In the San Francisco Bulletin, I recently read a description of the
celebration by the Chinese in that city of their Feast for the Dead,
in which there are some significant features. The chief attention
was paid, says the reporter, to a figure 'representing what answers
in their theology to our devil, and whom they evidently think it
necessary to propitiate before proceeding with their worship over
individual graves.' This figure is on the west side of their temple;
before and around it candles and joss-sticks were kept burning. On
the east side was the better-looking figure, to which they paid
comparatively little attention.
It was of course but natural that the demons of fire should
gradually be dispelled from that element in its normal aspects, as
its uses became more important through human invention, and its evil
possibilities were mastered. Such demons became gradually located in
the region of especially dangerous fires, as volcanoes and boiling
springs. The Titan whom the ancients believed struggling beneath
Ætna remained there as the Devil in the christian age. St. Agatha
is said to have prevented his vomiting fire for a century by her
prayers. St. Philip ascended the same mountain, and with book and
candle pronounced a prayer of exorcism, at which three devils came
out like fiery flying stones, crying, 'Woe is us! we are still hunted
by Peter through Philip the Elder!' The volcanoes originated the
belief that hell is at the earth's centre, and their busy Vulcans of
classic ages have been easily transformed into sulphurous lords of
the christian Hell. Such is the mediæval Haborym, demon of arson,
with his three heads--man, cat, and serpent--who rides through the
air mounted on a serpent, and bears in his hand a flaming torch. The
astrologers assigned him command of twenty-six legions of demons in
hell, and the superstitious often saw him laughing on the roofs of
burning houses. [43] But still more dignified is Raum, who commands
thirty legions, and who destroys villages; hence, also, concerned in
the destructions of war, he became the demon who awards dignities;
and although this made his usual form of apparition on the right bank
of the Rhine that of the Odinistic raven, on the left bank he may be
detected in the little red man who was reported as the familiar of
Napoleon I. during his career.
Among Mr. Gill's South Pacific myths is one of a Prometheus, Maui, who
by assistance of a red pigeon gets from the subterranean fire-demon
the secret of producing fire (by rubbing sticks), the demon (Mauike)
being then consumed with his realm, and fire being brought to the
upper world to remain the friend of man. In Vedic legend, when the
world was enveloped in darkness, the gods prayed to Agni, who suddenly
burst out as Tvashtri--pure fire, the Vedic Vulcan--to the dismay of
the universe. In Eddaic sagas, Loki was deemed the most voracious of
beings until defeated in an eating match with Logi (devouring fire).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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