One of the major events in human evolution was the domestication of fire--the ability to not only control fire, but to make it was well. Using fire to cook food changed the human diet which in turn enhanced some aspects of physical evolution, including development of a larger brain. Fire made it easier for early humans to expand into colder climates, and the ability to sit around a fire at night with others may have helped the development of language.
The domestication of fire has shaped the conceptual world of humans and has thus influenced many religious traditions. The importance of fire can be seen in the many religious traditions in which fire is an important element in ceremonies.
With regard to American Indians, Sam Gill and Irene Sullivan, in their book Dictionary of Native American Mythology, write:
“The qualities of fire—its resemblance to living things, its creation of light, and its relationship to the sun—make it an important element in many Native American stories and rituals.”
Fire has been and continues to be an important part of religious traditions throughout the world, ranging from the animistic based traditions of hunting and gathering peoples to the more recent monotheistic religions. Briefly described below are just a few of many uses of fire in ceremonies.
The San
The San are a traditional hunting and gathering society whose homelands are in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa. The San religious specialists have been described as healers, medicine people, trancers, and shamans. In their book Deciphering Ancient Minds: The Mystery of San Bushman Rock Art, David Lewis-Williams and Sam Challis describe a shaman as:
“…a person who, on behalf of the community, enters an altered state of consciousness to heal the sick, see into the future, control the weather, visit the supernatural realm, and so forth.”
With regard to the role of the fire in San ceremonies, David Lewis-Williams and Sam Challis write:
“In the Kalahari, a central fire is considered essential to a dance. Its heat activates potency and contributes to the ‘boiling’ of potency up the spines of the shamans as they enter trance. Around the fire, the tight circle of seated women provides the clapping of the complex rhythms of ‘medicine songs.’”
David Lewis-Williams and Sam Challis also write:
“In the center are activate potency and healing, beyond, in the darkness, are malevolent spirits of the dead who seek to shoot ‘arrows of sickness’ into people.”
Southeastern American Indians
The Indian nations of the American Southeast were traditionally an agricultural people living in permanent villages. One of the common elements of the spirituality among the Indians of the Southeast is the sacred fire as a symbol of purity and the earthly representative of the sun. Among the Cherokees, the fire and the sun were viewed as old women. Out of respect, the fire was fed a portion of each meal, for if she were neglected, she might take vengeance on them.
While the sacred fire represents the sun and the Upper World, water (especially water in springs and rivers) represents the Under World. Among the Cherokee, it is important to keep these two elements apart and therefore water is never poured on the sacred fire.
For the Cherokee, the sacred fire is seen as a grandmother and is human in thought, emotions, consciousness, and intent. Anthropologist Peter Nabokov, in his book Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places, writes:
“Fire was the medium of transformation, turning offerings into gifts for spiritual intercessors or the four quarters of the earth.”
The sacred fires are fed with the wood from the seven sacred trees: beech, birch, hickory, locust, maple, oak, and sourwood.
Writing about the sacred fire among the Seminole, historian Patricia Wickman, in her book The Tree that Bends: Discourse, Power, and the Survival of the Maskóki People, reports:
“The dances performed within its circle of light move around the fire in a circle, specifically counterclockwise, and the Clan camps that encompass the groups are distributed, ritually, in a loosely circular form.”
The Caddos were an agricultural people whose homelands were in Louisiana, parts of Texas, and parts of Arkansas. Among the Caddos, fire was an important spiritual element. Each village would have a sacred fire which was tended by an elder. The fire would be kept burning continuously for if it were allowed to go out, then all in the village would die. The sacred fire was kept in a special house. Within the fire, the wood would be arranged to reflect the directions of the four winds.
The Celts
Prior to the Roman conquest of Europe, the Celts occupied much of Europe. The Celts were not a single group but were many different autonomous tribes which have been grouped together by today’s scholars because of shared cultural characteristics. The Celts were a farming and stock-raising people who are often associated with the spread of iron-working technologies. In his entry on the Celts in The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, Timothy Champion describes them this way:
“Celts were one of the major peoples of central and western Europe in later prehistory. They are seen as the ancestors of later peoples on the western fringes of Europe, and of modern peoples such as the Irish, Welsh, and Bretons.”
The Celts did not have a written religious tradition and so much of what is supposedly known about Celtic religions has come to us through what archaeologist Barry Cunliffe, in his book The Ancient Celts, calls “the emasculating filter of a Christian monastic perspective.” In her chapter on the gods and the supernatural in The Celtic World, Miranda Green explains:
“Because the pagan Celts did not write about themselves, the only way that modern scholars can learn anything about their belief-systems is by constructing hypotheses based upon archaeological sources and historical documents written by contemporary, but alien, classical observers, who selected and often misunderstood what they recorded.”
As agricultural and pastoral peoples, at least part of the Celtic ceremonial cycle marked the different seasons. British archaeologist Barry Cunliffe writes:
“That time was rigorously ordered need occasion no surprise in a society whose economic basis was agrarian and pastoral. To be able to chart the passage of time and to know when to initiate essential processes, such as sowing the crop and moving animals to upland pastures, lay at the very basis of existence.”
In Celtic Ireland, the second most important seasonal ceremony was Beltane (also spelled Beltain) which corresponded to the season when the cattle could be driven to open grazing. Held on what would correspond to May 1 in the current calendar, Beltane was associated with Belenus, the god of fire, and the ceremony centered on sacred fires. In his book The Celts, T.G.E. Powell reports:
“The lighting of great fires was a characteristic of this festival, continued long into Christian times, and the practice of driving cattle between two large fires to protect them from disease has been recorded as a pagan rite supervised by the druids.”
Barry Cunliffe puts it this way:
“The fires lit on this occasion may have been used to fumigate cattle, before they were turned out to graze on the summer pastures.”
During Beltane, domestic fires were extinguished and new fires in the home hearths were started from the new sacred fires.
With regard to the fire god Belenus, T.G.E. Powell writes:
“Belenus appears to be one of the oldest Celtic gods discernible, associated particularly with the pastoralist element.”
Belenus is not an Irish god but is found in many parts of the ancient Celtic world.
The greatest Celtic ceremony was held to mark the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year. Held on what would be October 31-November 1 on the modern calendars, Samain (also spelled Samhuinn) involved lighting great bonfires on hilltops.
Imbolc, a ceremony associated with the goddess Brigit (also spelled Brigid), was held on what would be February 1 on the modern calendar. Brigit was a goddess of fertility, learning, and healing. Brigit was also associated with fire, purification, and high places.
In addition to the sacred fires associated with ceremonies, there are reports that the ancient Celts also practiced fire-walking in some rituals.
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world. Founded by the prophet Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra) in the thirteenth-century BCE, it has a core belief in the struggle between the supreme deity, Ahura Mazda, and Angra Mainyu, the source of evil.
One of the important Zoroastrian ceremonial acts is to light a fire in a ceremonial urn within the home. In his book Religions, Philip Wilkinson reports:
“This fire symbolizes Ahura Mazda’s divine light, energy, truth, and law.”
Within the temple, there is collective worship around the temple fire. Philip Wilkinson writes:
“Just as with worship in the home, fire forms the focus of temple worship; devotees keep the fire burning continuously in the temple so that Ahura Mazda’s heavenly fire may merge with the ritual fire. In this way, the fire becomes a living symbol that takes on some of Ahura Mazda’s holy qualities.”
While the fire is an important symbol, the fire itself is not the object of worship.
Fire is considered sacred and pure in Zoroastrianism. Dead bodies, on the other hand, are impure and a source of contamination. Therefore, cremation is not practiced in Zoroastrianism.
Cremation
One of the common manifestations of the sacred rituals involving fire is cremation, the act of burning dead bodies. In cultures throughout the world, it is felt that the fire releases the soul from the body. In Europe from about 1200 BCE to 1100 BCE, for example, cremation was the most common form of corpse disposal as it was felt that this was needed to separate the soul from the physical body.
Another example of cremation is found among some of the Native American cultures of California where it was believed that the soul could be set free from the body only by fire. The mourners would often throw beads, baskets, and other offerings into the cremation fire or into the grave as a way of honoring the dead.
A number of the Indian cultures in the Southwest, such as the Walapai, Mohave, and Cocopa, traditionally practiced cremation. Among the Cocopa, the soul leaves the body at the time of cremation and goes to the spirit land near the mouth of the Colorado River.
Among the Mohave, the deceased was cremated upon a funeral pyre. Orators would make speeches about the virtues of the deceased and songs would be sung. Articles burned with the deceased would accompany the soul to the land of the dead.
Across the North American continent, cremation was used by the Indian nations along the Atlantic coast as a way of purifying the corpse. In these cultures, special fire pits or platforms of packed earth would be used for burning the body. The intense heat from the fire would reduce the bones to small chalky fragments which would then be gathered up for burial.
Religion 101
More from this series:
Religion 102: Creation stories
Religion 101: The European witch craze
Religion 101: Imagining Satan today
Religion 101: Ancestor Worship in Africa