The high priest, standing on the threshold of the temple, kept his eyes fixed on the eastern horizon. Before presiding at the festival he had to plunge thrice into the Mississippi. In his hands he held two pieces of dry wood which he kept rubbing slowly against each other, muttering magic words. At his side two acolytes held two cups filled with a kind of black sherbet. All the women, their backs turned to the east, each leaning with one hand on her rude mattock and supporting her infant with the other, stood in a great semicircle at the gate of the temple. Profound silence reigned throughout the multitude while the priest watched attentively the growing light in the east. As soon as the diffused light of dawn began to be shot with beams of fire, he quickened the motion of the two pieces of wood which he held in his hands; and at the moment when the upper edge of the sun’s disc appeared above the horizon, fire flashed from the wood and was caught in tinder. At the same instant the women outside the temple faced round and held up their infants and their mattocks to the rising sun. The great chief and his wife now drank the black liquor. The priests kindled the circle of dried reeds; fire was set to the heap of oak bark on the altar, and from this sacred flame all the hearths of the village were rekindled. No sooner were the circles of reeds consumed than the chief’s wife came forth from the temple and placing herself at the head of the women marched in procession to the harvest fields, whither the men were not allowed to follow them. They went to gather the first sheaves of maize and returned to the temple bearing them on their heads. Some of the sheaves they presented to the high priest, who laid them on the altar. Others they used to bake the unleavened bread which was to be eaten in the evening. The eastern door of the sanctuary was now closed, and the western door was opened. When the day began to decline, the multitude assembled once more at the temple, this time at its western gate, where they formed a great crescent, with the horns turned toward the west. The unleavened bread was held up and presented to the setting sun, and a priest struck up a hymn in praise of his descending light. When darkness had fallen the whole plain twinkled with fires, round which the people feasted; and the sounds of music and revelry broke the silence of night.(990) INDEX. Aachen, fire festival at, ii. 251 Aargau, trees planted at births in, ii. 330 Aberdeenshire, ceremony at the cutting of the last sheaf in, i. 345 Abyssinia, rain-making on the outskirts of, i. 53 Abyssinian festivals, ii. 171 Acagchemen tribe, adoration of the buzzard by the, ii. 90, 91 Adonis, myth and worship of, i. 279-282, 296; connection with vegetation, i. 281; gardens of, i. 284-296; rites of, similar to those of Osiris, i. 319, 320; probable origin of the cult of, i. 363; lament of, i. 280, 399; as a pig, ii. 49, 50