Among the ruder
tribes these, indeed, were of the most rudimentary character.
Sacrifices, chiefly in the form of feasts, where every one crammed to
his utmost, dances, often winding up with the wildest scenes of
licentiousness, the repetition of long and monotonous chants, the making
of the new fire, these are the ceremonies that satisfy the religious
wants of savages. The priest finds a further sphere for his activity in
manufacturing and consecrating amulets to keep off ill luck, in
interpreting dreams, and especially in lifting the veil of the future.
In Peru, for example, they were divided into classes, who made the
various means of divination specialties. Some caused the idols to speak,
others derived their foreknowledge from words spoken by the dead, others
predicted by leaves of tobacco or the grains and juice of cocoa, while
to still other classes, the shapes of grains of maize taken at random,
the appearance of animal excrement, the forms assumed by the smoke
rising from burning victims, the entrails and viscera of animals, the
course taken by a certain species of spider, the visions seen in
drunkeness,[TN-16] the flights of birds, and the directions in which
fruits would fall, all offered so many separate fields of
prognostication, the professors of which were distinguished by different
ranks and titles.
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