+321+. The relation of fire to the gods, and especially its use in sacrifice, have led to a number of religious ceremonies in which it plays a principal part.[595] Certain fires must be kindled by specially appointed sacred persons: among the Todas of Southern India, when a new dairy is visited or an old dairy is reconsecrated;[596] among the Lacandones of Central America, on the occasion of the renewal of the incense-bowls;[597] in the Peruvian temple at the feast of Raymi, when the flame was intrusted to the care of the Virgins of the Sun, and was to be kept up during the year;[598] in the temples of Hestia and Vesta; throughout Greece, when the fires had been polluted by the presence of the Persians, it was ordered that they should be put out and rekindled from the sacred fire at Delphi.[599]
+322+. The purificatory power of fire was, doubtless, a fact of early observation.
+323+. As the physical means of sacrifice, fire acquired a certain symbolic significance; in the Hebrew ritual "fire-offerings" are regarded as specially important. By Carthaginians, Moabites, and Hebrews children were devoted to the deity by fire.[600]
+324+. By reason of its brightness fire connects itself in religious imagery with the sun, with lightning, and with light in general, and so appears frequently as a representation of the glory of the deity.[601]
+325+. Light is sometimes regarded as an independent thing, and as sacred.[602]
+326+. Traces of an early cult of the physical wind may be found, perhaps, in certain customs that survive in modern communities; as, for example, in the offering of food to the wind that it may be placated and do no harm.[603] The belief of sailors that wind may be called up by whistling rests on a process of imitative magic that may be connected with an early cult. Wind is said to be regarded as a divine being in some American tribes.[604] But generally it is the spirit or god of a wind (and usually of a definite wind) that is invoked. Examples of wind-gods are found in all parts of the world.[605] A wind may be the vehicle or the messenger of a deity.[606]
+327+. As in the cases of other elements, referred to above, it is often hard to say whether it is the thing or the deity that is invoked: Achilles's appeal, for instance, seems to be to the physical winds, but Iris, who goes to summon them, finds them carousing like men, and they act like gods.[607] It must be borne in mind, however, that in early thought all active things are conceived of as being anthropomorphic, and there is the difficulty, just mentioned, of determining where the anthropomorphic object stops and the spirit or god begins.