The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-08

novelty to the first Europeans in America.
| The Morse discoverers, with Karisefni,
reported that wheat grew wild in Vine
land Probably they meant corn
The legends of America attribute the
origin of agriculture to various heroes,
but all races explain the beginnings of in
! stitutions in this way. Miss auckland
seems to doubt this, but surely the Eleu-
| sinian legend of Tripolemus points in this
direction, while Osiris himself tends to
merge his identity in a cornstalk. The
enormous collection of instances in j. G.
Frazer's Golden Bough" proves that all
agricultural early races have much the
same myths, ritual and harvest homes.
Acosta reported in Peru the existence
of the custom of the Karnibaby; the last
gleamingo of the fields, dressed up IN clothes
and preserved through the year. From a
passage in the Harvest Home Idyll of
Theocritus (the SIXTH it seems that the
Greeks had their Kirnibaby, which they
called Demeter, just as the Peruvians,
like the Greeks, had their mother and
maiden. Miss auckland does not give her
authority for the statement that corn
kernels have been found in the wrappings
of Egyptian mummies. If so, did it come
from the lost Atlantis, or is it indigenous
to the old world
When grain of any l1ind-barley, wheat
millet-once comes to be baked science
is paralyzed by the wealth of materials
Every season, every feast every fast,
every god, every saint, even the dead
have their special solemn cakes. An exhi-
bition ( modern examples was once held
by the British folklore society, and very
indigestible the objects appeared. We
may doubt if the superstiti0ns are the
causes of the cakes. or the cakes and the
nightmares they beget of the supersti-
tons.t. The gloOmiest Calvinism may be
20 ll -s,rI, .aly ly Il
consumed in Scotland at the new year
while the Robbie Burns, or frivolous ele-
ment in the national character may be
due to the indispensable accompaniment
of whisky. In italy there are las there
are, or were, in England) pane del
morte''-dead mems cakes-eaten on all
souls day. These may descend from the
funeral banquets of beans eaten at bur
ials and then only by the ancients The
modern cakes represent different parts of
the human body.
Miss auckland makes the grim suqCes-
ton that they are survivals of cannibal-
ism. when the deceased, as we have seen,
was kept in the family" But that Gus
tom is very rare, even among actual can
nibals. A similar theory has been based
on the custom Of "sineating' in England.
Ceremonies do survive long after realities
are dead, but this is a survival hard to
swallow The Aztecs on certain occa sions
kneaded cakes with the blood of the hui
man victim, who, again, represented one
or other of the gods, This was only some
four centuries ago, and it would be worth
while to ascertain whether any trace of
the custom survives If not, it is likely to
to have outlasted cannibalism in Italy for
an unknown number of ages-if, indeed,
cannibalism was ever practiced in Italy
az all Almost equally incredible is it
that "bun" is derived from boun, a cake
may have believed that, but it takes the
cake" as a modern etymology. The ex-
preston 10 take the cake" itself, is said
to be derived from negro dances, where a
cake is the reward Of the deftest perform
ers But cakes, as Miss auckland notes,
were prizes for foot ball long before ne
groes and their dances were observed by
the antiquarian.