128 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



is a special witness to note the acts and words of men and women. 

 It is she who will appear either for or against us at the Judgment 

 Day. She will present the great Judge of all with a perfect picture 

 of every word and action of each individual human being, and there 

 can be no avoiding her. Thus every person will be rewarded or 

 punished hereafter according to the representations of the goddess 

 of fire. AVe can, therefore, easily understand the great importance 

 the Ainu attach to fire worship. But here again we must be care- 

 ful not to think that it is the fire itself which is worshipped. Fire is 

 not worshipped, but a goddess who is supposed to dwell in the fire, 

 and whose vehicle the fire is supposed to be. This is a subtle dis- 

 tinction, but is nevertheless true."^* 



*' The Ainu always pray to the goddess of fire in cases of distress. 

 Thus, when a person is taken ill, his friend or relative, the chief of the 

 village gets a new piece of willow wood fresh from the forest, and sit- 

 ting down before the fire peels off the outer rind and shaves the stick 

 into an inao. When it is finished he places it in the corner of the 

 hearth near the fire, and asks the fire goddess, who is supposed to be 

 a great purifier from disease, to look kindly upon the sick one. He 

 next addresses her by the name of * messenger ' and requests her to go 

 to the Creator and ask Him kindly to accept the inao he has just 

 made, to hear his prayers, and to allow her, 'the fire goddess,' to heal 

 the sick one. The idea seems to be that the Creator is too great a 

 personage to condescend to do the healing himself." ^^ 



FIRE WORSHIP 



Investigators who seek to collect information about esoteric things 

 from uncivilized peoples know how difficult it is to arrive at the heart 

 of rites and beliefs. So much harder it is for those whose observations 

 must be superficial, but who must be relied on as furnishing the only 

 material available. Knowing the difficulties which scientific men 

 experience in describing Indian ceremonies, and how far even they 

 sometimes come of the truth and how patiently they must hunt for 

 the one who knows and who will tell, the student almost despairs of 

 finding material upon which to base his deductions. The changing 

 aspects of religions from century to century introduce new facets to 

 belief. In view of these considerations the Parsees are not fire wor- 

 shippers, but worship fire as a symbol of God, as they now inform us. 

 Whether the Parsee were always monotheists ought not be difficult 

 to say, but by using the final results of a superior philosophy, a wooden 

 image of the lower tribes is such a syml)ol with a similar explanation. 



In any case the Parsee worship fire, as is shown by their rites and 

 attitude. So much is known concerning the Parsee fire cult that it 



M Rev. John Bachelor. The Ainu of Japan. New York, 1903, p. 277. 

 ""Idem, p. 97. 



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