pan fe 
BOURKE, ] SACRED BREADS AND CAKES. 5AT 
The people living on the coast of Coramandel have an ordeal con- 
sisting in the chewing of unboiled rice. No harm will attach to him 
who tells the truth, but the perjurer is threatened with condign pun- 
ishment in this world and in that to come.! Bread is bitten when the 
Ostaaks of Siberia take a solemn oath, such as one of fealty to the Czar 
SACRED BREADS AND CAKES. 
Since the employment of hoddentin, or tule pollen, as a sacred com- 
memorative food would seem to have been fairly demonstrated, before 
closing this section I wish to add a few paragraphs upon the very gen- 
eral existence of ritualistic farinaceous foods in all parts of the world. 
They can be detected most frequently in the ceremonial reversion to a 
grain or seed which has passed or is~passing out of everyday use in 
some particular form given to the cake or bread or some circumstance 
of time, place, and mode of manufacture and consumption which stamps 
itasa “survival.” Sodeeply impressed was Grimm? with the wide hori- 
zon spreading around the consideration of this topic that he observed: 
“Our knowledge of heathen antiquities will gain both by the study of 
these drinking usages which have lasted into later times and also of 
the shapes given to baked meats, which either retained the aetual forms 
of ancient idols or were accompanied by sacrificial observances. A 
history of German cakes and bread rolls might contain some unexpected 
disclosures. .  . . Even the shape of cakes is a reminiscence of the 
sacrifices of heathenism.” 
The first bread or cake to be mentioned in this part of the subject is 
the pancake, still so frequently used on the evening of Shrove Tuesday. 
Tn antiquity it can be traced back before the Reformation, before the 
Crusades were dreamed of, before the Barbarians had subverted Rome, 
before Rome itself had fairly taken shape. 
There seems to have been a very decided religious significance in the 
preparation of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. In Leicestershire, “On 
Shrove Tuesday a bell rings at noon, which is meant as a signal for the 
people to begin frying their pancakes.” + 
* The Norman Crispelle (Du Cange) are evidently taken from the 
Fornacalia, on the 18th of February, in inemory of the method of mak- 
ing bread, before the Goddess Forna.c invented ovens.” 
Under *“ Crispelle,” Du Cange says: ‘¢ Rustici apud Normannos vocant 
Crespes, ova pauca mixta cum farina, et in sartagine frixa,” and says 
that they are “ex herba, farina et oleo.”® These same Crispellie are to 
be seen on the Rio Grande during Christmas week. 
In the Greek Church and throughout Russia there is to the present 
time a “ pancake feast” at Shrovetide.? 
' Voyage of Capt. Amasa Delano, Boston, 1847, p. 230. Compare with the ordeal of Scoteh conspir 
ators, who ate a fragment of barley bread together. 
*Gauthier de la Peyronie, Voyages de Pallas, Paris, 1793. vol. 4, pp. 75. 
’Teutonic Mythology, vol. 1, p. 63. 
4Macaulay quoted in Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 1, p. 85. 
* Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 83. 
° Du Cange. Glossarium, articles ‘ Crispellee ” and ‘* Crespelle.” 
7 Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 1, p. 88. 
