Asiatic influence far in the interior of North America, and the following may, perhaps, be held in some degree to confirm and supplement it. Johannes de Piano Carpini, describing in 1246 the manners and customs of the Tatars, says that one of their superstitious traditions concerns "sticking a knife into the fire, or in any way touching the fire with a knife, or even taking meat out of the kettle with a knife, or cutting near the fire with an axe; for they believe that so the head of the fire would be cut off."[1] The prohibition was no doubt connected with the Asiatic fire-worship, and it seems to have long been known in Europe, for it stands among the Pythagorean maxims, "πῦρ μαχαίρᾳ μὴ σκαλεύειν," "not to stir the fire with a sword," or, as it is given elsewhere, σιδήρῳ, "with an iron."[2] In the far north-east of Asia it may be found in the remarkable catalogue of ceremonial sins of the fire-revering Kamchadals, among whom "it is a sin to take up a burning ember with the knife-point, and light tobacco, but it must be taken hold of with the bare hands."[3] The following statement is taken out of a list of superstitions of the Sioux Indians of North America. "They must not stick an awl or needle into . . . a stick of wood on the fire. No person must chop on it with an axe or knife, or stick an awl into it. . . . Neither are they allowed to take a coal from the fire with a knife, or any other sharp instrument."[4] Against the view that these remarkable coincidences prove historical connexion between the races they occur among, the counter-argument will be this, has there generated itself again and again in the world, in connexion with the idea of fire being a living animal, a prohibition to wound the sacred creature?
The first of the four groups of customs, selected as examples of an argument taking a yet wider range, is based upon the idea that disease is commonly caused by bits of wood, stone, hair, or
- ↑ Vincentius Beluacensis, 'Speculum Historiale,' 1473, book xxxii. c. vii.
- ↑ Diog. Laert. viii. 1, 17. Plut. 'De Educatione Puerorum,' xvii. "In the Nijegorod Government it is still forbidden to break up the smouldering remains of the faggots in a stove with a poker; to do so might be to cause one's 'ancestors' to fall through into hell," Ralston, 'Songs of the Russian People,' London, 1872, p. 120. [Note to 3rd Edition.]
- ↑ G. W. Steller, 'Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka;' Frankfort, 1774, 274.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, part iii. p. 230.
