token that the luminary was dying, or was being bitten by ants. The offering of eyebrows, and the pinching of the dogs during an eclipse, were also practised in Peru.
Many of the rites of the present-day Lacandons are survivals of the original worship. It has already been said that they are in the habit of making pilgrimages to ruined sites for the purpose of offering incense; the censers are rude clay bowls, with a mask-like face attached, and each is reserved for a particular god whose image is usually kept within it. The images are of stone and are kept hidden, and inherited from father to son. The censers are renewed at the harvest, the old ones are considered "dead" and left in the ruins. For the manufacture of the new censers, as for the preparation of fresh idols among the early Yucatec, a special hut is built, new fire is made at which incense is kindled in them for the first time, and blood, drawn from the ears of the worshippers with a stone knife, is smeared upon the images of the gods. They also observe a "baptismal" rite, at which a priest singes the hair of the candidates with six miniature torches of pitchpine and confers a name upon them. The torches are then smeared with blood and burnt, together with incense, in the idol house. Confession is made to the cacique, or local chief, if a member of the community is seriously ill, and the penitent believes that some sin of his commission may be the cause. A lightning-god is still worshipped, and in the Uloa valley Gordon came upon the tradition of a golden dragon, believed to inhabit a particular pool, to which offerings were made in former times, but which has withdrawn itself from human view since the Spanish conquest, though it still controls the clouds and rain. It is highly probable that many other interesting and important survivals might be discovered among the present population, but owing to their extreme reticence on such subjects the task is by no means easy.
