in old England.[516]
Among love divinations may be reckoned the dumb cake, so called
because it was to be made without speaking, and afterwards the parties
were to go backward up the stairs to bed and put the cake under their
pillows, when they were to dream of their lovers.[517]
References to the beal-tine ceremonies of Ireland and Scotland, in
which oatmeal gruel figured as a dish, or cakes made of oatmeal and
carraway seeds, may be found in Brand, Pop. Antiq., vol. 1, p. 226; in
Blount, Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors, London, 1874, p. 131;
and in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, in Pinkerton's Voyages, vol. 3, p.
49. In "A Charm for Bewitched Land" we find the mode of making a cake
or loaf with holy water.
The mince pie and plum pudding of Christmas are evidently ancient
preparations, and it is not unlikely that the shape of the former,
which, prior to the Reformation, was that of a child's cradle, had a
reminiscence of the sacrifice of babies at the time of the winter
solstice. Grimm has taught that where human sacrifice had been
abolished the figure of a coffin or a cradle was still used as a
symbol.
There is a wide field of information to be gleaned in the
investigation of the subject of bean foods at certain periods or
festivals of the year, and upon this point I have some notes and
memoranda, but, as my present remarks are limited to prehistoric
_farinaceous_ foods, I do not wish to add to the bulk of the present
chapter.[518]
"Kostia--boiled rice and plums--is the only thing partaken of on
Christmas Eve."[519]
GALENA.
At times one may find in the "medicine" of the more prominent and
influential of the chiefs and medicine-men of the Apache little sacks
which, when opened, are found to contain pounded galena; this they
tell me is a "great medicine," fully equal to hoddentin, but more
difficult to obtain. It is used precisely as hoddentin is used; that
is, both as a face paint and as a powder to be thrown to the sun or
other elements to be propitiated. The Apache are reluctant to part
with it, and from living Apache I have never obtained more than one
small sack of it.
No one seems to understand the reason for its employment. Mr. William
M. Beebe has suggested that perhaps the fact that galena always
crystallizes in cubes, and that it would thus seem to have a
mysterious connection with the cardinal points to which all nomadic
peoples pay great attention as being invested with the power of
keeping wanderers from going astray, would not be without influence
upon the minds of the medicine-men, who are quick to detect and to
profit by all false analogies. The conjecture appears to me to be a
most plausible one, but I can submit it only as a conjecture, for no
explanation of the kind was received from any of the Indians. All that
I can say is that whenever procurable it was always used by the Apache
on occasions of unusual importance and solemnity and presented as a
round disk painted in the center of the forehead.
The significance of all these markings of the face among savage and
half-civilized nations is a subject deserving of the most careful
research; like the sectarial marks of the Hindus, all, or nearly all,
the marks made upon the faces of American Indians have a meaning
beyond the ornamental or the grotesque.
Galena was observed in use among the tribes seen by Cabeza de Vaca.
"Ils nous donnèrent beaucoup de bourses, contenant des sachets de
marcassites et d'antimoine en poudre." ("Taleguillas de margaxita y de
alcohol molido.")[520] This word "margaxita" means iron pyrites. The
Encyclopædia Britannica says that the Peruvians used it for "amulets;"
so also did the Apache. What Vaca took for antimony was pounded galena
no doubt. He was by this time in or near the Rocky Mountains.[521]
On the northwest coast of America we read of the natives: "One,
however, as he came near, took out from his bosom some iron or
lead-colored micaceous earth and drew marks with it across his cheeks
in the shape of two pears, stuffed his nostrils with grass, and thrust
thin pieces of bone through the cartilage of his nose."[522]
It is more than probable that some of the face-painting with "black
earth," "ground charcoal," etc., to which reference is made by the
early writers, may have been galena, which substance makes a
deep-black mark. The natives would be likely to make use of their
most sacred powder upon first meeting with mysterious strangers like
Vaca and his companions. So, when the expedition of La Salle reached
the mouth of the Ohio, in 1680, the Indians are described as fasting
and making superstitious sacrifices; among other things, they marked
themselves with "black earth" and with "ground charcoal." "Se daban
con Tierra Negra o Carbon molido."[523]
From an expression in Burton, I am led to suspect that the application
of kohl or antimony to the eyes of Arabian beauty is not altogether
for ornament. "There are many kinds of kohl used in medicine and
magic."[524]
Corbusier says of the Apache-Yuma: "Galena and burnt mescal are used
on their faces, the former to denote anger or as war paint, being
spread all over the face, except the chin and nose, which are painted
red."[525]
In Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, London, 1832, page 165, may be
found a brief chapter upon the subject of the sectarial marks of the
Hindus. With these we may fairly compare the marks which the Apache,
on ceremonial occasions, make upon cheeks and forehead. The adherents
of the Brahminical sects, before entering a temple, must mark
themselves upon the forehead with the tiluk. Among the Vishnuites,
this is a longitudinal vermilion line. The Seevites use several
parallel lines in saffron.[526] Maurice adds that the Hindus place the
tiluk upon their idols in twelve places.[527] "Among the Kaffir the
warriors are rendered invulnerable by means of a black cross on their
foreheads and black stripes on the cheeks, both painted by the
Inyanga, or fetich priest."[528]
A piece of galena weighing 7½ pounds was found in a mound near Naples,
Illinois.[529] Occasionally with the bones of the dead are noticed
small cubes of galena; and in our collection is a ball of this ore,
weighing a pound and two ounces, which was taken from a mound, and
which probably did service, enveloped in raw hide, as some form of
weapon.[530] Galena was much prized by the former inhabitants of North
America. "The frequent occurrence of galena on the altars of the
sacrificial mounds proves, at any rate, that the ancient inhabitants
attributed a peculiar value to it, deeming it worthy to be offered as
a sacrificial gift."[531] See also Squier and Davis.[532]
FOOTNOTES:
[247] Deane, Serpent Worship, London, 1833, p. 410.
[248] The medicine sack or bag of the Apache, containing their
"hoddentin," closely resembles the "bullæ" of the Romans--in which "On
y mettait des préservatifs contre les maléfices." Musée de Naples,
London, 1836, p. 4. Copy shown me by Mr. Spofford, of the Library of
Congress.
[249] Information of Tze-go-juni.
[250] Information of Concepcion.
[251] See notes, a few pages farther on, from Kohl; also those from
Godfrey Higgins. The word "opé" suggests the name the Tusayan have for
themselves, Opi, or Opika, "bread people."
[252] Information of Tze-go-juni.
[253] Information of Mike Burns.
[254] Information of Mickey Free.
[255] Information of Alchise, Mike, and others.
[256] Information of Francesca and other captive Chiricahua squaws.
[257] Information of Moses Henderson.
[258] Information of Chato.
[259] Information of Tze-go-juni.
[260] Information of Moses Henderson and other Apache at San Carlos.
[261] Bureau of Ethnology, Report for 1883-'84.
[262] Information of Francesca and others.
[263] Information of Tze-go-juni.
[264] Smart, in Smithsonian Report for 1867, p. 419.
[265] Snake Dance of Moquis of Arizona, New York, 1884.
[266] In the third volume of Kingsborough, on plate 17 (Aztec picture
belonging to M. Pejernavy, Pesth, Hungary), an Aztec, probably a
priest, is shown offering food to a snake, which eats it out of his
hand.
[267] Corbusier, in American Antiquarian, November, 1886, pp. 336-37.
[268] Information of Moses Henderson.
[269] American Antiquarian, Sept. and Nov., 1886.
[270] Ann. Rep. Bu. Eth., 1883-'84.
[271] Snake Dance of the Moquis.
[272] Interview with Pedro Pino.
[273] Kunque has added to the cornmeal the meal of two varieties of
corn, blue and yellow, a small quantity of pulverized sea shells, and
some sand, and when possible a fragment of the blue stone called
"chalchihuitl." In grinding the meal on the metates the squaws are
stimulated by the medicine-men who keep up a constant singing and
drumming.
[274] Simpson, Expedition to the Navajo Country, in Senate Doc. 64,
31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849-'50, p. 95.
[275] Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. 3, p. 470. "Echavan mucha harina de maiz
por el suelo para que la pisassen los caballos."--Padre Fray Juan
Gonzales de Mendoza, De las Cosas de Chino, etc., Madrid, 1586, p.
172. See also the Relacion of Padre Fray Alonso Fernandez, Historia
Eclesiastica de Nuestros Tiempos, Toledo, 1611, pp. 15, 16.
[276] P. 162.
[277] Diego Duran, vol. 2, cap. 49, pp. 506, 507.
[278] Herrera, dec. 5., lib. 4, cap. 5, p. 92.
[279] Padre Christoval de Molina, Fables and Rites of the Yncas,
translated by Markham in Hakluyt Soc. Trans., vol. 48, p. 63, London,
1873.
[280] Montesinos, pp. 161, 162, in Ternaux-Compans, vol. 17, Mémoires
sur l'ancien Pérou.
[281] Relation of the voyage of Don Fernando Alarcon, in Hakluyt
Voyages, vol. 3, p. 508.
[282] Alarcon in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., vol. 9, p. 330. See also in
Hakluyt Voyages, vol. 3, p. 516.
[283] Kitchi-gami, London, 1860, p. 51.
[284] See also on the subject Acosta, Hist. Naturelle des Indes, lib.
5, cap. 19, p. 241.
[285] Landa, Cosas de Yucatan, Paris, 1864, page 148.
[286] Bancroft, Native Races, vol. 2, p. 145. See also Clavigero,
Hist. of Mexico, Philadelphia, 1817, vol. 2, p. 128.
[287] Smith, Araucanians, 1855, pp. 274-275.
[288] Smith, True Travels, Adventures and Observations, Richmond,
1819, vol. 1, p. 161.
[289] Cérémonies et Coûtumes, Amsterdam, 1735, vol. 6, p. 74.
[290] Historia de las Indias, p. 284.
[291] Colonial Records of North Carolina, 1886, vol. 1, p. 930.
[292] Mœurs des Sauvages, Paris, 1724, vol. 1, p. 386.
[293] Personal notes of May 26, 1881; conversation with Chi and Damon
at Fort Defiance. Navajo Agency, Arizona.
[294] Ibid.
[295] Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, p. 160.
[296] Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, vol. 4, p. 213.
[297] Columbus Letters, in Hakluyt Soc. Works, London, 1847, vol. 2,
p. 192.
[298] Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, p. 279.
[299] The medicine-men of the Swampy Crees, as described in Bishop of
Rupert's Land's works, quoted by Henry Youle Hind, Canadian Exploring
Expedition, vol. 1, p. 113.
[300] Personal notes, November 22, 1885, at Baker's ranch, summit of
the Sierra Ancha, Arizona.
[301] Tanner's Narrative, p. 174.
[302] Blount, Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors, London, 1874, p.
355.
[303] Brand, Popular Antiquities, London, 1882, vol. 3, pp. 307 et
seq.
[304] Crónica Seráfica, p. 434.
[305] Nicolas Perrot, Mœurs, Coustumes et Relligion des sauvages de
l'Amérique Septentrionale (Ed. of Rev. P. J. Tailhan, S.J.,) Leipzig,
1864. Perrot was a coureur de bois, interpreter, and donné of the
Jesuit missions among the Ottawa, Sioux, Iowa, etc., from 1665 to
1701.
[306] Leems', Account of Danish Lapland, in Pinkerton's Voyages,
London, 1814, vol. 1, p. 484.
[307] Across Africa, London, 1877, vol. 1, p. 277.
[308] Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 118, 120.
[309] Source of the Nile, London, 1863, introd., p. xxi.
[310] Cameron, Across Africa, London, 1877, vol. 2, p. 201.
[311] Source of the Nile, London, 1863, pp. 130, 259.
[312] Dark Continent, vol. 2, p. 260.
[313] Schultze, Fetichism, New York, 1885, p. 53.
[314] Ibid., footnote, page 53.
[315] Ibid., p. 67.
[316] Asiatick Researches, Calcutta, 1805, vol. 8, p. 78.
[317] Coleman, Mythology of the Hindus, London, 1832, p. 44.
[318] History of the Sect of the Mahárájahs, quoted by Inman, Ancient
Faiths, etc., vol. 1, p. 393.
[319] Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. 1, p. 261.
[320] Picart, Cérémonies et Coûtumes, etc., vol. 6, part 2, p. 119.
[321] Among the Mongols, London, 1883, p. 179.
[322] Wright, Sorcery and Magic, London, 1851, vol. 1, p. 346.
[323] Anacalypsis, vol. 2, p. 244.
[324] Rivers of Life, vol. 1, p. 161.
[325] Source of the Nile, London, 1863, pp. 205, 208.
[326] Sahagun, vol. 2, in Kingsborough, vol. 6, p. 29.
[327] Forlong, Rivers of Life, vol. 1, p. 184.
[328] Ibid., pp. 185, 186.
[329] Ibid., p. 186.
[330] Dec. 6, lib. 1, p. 9.
[331] Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, vol. 7, pp. 242, 250.
[332] Relation of Cabeza de Vaca in Purchas, vol. 4, lib. 8, cap. 1,
sec. 4, p. 1524.
[333] Conquest of New Mexico, p. 100.
[334] Ensayo Cronologico, pp. 12 et seq.
[335] See also on this point Corbusier, in American Antiquarian,
November, 1886.
[336] Rau's translation in Smithsonian Ann. Rep., 1863, p. 364.
[337] Probably the Lake of Parras.
[338] Historia de la Compañía de Jesus en Nueva-España, vol. 1, p.
284.
[339] History of Virginia.
[340] See also article by J. Howard Gore, Smithsonian Report, 1881.
[341] Pinkerton, Voyages, London, 1814, vol. 13, p. 468.
[342] Personal notes, April 5, 1881.
[343] Drake, World Encompassed, pp. 124-126, quoted by H. H. Bancroft,
Native Races, vol. 1, pp. 387-388. (This chaplain stated so many
things ignorantly that nothing is more probable than that he attempted
to describe, without seeing it, the plant from which the Indians told
him that hoddentin (or downe) was obtained. The principal chief or
"king" would, on such an awe-inspiring occasion as meeting with
strange Europeans, naturally want to cover himself and followers with
all the hoddentin the country afforded.)
[344] Kennan, Tent Life in Siberia, p. 66.
[345] Quoted by Kingsborough, vol. 6, p. 100.
[346] Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana, vol. 2, lib. 10, cap. 22, p. 274.
[347] Gallatin, in Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc., vol. 1, pp. 117-118.
[348] Vetancurt, Teatro Mexicano, vol. 1, p. 271.
[349] Mœurs des Sauvages, vol. 2, pp. 194, 195.
[350] Madrid, 1870, vol. 14, p. 320.
[351] Ibid.
[352] Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, vol. 9, p. 159.
[353] Among others consult Crónica Seráfica y Apostolica of Espinosa,
Mexico, 1746, p. 419, speaking of the Asinai of Texas in 1700:
"Siembran tambien cantidad de Gyrasoles que se dan muy corpulentos y
la flor muy grande que en el centro tienen la semilla como de piñones
y de ella mixturada con el maiz hacen un bollo que es de mucho sabor y
sustancia."
[354] Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nations Civilisées, quoted by
Bancroft, Native Races, vol. 3, p. 421.
[355] Sahagun, in book 7, Kingsborough, p. 71.
[356] Squier, Serpent Symbol, p. 193, quoting Torquemada, lib. 7, cap.
8.
[357] History of Mexico, Philadelphia, 1817, vol. 2, p. 79. See the
additional note from Clavigero, which would seem to show that this
etzalli was related to the espadaña or rush.
[358] Monarchia Indiana, vol. 2, lib. 6, cap. 38, p. 71.
[359] Ibid., p. 72.
[360] Ibid., p. 73.
[361] Dec. 3, lib. 2, pp. 71, 72.
[362] Native Races, vol. 3, p. 323.
[363] Diego Duran, vol. 3, p. 187.
[364] See notes already given from Buckingham Smith's translation of
Vaca.
[365] Diego Duran, vol. 3, p. 195.
[366] José Acosta, Hist. des Indes, ed. of Paris, 1600, liv. 5, cap.
24, p. 250.
[367] Monarchia Indiana, lib. 10, cap. 33.
[368] Ibid., lib. 6, cap. 48.
[369] From Paris to Pekin, London, 1885, pp. 312, 313.
[370] New York, 1830, p. 191.
[371] Dubois, People of India, London, 1817, p. 490.
[372] Gomara, Historia de Méjico, p. 445.
[373] Mendieta, Hist. Eclesiástica Ind., p. 108.
[374] Ibid., p. 402.
[375] Ibid., p. 515.
[376] Gomara, Historia de Méjico, p. 446.
[377] From the account of lecture appearing in the Evening Star,
Washington, D. C., May 19, 1888.
[378] Herrera, dec. 5, lib. 4, cap. 5, p. 92.
[379] Balboa, Histoire du Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, vol. 15,
pp. 124 and 127.
[380] See the explanatory text to the Codex Mendoza, in Kingsborough,
vol. 5, p. 90 et seq.
[381] Historia de Méjico, p. 439.
[382] Clavigero, History of Mexico, Philadelphia, 1817, vol. 2, p.
101.
[383] "They strewed the temple in a curious way with rushes."--Ibid.,
p. 78.
[384] Native Races, vol. 3, pp. 334-343.
[385] Sahagun, in Kingsborough, vol. 7, p. 16.
[386] British Monachism, London, 1817, p. 289.
[387] Kingsborough, vol. 7, p. 83, from Sahagun.
[388] Ximenez, Guatemala, Translated by Scherzer, p. 13.
[389] Cérémonies et Coûtumes, etc., vol. 1, p. 27.
[390] "Tanta diferencia de manjares y de géneros de pan que era cosa
estraña."--Diego Duran, vol. 3, cap. 4, p. 219.
[391] Davis, Conquest of New Mexico, p. 273.
[392] Commerce of the Prairies, vol. 2, p. 54.
[393] Pacific R. R. Report, 1856, vol. 3, pt. 1, p. 34.
[394] Ibid., p. 34.
[395] Ibid., p. 38.
[396] "Los Apaches traian pieles de cibolas, gamuzas y otras cosas, á
hacer cambio por maíz." "Venian con sus recuas de perros cargados mas
de quinientos mercaderes cada año."--Teatro Mexicano, vol. 3, p. 323.
[397] In burlesque survivals the use of flour prevails not only all
over Latin Europe, but all such portions of America as are now or have
been under Spanish or Portuguese domination. The breaking of eggshells
over the heads of gentlemen upon entering a Mexican ball room is one
manifestation of it. Formerly the shell was filled with flour.
[398] Dr. W. Norton Whitney, Notes from the History of Medical
Progress in Japan. Yokohama, 1885, p. 248.
[399] The prayer of a Navajo Shaman, in American Anthropologist, vol.
1, No. 2, 1888, p. 169.
[400] Kitchi-gami, pp. 416, 423, 424.
[401] Anacalypsis, London, 1836, vol. 2, pp. 242-244.
[402] Brand, Pop. Antiq., vol. 3, p. 285.
[403] Ibid., vol. 1, p. 69.
[404] Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 329 et seq.
[405] Brinton, Myths of the New World, New York, 1868, pp. 278, 279.
[406] Ximenez, Guatemala, p. 177.
[407] Herrera, dec. 4, lib. 9, cap. 8, p. 188.
[408] Balboa, Hist. du Pérou, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., vol. 15, p.
29.
[409] Mendieta, Hist. Eclesiástica Ind., p. 110.
[410] Henry Youle Hind, Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exped., vol. 2,
pp. 165, 166.
[411] Lisiansky, Voyage Round the World, London, 1814, pp. 158, 221,
223.
[412] London, 1814, pt. 2, pl. III, p. 113.
[413] Ibid., pl. IV, pp. 194, 195.
[414] Voyage, vol. 1, p. 282.
[415] Native Races, vol. 1, p. 179.
[416] Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 170, 171.
[417] Père Louis Hennepin, Voyage, etc., Amsterdam, 1714, pp. 339-240.
Ibid., translated by B. F. French, in Historical Collections of
Louisiana, pt. 1, 1846.
[418] Joutel's Journal, in Historical Collections of Louisiana, tr. by
B. F. French, pp. 181, 1846.
[419] Maj. Rogers, Account of North America, in Knox's Voyages, vol.
2, London, 1767, p. 167.
[420] Picart, Cérémonies et Coûtumes Religieuses, etc., Amsterdam,
1735, vol. 6, p. 77.
[421] Ibid., p. 89.
[422] John De Laet, lib. 18, cap. 4; Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, p.
203; Padre Gumilla, Orinoco, pp. 68, 96.
[423] Hans Staden, in Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, vol. 3, pp. 269, 299.
[424] Peter Martyr, in Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. 5, p. 460.
[425] Bancroft, Nat. Races of the Pacific Slope, vol. 1, p. 750.
[426] Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 73; vol. 2, p. 302.
See also Carteret's description of the natives of the Queen Charlotte
Islands, visited by him in 1767.
[427] Hawkesworth, Voyages, vol. 1, p. 379.
[428] Perry S. Heath, A Hoosier in Russia, New York, 1888, p. 114.
[429] Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 442.
[430] See works cited in Buckle's Common place Book, vol. 2, of
"Works," London, 1872, p. 47.
[431] Picart, Cérémonies et Coûtumes Religieuses, vol. 6, p. 20.
[432] Voyage Round the World, London, 1777, pp. 462, 463.
[433] Archibald Campbell, Voyage Round the World, N. Y., 1819, p. 136.
[434] Voyage of La Pérouse, London, 1829, vol. 2, p. 275.
[435] Peter Kolben's Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, in Knox's Voyage
and Travels, London, 1767, vol. 2, pp. 391, 395, 406, 407.
[436] Ibid., p. 406.
[437] Spencer, Desc. Sociology, art. "Abipones."
[438] Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, London, 1872, vol. 1, p. 423.
[439] Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 83.
[440] Gaule, Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 165, quoted in
Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 3, pp. 329 et seq.
[441] Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, pp. 337, 338.
[442] Laird and Oldfield's Expedition into the Interior of Africa,
quoted in Buckle's Common place Book, p. 466.
[443] Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 2, p. 273.
[444] Gayarre, Louisiana, 1851, p. 308.
[445] Notes and Queries, 4th ser., vol. 8, p. 505.
[446] Tractatus de Fascinatione, Nuremberg, 1675, 197.
[447] Southey, quoting Ward, in Buckle's Common place Book, London,
1849, 2d ser., p. 521.
[448] North American, October 27, 1888.
[449] Kingsborough, vol. 5, p. 198.
[450] Serpent Symbols, p. 55.
[451] Hist. de Méjico, p. 348.
[452] Lib. 2, cap. 47, p. 490.
[453] Lib. 1, cap. 18, p. 208.
[454] New Survey of the West Indies, London, 1648, p. 51.
[455] Op. cit., vol. 3, cap. 4.
[456] Popol-Vuh (Brasseur de Bourbourg), p. 65.
[457] Ternaux-Compans, Voy., vol. 7, p. 143.
[458] Ibid., p. 202.
[459] Purchas, vol. 4, lib. 8, cap. 1, p. 1519; also, Davis, Conquest
of New Mexico, p. 84.
[460] Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, p. 182.
[461] Buckingham Smith, Coleccion de Varios Documentos para la
Historia de Florida, London, 1857, vol. 1, p. 46.
[462] Bollaert, Researches in South America, London, 1860, p. 63.
[463] Boscana, Chinigchinich, pp. 245, 253.
[464] Powers, Contrib. to N. A. Ethnol., vol. 3, p. 140.
[465] Long's Expedition, vol. 1, p. 240.
[466] Second Expedition to the Polar Sea, p. 19.
[467] Oregon Missions, p. 192.
[468] Gmelin, quoted by Southey, in Common place Book, 1st ser.,
London, 1849, p. 239.
[469] Malte-Brun, Univ. Geog., Philadelphia, 1827, vol. 1, lib. 87, p.
483.
[470] Von Wrangel, Polar Expedition, New York, 1842, p. 188.
[471] Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. xxxiv.
[472] Travels on the Amazon, p. 311.
[473] Gumilla, Orinoco, Madrid, 1741, p. 102; the Guamas, also, ibid.,
pp. 102 and 108.
[474] Malte-Brun, Univ. Geog., Phila., 1827, vol. 3, lib. 87, p. 323.
[475] Anthropology, vol. 1, p. 116.
[476] Spencer, Desc. Sociology.
[477] Pliny, Nat. History, lib. 18, cap. 29.
[478] Asiatick Researches, Calcutta, 1801, vol. 7, p. 440.
[479] Blount, Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors, London, 1874, p.
2233.
[480] Salverte, Philosophy of Magic, vol. 2, p. 140.
[481] Voyage of Capt. Amasa Delano, Boston, 1847, p. 230. Compare with
the ordeal of Scotch conspirators, who ate a fragment of barley bread
together.
[482] Gauthier de la Peyronie, Voyages de Pallas, Paris, 1793, vol. 4,
p. 75.
[483] Teutonic Mythology, vol. 1, p. 63.
[484] Macaulay quoted in Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 1, p. 85.
[485] Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 83.
[486] Du Cange, Glossarium, articles "Crispellæ" and "Crespellæ."
[487] Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 1, p. 88.
[488] Heath, A Hoosier in Russia, p. 109.
[489] Nat. Hist., lib. 18, cap. 28.
[490] Wheat, which, is now the bread corn of twelve European nations
and is fast supplanting maize in America and several inferior grains
in India, was no doubt widely grown in the prehistoric world. The
Chinese cultivated it 2700 B. C. as a gift direct from Heaven; the
Egyptians attributed its origin to Isis and the Greeks to Ceres. A
classic account of the distribution of wheat over the primeval world
shows that Ceres, having taught her favorite Triptolemus agriculture
and the art of bread-making, gave him her chariot, a celestial vehicle
which he used in useful travels for the purpose of distributing corn
to all nations.
Ancient monuments show that the cultivation of wheat had been
established in Egypt before the invasion of the shepherds, and there
is evidence that more productive varieties of wheat have taken the
place of one, at least, of the ancient sorts. Innumerable varieties
exist of common wheat. Colonel Le Couteur, of Jersey, cultivated 150
varieties; Mr. Darwin mentions a French gentleman who had collected
322 varieties, and the great firm of French seed merchants,
Vilmorin-Andrieux et C^{ie}, cultivate about twice as many in their
trial ground near Paris. In their recent work on Les meilleurs blés M.
Henry L. de Vilmorin has described sixty-eight varieties of best
wheat, which he has classed into seven groups, though these groups can
hardly be called distinct species, since M. Henry L. de Vilmorin has
crossbred three of them, _Triticum vulgare_, _Triticum turgidum_ and
_Triticum durum_, and has found the offspring fertile.
Three small-grained varieties of common wheat were cultivated by the
first lake dwellers of Switzerland (time of Trojan war), as well as by
the less ancient lake dwellers of western Switzerland and of Italy, by
the people of Hungary in the stone age, and by the Egyptians, on
evidence of a brick of a pyramid in which a grain was embedded and to
which the date of 3359 B. C. has been assigned.
The existence of names for wheat in the most ancient languages
confirms this evidence of the antiquity of its culture in all the more
temperate parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but it seems improbable
that wheat has ever been found growing persistently in a wild state,
although the fact has often been asserted by poets, travelers, and
historians. In the Odyssey, for example, we are told that wheat grew
in Sicily without the aid of man, but a blind poet could not have seen
this himself, and a botanical fact can hardly be accepted from a
writer whose own existence has been contested. Diodorus repeats the
tradition that Osiris found wheat and barley growing promiscuously in
Palestine, but neither this nor other discoveries of persistent wild
wheat seem to us to be credible, seeing that wheat does not appear to
be endowed with a power of persistency except under culture.--Edinburgh
Review.
The origin of baking precedes the period of history and is involved in
the obscurity of the early ages of the human race. Excavations made in
Switzerland gave evidence that the art of making bread was practiced
by our prehistoric ancestors as early as the stone period. From the
shape of loaves it is thought that no ovens were used at that time,
but the dough was rolled into small round cakes and laid on hot
stones, being covered with glowing ashes. Bread is mentioned in the
book of Genesis, where Abraham, wishing to entertain three angels,
offered to "fetch a morsel of bread." Baking is again referred to
where Sarah has instructions to "make ready quickly three measures of
fine meal, knead it and make cakes upon the hearth." Lot entertained
two angels by giving them unleavened bread. The mere mention of
unleavened bread shows that there were two kinds of bread made even at
that time.
The art of baking was carried on to a high perfection among the
Egyptians, who are said to have baked cakes in many fantastic shapes,
using several kinds of flour. The Romans took up the art of baking,
and public bakeries were numerous on the streets of Rome. In England
the business of the baker was considered to be one so closely
affecting the interests of the public that in 1266 an act of
Parliament was passed regulating the price to be charged for bread.
This regulation continued in operation until 1822 in London and until
1836 in the rest of the country. The art of making bread has not yet
reached some countries in Europe and Asia. In the rural parts of
Sweden no bread is made, but rye cakes are baked twice a year and are
as hard as flint. It is less than a century ago that bread was used in
Scotland, the Scotch people of every class living on barley bannocks
and oaten cakes.--Chicago News.
[491] Pop. Antiq., vol. 1, p. 96.
[492] Shâyast lâ-Shâyast, par. 32, note 6, pp. 283, 284 (Max Müller's
ed., Oxford, 1880).
[493] Ibid., p. 315, note 3.
[494] "And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the
oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour" (Levit., II, 4);
"With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt" (Ibid., 13)--Brand,
Pop. Ant., vol. 2, p. 82.
[495] Forlong, Rivers of Life, vol. 1, p. 441.
[496] Ibid., p. 447.
[497] Brand, Pop. Antiq., vol. 1, pp. 345, 346, quoting Gen.
Vallencey's Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language.
[498] Ibid., p. 345.
[499] Ibid., p. 154.
[500] Ibid., pp. 155, 156.
[501] See also "Buns" in Inman's Ancient Faiths.
[502] "Ofrecian el pan al ídolo, hincados de rodillas. Bendezianlo los
sacerdotes, y repartian como pan bendito, con lo qual se acabaua la
fiesta. Guardauan aquel pan todo el año, teniendo por desdichada, y
sugeta a muchos peligros la casa que sin el estaua."--Padre Fray
Alonso Fernandez (Dominican). Historia Eclesiastica de Nuestros
Tiempos, Toledo, 1611, p. 16.
[503] Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, pp. 100 et seq., quoting
Blount, Moffet, and Moresin.
[504] Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana, vol. 2, lib. 7, cap. 9, p. 100.
[505] Nat. Hist., lib. xviii, caps 10 et seq. and 39.
[506] "Var (from the Hebrew word _var frumentum_) Grain. It not only
means a particular kind of grain, between wheat and barley, less
nourishing than the former, but more so than the latter, according to
Vossius; but it means bread corn, grain of any kind. Ætius gives this
application to any kind of frumentaceous grain, decorticated, cleansed
from the husks, and afterwards bruised and dried." London Medical
Dictionary, Bartholomew Parr, M. D., Philadelphia, 1820, article
"Far".
"_Ador_ or _Athor_ was the most sacred wheat, without beard, offered
at adoration of gods. In Latin _Adorea_ was a present of such after a
victory, and _Ad-oro_ is 'I adore,' from _oro_, 'I pray
to.'"--Forlong, Rivers of Life, vol. 1, p. 473, footnote, speaking of
both Greeks and Romans.
[507] Sacred Books of the East, edition of Max Müller, vol. 14, pp.
131, 205.
[508] Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, pp. 391 et seq., article
"Allhallow even."
[509] Ibid., p. 391.
[510] Ibid., p. 392.
[511] Ibid., p. 393.
[512] Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 237 et seq.
[513] Ibid., p. 244.
[514] Strabo, Geography, Bohn's edition, London, 1854, vol. 1, pp.
341, 342, footnote.
[515] Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 460.
[516] Ibid., p. 7.
[517] Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, pp. 3, 180. On the same page: "Dumb
cake, a species of dreaming bread prepared by unmarried females with
ingredients traditionally suggested in witching doggerel. When baked,
it is cut into three divisions; a part of each to be eaten and the
remainder put under the pillow. When the clock strikes twelve, each
votary must go to bed backwards and keep a profound silence, whatever
may appear."
[518] A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1783, inquires:
"May not the _minced pye_, a compound of the choicest productions of
the East, have in view the offerings made by the wise men who came
from afar to worship, bringing _spices_, etc." Quoted in Brand, Pop.
Ant., vol. 1, p. 526. The mince pie was before the Reformation made in
the form of a crib, to represent the manger in which the holy child
lay in the stable. Ibid., p. 178.
[519] Heath, A Hoosier in Russia, p. 109.
[520] Alvar Nuñez Cabeça de Vaca, in Ternaux-Compans, Voy., vol. 7, p.
220.
[521] See also Davis, Conquest of New Mexico, p. 90.
[522] William Coxe, Russian Discoveries between Asia and America,
London, 1803, p. 57, quoting Steller.
[523] Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, Madrid, 1723.
[524] Arabian Nights, Burton's edition, vol. 8, p. 10, footnote.
[525] American Antiquarian, September, 1886, p. 281.
[526] Maurice, Indian Antiquities, London, 1801, vol. 5, pp. 82 and
83.
[527] Ibid., vol. 5, p. 85.
[528] Schultze, Fetichism, N. Y., 1885, p. 32.
[529] Paper by Dr. John G. Henderson on "Aboriginal remains near
Naples, Ill.," Smith. Rept., 1882.
[530] J. F. Snyder, "Indian remains in Cass County, Illinois," Smith.
Rept., 1881, p. 575.
[531] Rau, in Sm. Rept., 1872, p. 356.
[532] "Ancient monuments of the Mississippi Valley," in Smithsonian
Contributions, vol. 1, p. 160.