Walter C. Alvarez 29 



tomahawks, felt the need for using their old stone ones in all religious cere- 

 monials. Similarly, iron was taboo in the religious ceremonies of many ancient 

 nations. In some parts of the world and in dillerent ages a man might not even 

 enter the presence of his god if he had a bit of iron on his person. Thus the 

 Negroes of the Gold Coast remove all metal from their clothing when they 

 go to constdt their fetish, and years ago in Scotland the men who made the 

 "needfire" had first to divest themselves of all mcial. 



Iron and Ancient Religions Did Not Mix 



In ancient times priests of certain gods were forbidden even to touch iron. 

 Frazer stated that the Roman and Sabine priests could not shave with a steel 

 razor but only with one made of bronze. When the druids gathered mistletoe 

 their ritual demanded that the knife used be not made of iron. Similarly, when 

 collecting roots of mandragora the injunction was, "When thou seest its head, 

 inscribe or surround it with iron, lest it flee from thee . . . and thou shalt delve 

 about it so that thou touch it not with the iron." 



In several parts of the ancient world one finds that priests so feared to offend 

 their god Avith iron that they were careful to build his temple without any 

 scrap of this metal in it. In some cases they were even careful not to use iron 

 tools in the shaping of the stones and timbers. As the Bible says (Exodus 20:25): 

 "and if thou wilt make me an altar of stone thou shalt not build it -with hew- 

 ing: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." Accordingly 

 when the Temple was built, "there was neither hammer nor ax nor anv lool 

 of iron heard in the house while it was in building" (1 Kings 6:7). 



Similarly, some of the Roman temples and the sacred bridge were made and 

 kept in repair without the use of any iron. Even in England, in Exeter Cathe- 

 dral, one finds the huge Bishop's throne, with its canopy sixty feet high, con- 

 structed without a single bit of iron (Elworthy,- p. 220). In parts of India 

 buildings are made without iron in order that the people be spared epidemics 



and disasters. 



Why This Aversion to Iron.^ 



The question is, of course, why all this great aversion of the gods and powers 

 of darkness to iron? There is some aversion to bronze but nowhere nearly so 

 much as to iron. After steeping myself in the literature on the subject, I feel 

 that Frazer was ridit, and the main reason for the distrust and dislike of iron 



... 



was that for centuries it was a novelty, newfangled, and therefore unsuitable 

 for the gods who began their lives in the paleolithic period, and therefore were 

 used to knives and tools of chipped stone. 



As Frazer pointed out, there is nothing so conservative in this world as re- 

 ligion. This must always be true because nothing gives priest and worshipers 

 such satisfaction as the feeling that every bit of their ritual has come down 

 unchanged from that ancient time when the god spoke and described the wavs 

 in which he wished to be approached. Even the most intelligent of us today 



