ylonia, Ea;
in Greece, Okeanos and Poseidon; in Rome, Neptune; and along with these
are numerous subordinate figures--attendants on the great gods, and
intrusted with various particular duties.

FIRE

+318+. There was, doubtless, a time when man had not learned to produce
fire, and there may now be tribes unacquainted with its domestic uses.
But such ignorance, if it exists, is rare; savages generally know how to
make fire, and to use it for warmth and for the preparation of food.
When men began to reflect on the origin of things, fire seemed to them
so wonderful that they supposed it must have been discovered or
invented, and the knowledge of it bestowed on men by higher beings, gods
or demigods; such benefactors are Hastsezini (of the Navahos), Lightning
(of the Pawnees), the Beaver and the Eagle (of the Thompson River
Indians of British Columbia), Maui (of the Maoris), Agni,
Prometheus.[590]

+319+. Though, like other mysterious things, it has been regarded
generally (perhaps universally) as sacred, there is no clear proof that
it has been worshiped as divine. What may have been the case in remote
ages we cannot tell, but, according to the information we possess, it
has been, and is, merely revered as in itself mysterious or sacred,[591]
or as the abode or production of a spirit or a deity. Possibly in the
early stages of culture known to us there is a fusion of the element
with the indwelling or controlling god or spirit.[592] The divine
patrons of fire are found in all parts of the world, varying in form
and function according to the degrees of advancement of the various
communities, from the beast-gods of the Redmen to the departmental
deities of the Maoris, Babylonians, Mexicans, and others, and to the
more complicated gods of Hindus, Greeks, and Romans.[593]

+320+. The most elaborate and most interesting of all fire-cults is the
Persian. The ritual of the Avesta appears at times to describe a worship
of the element itself: in Fargard xviii the fire implores the
householder to rise, wash his hands, and put pure wood on the flame;
Yacna lxi is a hymn of homage and petition addressed to the fire, which
is called the son of Ahura Mazda--the householder asks that all the
blessings of life may be his as a reward for his sacrifice. The numerous
temples devoted to the fire-cult, mentioned by later writers,[594] might
seem to look in the same direction. But a comparison of other parts of
the Avesta makes it doubt