BOI-RKE.] USE OF POLLEN. 517 



Higgins says: &quot;The Hour of wheat was the sacrifice offered to the 

 Xpr^ or Ceres in the Eiya/wr a.&quot; 



What relation these powders have had to the &quot;carnestolendas of 

 the Spanish and Portuguese, already alluded to, and the throwing of 

 ^confetti&quot; by the Italians, which is a modification, it would be hard to 

 say. Some relation would appear to be suggested. 



USE OF POLLEN BY THE ISRAELITES AND EGYPTIANS. 



There are some suggestions of a former use of pollen among the 

 Israelites and Egyptians. 



Manna, which we are assured was at one time a source of food to 

 the Hebrews, was afterward retained as an offering in the temples. 

 Forlong, however, denies that it ever could have entered into general 

 consumption. He says: 



Manna, as food, is an absurdity, but we have the well-known produce of the desert 



oak or ash Fraxinus Vn oiner of this was precious, and in this 



quantity, at the spring season, not difficult to get; it was a specially tit tribute to 

 be &quot;laid up before any Phallic Jah, as it was the pollen of the tree of Jove and of 

 Life, and in this sense the tribe lived spiritually on such &quot;spiritual manna&quot; as this 

 god supplied or was supplied with. 4 



The detestation in which the bean was held by the high-caste people 

 of Egypt does not demonstrate that the bean was not an article of food 

 to a large part of the population, any more than the equal detestation 

 of the occupation of swineherd would prove that none- of the poor 

 made use of swine s flesh. The priesthood of Egypt were evidently 

 exerting themselves to stamp out the use of a food once very common 

 among their people, and to supersede it witli wheat or some other 

 cereal. They held a man accursed who in passing through a field 

 planted with beans had his clothing soiled with their pollen. Speke 

 must have encountered ^ survival of this idea when he observed in 

 equatorial Africa, near the sources of the Nile, and among people whose 

 features proclaimed their Abyssinian origin, the very same aversion. 

 He was unable to buy food, simply because he and some of his followers 

 had eaten &quot;the bean called niaharague.&quot; Such a man, the natives 

 believed, &quot;if he tasted the products of their cows, would destroy their 

 cattle.&quot; 3 



One other point should be dwelt upon in describing the kimqiie of 

 the Zufii, Tusayan, and other Pueblos. It is placed upon one of the 

 sacred flat baskets and packed down in such a manner that it takes 

 the form of one of the old-fashioned elongated cylindro-conical cheeses. 

 It should be noted also that by something more than a coincidence this 

 form was adhered to by the peoples farther to the south when they ar 

 ranged their sacred meal upon baskets. 



At the festival of the god Teutleco the Aztecs made &quot;de harina de 



1 Anaralypsin, vol. 2. p. 244. 



Kiverxof Life, vol. 1. p. 161. 



3 Source of the Nile, London, 186,!, pp. 20&quot;), 208. 



