753. Grihya-Sûtras, translated by H. Oldenberg, vol. i. p. 283 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxix.).
754. Prof. Vl. Titelbach, “Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, xiii. (1900) p. 1.
755. F. S. Krauss, Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven (Vienna, 1885), p. 430.
756. F. S. Krauss, op. cit. p. 531.
757. This saying was communicated to me by Miss Mabel Peacock in a letter dated Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire, 30th October 1905.
758. Max Buch, Die Wotjäken (Stuttgart, 1882), pp. 52, 59; L. v. Schroeder, op. cit. pp. 129, 132.
760. As it is believed that fire may impregnate human beings, so conversely some people seem to imagine that it may be impregnated by them. Thus Mr. T. R. Glover, Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, writes to me (18th June 1906): “A curious and not very quotable instance of (I suppose) Sacred Marriage was brought to my notice by Mr. Brown of the Canadian Baptist Mission to the Telugus. He said that in Hindoo temples (in South India chiefly?) sometimes a scaffolding is erected over a fire. A man and a woman are got to copulate on it and allow the human seed to fall into the fire.” But perhaps this ceremony is only another way of conveying the fertilising virtue of the fire to the woman, in other words, of getting her with child.
762. Suidas, Harpocration, and Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἀμφιδρόμια; Hesychius, s.v. δρομάφιον ἧμαρ; Schol. on Plato, Theaetetus, p. 160 E. On this custom see S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes, et religions, i. (Paris, 1905) pp. 137-145. He suggests that the running of the naked men who carried the babies was intended, by means of sympathetic magic, to impart to the little ones in after-life the power of running fast. But this theory does not explain why the race took place round the hearth.
763. The custom has been practised with this intention in Scotland, China, New Britain, the Tenimber and Timorlaut Islands, and by the Ovambo of South Africa. See Pennant’s “Second Tour in Scotland,” Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels, iii. 383; Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides, ed. 1883, p. 101; China Review, ix. (1880-1881) p. 303; R. Parkinson, Im Bismarck-Archipel, pp. 94 sq.; J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 303; H. Schinz, Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika, p. 307. A similar custom was observed, probably for the same reason, in ancient Mexico and in Madagascar. See Clavigero, History of Mexico, translated by Cullen, i. 31; W. Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 152. Compare my note, “The Youth of Achilles,” Classical Review, vii. (1893) pp. 293 sq.
764. Compare E. Samter, Familienfeste der Griechen und Römer (Berlin, 1901), pp. 59-62.
765. W. R. S. Ralston, The Songs of the Russian People, pp. 120 sq. Ralston held that the Russian house-spirit Domovoy, who is supposed to live behind the stove, is the modern representative of an ancestral spirit. Compare ibid. pp. 84, 86, 119.
766. Evidence of this view will be adduced later on. See The Golden Bough, Second Edition, iii. 456.
768. L. v. Schroeder, Die Hochzeitsbräuche der Esten (Berlin, 1888), pp. 129 sq.
770. Th. Mommsen, History of Rome, New Edition (London, 1894), i. 215 sq.; J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii. 2nd Ed., p. 326; W. Warde Fowler, Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic, p. 147. For another derivation of their name see below, p. 247.
772. H. Vaughan Stevens, “Mitteilungen aus dem Frauenleben der Ôrang Belendas, der Ôrang Djâkun und der Ôrang Lâut,” bearbeitet von Dr. Max Bartels, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xxviii. (1896) pp. 168 sq. The writer adds that any person, boy, man, or woman (provided she was not menstruous) might light the fire, if it were more convenient that he or she should do so. Thus the co-operation of a married man and an unmarried girl, though apparently deemed the best, was not the only permissible way of igniting the wood. The good faith or at all events the accuracy of the late German traveller H. Vaughan Stevens is not, I understand, above suspicion; but Mr. Nelson Annandale, joint author of Fasciculi Malayenses, writes to me of him that “he certainly had a knowledge and experience of the wild tribes of the Malay region which few or none have excelled, for he lived literally as one of themselves.”
773. Prof. Vl. Titelbach, “Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, xiii. (1900) pp. 2-4. The ceremony witnessed by Prof. Titelbach will be described later on in this work. Kinglake rode through the great Servian forest on his way from Belgrade to Constantinople, and from his description (Eothen, ch. ii.) we gather that it is chiefly composed of oak. He says: “Endless and endless now on either side the tall oaks closed in their ranks, and stood gloomily lowering over us.”
774. Ch. Gilhodes, “La Culture matérielle des Katchins (Birmanie),” Anthropos, v. (1910) p. 629.
775. M. Martin’s “Description of the Western Islands of Scotland,” in Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels, iii. 611. The first edition of Martin’s work was published in 1703, and the second in 1716.
776. J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed., i. 504.
777. E. Casalis, The Basutos, pp. 267 sq.
778. Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Rom. ii. 68; Valerius Maximus, i. 1. 7.
779. J. Lecœur, Esquisses du Bocage Normand, ii. (Condé-sur-Noireau, 1887) p. 27; B. Souché, Croyances, présages et traditions diverses (Niort, 1880), p. 12.
780. Polybius, xii. 13. In Darfur a curious power over fire is ascribed to women who have been faithful to their husbands. “It is a belief among the Forians, that if the city takes fire, the only means of arresting the progress of the flames is to bring near them a woman, no longer young, who has never been guilty of intrigue. If she be pure, by merely waving a mantle, she puts a stop to the destruction. Success has sometimes rewarded a virtuous woman” (Travels of an Arab Merchant [Mohammed Ibn-Omar El-Tounsy] in Soudan, abridged from the French by Bayle St. John (London, 1854), p. 112). Compare R. W. Felkin, “Notes on the For Tribe of Central Africa,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, xiii. (1884-1886) p. 230.
781. Solinus, xxii. 10. The Celtic Minerva, according to Caesar (De bello Gallico, vi. 17), was a goddess of the mechanical arts.
782. J. Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, pp. 73-77; P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, i. 260 sq.
783. Giraldus Cambrensis, The Topography of Ireland, chaps. xxxiv.-xxxvi., translated by Thomas Wright; P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, i. 334 sq. It is said that in the island of Sena (the modern Sein), off the coast of Brittany, there was an oracle of a Gallic deity whose worship was cared for by nine virgin priestesses. They could raise storms by their incantations, and turn themselves into any animals they pleased (Mela, iii. 48); but it is not said that they maintained a perpetual holy fire, though Ch. Elton affirms that they did (Origins of English History, p. 27). M. Salomon Reinach dismisses these virgins as a fable based on Homer’s description of the isle of Circe (Odyssey, x. 135 sqq.), and he denies that the Gauls employed virgin priestesses. See his article, “Les Vierges de Sena,” Revue Celtique, xviii. (1897) pp. 1-8; id., Cultes, mythes, et religions, i. (Paris, 1905) pp. 195 sqq. To me the nuns of St. Brigit seem to be most probably the successors of a Celtic order of Vestals. That there were female Druids is certain, but it does not appear whether they were virgins. See Lampridius, Alexander Severus, 60; Vopiscus, Aurelianus, 44; id., Numerianus, 14 sq.
784. Prof. Vl. Titelbach, “Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, xiii. (1900) p. 1.
785. Laws of Manu, iv. 53, translated by G. Bühler (Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxv. p. 137).
786. Martin Haug, Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsees 3rd Ed., (London, 1884), p. 243, note 1. Strabo describes the mouth-veil worn by the Magian priests in Cappadocia (xiv. 3. 15, p. 733). At Arkon, in the island of Rügen, there was a shrine so holy that none but the priest might enter it, and even he might not breathe in it. As often as he needed to draw in or give out breath, he used to run out of the door lest he should taint the divine presence with his breath. See Saxo Grammaticus, Historia Danica, bk. xiv. p. 824, ed. P. E. Müller (p. 393 of Elton’s English translation).
787. P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, i. 335 sq.; Standish H. O’Grady, Sylva Gadelica, translation (London, 1892), pp. 15, 16, 41.
790. Douglas Hyde, A Literary History of Ireland (London, 1899), p. 158. The tradition of the oak of Kildare survives in the lines,
which are quoted by Mr. D. Fitzgerald in Revue Celtique, iv. (1879-1880) p. 193.
791. Douglas Hyde, op. cit. pp. 169-171. At Kells, also, St. Columba dwelt under a great oak-tree. The writer of his Irish life, quoted by Mr. Hyde, says that the oak-tree “remained till these latter times, when it fell through the crash of a mighty wind. And a certain man took somewhat of its bark to tan his shoes with. Now, when he did on the shoes, he was smitten with leprosy from his sole to his crown.”
792. Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, pt. i. bk. iv. chaps. 1-3, bk. vi. chaps. 20-22 (vol. i. pp. 292-299, vol. ii. pp. 155-164, Markham’s translation); P. de Cieza de Leon, Travels, p. 134 (Markham’s translation); id., Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru, pp. 85 sq. (Markham’s translation); Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, bk. v. chap. 15 (vol. ii. pp. 331-333, Hakluyt Society). Professor E. B. Tylor discredits Garcilasso’s description of these Peruvian priestesses on the ground that it resembles Plutarch’s account of the Roman Vestals (Numa, 9 sq.) too closely to be independent; he thinks that “the apparent traces of absorption from Plutarch invalidate whatever rests on Garcilasso de la Vega’s unsupported testimony.” See his Researches into the Early History of Mankind, 3rd Ed., pp. 249-253. In particular, he stumbles at the statement that an unfaithful Peruvian priestess was buried alive. But that statement was made by Cieza de Leon, who travelled in Peru when Garcilasso was a child, and whose book, or rather the first part of it, containing the statement, was published more than fifty years before that of Garcilasso. Moreover, when we understand that the punishment in question was based on a superstition which occurs independently in many parts of the world, the apparent improbability of the coincidence vanishes. As to the mode of kindling the sacred fire, Professor Tylor understands Plutarch to say that the sacred fire at Rome was kindled, as in Peru, by a burning-glass. To me it seems that Plutarch is here speaking of a Greek, not a Roman usage, and this is made still clearer when his text is read correctly. For the words ὑπὸ Μήδων, περὶ δὲ τὰ Μιθριδιατικά should be altered to ὑπὸ Μαίδων περὶ τὰ Μιθριδιατικά. See H. Pomtow in Rheinisches Museum, N. F. li. (1896) p. 365, and my note on Pausanias, x. 19. 4 (vol. v. p. 331). Thus Plutarch gives two instances when a sacred fire was extinguished and had to be relit with a burning-glass; but both instances are Greek, neither is Roman. The Greek mode of lighting a sacred fire by means of a crystal is described also in the Orphic poem on precious stones, verses 177 sqq. (Orphica, ed. E. Abel, p. 115). Nor were the Greeks and Peruvians peculiar in this respect. The Siamese and Chinese have also been in the habit of kindling a sacred fire by means of a metal mirror or burning-glass. See Pallegoix, Description du royaume Thai ou Siam, ii. 55; A. Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asien, iii. 516; J. H. Plath, “Die Religion und der Cultus der alten Chinesen,” Abhandlungen der k. bayer. Akademie der Wissen, i. Cl. ix. (1863) pp. 876 sq. Again, the full description of the golden garden of the Peruvian Vestals, which may sound to us fabulous, is given by Cieza de Leon in a work (the Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru) which it is unlikely that Garcilasso ever saw, since it was not printed till 1873, centuries after his death. Yet Garcilasso’s brief description of the garden agrees closely with that of Cieza de Leon, differing from it just as that of an independent witness naturally would—namely, in the selection of some other details in addition to those which the two have in common. He says that the virgins “had a garden of trees, plants, herbs, birds and beasts, made of gold and silver, like that in the temple” (vol. i. p. 298, Markham’s translation). Thus the two accounts are probably independent and therefore trustworthy, for a fiction of this kind could hardly have occurred to two romancers separately. A strong confirmation of Garcilasso’s fidelity is furnished by the close resemblance which the fire customs, both of Rome and Peru, present to the well-authenticated fire customs of the Herero at the present day. There seems to be every reason to think that all three sets of customs originated independently in the simple needs and superstitious fancies of the savage. On the whole, I see no reason to question the good faith and accuracy of Garcilasso.
793. B. de Sahagun, Histoire des choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, pp. 196 sq., 386; Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, bk. v. ch. 15 (vol. ii. pp. 333 sq., Hakluyt Society); A. de Herrera, General History of the vast Continent and Islands of America, iii. 209 sq., Stevens’s translation (London, 1725, 1726); Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 264, 274 sq.; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l’Amérique Centrale, i. 289, iii. 661; H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 204 sqq., 245, 583, iii. 435 sq. However, Sahagun (pp. 186, 194), Acosta (vol. ii. p. 336) and Herrera seem to imply that the duty of maintaining the sacred fire was discharged by men only.
794. Brasseur de Bourbourg, op. cit. ii. 6; H. H. Bancroft, op. cit. iii. 473. Fire-worship seems to have lingered among the Indians of Yucatan down to about the middle of the nineteenth century, and it may still survive among them. See D. G. Brinton, “The Folk-lore of Yucatan,” Folk-lore Journal, i. (1883) pp. 247 sq.
795. Letter of the Rev. J. Roscoe, dated Kampala, Uganda, 9th April 1909.
796. Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 22; Ateius Capito, cited by Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 50. On the other hand, Servius on Virgil, Aen. iv. 29, says that the Flamen might marry another wife after the death of the first. But the statement of Aulus Gellius and Ateius Capito is confirmed by other evidence. See J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii. 2nd Ed., 329, note 8. As to the rule see my note, “The Widowed Flamen,” Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 407 sqq.
797. Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 7; Festus, p. 106, ed. C. O. Müller.
798. Livy, v. 52. 13 sq. In later times the rule was so far relaxed that he was allowed to be absent from Rome for two nights or even longer, provided he got leave from the chief pontiff on the score of ill-health. See Aulus Gellius, x. 15. 14; Tacitus, Annals, iii. 71.
799. Tacitus, Annals, iii. 58; Dio Cassius, liv. 36. As to the honours attached to the office, see Livy, xxvii. 8. 8; Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 113.
800. See The Golden Bough, Second Edition, i. 241 sqq.
801. P. Kretschmer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache (Göttingen, 1896), pp. 127 sqq.; O. Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde, pp. 637 sq. For a different derivation of the name Flamen see above, p. 235. Being no philologer, I do not pretend to decide between the rival etymologies. My friend Prof. J. H. Moulton prefers the equation Flamen = Brahman, which he tells me is philologically correct, because if Flamen came from flare we should expect a form like flator rather than flamen. The form flator was used in Latin, though not in this sense.
802. W. Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, i. 30-32. Compare Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, pp. 364, 365, 392.
803. Aulus Gellius, x. 15.
804. Homer, Iliad, xvi. 233-235; Sophocles, Trachiniae, 1166 sq.; Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 284-286.
805. Ch. Hartknoch, Selectae dissertationes historicae de variis rebus Prussicis, p. 163 (bound up with his edition of Düsburg’s Chronicon Prussiae, Frankfort and Leipsic, 1679); Simon Grunau, Preussischer Chronik, ed. M. Perlbach, i. (Leipsic, 1876) p. 95.
806. W. Crooke, op. cit. i. 31-33.
807. W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 194 sq.
808. J. C. Nesfield, in Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. p. 12, § 77.
809. Rigveda, iii. 29, translated by R. T. H. Griffith (Benares, 1889-1892), vol. ii. pp. 25-27; Satapatha Brâhmana, translated by J. Eggeling, part i. p. 389, note 3, part ii. pp. 90 sq., part v. pp. 68-74; Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, translated by M. Bloomfield, pp. 91, 97 sq., 334, 460; W. Caland, Altindisches Zauberritual, pp. 115 sq.; A. Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers, 2nd Ed., pp. 40, 64-78, 183-185; H. Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 58, 59. The sami wood is sometimes identified with the Acacia Suma (Mimosa Suma); but the modern Bengalee name of Prosopis spicigera is shami or somi, which seems to be conclusive evidence of the identity of Prosopis spicigera with sami. The Prosopis spicigera is a deciduous thorny tree of moderate size, which grows in the arid zones of the Punjaub, Rajputana, Gujarat, Bundelcund, and the Deccan. The heart of the wood is of a purplish brown colour and extremely hard. It is especially valued for fuel, as it gives out much heat. See G. Watt, Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, s.v. “Prosopis spicigera.” For a reference to this work I am indebted to the kindness of the late Professor H. Marshall Ward.
810. A. Kuhn, op. cit. pp. 40, 66, 175.
811. Hymns of the Atharva-Veda, translated by M. Bloomfield, pp. 97 sq., 460; W. Caland, Altindisches Zauberritual, pp. 115 sq.
813. Rigveda, x. 95, translated by R. T. H. Griffith, Satapatha Brâhmana, translated by J. Eggeling, part v. pp. 68-74. Compare H. Oldenberg, Die Literatur des alten Indien (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1903), pp. 53-55. On the story see A. Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers, 2nd Ed., pp. 71 sqq.; F. Max Müller Selected Essays on Language, Religion, and Mythology (London, 1881), i. 408 sqq.; Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth (London, 1884), pp. 64 sqq.; K. F. Pischel and Geldner, Vedische Studien, i. (Stuttgart, 1889), pp. 243-295. It belongs to the group of tales which describe the marriage of a human with an animal mate, of a mortal with a fairy, and often, though not always, their unhappy parting. The story seems to have its roots in totemism. See my Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 566 sqq. It will be illustrated more at length in a later part of The Golden Bough.
814. Homer, Hymn to Mercury, 108-111 (where a line has been lost; see the note of Messrs. Allen and Sikes); Theophrastus, Histor. plant. v. 9. 6; id., De igne, ix. 64; Hesychius, s.v. στορεύς; Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. i. 1184; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 208; Seneca, Nat. Quaest. ii. 22; A. Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers, 2nd Ed., pp. 35-41; H. Blumner, Technologie und Terminologie der Gewerbe und Künste, ii. 354-356. Theophrastus gives the name of athragene to the plant which, next to or equally with ivy, makes the best board; he compares it to a vine. Pliny (l.c.) seems to have identified it with a species of wild vine. According to Sprengel, the athragene is the Clematis cirrhosa of Linnaeus, the French clématite à vrilles. See Dioscorides, ed. C. Sprengel, vol. ii. p. 641. As to the kinds of wood employed by the Romans in kindling fire we have no certain evidence, as Pliny and Seneca may have merely copied from Theophrastus.
815. Pausanias, i. 31. 6, with my note.
816. E. H. Man, On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands (London, N.D.), p. 82. Mr. Man’s evidence is confirmed by a German traveller, Mr. Jagor, who says of the Andaman Islanders: “The fire must never go out. Here also I am again assured that the Andamanese have no means of making fire.” See Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1877, p. (54) (bound with Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, ix.). I regret that on this subject I did not question Mr. A. R. Brown, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who resided for about two years among the Andaman Islanders, studying their customs and beliefs. Mr. Brown is now (December 1910) in West Australia.
817. N. von Miklucho-Maclay, “Ethnologische Bemerkungen über die Papuas der Maclay-Küste in Neu-Guinea,” Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie, xxxv. (1875), pp. 82, 83. Compare C. Hager, Kaiser Wilhelms-Land und der Bismarck-Archipel, p. 69; M. Krieger, Neu-Guinea, p. 153. The natives of the Maclay Coast are said to have traditions of a time when they were ignorant even of the use of fire; they ate fruits raw, which set up a disease of the gums, filling their mouths with blood; they had a special name for the disease. See N. von Miklucho-Maclay, in Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1882, p. (577) (bound with Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, xiv.). The reports of people living in ignorance of the use of fire have hitherto proved, on closer examination, to be fables. See E. B. Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind, 3rd Ed., pp. 229 sqq. The latest repetition of the story that I know of is by an American naturalist, Mr. Titian R. Peale, who confirms the exploded statement that down to 1841 the natives of Bowditch Island had not seen fire. See The American Naturalist, xviii. (1884) pp. 229-232.
818. B. Hagen, Unter den Papuas (Wiesbaden, 1899), pp. 203 sq. Mr. Hagen’s account applies chiefly to the natives of Astrolabe Bay. He tells us that for the most part they now use Swedish matches.
819. G. Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria (London and New York, 1891), i. 157. Another writer says that these dwarfs “keep fire alight perpetually, starting it in some large tree, which goes on smouldering for months at a time” (Captain Guy Burrows, The Land of the Pigmies (London, 1898), p. 199).
820. F. Stuhlmann, Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika (Berlin, 1894), pp. 451 sq.
821. Sir Harry H. Johnston, British Central Africa (London, 1897), p. 439; id., The Uganda Protectorate (London, 1902), ii. 540. If we may trust Diodorus Siculus (i. 13. 3), this was the origin of fire alleged by the Egyptian priests. Among the Winamwanga and Wiwa tribes of East Africa, to the south of Lake Tanganyika, “when lightning sets fire to a tree, all the fires in a village are put out, and fireplaces freshly plastered, while the head men take the fire to the chief, who prays over it. It is then sent to all his villages, the people of the villages rewarding his messengers.” See Dr. J. A. Chisholm, “Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Winamwanga and Wiwa,” Journal of the African Society, No. 36 (July 1910), p. 363. The Parsees ascribe peculiar sanctity to fire which has been obtained from a tree struck by lightning. See D. J. Karaka, History of the Modern Parsis (London, 1884), ii. 213. In Siam and Cambodia such fire is carefully preserved and used to light the funeral pyres of kings and others. See Pallegoix, Description du royaume Thai ou Siam, i. 248; J. Moura, Le Royaume du Cambodge, i. 360.
822. Oscar Peschel, Völkerkunde 6th Ed. (Leipsic, 1885), p. 138. Mr. Man thinks it likely that the Andaman Islanders got their fire from one of the two volcanoes which exist in their island (On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, p. 82). The Creek Indians of North America have a tradition that some of their ancestors procured fire from a volcano. See A. S. Gatschet, A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, ii. (St. Louis, 1888) p. 11 (43).
823. O. Peschel, loc. cit. As to the fires of Baku see further, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, p. 159.
824. R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants, 2nd Ed., p. 367; W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India (Westminster, 1896), ii. 194; A. Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers, 2nd Ed., pp. 92, 102. Lucretius thought that the first fire was procured either from lightning or from the mutual friction of trees in a high wind (De rerum natura, v. 1091-1101). The latter source was preferred by Vitruvius (De architectura, ii. 1. 1).
825. Sir Harry H. Johnston, ll.cc. Professor K. von den Steinen conjectures that savages, who already possessed fire, and were wont to use tinder to nurse a smouldering brand into a blaze, may have accidentally discovered the mode of kindling fire in an attempt to make tinder by rubbing two dry sticks or reeds against each other. See K. von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens, pp. 219-228.
826. J. Dumont D’Urville, Voyage autour du monde et à la recherche de la Perouse, i. (Paris, 1832) pp. 95, 194; Scott Nind, “Description of the Natives of King George’s Sound,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, i. (1832) p. 26; E. J. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, ii. 357; A. Oldfield, “The Aborigines of Australia,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, N.S., iii. (1865) pp. 283 sq.; J. Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 15; Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xvii. (1845) pp. 76 sq.
827. R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, i. 396.
828. R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants, 2nd Ed., p. 567. Other writers confirm the statement that the carrying of the fire-sticks is the special duty of the women. See W. Stanbridge, “On the Aborigines of Victoria,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, N.S., i. (1861) p. 291; J. F. Mann, “Notes on the Aborigines of Australia,” Proceedings of the Geographical Society of Australasia, i. (1885) p. 29.
829. Melville, quoted by H. Ling Roth, The Aborigines of Tasmania (London, 1890), p. 97. It has sometimes been affirmed that the Tasmanians did not know how to kindle fire; but the evidence collected by Mr. Ling Roth (op. cit., pp. xii. sq., 96 sq.), proves that they were accustomed to light it both by the friction of wood and by striking flints together.
830. Mr. Dove, quoted by James Bonwick, Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians, p. 20.
831. Wilfred Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country (London, 1883), p. 196.
832. Captain J. Wilson, Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean (London, 1799), p. 357.
833. J. G. Wood, Natural History of Man, ii. 522; J. G. Garson, “On the Inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xv. (1886). p. 145; Mission scientifique du Cap Horn, 1882-1883, vii. (Paris, 1891) p. 345.
834. J. B. Ambrosetti, “Los Indios Caingua del alto Paraná (misiones),” Boletino del Instituto Geografico Argentino, xv. (1895) pp. 703 sq.
835. E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, pp. 257 sq.
836. A. Widenmann, Die Kilimandscharo-Bevölkerung (Gotha, 1899), pp. 68 sq. (Petermann’s Mittheilungen: Ergänzungsheft, No. 129).
837. Sir Harry H. Johnston, British Central Africa (London, 1897), p. 438.