Forlong - Rivers of Life

Fire Worship.
That Lemnos, Vulcan’s sacred isle, again
May flourish, peopled with the race of men.
. . . . . . . . . .
To Venus’ and to Vulcan’s fane they throng
And crown the day with victims and with song.” 1
Lemnos, like Eleusis, had dark and awful mysteries, which philosophers were too
timid to tell us anything about, though Mnaseas, an historian, accidentally mentions
four of the Lemnos deities, Axieros, Axiokersos, Axiokersa, and Kadmilus, who are
held to be Ceres, Pluto, Proserpine, and Mercury. All were hid “amid the thickets of
a gloomy wood to which there was no access but in the silence of night.” The island.
it is suspected, was only known at first as the abode of robbers, and Homer calls them
Sintians; but from the Argonāts, by these Lemnian women, sprang, says the story, the
Minyæ, who were in time ousted by the Pelasgians on these being expelled from
Atika.
The heavenly palace of Vulcan is described as of brass bespangled with stars, like
the throne and temples of all Solar and Solo-Fire gods, not excluding the Jahveh of the
Jews; but Vulcan was thought to reside principally at the volcanic centres of the earth,
and especially below burning mountains in such spots as Etna and Lipari. His socalled
wives and children are of the greatest interest to us, as representing whole
nations of Fire faiths, one of wbieh we probably see in the Tubal Cain of Genesis, for,
Dr Inman says, this name is that of the God Hebraized. 2 Vulcan loved waters, and
we are told in Genesis that Tubal Cain married Nama, a fount of running water. 3
All Kyno-Kephali or canine-headed creatures, and all monkeys, are either Vulcan’s
friends and protectors, or are aided and helped by him. He is “said to have been
nourished by canine-headed beings,” perhaps because this “tribe are more conspicuous for
their constant solicitation and love than any other animals;” 4 for which reason it is
thought “the Phenicians adopted the Kyno-Kephalus as a sort of tutelary deity, placing
one on the prows of their vessels.” Isis, as representative female nature, has a following
of Kyno-kephali, and at Hermopolis and Memphis has herself a canine head. In Africa
there are dog-headed monkeys with hair upon the face, exactly like bearded men, and
they used to be held in great reverence by the Egyptians, who engraved them on their
monuments and mummy cases. They even embalmed some as mummies. The dog,
says Ehrenberg, was an emblem of Toth or Hermes, which, from its salaciousness,
we can well imngine, and he considers that even the perruques of Egyptian Gods are
modelled from the hair of this creatute, which is often represented writing with a reed.
A likeness of the animal is seen on a ternple of Phile, with “a balance” in hand,
reminding us of the Jahveh of Amos, where the words “plumb line” mean the same
as “balance.” These dog-monkeys, called in Abysinia “Tota,” still exist, and the M
useum of Geneva lately received a specimen of one. The common dog, lion, boar
1 The Argonāts [sic] of Apol. Rhodius, by F. Fawkes, p. 49. Lon., 1780. 2 Anct. Faiths, II., 122.
3 [Gen. IV. 22, which states that Naamah (hmon) was Tubal-Cain’s sister, not that he married her.]
4 Anct. Faiths, I, 418, quoting Cult de Bac, P. N. Roile, Paris, 1824.
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