WORSHIP OF ELEMENTS. As constituents of all nature the elements are worshiped by philoso pliers, but it is quite doubtful whether, as has often been claimed, the elements Were ever wor shiped as such by savages, or even by more ad vanced people till a late period in their develop ment. Mother Earth is a very early divinity, but in this case she is not the clement, hut a local ground, generally a hill. Water is certainly not worshiped as divine till long after the local stream or spring is. or contains, a divinity. Thus the American Indians worshiped Niagara as a spirit, but did not regard water as a divinity. Ganges and Tiber were local tutelary gods long before abstract (elemental) water was revered. So air is unknown as an early divinity, but as wind personified it was worshiped as Huracan in America. and as Wodan in Germany. East Wind is a modern malevolent Hindu god, while to the Mexicans the East Wind was a a beneficent deity. Even tire is revered as a local form before fire in general is regarded as divine. Of all the elements, fire has been most universally worshiped, partly on account of its force and mystery of birth in threefold form. on earth, in the sky, and in the air (lightning), and partly because of its purifieatory nature. The cult of this element beeame the chief religious observance of Mazdeism. Mystic association between mental and physical attributes helped to increase the reverence for elemental gods. Fire and force were associated, water and wisdom, etc. The fish god of Babylonia and the fish god of Polynesia • both typify the union of water and wisdom, found also in the worship of the Hindu Vanilla. See Astrolatry, below.
Lrrnor,AntY. There are in all four forms of litholatry or stone-worship, the stone appearing to be in general one of the earliest forms of divinity. (I) Of these the most primitive, judg ing by the fact that it is found among the lowest savages, is the worship expressed by show ing religious (superstitious) awe for any re markable stone. There are three varieties: (a) the worship of a huge rock, scarcely to he differ entiated from the worship of a mountain (see below) ; (b) the worship of it stone peculiar in shape, especially if it suggests a resemblance to the shape of an animal or of man; (c) the worship of a heavenly stone. All three varie ties are found among the Finns and Lapps, among the negroes of Africa. and among the South Sea Islanders. To a less degree this form of worship is shared by the Peruvians. but with them it has been overlaid with later forms. In antiquity, remarkable stones, especially aerolites. were worshiped by the Greeks and Romans. and they are to-day an object of reverence to all savages—as, for example, the Eskimo—while even among civilized people the "l'hunder-stone' is regarded with more or less superstitions awe. Any strangely shaped stone is reverenced by the Hindus, especially those in South India. by the inhabitants of the Hebrides, of the Pyrenees, and by the redskins, to mention only a few- of the races that worship stones. The Semites, Greeks.
and Romans in antiquity, and the Teutons in the Middle Ages, all worshiped stones by anointing them, making offerings (sometimes human sacri fices) , and saying prayers to them. (2) By im perceptible degrees the plain stone becomes an idol; that is, it represents a divinity or a divine power. Two forms may he distinguished: (a) when a fetish-stone is discarded from personal use, but is preserved as imbued with divine (mysterious) power in an African 'god-litit.' This shapeless effigy lead, to (b) pure idol worship; that is. where the effigy is due to an attempt to shape the stone to a divine form human or beastly in attributes, linage.; of gods are recognized by Homer and `Weill to he referred to in the Rig-I"cdo, lint those works represent an advanced stage of culture. Idols are not found among the lowest races. Savages, such as the Bushmen. Patagonian,. Es kimo. Andaina nese. have no idols. hut theists like the Finns and PlAylie,,ilins are idolaters, as are still more advanced races. the Mexicans, Egyptians, Babylonians. Greeks, ;Ind Ilindus. GO The fetish. often a stone, is worshiped. Aceident, precedent, any peculiarity prompt ing the fancy that the object will he benefi cent is sufficient to make at fetish. 11'llen no longer regarded as useful the fetish is thing away or laid aside in a god-hut. The fetish-wor shiper scarcely makes a distinction between the divine power in a fetish and the inherent. divinity of a fetish. There are certain clans in Africa which believe that there is a divine power in, but separate from. the object Mat most worshipers probably make no distinction between the power and the thing. (See Frrtsittsw.) (4) A stone is often worshiped also either as a totem or as the result of totemisin (q.v.). The latter stage of worship is so far advanced beyond totemism as to be a new form of nature-worship. It arises in this way. a totemist sacrifices to his totem he sheds blood near or on a stone which was originally the temporary habitat of the ancestral spirit. The stone itself in the first stage is revered only incidentally; but, when sueeessive generations have thus hallowed a stone. the divinity becomes gradually extended to the stone itself, and the primitive tomb-altar becomes itself a thing prayed to as a divinity. No the Australian eh witty() sticks are revered as homes of the ancestor spirits and the redskin totent-poles are themselves divinities. So .stiti-st.)11es, symbols of the sun, smell as the white sun-stone of the Scandinavians, become even when the symbol doe, not (as is often the case) merely conceal an older form of worship.
InanY worshiped .tunes were originally only monuments. The long-famed Jupiter Lapis or 'stone Jupiter' is now known not to have been a `stone god,' a fact which indicates that other stone gods also may have been misinterpreted. the huge stone is reNered, so is a huge or mountain. generally as a local tutelary divin ity. Nloindains are believed to have an in dividual life and may beget offspring on rivers, being thus regarded