FIRE WORSHIP FEWKES. 607 



importance, is supplemented by interpretation of many things on 

 which the legends are silent. Living priests often do not know why 

 they perform certain rites, for they are not antiquarians and no 

 sacred books exist among them; explanations that have survived 

 have been transmitted by memory and have lost or have been modi- 

 lied much in transmitting. Individual priests have certain definite 

 functions to perform in a great ceremony, and while they may know 

 the meaning of these they are densely ignorant of other rites, and 

 they often confess that the rites are meaningless to those who per- 

 form them. " We sing our songs, say our prayers, because they have 

 been transmitted to us by our ancestors, and they knew more than we 

 what is good." Rites practiced for a long time are looked upon as 

 efficacious, and that to them is sufficient evidence that they are the 

 best for the purpose. 



The rite being conservative, it is less modified in transmission than 

 the myth, and as the symbol is most tenacious we ma} r look upon idols 

 as of ancient provenance and practically unchanged from one genera- 

 tion to another. A change in their symbolism would greatly offend 

 the conservative element in the priesthood, for many idols are heir- 

 looms, and we ma}' justly suppose that their form dates back to a 

 very early cultural development, but it is undoubtedly true that more 

 elaborate changes in form of idols and symbols have from time to 

 time been introduced as ceremonials have become more and more 

 complicated. 



The discovery of how to create fire artificially dates so far back in 

 the history of human culture that in the myths of many peoples fire 

 is said to be the gift of the gods or stolen from them. In the course 

 of transmittal from one generation to another these legends have 

 often become very much modified by local and secondary characters. 

 There has grown up a priesthood, male or female, as guardians of 

 the new fire. The eternal fire has been associated with the perpetuity 

 of the life of the state, and the necessity of keeping an eternal fire 

 led to the Prytanean at Athens, the temple of Hestia at Rome, the 

 national fires of the Natchez, Aztecs, and Incas, where the idea of 

 the life of the state was closely bound up with the preservation of the 

 sacred fire. This thought may have existed in ancient times among 

 the cliff dwellers, but the maintenance of an eternal fire long ago died 

 out in the Hopi kivas. 



There is a large literature dealing with the new fire ceremony of 

 the Aztecs, and pictures and descriptions of the God of Fire give a 

 good idea of his symbolism. Among this people we have a fire ser- 

 pent god, suggesting the connection of the worship of the sun serpent 

 and that of fire. Like all primitive races where sun worship is domi- 

 nant, the Aztecs held fire in great reverence, and the Fire God was 



