are with very few exceptions one and two syllables. Mr. Schoolcraft has observed, that, in the Chippewa, almost all the roots are of one or two syllables. It is not unlikely that this original tendency of language to express itself in short words, was at first assisted by the earliest alphabets, which were "syllabic," and this probably led the earliest grammarians to reduce words as much as they could, to one-syllable roots, as in the Sanskrit. According to Von Tschudi, agglutination is very marked in the Kechua (in Peru). Schoolcraft says of the principle of the American languages, "It is a fixed theory of language built on radices which retain the meaning of the original incremental syllables." Lepsius, Zwei Sprachvergl. Abh. 23, 24, 25, 37, 67, 77. Norris, in the Journ. of the R. A. S. xv. 5, 47, 48, 49. Compare Bopp's Sanskrit Grammar, p. 3. Seyffarth, Grammar Aegypt. pref. p. vii., 11, etc. Uhlemann, Handbuch, 51, 79, 71, 120, 123, 124, ff. 131, 205. barium, Schoolcraft, part ii. 228. Sequoia Guess's Cherokee Sylla CHAPTER IV. FIRE-WORSHIP. Τὴν γοῦν πάντα βόσκουσαν φλόγα αἰδεῖσθ ̓ ἀνακτος Ηλίου. SOPHOCLES, ED. TYRR. 1425. Reverence the flame of the king Sun That feedeth all things. The life-bearing fire descends As far as the material channels. CHALDEAN ORACLES. CORY, 258. The fire-heated idea has the first rank, For the mortal who approaches the Fire shall have light from God. SUN-WORSHIP and fire-worship were closely connected with the worship of the Great Spirit, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. The fire-worship belongs to all the American tribes. The lighting the New Fire at the feast of "first fruits" was in honor of the Sun. It was observed by the Southern tribes at the beginning of the first new moon after the corn became full-eared. The old hearth or altar was dug up and removed from the sacred square. A new one was formed by order of the chief priest. For two days an unbroken fast was maintained. On the evening of the third day, as the sun began to decline, the fires were extinguished in every hut. The chief priest then kindled a fire by friction and placed it on the altar in the great circular 1 J. Müller, 125. temple amidst acclamations. This festival was celebrated annually in July or August. The Cherokees said the Master of Breath gave the festival to the Indians as necessary to their happiness.' The Creeks also worshipped the fire.' The Delawares were given to fire-worship. The Iroquois yearly celebrated the renewal of the fire. The Natchez worshipped fire in connection with the Sun-worship. In their Temple of the Sun the sacred fire burned continually. In New Mexico the same custom obtained." The Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws and the tribes related to them worshipped Loakishtohoollo-aba the Great Holy Fire of the heavens. He is the author of warmth, light and all animal and vegetable life. The Muyscas and Mexicans kept the festival of the New Fire in honor of the Sun. The fires were extinguished in the temple and all the private dwellings of the Mexicans at the festival of Xiuteuctli, the god of fire. It was held in August. Xiuteuctli, "Master of the year," "Lord of vegetation," is the Sun as father of the gods." Pacha-camac, the Supreme Deity of the Peruvians, has his "fire-nature;" he is the life-inspiring Fire." At the feet of the Mexican Tezcatlipoca are represented "a serpent and a heap of fire."" When the Mexicans built a new house they called in their friends and neighbors to witness the ceremony of lighting the New Fire." At the close of their great cycle, the Mexicans lighted the New Fire at night by the friction of sticks when the constellation of the Pleiades. reached the zenith. On the top of their Teocallis were two lofty altars on which fires were kept as inextinguishable as those of Vesta. There were said to be six hundred of these altars on smaller buildings within the great temple of Mexico, which, with those 1 Squier, Serp. Symbol, 115. Schoolcraft, Iroquois, 37, in J. Müller, 70. • Charlevoix, Nouvelle France, vi. 173. 2 Serp. Symb. 68. J. Müller, 54, 55. J. Müller, 54. 10 J. Müller, 320, 368. Serp. Symb. 118. 12 on the sacred edifices in other parts of the city, shed a brilliant illumination over its streets through the darkest night.' And the altars of all our city-guarding gods, of those above and those below, gods of heaven and gods of the forum, are blazing with offerings: and in different directions different flames are streaming upward, high as heaven, drugged with the mild unadulterated cordials of pure unguent, with the royal cake brought from the inmost cells." It was their custom to pass new-born infants through the fire. At the festival of the god of fire, a human victim was first plunged in the flame and instantly withdrawn, to be sacrificed alive in the usual way by the knife.' At the great Raimic festival which the Peruvians celebrated at the summer solstice, at the same time as the Cherokees, the fire used in the solemnities was given to the Inca priests by the hand of the Sun. The rays were concentrated in a focus, and cotton set on fire. When it was bad weather, they were obliged to obtain it by the friction of sticks. For three days previous there was a general fast, and no fire was lighted in the dwellings. The sacred flame was intrusted to the care of the Virgins of the Sun; and if by any neglect it went out, the event was regarded as a calamity that boded disaster to the monarchy. The Indian tribes burn tobacco instead of incense as a propitiation to the Sun. The fire in the temple of Vesta was renewed every year by fire produced from the rays of the sun. The Romans had their Vestal Virgins who kept up the sacred flame, and there were virgin priestesses of the Assyrian Artemis. Among the Greeks, human victims. were offered to Dionysus (the Sun) as they were to the Hebrew Moloch. The Peruvians sacrificed human beings, a child or beautiful maiden, on great occasions.-J. Müller, 103; Prescott, 105. A tribe of the Pawnees offered up human beings to the Great Star Venus.-J. Müller, 53. 4 Perou, 372; Prescott, 104. Eschenburg, Manual, 429. ⚫ Prescott, 107. 7 Movers, 404. Thou four-eyed Agni blazest as the protector of the worshipper.' The fires being kindled, the two (priests stand by) sprinkling the clarified butter from the ladles, which they raise, and spreading the sacred grass (upon the altar)." Agni, thine offering and thy glory and thy flames beam high." Blessed are ye holy men-in your sacred fires. The Vedas allegorically figure the Deity with a head of fire, and the sun and moon are his eyes." Homer, the Vedas, the laws of Manu and the Old Testament make frequent mention of fire-worship. The Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim." Will Iahoh be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' And they have built the "High Places" of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into my heart (saith the Lord)." Manasseh "built again the high places which his father had broken down." And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God (Elohim)." Manasseh set up an image of Jupiter with four faces in the temple at Jerusalem." Movers, in speaking of the influence of the Phoenician religion on the Hebrews from the earliest times, says, "Jehova, here earlier adored as MolochApis, was now Baal besides."" In Egypt the ox is sacred to Ptah, the god of fire, the Moloch or Great Spirit of the Egyptians." A holy bull, called Apis, was kept in his temple and venerated. Among the Old Israelites the image of Moloch was a 1o Suidas (Manasses), quoted by Movers, p. 542. B. C. 698-643. "Movers, Phönizier, p. 9. 12 Duncker, i. 50. |