CENSERS AND INCENSE OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL 



MIERICA. 



By Walter Hough, 



Ourator of Ethnology , United States National Museum. 



INTRODUCTION. 



During the course of investigation on the utilization of fire the 

 attention of the \\Titer was drawn to several aboriginal American 

 incense burners in the collection of the United States National 

 Museum, and as these objects are rare and have never been discussed 

 under one title, it was thought desirable to describe them, together 

 with such American material as was procurable. Pere Lafitau 

 remarks that "the altars of ])rimitive times were not difTerent from 

 the ordinary house fire" and compares the portable altar or pyranon 

 of the Greeks with the calumet of the Indians.^ The uncivilized 

 tribes of America are stiU in the rudiments of the incense cult, their 

 practices being confined mainly to oblations to fire, in the nature of 

 mdividual acts or occasionally appearing as a single rite in cere- 

 monies. For this reason the cult apparatus is very simple, like the 

 pipe or analogous smoke-producing inventions, or the simple fire- 

 place. 



This paper therefore concerns itself vdih the apparatus found prin- 

 cipally in Mexico and Central America, where several types occur, 

 falling under the following classification, which also may be found 

 applicable to the general subject. 



CLASSIFICATION OF CENSERS. 

 I. Communal or General. 



1. STATIONARY. 



(a) Tribal, society, and family fireplaces, fire boxes, and fire altars. 



Several ideas are involved in this division, such as preservation 

 and renewal of fire for the health and well-being of the larger and 

 smaller social units or religious organizations, as well as the beings 

 themselves; sacrifice to fire by various oblations, with the idea of 



• Moeurs des sauvages americains, vol. 1, pp. 159 and 107, Paris, 1724. 



Proceedinqs U. S. National Museum, Vol. 42— No. 1887. 



109 



