1894.] 5d [Brinton. 



it was scattered upon the flames with a brush, at other times it was poured 

 out around the firephice."* 



38. The high importance of the fire ceremonies in the secret 

 rituals of tlie modern Mayas is plainly evident from the native 

 Calendars, although their signification has eluded the researches 

 of students, even of the laborious Pio Perez, who was so inti- 

 mately acquainted with their language and customs. In these 

 Calendars the fire-priest is constantly referred to as ah-toc, liter- 

 ally " the fire-master." The rites he celebrates recur at regular 

 intervals of twenty days (the length of one native month) apart. 

 They are four in number. On the first he takes the fire; on the 

 second he kindles the fire ; on the third he gives it free play, 

 and on the fourth he extinguishes it. A period of five days is 

 then allow^ed to elapse, when these ceremonies are recom- 

 menced in the same order. Whatever their meaning, they are 

 so important that in the Buk Xoc, or General Computation of 

 the Calendar, preserved in the mystic" Books of Chilan Balam," 

 there are special directions for these fire-masters to reckon tlie 

 proper periods for the exercise of their strange functions. f 



39. What, now, was the sentiment which underlay this wor- 

 ship of fire? I think that the facts quoted, and especially the 

 words of Father de Leon, leave no doubt about it. Fii-e was 

 worshiped as the life-giver, the active generator, of animate ex- 

 istence. This idea was by no means peculiar to them. It re- 

 peatedly recurs in Sanskrit, in Greek and in Teutonic mythology, 

 as has been ai)l3' pointed out by Dr. Hermann Cohen. J The 

 fire-god Agni (ignis) is in the Vedas the Maker of men; Pro- 

 metheus steals the fire from heaven that he ma}' with it animate 

 the human forms he has moulded of clay ; even the connection 

 of the pulque with the fire is paralleled in Greek mythos, where 

 Dionysos is called Fyrigenes, the " fire-born." 



Among the ancient Aztecs the god of fire was called the 



• Duran, Historia de los Indios de la Xueva Espatla, Tom. ii, p. 210. Sahagun adds that 

 the ocUi was poured on the hearth at four separate points, doubtless the four cardinal 

 points. Historia de Nueva Espatla, Lib. i, cap. 13. De la Serna describes the same cere- 

 mony as current in his day, Manual de Ministros, p. 3.'). The invocation ran :— " Shining 

 Rose, light-giving Rose, receive and rejoice my heart before the God." 



t A copy of these strange " Books of Chilan Balam " is in my possession. I have de- 

 scribed them in my Essays of an Americanist (Philadelphia, IS'.iO). 



t See his remarks on " Apperception der Menschenzeugung als Feuerbereitung," in the 

 Zeitsclirift fiir ViJlkerpsychologic, Bd. vi, s. 113, scq. 



