JUNTA. 337 JUPITER. representatives of the people meeting without authority of the sovereign, but has been extended to those of the most strictly legal character. JUNTO. The name used of a small coterie of eminent Whig pulitieians who, under the leader- sliip of Russell, Somers, ilontague, and Wharton, exerted great influence on British aliairs during the time of William III. JUPATI (joo'pa-te') PALM (South Ameri- •can Indian), liapliia viiiifcra. A palm which grows on rich alluvial, tide-Hooded lands near the mouth of the Amazon. The stem is seldom more than G or 8 feet high ; but the leaves, which are pinnate with leaflets about 4 foet long, art! often .50 to GO feet long, rise vertically from the sununit of the stem, bend out on every side in graceful curves, fomiing a. magnificent plume, and are perhaps the largest in the vegetalde king- dom. The leafstalks, which are often 12 or 15 feet long below the first leaflets, and 4 or 5 inches in diameter, are perfectly straight and cylindri- cal. When dried, the thin, hard, glossy outer covering is used for laths and window-blinds. The interior part is soft enough to be used in- stead of cork. One of its forms is the icine palm of the west coast of Africa. This is a tree of moderate height with leaves 6 to 8 foet in length. From the trunk of this tree an intoxicating bev- erage is derived. According to report it forms a very consideraldc portion of the vegetation in the region in which it grows. Its leaves are made into hats, cloth, and cordage; its leafstalks are used in building houses, fences, etc., and from the crown of young leaves palm wine is obtained. From this species and from Raphia ruffia or Raphia p<'dunculata is obtained an im- portant very strong fibre called raffia, which is largely used in the United States in nurseries and greenhouses for tying up plants. The fibre has been successfully woven into artistic mat- tings for decorative uses, as well as cloth, which is the almost universal clothing of the natives. JUPITER (Lat. Jupiter, Juppiter, OLat. Jou- piter, Gk. Zci>s var-fip, Zeus pater, Skt. Dyaus pitar. father Jove, from Lat. joiyis, OLat. Jovos, Gk. Zeiis, Zeus. Zeus, Skt. rfi/ni/s, sky; connected with AS. Tfiv, Olcel. Ti/r, OHG. Zio, and with Kng. Tuesdaii, and ultimately with Lat. dcus, Olr. dia, Lith. drras, Skt. drvn. god; and Lat. pater. Gk. Trarijp. paler, Skt. pitar. OHG. fnter, "Ger. Vater. Goth, fadar, AS. fa-dcr. Eng. father). The chief god of Latin mythology', identified by the Romans with the Greek Zeus. The names are ctymologically the same, and the equivalents are found also among the other Indo-European na- tions, though among none but the Greeks and Romans did iliey designate the chief divinities. The word dy.'ius means 'sky' ( /di- or dir-, shine) , .ind there can be little doubt that the divinity thus named is considered the god of the light and the heavens, whence come the fructifying showers, and also the destructive storms and deadly lightning. The fact that the etymology of the name was early and wholly lost to the con- sciousness of both Greeks and Romans aided in the complete personification of Zens or .Jupiter, ajid it is only in the later philosophic and specu- lative poetry that we find the identification of the supreme god with the crther or pure upper air. and even then the context is apt to point to .pantheism. Greek. As usual, the Romans borrowed much from the Greeks in their later conception of •Juinter, and it will be best to treat first of Zeus as he appears in Greek mythology-. From the beginning of our records Zeus appears as the supreme god, established as the ruler of the uni- verse, whom all the other gods obey, for he is stronger than all of them. He wields the thiuider- bolt. which in even the earliest art is his almost inseparable attribute. As to the origin of this supremacy nothing is known. It may come from the natural idea of the god of the sky and light, or it may be due to the awe before the power of the thunderbolt, which would secure to its wielder irresistible might. With Zeus were also associated the eagle, the oak ( at Dodona | , and the wolf (on Mount LyciEvis). To Zeus in Homer also belongs the .r-Bf^is (q.v. ), brandishing which he causes confusion and terror to fall upon his enemies. Closely connccterl with the idea of Zeus as god of the lightning and tliunder is his func- tion as a rain-god. As the supreme god Zeus was the protector of suppliants and the punisher of perjurers. Though Zeus nowhere actively takes part in battle, except against such enemies of the gods as the Titans, Typhon, or the Giants, he was honored by the erection after a victoiy of a trophy which was dedicated to him. He was also a prophetic god, perhaps from the use of lightning in auguries, revealing the future in many ways, as by birds and dreams, or at his oracles. Naturally in the developed Hellenic civilization other functions are especially as- signed to Zeus, and he often a])pears as the guar- dian of leagues, or of public assemblies. Zeus was of course worshiped throughout Greece, and with a wide variety of local observances, but there are a few points where his cult received especial prominence and obtained far more than a local importance. Dodona (q.v.) was the seat of a very early worship, called by the Greeks Pelasgian, where Zeus was associated with DiOne injBtead of Hera, and gave oracular responses to those who asked advice, either by the rustling leaves of the oaks, or by casting lots, or by other more complicated methods. The great centre of Zeus-worship in Greece was, of course, Olympia (q.v.), where from very early times there seems to have been a cult of Hera and possibly of Zeus also, though it is very probable that the latter was introduced from Thessaly, where the home of Zeus was placed on the summit of Jlount Olympus. Here also was an oracle, which, how- ever, never attained special eminence. The im- portant feature of this cult was the celebration, every four years, of the great Olympian games. (See Olympic G.mes.) Primitive rites and even human sacrifices appear in connection with the worship of Zeus on Mount Lycieus in Arcadia, where there was no temple or image, but only two eagles on pillars facing the east in an inclosnre on the summit of the mountain which it was for- bidden to enter. Here a boy was sacrificed by a priest, who. after tasting of the victim, fled and was believed to be transformed for nine years into a wolf. The rite seems to have been per- formed even as late as the time of Hadrian. Similar rites existed on Mount Ithonie in ]Ies- senia. and at Halys in Phthiotis and Orchomenus in Bieotia in connection with the cult of Zeus Laiihystius. There are even traces of such sav- age customs in the Zeis cults of .thens. where the god seems to have been worshiped both as a beneficent and as a cruel deity. His great temple, begun bv Pisistratus in honor of the Olympian
