In some of the savage ceremonies of fire worship the degree of heat endured by the participants is really remarkable, and even if the rites are performed by skilful juggling, nevertheless, the ability to endure intense heat is worthy of comment. A recent report says:--"The most remarkable ceremonial of fire worship that survives in this country is practiced by the Navajos. They believe in purification by fire, and to this end they literally wash themselves in it. The feats they perform with it far exceed the most wonderful acts of fire-eating and fire-handling accomplished by civilized jugglers. In preparation for the festival a gigantic heap of dry wood is gathered from the desert. At the appointed moment the great pile of inflammable brush is lighted and in a few moments the whole of it is ablaze. Storms of sparks fly 100feet or more into the air, and ashes fall about like a shower of snow. The ceremony always takes place at night and the effect of it is both weird and impressive.
"Just when the fire is raging at its hottest a whistle is heard from the outer darkness and a dozen warriors, lithe and lean, dressed simply in narrow white breech-cloths and moccasins and daubed with white earth so as to look like so many living statues, come bounding through the entrance to the corral that incloses the flaming heap. Yelping like wolves, they move slowly toward the fire, bearing aloft slender wands tipped with balls of eagle-down. Rushing around the fire, always to the left, they begin thrusting their wands toward the fire, trying to burn off the down from the tips. Owing to the intensity of the heat this is difficult to accomplish. One warrior dashes wildly toward the fire and retreats; another lies as close to the ground as a frightened lizard, endeavoring to wriggle himself up to the fire;others seek to catch on their wands the sparks that fly in the air. At last one by one they all succeed in burning the downy balls from the wands. The test of endurance is very severe, the heat of the fire being so great.
"The remarkable feats, however, are performed in connection with another dance that follows. This is heralded by a tremendous blowing of horns. The noise grows louder and louder until suddenly ten or more men run into the corral, each of them carrying two thick bundles of shredded cedar bark.
Four times they run around the fire waving the bundles, which are then lighted. Now begins a wild race around the fire, the rapid running causing the brands to throw out long streamers of flames over the hands and arms of the dancers. The latter apply the brands to their own nude bodies and to the bodies of their comrades in front. A warrior will seize the flaming mass as if it were a sponge, and, keeping close to the man he is pursuing, will rub his back with it as if bathing him. The sufferer in turn catches up with the man in front of him and bathes him in flame.
From time to time the dancers sponge their own backs with the flaming brands. When a brand is so far consumed that it can no longer be held it is dropped and the dancers disappear from the corral. The spectators pick up the flaming bunches thus dropped and bathe their own hands in the fire.
"No satisfactory explanation seems to be obtainable as to the means by which the dancers in this extraordinary performance are able to escape injury. Apparently they do not suffer from any burns. Doubtless some protection is afforded by the earth that is applied to their bodies."Spontaneous combustion of the human body, although doubted by the medical men of this day, has for many years been the subject of much discussion; only a few years ago, among the writers on this subject, there were as many credulous as there were skeptics.
There is, however, no reliable evidence to support the belief in the spontaneous combustion of the body. A few apochryphal cases only have been recorded. The opinion that the tissues of drunkards might be so saturated with alcohol as to render the body combustible is disproved by the simple experiment of placing flesh in spirits for a long time and then trying to burn it.
Liebig and others found that flesh soaked in alcohol would burn only until the alcohol was consumed. That various substances ignite spontaneously is explained by chemic phenomena, the conditions of which do not exist in the human frame. Watkins in speaking of the inflammability of the human body remarks that on one occasion he tried to consume the body of a pirate given to him by a U. S. Marshal. He built a rousing fire and piled wood on all night, and had not got the body consumed by the forenoon of the following day. Quite a feasible reason for supposed spontaneous human combustion is to be found in several cases quoted by Taylor, in which persons falling asleep, possibly near a fire, have been accidentally ignited, and becoming first stupefied by the smoke, and then suffocated, have been burned to charcoal without awaking. Drunkenness or great exhaustion may also explain certain cases. In substantiation of the possibility of Taylor's instances several prominent physiologists have remarked that persons have endured severe burns during sleep and have never wakened. There is an account of a man who lay down on the top of a lime kiln, which was fired during his sleep, and one leg was burned entirely off without awaking the man, a fact explained by the very slow and gradual increase of temperature.
