[491] Above, p. 127; Gen. x. 13, 14; Amos ix. 7; Deut. ii. 23; Jeremiah xlvii. 4; Stark, "Gaza," s. 104 ff. Ebers explains Kaphtor by _Kaft-ur_, _i.e._ Great Kaft, Great Phenicia. To Ai-Kaphtor the Egyptian Aa-Kaft, _i.e._ island and coast land, curved coast land would correspond.--"Ægypten," s. 131 ff. [492] Stark, "Gaza," s. 132-136, 318 ff. [493] Deut. i. 7, 20, 44; Joshua x. 5, 6; xi. 3. The Jebusites who possessed the Jerusalem of later times were a tribe of the Amorites. They and their king are expressly mentioned as Amorites. [494] In the book of Joshua, as well as in the prophet Amos, it is the Amorites whom the Hebrews have to contend against, mingled with scanty remnants of the Hittites and Hivites. Besides this, the advance of the Amorites against the Moabites is sufficiently proved (_vide_ Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), and the migration of the Hittites by their settlement in Cyprus. [495] Joshua ix. 7, 10. [496] Joshua i. 4; Schrader, "Keilsch. und Alt. Test," s. 30. CHAPTER VI. THE RELIGIOUS RITES OF THE CANAANITES. Our knowledge of the religious conceptions of the Canaanites consists of scattered and meagre statements. Yet these statements are enough to show with certainty that the ideas of the Syrians about the powers of Heaven rested on the same basis as the worship of the Babylonians. But the sensual and lascivious side of this worship, no less than the cruel and bloody side, is more strongly and broadly developed in Syria than in Babylonia, while, on the other hand, the complete development of the star-worship, as we found it on the lower Euphrates, is unknown in Syria. The gods who were regarded as alien and hostile to natural life were worshipped by the Canaanites with severe abstinence and harsh asceticism, with self-mutilation and human sacrifices; while the deities of procreation and birth, who were considered favourable to life, were worshipped with the most shameless prostitution and the most unbridled debauchery. Indeed these rites, distinguished by sensual excess and bloody asceticism, were united by that mysterious link which in the human breast brings debauchery and pain into close connection; and hence this worship is a true copy of the Semitic mode of feeling, which wavers between luxurious enjoyment and fanatical destruction, between cringing servility and stiff-necked obstinacy, between effeminate retirement in the harem, and bold achievements in the battle-field.