The weekly Arizona miner., 1878-02-08
THE WORSHIP OF THE HEArHEN GODS
A Now and Interesting Theory.
BY T. N. SANFORD.


 The morning of it's glory was prehistoric; it's meridian, in the classic ages; and re live in its evening twilight. From every part of the earth where history and tradi- tons have arisen, we have met with super stition in the form of Idolatrous worship. The heather gods present their claims to mankind Tor perpetual tribute, and, like imperial tax gatherers, they assess according to the ability to pay.
 While the various mythologies exhibit great diversity in minutia, as affected by diverse local causes, they so coincide in their general outlines as to form integral parts of one general system. and the rela- tionship of the mythologies becomes so strongly marked that their kindred ties can only be sought in common origin or spon- taneous production wherein like always pro- duces like.
 The gods of the classical period all re- quired sacrifice as a just tribute. Some of the godsof early history, and probably all of the gods of the prehistoric time required the sacrifice of human beings. With the earliest down of written history the shad- ows of human sacrifice flash upon us from every part of the earth; and, having tra- versed the written chronicles of remote time to their utmost confines in antiquity, we are led still farther on by tradition, analogy, deduction, sign and symbol, to explore tise vast and dreary waste of prehistoric time, and wherever we are able to scan the scat tered fragments which these pages reveal, we behold in the glimmering twilight the spectres of human sacrifice lowering over the dark and dismal prehistoric ages.
 Tho raaf hat t, primitive worship of the leading Oriental, as we'll as Occidental nations, and not that this worship antidates all history in all coun- tries, and that the union or contemporary existence of Sun and Sacrifice worship was general with the first dawn of history, es- tablishes their origin in the depths of i'm mense antiquity.
 Now let us enquire into the probable con- dition of man, and the influences surround ing human nature when mythological su- perstition first became his master, and whether mythology was natural sponta- neous production or the result of accident
 Now, as all heather divinities bear the express image of the people who created them, it follows that the characteris- tics of any divinity become quite certain indices to the character of the people who bestowed them, and as the primary heather gods were not only carniverous, but that they were androphagi ferocious and terribly cruel, we are led by this synthetic process to conclude that this was the condition of the people who created them; in short, men were then savage cannibals. This may not carry us fully back to the age of the cave man, as burnt offering implies the knowl- edge of the use of fire by the first men, or that the cave man possessed any mechani- cal skill or linguistic attainments much above the beasts of the forest. Like them, he sought natural retreat, shelter or lair to lie down in and depended on his physical strength and feetncss of limb to reduae his prey without any implements of war or the chase, not even club. Petrifactions and preserved bones-the only record that has come down--mark we'll the dwelling places of this primitive type of our race.
 The cave man had no more use for the art of cooking than the bear or wolf; being savage himself, he could not tame any other animal, not even the domestic canine, so useful in huating, appears in his age, as the soft ends of bones were never gnawed away as was the case in subsequent ages when the wild wolf had become converted into the domestic dog; and this seems to be the first animal domesticated by man, which may be assigned as reason way the dog though not the highest type, is the mosl sagscions animal.
 In the first advance from the savage to- ward the civil condition. creatures become gregarious through friendship; and this is most prominent among herbiverous animals as there is no danger of devouring each otker when assembled in multitude. The diet of many nstiuns even in our day Is con. fined to fish. as along the North Pacific while, in the buffalo range they are often confined to flesh; and, in the region of cac. tus and mesquit they are sften confined ta