Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/176

 164 god, they wait (i. e., fast) till "the idol, who eats invisibly, has had enough." Moreover, we are told by Bastian, that when a Samoiede goes on a journey, "his relatives direct the idol toward the place to which he has gone, in order that it may look after him." How among the more advanced peoples of these regions there persists the idea that the idol of the god, developed, as we have seen, from the effigy of the dead man, is the residence of a conscious being, is implied by the following statement of Erman respecting the Russians of Irkutsk:

Like beliefs are displayed by other races wholly unallied. Of the Sandwich-Islanders, Ellis tells us that, after a death in the family, the survivors worship "an image with which they imagine the spirit is in some way connected;" and also that "Oro, the great national idol, was generally supposed to give the responses to the priests." Concerning the Yucatanese, Fancourt, quoting Cogolludo, says that "when the Itzaex performed any feat of valor, their idols, whom they consulted, were wont to make a reply to them;" and, quoting Villagutierre, he describes the beating of an idol said to have predicted the arrival of the Spaniards, but who had deceived them respecting the result. Even more strikingly shown is this implication in the Quiche legend. Here is an extract from Bancroft:

Nor is it among inferior races only that conceptions of this kind are found. In his "Histoire des Musulmans d'Espagne," Dozy, describing the ideas and practices of the idolatrous Arabians, says: