2 BULLETIN 148, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



in the terms of the known. Accordingly, the first three religions to 

 which attention was given were Judaism, Christianity, and Moham- 

 medanism, in the order of their respective estabhshments. A partial 

 illustration of all three was set up by the National Museum in the 

 Columbian Exposition, the Christian reUgion being represented by 

 objects illustrating the ceremonies of the Greek Catholic and Arme- 

 nian churches, and there were added Egyptian, Assyro-Babylonian, 

 and Greek and Roman casts, thus givmg a conspectus of some of the 

 features of reUgious life which have grov/n up about the Mediterranean 

 Sea. Other religions were later illustrated, especially Brahmanism 

 and Buddhism, and an exhibit of some of these was sent to the 

 Tennessee Centennial Exposition in Nashville, in the year 1897. 



At these expositions, and in the Museum itself, the interest of the 

 public was plainly evinced in this section of its vrork, and gifts and 

 deposits of value were added, representing Ancient Egypt, Shintoism, 

 the Parsee reUgion, and others of the great cults. 



No attempt has thus far been made to bring these collections into 

 relation with the prehistoric cults or with those of tribes, although the 

 Museum is very rich in such material, and the section is in fact and by 

 its organization limited to the historic religions. In dealing with 

 this difficult subject a rigorous historical and scientific method has 

 been followed. The religious ideas have been described through 

 objects or examples of ceremony. The difficulty of adequately 

 portraying the religion of a people has been fully recognized. The 

 subject of religious belief and cults has been arranged under certain 

 well-recognized heads: Public worship, its furniture and appoint- 

 ments; the sacerdotal person, his costume and implements; sacred 

 writings; the altar or its equivalent; public religious ceremonies on 

 special occasions, etc. Another, and indeed larger, class of objects 

 have to do with the relation of the individual to cult in such matters as 

 marriage, birth, and in some cases betrothal, and the secret and 

 mystical rehgious practices among which charms and divinations 

 would fall. This general plan, with modifications, is susceptible of 

 application to all the historic religions.^ 



Some of these collections have been from time to time described and 

 illustrated in separate bulletins. But as these publications are out of 

 print, and as the collections have been since enriched by additions of 

 valuable and interesting specmiens, it has seemed advisable to issue 

 in the following pages a comprehensive description of the reUgious 

 material in the Museum, to form a counterpart to the description of 

 the Collections of Old World Archeology, which appeared in the 

 Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1922. 



« See The Collection of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the United States National Museum, Proc. U. 8. 

 Nat. Mus., vol. 34, pp, 701-746. 1908. 



