Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



be detected below the Aryan and Semitic 

 overfloods. 



With these old bird gods we get so far back 

 into the past that the difference no longer 

 seems great between the populations of the 

 various continents. We are tempted to imagine 

 that myths and legends have migrated from 

 one people to another, because like myths, 

 like legends, are found in countries far apart. 

 Even across the Atlantic the magic drum, the 

 worship of beasts and birds, such as the bear, 

 and a similar woodpecker with a scarlet hood ; 

 the belief that stones have life and that spirits 

 can inhabit rocks, suggest at first a connection 

 by communication. 



Sacrifice of beasts, torture, hanging and 

 burning of men, head-hunting, human sacri- 

 fices and occasional cannibalism assimilate the 

 red man to the old peoples of Europe and 

 bring them close to those inflated moderns 

 whose ancestors, regarded curiously, are seen 

 to have indulged in all these pleasing vaga- 



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