Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/394

380 proxy, to the Brahmans who receive for the divine ancestors the oblation of a worshipper who has no sacred fire to consume it, 'for there is no difference between the Fire and a Brahman, such is the judgment declared by them who know the Veda.' It is needless to collect details of a practice so usual in the great systematic religions of the world, where priests have become professional ministers and agents of deity, as for them to partake of the sacrificial meats. It by no means follows from this usage that the priest is necessarily supposed to consume the food as representative of his divinity; in the absence of express statement to such effect, the matter can only be treated as one of ceremonial ordinance. Indeed, the case shows the caution needed in interpreting religious rites, which in particular districts may have meanings attached to them quite foreign to their general intent.

The feeding of an idol, as when Ostyaks would pour daily broth into the dish at the image's mouth, or when the Aztecs would pour the blood and put the heart of the slaughtered human victim into the monstrous idol's mouth, seems ceremonial make-believe, but shows that in each case the deity was somehow considered to devour the meal. The conception among the lower races of deity, as in disembodied spiritual form, is even less compatible with the notion that such a being should consume solid matter. It is true that the notion does occur. In old times it appears in the legend of Bel and the Dragon, where the footprints in the strewn ashes betray the knavish priests who come by secret doors to eat up the banquet set before Bel's image. In modern centuries, it may be exemplified by the negroes of Labode, who could hear the noise of their god Jimawong emptying one after another the bottles of brandy handed in