Page:The Aryan Household.djvu/33

21 It is not easy to give strict proof of propositions which are not so much expressly stated by any early writer as implied and assumed throughout all ancient literature. But this conception of property in special deities, strange as it sounds in Christian ears, admits of illustrations ranging from the present day to the remotest records of our race. We know that, at this day, it is the first duty of a good Hindu to worship his village god. The old Zend inscriptions make mention of similar divinities under the suggestive title of Vithibis Bagaibis, the Wick-Bogies. It is needless to cite examples of the special cults of Hellas or of Italy; or to tell of the Argive Herê and Athene of Alalkomene; of the great goddess whom all Asia and the world worshipped; of the great Twin Brothers whose home was on the Eurotas; or of the less famous Jupiter of Anxur, and Jupiter of Lanuvium; of Feronia of Terracina; or of Anguitia Marsorum. We read of special gods of the Teutonic tribes, and of special gods of the Keltic tribes; of the worshippers of Hertha, and the worshippers of Woden; of the god of the Gadeni, and the goddess of the Brigantes. In how special a light these deities were regarded we may infer from various incidental notices. Polyphemos scorns the authority of Zeus, and recognizes no god but his father, Poseidon. In "The Suppliants" of Æschylus, an Egyptian herald tells the Argives, to whose land he has come, that he does not dread their gods, for that they did not rear him nor maintain him to old age. The gods around Neilos, indeed, he venerates, but to the gods of Argos he gives no heed. The Russian peasant of the present day draws, we are told, a clear line between his own Damovoy and his