These features can usually be easily recognised. A spring, well, or fountain, where from dry earth, or out of the rock, pours forth the crystal fluid on which depends the life of man and brute and plant, was everywhere a holy spot. The brook which flowed from it, chattering its endless tale among the pebbles, was scarcely less so. It was directly said and oft repeated by the Greeks that the manteia, the holy inspiration, was imparted at the fountain of Parnassus or at the Pierian spring. The Moxos of Bolivia claim descent from the stream on which their villages are situated, a more than figurative expression of their dependence on it for food and drink.[192]
The sacred character of “high places,” such as hills, mountains, or elevated plateaux, is intimately connected with the universal belief in “the Father in Heaven,” the sky as the home and the throne of the greatest divinities. I have already referred to the terrestrial “Hills of Heaven,” located, as a rule, within the tribal area.[193]
A high hill or mountain, regarded by itself as a personality, would justly be looked upon as of extraordinary might, and invoked as a potent aid in the undertakings of life. In the invocations of the Quiches of Central America, who live in the midst of lofty peaks, over one hundred of them are named and implored for aid. The “Heart of the Hills” is the title which the ancient Mexicans applied to one of their greatest gods.
A third and important trait which gave them sacredness is the strength of the echo which is returned from their narrow gorges or precipitous sides. Mountain worship is very generally oracular in character. Classical and familiar examples of this are the Pythoness and the Roman Sibyl.
Mountain caves are natural temples, and as the cave, like the hollow tree, is a ready-built house for the wandering savage, so it is also marvellously adapted to his ends as a shrine. Throughout Mexico and Central America we find the caves chosen as the temples of the mightiest deities and the depositories of the holiest relics.[194]
The sacredness of some spots arose from their adaptation to certain rites, religious or magical. Thus, for the haruspices to practise their specialty in divination, they must choose a spot where they could watch the flight of birds. The sacrifices to the god of heaven should be under the open sky, and the Mayas of Yucatan believed that when the sun was in the zenith and the sacred fire was kindled beneath it, the ineffable Deity descended in the form of a bright plumaged ara and partook of the offering.
Places of this kind were of course laid under tabu, and thus reserved for their sacred uses only. Sometimes they were enclosed, but often the community was sufficiently informed about them to make this unnecessary.
The fame of these sacred places and the powers of the gods who dwelt within them extended widely even in very primitive conditions. This gave rise to the custom of pilgrimages, quite as familiar to the American Indians before Columbus as to the Europeans of the Middle Ages. There were famous holy places on the island of Cozumel and in Colombia and Peru, to which pious palmers wended their way over many hundred miles of weary journeying.
The local divinity naturally drew his colouring and his main attributes from the spot itself, and those in turn gave a similar local physiognomy to his rites and functions. We have thus a kind of geographical character impressed on early religions, which their later developments retained long after they had been severed from their first meanings and had drifted to other climes and alien races.