EIRCHER
661
KIRCHER
together with an heraldic system based upon the shield
and tipi. Their principal deities were the Sun, the
Buffalo, the Peyote plant, and the tribal palladium,
the sacred Taime image, exposed to view only at the
sun dance. Polygamy existed, marriage was simple,
and divorce as easy. The dead were buried in the
ground or in rock caves. The property of the de-
ceased, including dogs and horses, was destroyed near
the grave. The relatives, particularly the women, cut
off their hair, gashed themselves ■n-ith knives, chopped
off portions of their fingers, wailed day and night for
weeks, changed their names, and even dropped from
the language for a time any word that might suggest
the name of the dead. The same custom was noted
by the Jesuit Dobrizhoffer among the Abipone of
Argentina one hundred and fifty years ago. They
named years by consecutive sun dances, and pre-
served a chronological pictograph record going back to
1833. They are now nearly all in houses, wearing
citizen's dress, largely Christianized, and making some
effort at farming, but depending more upon the in-
come from their rented lands and treaty funds. With the
exception of some songs and a vocabulary by Mooney,
very httle has )'et been pubhshed of their language,
which is strongly nasal and explosive, but sonorous,
and comparativel}' simple in gi-ammar. From perhaps
1800 souls in ISOO, they number now about 1270, be-
sides 160 Iviowa-Apache. After Battey, the first mis-
sionary work in the tribe was begun in 18S7 by the
Methodists, followed by the Presbj^erians, Baptists,
and Catholics. The Methodists have since withdrawn,
and the Presbyterian work is now limited to the
Apache. The Catholic mission of St. Patrick, at
Anadarko, the agency centre, was begun in 1S91
through the assistance of Mother Catherine Drexel,
and is now in flourishing condition under the Bene-
dictine Fathers assisted by Franciscan Sisters, with
over 400 communicants in the associated tribes.
Moo.vET, Ghost Dance, in I^th Rept. Bur. Am. Ethnology (Washington, 1S96); Idem, Calendar Hist, of the Kiow-a Indians in 17th Rept. Bur. Am. Ethn. (Washington, 1898); Annual Re- ports of Comr. of Ind. Affairs (Washington): Annual Rept. Di- rector Bur. Calh. Ind. Missions (Washington).
James Moonet.
Kircher, Athaxasius, celebrated for the versatil- ity of his knowledge and particularly distinguished for his knowledge of the natural sciences, b. 2 May, 1601, at Geisa a small town on the northern bank of the Upper Rhone (Buehonia); d. at Rome, 28 Nov., 16S0. From liis birthplace he was accustomed to add the La- tin epithet Bucho. or Buchonius, to his name, although later he preferred calling himself FuldensU after Fulda, the capital of his native country. The name Athana- sius was given him in honour of the .saint on whose feast he was born. John Kircher, the father of Atha- nasius, had studied philosophy and theology at Mainz, without, however, embracing the priestly calling. As soon as he had obtained the doctor's degree in the lat- ter faculty, he went to lecture on theology in the Bene- dictine hou.se at Seligenstadt . .\thanasius studied hu- manities at the Jesuit College in Fulda. and on 2 Oct., 1618, entered the Society of Jesus at Patlerborn. At the end of his novitiate he repaired to Cologne for his philosophical studies. The journey thither was, on account of the confusion cau.sed by the Thirty Years' War, attended with great danger. Together with his studj' of speculative phUosopny the talented young student devoted himself especiall.y to the natural sciences and the classical languages, for which reason he was shortly afterwards called to teach these branches at the Jesuit colleges in Coblenz and Heiligen- stadt. In Mainz, where Kircher (1625) began his the- ological studies, he attracted the notice of the elector through his ability and his skill as an experimentalist. In 1628 he was ordained priest, and hardly had he fin- ished his last year of probation at Speyer when the chair of ethics and mathematics was given to him by
the University of Wiirzburg, while at the same time he
had to give instructions in the SjTian and Hebrew lan-
guages. However, the disorders consequent on the
wars obliged him to go first to Lyons in France (1631)
and later to Avignon.
The discovery of some hierogh-phic characters in the library of Spej'er led Kircher to make his first attempt to solve the problem of hieroglyphical wxiting, which still baffled all scholars. At ALx he made the acquaint- ance of the well-known French senator, Nicolas Peiresc, who.se magnificent collections aroused in Kircher the highest interest. Recognizing in Kircher the right man to solve the old Egj-ptian riddle, Peiresc applied direct to Rome and to the General of the Jesu- its to have Kir- cher's call to Vi- enna bj' the em- peror set aside am to procure a sum- mons for t h ( scholar to tin Eternal City. Tin generous intention was favoured b\ Providence, Hi asmuch as Kirchi i on liis way to ^ i enna was shiji wrecked ne.n Civit^ Vecchia and arrived in Rome before the knowledge of his call thither hac reached him. Un- til his death (2s Nov., 1680), Rome was now to be the P- ATHANASrvs KIRCHERS'S R'LDENSIS principal scene of jSociet; Icfu Anno otitis Lin.
Iwcher's many- K^«'i'~^T'^"'"":^'-'-^'<'-""^^a sided activity, which soon developed in such an astonisliing way that pope, emperor, princes, and prel- ates vied with one another in furthering and support- ing the investigations of the learned scholar. After six years of successful teaching in the Roman College, where he lectured on physics, mathematics, and Orien- tal languages, he was released from these duties that he might have freedom in his studies and might devote himself to formal scientific research, especially in Southern Italy and Sicily. He took advantage of a trip to Malta to explore thoroughly the various volcanoes which exist between Naples and that island. He studied especially in 1638 the Strait of Messina, where, besides the noise of the surge, a dull suliterranean rum- ble attracted his attention. At Trapani and Palermo his interest was aroused by the remains of antedilu- vian elephants. But before all else he tried to discover the subterranean power of the volcanoes of Etna and Stromtoli, then in eruption; public attention had been called to such mysterious phenomena by tiie frightful eruption of Vesuvius in 1630.
\^'hen Kircher left Messina in 1638 to return to Naples, a terrible earthquake occurred which destroj'ed the city of Eupheiuia. Like Pliny before him (.\. d. 79), Kircher wished to study at close range this powerful convulsion of nature. On reaching Naples he at once climbed ^'esuvius, and had himself lowered by means of a rope into the crater of the volcanic mountain and with the help of his pantometer ascertained exactly the different dimensions of the crater and its inner structure. As the firstfruits of his travels he pub- lished, for the Knights of Malta, "Specula Sleli- tensis Encyclica sive syntagma no\Tjm instrumen- torum phj-sico-mathematicorum" (Messina, 1638). It was forty years later that the fully matured results of these investigations appeared in Ivircher's great work, the "Mundus Subterraneus ", in two volumes (.Vmsterdam,
