THE RULER AS PRIEST. 727 



able. The huacas were adored by the entire village ; the 

 canopas by particular families, and only the priests spoke to, 

 und brought offerings to, the huacas. 



These few out of many cases, while they sufficiently 

 exemplify the incipient parting of the sacred function from 

 the secular function, also illustrate the truth which every 

 where meets us, that the political and religious obligations 

 are originally both obligations of allegiance, very little dis 

 tinguished from one another the one being allegiance to 

 the living chief and the other allegiance to the ghost of the 

 dead chief. 



To prevent misapprehension a parenthetic remark must be 

 made. This growth of a distinction between the public 

 worship of his ancestor by a chief, and the private worship 

 of their ancestors by other men, which makes the chief s 

 priestly character relatively decided, is apt to be modified by 

 circumstances. Where allegiance to the ghost of a deceased 

 patriarch or founder of the tribe, has become so well estab 

 lished through generations that he assumes the character of a 

 god ; and where, by war or migration, the growing society is 

 so broken up that its members are separated from their chief 

 and priest; it naturally results that while continuing to 

 sacrifice to the doubles of their dead relatives, these sepa 

 rated members of the society begin to sacrifice on their own 

 account to the traditional god. Among the ancient Scan 

 dinavians &quot; every father of a family was a priest in his own 

 house,&quot; where he sacrificed to Odin. Similarly among the 

 Homeric Greeks. While chiefs made public sacrifices to the 

 gods, sacrifices and prayers were made to them by private 

 persons, in addition to the sacrifices made to their own ances 

 tors. The like was the case with the Eomans. And even 

 among the Hebrews, prohibited from worshipping ancestors, 

 the existence of public propitiators of Jahveh did not exclude 

 &quot; the competence of every Israelite&quot; to perform propitiatory 

 rites: the nomadic habits preventing concentration of the 

 priestly f emotion. 



