Tregear. — Polynesian Folk-lore. 397 



somewhat of adoration to that element, and to the deoi efpaanoi, 

 or " gods of the hearth." This comes out most strongly in the 

 accounts of the religious ceremonies wherein the fire — the " new- 

 fire," or " need-fire," aqni, or by whatever name called, was 

 horn from the friction of one piece of wood against another. 

 " Emile Burnouf, in his excellent work, " La Science des 

 Religions," just published, says : ' The ,-{-■ (swastika) re- 

 presents the two pieces of wood laid upon one another before 

 the sacrificial altars, in order to produce the holy fire (a/jni), 

 and whose ends were bent round at right angles and fastened 

 by means of iron nails ^j-^ so that this wooden scaffolding 

 might not be moved. At the point where the two pieces of 

 wood were joined there was a small hole, in which a third piece 

 of wood in the form of a lance (called pramantha), was rotated 

 by means of a cord made of cow's hair and hemp, till fire was 

 generated by friction. The father of the holy fire (agnt) is 

 Twastri, i.e., the divine carpenter who made the swastika and 

 the pramantha, by the friction of which the divine child was 

 produced. The pramantha was afterwards transformed by the 

 Greeks into Prometheus, who they imagined stole fire from 

 heaven, so as to instil into earth-born man the bright spark of 

 the soul. The mother of the holy fire is the divine Maja, who 

 represents the productive forces in the form of a woman ; :;: every 

 human being has his maja. Scarcely has the weak spark 

 escaped from its mother's lap — that is from the swastika, which 

 is likewise called mother, and is the place where the divine Maja 

 principally dwells — when it, agni, receives the name of child." f 



It is of interest to note that the name given as that of the 

 Father of Fire is Tvastri (spelt sometimes Tvachtri, Twachtrei, 

 etc., by European writers). The word means " a carppnter," 

 and is referred to as possessing this meaning by many philo- 

 logists and mythologists, such as Kuhn, Max Miiller, and others. 

 It is Tvastri who forges the thunderbolts of Indra, and all the 

 different implements peculiar to the deities of Hindustan, 

 but he is sometimes regarded as being himself the Creator. 

 That he, as Creator, was spoken of by such a title as 

 "the Carpenter" is certain, since so many eminent Sanscrit 

 scholars declare this to be the fact ; but I cannot believe 

 that any such mode of thought was even possible to a primitive 

 people. A nation must have advanced a long way up the scale 

 of progress and improvement for an artisan, working either 

 in wood or metals, to have existence, much more for the 

 name to have acquired honour as an appellative. We must 

 look back through these misleading mists of civilization to try 



* Maja, Maia, or Maya. cf. the Tahitian maia, " a midwife," and 

 Maori maea, " to emerge." 



t " Troy and its Remains," Schliemann, p. 103. 



