Tbegear. — Ancient Alphabets in Polynesia. 367 



Mithra, Agni, — all were Bun, heat, warmth, fire. Taht was a 

 lunar deity : by him men first began to count and reckon time (as 

 in the Polynesian tatau, "to count, to write"), for the counting 

 time by moons is the first natural division. Of Taht it is said : 

 " Ra created him a beautiful light to show the name of his evil 

 enemy. . . . Thou art my abode, the god of my abode ; 

 behold thou shalt be called Taht, the Abode of Ra."* And 

 every meaning of the Polynesian ra or la finds common meaning 

 in the Aryan languages. Thus ra or la means not only " sun," 

 but "a sail:" in Danish raa means "the yard of the sail;" and 

 in Scottish, ra means "the sail-yard." The name of the great 

 Maori kite in the shape of a hawk (presented by Sir George 

 Grey to the Wellington Museum) is Ra. In Egypt the sun was 

 represented with a hawk's head : 



" Oh ! thou great god in the east of heaven ! f 

 Thou proceedest to the bark of the sun as a divine hawk of time." \ 



This sun-god was not only worshipped, but worshipped in a 

 peculiar manner : everywhere with sacred {i.e., new-kindled) 

 fire. Among the Latins we come across the passage concerning 

 the " new fire made in the secret temple." § So in India, Agni 

 (fire) is called "the child of Dyu (the sky), the son of strength 

 [i.e., produced by the strong rubbing of wood), the light of the 

 sacrifice." " They worshipped Agni with logs of wood, with 

 praise."* In the Zend Avesta, the sacred book of the ancient 

 Persians : " Oh Spenta Armaiti, this man do I deliver unto 

 thee : this man deliver back to me against the day of resurrec- 

 tion ; deliver him back as one who knows his Gathas, who 

 knows the Yasna and the revealed law ; a wise and clever man, 

 who is the Word incarnate. Then shalt thou call his name 

 Fire-creature, Fire-seed, Fire-offspring, Fire-land, or any name 

 wherein there is fire."** Men approached the tree, the bearer 

 of the " fire-seed," with awe and devotion ; the tree itself they 

 worshipped as a god and as the gift of a god. Surely the ima- 

 gination of man never conceived a more mysteriously awful and 

 majestic figure than that of the Scandinavian Odin hanging on 

 the Life Tree. In the words of the Rev. Sir G. Cox, ft we read : 

 " The Kosmos so called into existence is called the ' Bearer of 

 God ' — a phrase which finds its explanation in the World Tree 



* " Records of the Past," vol. vi., p. 111. 

 f Compare the Maori ra-whiti, the east. 

 J " Book of the Dead," Birch, cxxxi. 

 S " Adde quod arcana fieri novus ignis in sede 



Dicitur, et vires flamma refecta capit." — Ovid, in Fasti. 

 | " Rig Veda Sanhita," mandala i., sukta 165: Max Muller. 

 ■ Idem. 



** " Vendidad," fargard xviii. : M.M. 

 ft " Mythology of the Aryan Nations," p. 371. 



