The Portland daily press., 1893-02-23
HoKE SMITH.
Interesting Study of a Great Subject.

Interesting Study of Great Subject.
The New York Sun, solicitous about
all of Cleveland's cabinet and especially
aroused about Hoke Smith, has discoy-
cred new paper, the Holk-Lore Journal
from which it quotes as follows
from the Holk-Lore Journal.]
At the regular weekly meeting 1.-THE
president, Nackernagel, in the chalr) the
Rev. Wraxall Wood communicated some
verses which he had heard sung by his
nurse somewhere about 1870. AS the
nurse could neither read nor write, his
transcription of them, the reverend gen
tleman said, must necessarily be Pho
netic and probably verbally inaccurate:
'.Hocus-pocus. hocus, Isle. Query: Hoke?]
Would hoeus-poeus play;
He was the.pokiest hocns, sir
That was In Geofgi-ay. Lvarlan:
North Carlinei-ay.]
"Ob. he was twenty spans in height,
And twenty spans around,
And being SO small was often lost,
But subsequently found,
':He'd drink the milk of eight-score COWS
And then cry out Repeat
And when he went into creek
He'd get there with both feet.
He often whistied in the wood,
And bought pig in poke.
And when he had his tun O. beer
Would always sing out 4Hoch'" Query;
Hoke.]
These verses, said Mr.. Wood, repre-
sent Hocus not as the giant power OF
nature, the God Fire [Focus], the bright
eye THE Greek Okos] of Flame; but IA
miliar, goodnatured giant, god turned
bourgeois, so to speak. He had lost his
original attributes OF a fire god. beneff-
cent indeed. but terrible, and had be-
come simply gigantic. homely figure in
the popular imagination. He had been
deanthropomorpnized, so to speak. He
had sunk from aprimeyal power, god
invested with human attributes, to the
place of figure of the nursery. He
Mr. Wood desired to say he was not
prepared to say that the Hoe, OF Hocus,
myth was not intimately related to the
Scandinavian Wayland's myth. The
name of Wayland's mother, Wac, GER
tainly suggested Hac, Hok; and Hok,
like Wayland, was a smith, a fire god, an
Wephaistos.
In moving the thanks of the society to
Mr.. Wood, Mr.. Swift of Indiana said
that there was one point in the reverend
gentleman's paper with which he could
not agree. He suggested as the posi-
BILE origin, or at any rate as the collateral
of Hok, Hocus, the Greek Och, a magic
charm against feas, and compared with
it Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies.
Mr.. G. Fred Williams: "There are no
flies on Hokus." Laughter.
Continuing, Mr.. Swift said that the
long vowel in Och seemed to him conclu-
sive. If Hok was from the short-vowelled
okos how were you to account for the
long O?
Another member said that he pre-
sumed that a vowel was as liable to get
short as man. What he could not ac-
count for was the presence of the FL in
Hok. Hocos, Hocus. while in okos or even
Och the aspirate was absent.
The President: The presence of the
aspirate at least assures us that we need
not seek an English original for Hoeos.
| (Applause)
Mr.. Osborne of Connecticut communi-
Gated counting in rhyme which is used on
the Mugwump Reservation in New Ha
ven:-
smythie, smithle, smittie smitt;
Hocus. pocus, TIP
Mr.. Wendell P. Garrison said that in
his opinion it was unsafe and unscien-
| tific to depend upon Greek analogies or
origins in regard to the Hok myth
Might not Hok be form of Choke, Cook
akin to but not descended from Jocus
| Colonel Wheelwright of Boston insisted
| upon the Northern origin of the name
and the myth. He compared Hakon,
Hake, Hook, Fake, all, he said, having
| the sense of curvation or crookedness.
He did not mean that the great Fire God
was crooked, but he felt sure, after con-
| sulting Professors Whitney and Lanman,
| that hook, crook, hake Hoke, Fake 1.-THE
god Facus-Saturnus hence had the SICKLE
were the same. In conclusion he would
read the following lines translated from
| the Elder Hoka:-
s.First of fire-feeders, furnace-filling
| Fury-fraught scion OF Fake,
High-heart HOka, bright life-giver,
Of heroes heftiest, HOka, hall
Southland scion, starkest in struggle.
Stern steel-driver, stout IN the storm,
Cornorant-feeder, crowder of cemeteries,
Choka, the Cracker, fire-chortling carl"
1t was announced that at the next
| meeting some of the Hocus ballads which
have recently been collected by a mem
Der of the society would be communi-
Gated. Among these are when Hocus
First to New York Came" "How They
Found Hocus," "Hokesoak," and [from
New Orleans lie Bon OQNe. Adjourned
|WOr1EN