Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/256

242 That religious significance should come to be attached to a substance so highly prized, and in many cases so hard to obtain, seems but natural, especially as the habitual use of the mineral commenced with the advance from nomadic to agricultural life—that step in civilization that is said to most influence the cults of the nations.

So important was salt to the ancients that it has been conjectured that the oldest trade routes were created for traffic in the article. Certainly, with the addition of incense, it plays the principal part in all that is known of the ancient highways of commerce. One of the roads in Italy is the Via Salaria, by which the produce of the salt pans of Ostia was carried up into the Sabine country, and to the present day the caravan trade of Sahara is largely dependent upon salt.

Of old the gods were worshiped as givers of the fruits of the earth, and especially of bread and salt, which are always mentioned together. This mineral was associated with religious offerings, particularly cereal. Its preservative qualities made it the fitting symbol of an enduring compact; hence, probably, the "covenant of salt," spoken of so frequently in the Bible.

Numbers, xviii, 19: "It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord unto thee and to thy seed with thee"; and 2 Corinthians, xiii, 5: "Ought ye not to know that the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?"

These verses illustrate the importance attached to such compact. Not only were the gifts bestowed, but they were made enduring by "a covenant of salt."

In the mountains of Salzburg, about 1730, there existed what was known as the "Salt League of God." Menzel gives an account of the ceremony from which the association derived its name: "Each confederate on taking the oath dipped his finger in the saltcellar, and from this circumstance and the allusion it contained to the name of their country the league was styled by them the ‘Salt League of God.’"

The Mexicans personified their veneration for salt in the goddess Huixtocilmatl. She was said to be a sister of the rain gods, with whom she quarreled; in their resentment they drove her into the salt water, where she invented the art of panning the mineral, and became the goddess of salt.

Next to its religious significance salt was, above all, the symbol of friendship. To eat salt with a man was held by most peoples, the Orientals especially, to form a sacred tie of brotherhood. Any