Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu/301

 plumes rising from his crest, the mark of his father's form." Descent was claimed, not only from a swan Apollo, but from a dog Apollo.

Evidence of another class derived from sacrifice has been adduced by Professor Robertson Smith. The custom of solemnly offering a totem-beast once a year to himself, as it were, though he is not to be touched on other occasions, is familiar in savage rites, and is probably illustrated by the yearly sheep-offering to the "Ram Zeus," as Herodotus has it (ii. 42), in Egyptian ritual. Professor Robertson Smith points out that Hecate "was invoked as a dog, and dogs were her piacular sacrifice." According to Plutarch, we may add a dog was sacrificed to the wolf at the Lupercalia in Rome. Though the case of Rome is merely analogous, it may be noted that Plutarch asks, "Why do the Latins worship a woodpecker, and all of them abstain strictly from the flesh of this bird, which is sacred to Mars?" He is also anxious to know why a dog was offered to the Lares, while the Lares themselves were draped in the skin of dogs. This wearing the skin of the totem animal in ritual acts is familiar in savage religion. Plutarch's statement that the Pythagoreans "worshipped a white cock and abstained from the mullet" is perhaps less to the purpose.

In connection with the same set of ideas, it is pointed out that several, or stocks, had