ANCACHS, a coast province of central Peru, lying between the departments of Lima and Libertad, and W. of the Marañon river. Area, 16,562 sq. m.; pop. (1896) 428,703. The department was created in 1835, and received its present name in 1839, and its last accession of territory in 1861. Lying partly on the arid coast, partly in the high Cordilleras and partly in the valley of the Marañon, it has every variety of climate and productions. Rice, cotton, sugar-cane, yucas (Manihot aipi) and tropical fruits are produced in the irrigated valleys of the coast, and wheat, Indian corn, barley, potatoes, coffee, coca, &c., in the upland regions. Cattle and sheep are also raised for the coast markets. Mining is likewise an important industry. The capital, Huaráz (est. pop. 8000 in 1896), on the Rio Santa or Huaráz, is a large mining centre in the sierras, 9931 ft. above sea-level, from which a railway runs to the small seaports of Santa and Chimbote, 172 m. distant. Other noteworthy towns are Caraz (6000) and Carhuaz (5000) in the sierra region, and Huarmey (1500) on the coast.
ANCAEUS, in Greek legend, son of Zeus or Poseidon, king of the Leleges of Samos. In the Argonautic expedition, after the death of Tiphys, helmsman of the “Argo,” he took his place. It is said that, while planting a vineyard, he was told by a soothsayer that he would never drink of its wine. As soon as the grapes were ripe, he squeezed the juice into a cup, and, raising it to his lips, mocked the seer, who retorted with the words, Πολλὰ μεταξὺ πέλει κὐλικος καὶ χείλεος ἀκροῦ (“there is many a slip between the cup and the lip”). At that moment it was announced that a wild boar was ravaging the land. Ancaeus set down the cup, leaving the wine untasted, hurried out, and was killed by the boar.
Apollonius Rhodius, i. 188 (and Scholiast), ii. 867-900.
ANCASTER AND KESTEVEN, Duke of, an English title borne by the well-known Lincolnshire family of Bertie from 1715 to 1809. Robert Bertie (1660–1723), son and heir of Robert, third earl of Lindsey (d. 1701), who succeeded his father as lord great chamberlain of England, was created marquess of Lindsey in 1706, being made duke of Ancaster and Kesteven in July 1715. His eldest surviving son, Peregrine (1686–1742), who had been a member of parliament for Lincolnshire from 1708 to 1714, succeeded to the dukedom and also to the lord-lieutenancy of Lincolnshire, which had been held by his father. His son and successor, Peregrine (1714–1778), who was also lord great chamberlain and lord-lieutenancy of Lincolnshire, attained the rank of general in the British army. The fourth duke was Robert (1756–1779), son of the third duke, who died in July 1779, when his barony of Willoughby de Eresby and the hereditary office of lord great chamberlain fell into abeyance until 1780. The dukedom, however, and other honours came to his uncle Brownlow (1729–1809), on whose death in February 1809 the dukedom of Ancaster and Kesteven became extinct; but the earldom of Lindsey descended to a distant kinsman, Albemarle Bertie (1744–1818). After a second period of abeyance the barony of Willoughby de Eresby was revived in 1871 in favour of Clementina Elizabeth (d. 1888), a descendant of the Berties, who was the widow of Gilbert John Heathcote, 1st Baron Aveland (d. 1867). Her son and successor, Gilbert Henry Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby (b. 1830), 23rd Baron Willoughby de Eresby, and joint hereditary lord great chamberlain, was created earl of Ancaster in 1898.
ANCELOT, JACQUES ARSÈNE FRANÇOIS POLYCARPE (1794–1854), French dramatist and littérateur, was born at Havre, on the 9th of February 1794. He became a clerk in the admiralty, and retained his position until the revolution of 1830. In 1816 his play Warwick was accepted by the Théâtre Français, but never produced, and three years later a five-act tragedy, Louis IX., was staged. Three editions of the play were speedily exhausted; it had a run of fifty representations, and brought him a pension of 2000 francs from Louis XVIII. His next work, Le Maire du palais, was played in 1825 with less success; but for it he received the cross of the legion of honour. In 1824 he produced Fiesque, a clever adaptation of Schiller’s Fiesco. In 1828 appeared Olga, ou l’orpheline russe, the plot of which had been inspired by a voyage he made to Russia in 1826. About the same period he produced in succession Marie de Brabant (1825), a poem in six cantos; L’Homme du monde (1827), a novel in four volumes, afterwards dramatized with success; and in 1829 a play, Elisabeth d’Angleterre. By the revolution of July 1830 he lost at once his royal pension and his office as librarian at Meudon; and he was chiefly employed during the next ten years in writing vaudevilles and light dramas and comedies. A tragedy, Maria Padilla (1838), gained him admission to the French Academy in 1841. Ancelot was sent by the French government in 1849 to Turin, Florence, Brussels and other capitals, to negotiate on the subject of international copyright; and the treaties which were concluded soon after were the result, in a great measure, of his tact and intelligence.
ANCESTOR-WORSHIP, a general name for the cult of deceased parents and forefathers. Aristotle in his Ethics stigmatizes as “extremely unloving” (λίαν ἄφιλον) the denial that ancestors are interested in or affected by the fortunes of their descendants; and in effect ancestor-worship is the staple of most religions, ancient or modern, civilized or savage. The ancient Jews were a striking exception; for though the frequent mention of ancestral graves on hilltops or in caves, and in connexion with sacred trees and pillars, and the resemblance of the “elohim” in Exod. xxi. 4-6 to household gods, may suggest that cults of the dead preceded that of Yahweh, nevertheless in the classical age of their religion (see Hebrew Religion) as reflected in the Old Testament, ancestor-worship has already vanished. “The Semitic nomads,” remarks Renan in his History of Israel (tome 1, p. 50), “were the religious race par excellence, because in fact they were the least superstitious of the families of mankind, the least duped by the dream of a beyond, by the phantasmagory of a double or a shadow surviving in the nether regions. . . . They suppressed the chimeras which went with belief in a complete survival after death, chimeras which were homicidal at the time, in so far as they robbed man of the true notion of death and led him to multiply murders.”
Renan here refers to the burial rite of an ancient Scythian king (as described by Herodotus, iv. 71), at whose tomb were strangled his concubine, cup-bearer, cook, groom, lackey, envoy, and several of his horses. Such cruel customs were, of course, and still are associated in many lands with the cult of the dead; but, on the other hand, there are gentler and more beneficial aspects observable to-day in China and Japan. There the mighty dead are present with the living, protect them and their houses and crops, are their strength in battle, and teach their hands to war and their fingers to fight. In the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–5 the greatest incentive to deeds of patriotic valour was for Japanese soldiers the belief that the spirits of their ancestors were watching them; and in China it is not the man himself that is ennobled for his philanthropic virtues or learning, but his ancestor. No more solemn duty weighs upon the Chinaman than that of tending the spirits of his dead forefathers. Confucius, it is recorded, sacrificed to the dead, as if they were present, and to the spirits, as if they were there. In view of such Chinese sacrifices the names of the dead are inscribed on wooden plaques called spirit-tablets, into which the spirits are during the ceremony supposed to enter, having quitted the very heaven and presence of God in order to commune with posterity. Twice a year, in spring and autumn,[1] a Chinese ruler goes in state to the imperial college in Pekin, and presents the appointed offerings before the spirit-tablets of Confucius and of the worthies who have been associated with him in his temples. He greets the sage’s spirit with this prayer:—“This year, in this month, on this day, I, the emperor, offer sacrifice to the philosopher K’ung, the ancient teacher, the perfect sage, and say, O teacher, in virtue equal to heaven and earth. . . Now in this second month of spring, in reverent observance of the old statutes, with victims, silks, spirits, and fruits, I offer sacrifice to thee.”
In ancient Rome painted wax images of ancestors who had
- ↑ Prof. J. Legge, in Religious Systems of the World, London, 1892, p. 72.
