In all the above cases, as well as in that of the use of ashes in the Christian churches, it is possible that the origin of the custom might be traced back either to a desire to share in the burnt offering or else in that of preserving some of the incinerated dust of the dead friend or relative for whom the tribe or clan was in mourning. Ashes in the Christian church were not confined to Lent alone; they "were worn four times a year, as in the beginning of Lent."[439] Tuphramancy or divination by ashes was one of the methods of forecast in use among the priests of pagan Rome.[440] In Northumberland the custom prevailed of making bonfires on the hills on St. Peter's day. "They made encroachments, on these occasions, upon the bonfires of the neighbouring towns, of which they took away some of the ashes by force: This they called 'carrying off the flower (probably the flour) of the wake.'[441] Moresin thinks this a vestige of the ancient Cerealia." The mourning at Iddah, in Guinea, consists in smearing the forehead "with wood ashes and clay water, which is allowed to dry on. They likewise powder their hair with wood ashes."[442] DUST FROM CHURCHES--ITS USE. The last ceremonial powder to be described is dust from the ground, as among some of the Australians who smear their heads with pipe-clay as a sign of mourning.[443] The French writers mention among the ceremonies of the Natchez one in which the Great Sun "gathered dust, which he threw back over his head, and turned successively to the four quarters of the world in repeating the same act of throwing dust."[444] Mention is made of "an old woman who acted as beadle" of a church, who "once brought to the bedside of a dying person some of the sweepings from the floor of the altar, to ease and shorten a very lingering death."[445] Altar dust was a very ancient remedy for disease. Frommann says that, of the four tablets found in a temple of Esculapius, one bore this inscription: "Lucio affecto lateris dolore; veniret et ex ara tollerit cinerem et una cum vino comisceret et poneret supra latus; et convaluit," etc.[446] It seems then that the mediæval use of altar dust traces back to the Roman use of altar ashes. So hard is it to eradicate from the minds of savages ideas which have become ingrafted upon their nature that we need not be surprised to read in the Jesuit relations of affairs in Canada (1696-1702) that, at the Mission of Saint Francis, where the Indians venerated the memory of a saintly woman of their own race, Catheraine Tagikoo-ita, "pour guérir les malades que les rémèdes ordinaires ne soulagent point, on avale dans l'eau ou dans un bouillon un peu de la poussière de son tombeau."