Durango semi-weekly herald., 1905-04-24

inc aS'uoi oTspip ol nOly bread In
the form of dough idols. as they were
called. When the early Mexicans
sacrificed to their great war god they
had an idol baked OF meal and mois.
tened with the blood of children slain
in ais honor. Costly jewels were i'm
bedded in the soft moss then 1t was
cooked and carried to the temple in
solemn procession, preceded by
priest bearing a sacred snake, and the
mass was then divided into crumbs
and eaten by the males, young and
old, after the manner of our commun.
ion
AT another festival they had sacred
waters or cakes. also divided among
The worshipers. Dough idols were
also common among the Mongols, for
tne. traveller Meignan saw an idol,
open to the sky and desert, made oil
compressed bread and mounted upon
horse, while five or six images also
of bread. were bending before the
deity in prayer.
Early Spanish writer's in America
found that the Pueblo women of san.
to Domingo, on the Rio Grande Of
fered bread cakes to their idols on
bended knees, and then preserved
them for the remainder of the year.
and certain misfortune would over,
take the family which did not keep a
supply of tnem on hand. similar
| cake, small and round, is sacred
among the Parsees of India Often
It is marked by the finger nail with
some mysterious character aud then
set aside for the guardian spirits OF
me dead
Cakes and bread have also been
used at all stages OF the world TO
sanctify solemn compacts between
man and man. The Saxons, accord
ing to Burke would purge themselves
of any accusation by eating a piece
Of barley bread with solemn oaths,
and wish that it might prove pois-
onous il they asserted what was
false,
In the days Of Horace, when Ro.
man slaves We're suspected by their
master, they were forced to viudi.
cate themselves by eating criso-'
over which priest had pronounced
certain ominous words. AS the slaves
of Rome came from every habitable
corner of the globe, this attests the
universal sanetity ascribed TO bread
by the pagan nations and tribes,
Bread is bitten when the Ostaaks
OF Siberia take the oath OF allegiance
10 the czar. just as the ancient Peru.
ylans ate corn cakes v'nen they made
alliances with the Inca. Even to this
day Scotch conspirators eat bit OF
barlsy bread when they exchange
their oaths.
AS password, or silent signal, for
concerted action among people
against an oppressive foe, cakes ara
far safer than beacon lights flashing
from hill to nil or noisy courisrs on
gallon and they have twice been
known TO serve as the voioeless her
aids of revenge. Englishmen are not
likely TO soon forget those strange
cakes, impressed with mysterious
symbol, which were found one morn.
ihS' tuiet udss DeioIt tHe awful uU
tiny by natives, in every building in
India, from the viceroys palace to tlle
iakir's hut, and which told the brown
people when to unchain the tigers of
that dreadful massacre
1t is indeed passing strange that,
after the lapse of many centuries, the
English of India should be victims OF
almost precisely the same uprising as
their Saxon foremothers planned for
the oppressive Danes, and executed
by the self same signal--a cake. II
is still told in Nottingha m shire that,
wnen that region was invaded by the
maraudiug Danes under Sweyn near
ly all the men escaped, but the women
were taken captive. 1t was these rath'
er strenuous women who formed a
solemn conspiracy to kill their cap
tors on Ash Wednesday, and. to bind
the bloody compact, all vowed to bake
pancakes on the Shrove Tuesday be
fore.
History tells Of an appalling massa-
ere of Danes on that opening day OF
Lent long centuries ago, for the pan
cake oatn was kept. May we not eas'
iy believe tnat some slaughters OF
more venerable antiquity might have
been carried out by means of the sl--
ent herald cake?
nea-