"Little or nothing," says the Missionary World (N. Y. 1874), " has as yet been done for the benefit of the wandering tribes which inhabit the dreary regions of Ovampoland." German missionaries, employed by the Rhenish Society, have labored here as well as in Namaqualand, but thus far no marked results have crowned their efforts for the Christianizing of the Ovampos. The missionaries have, however, succeeded in systematizing the Ovampo dialects, and they have even printed some elementary works in the Otjihehero dialect. Two of these appear in Sir G. Grey's cata- logue.
Ovation, a lesser triumph among the ancient Ro- mans. The name seems to have been derived from the animal sacrificed on the occasion, which was not a bull, but a sheep (ovis). In an ovation the general entered the city on foot, clothed not in gorgeous robes, but sim- ply in the toga prretexta of a magistrate. The wreath with which his brow was girt was composed not of laurel, but of myr- tle. He carried no sceptre in his hand. The procession by which he was attended consisted not of senators and a victorious army, but of knights and plebeians. No trumpets heralded the general's entry into the city in the case of an ovation, but simply a band of flute - plavers. — Gardner, Faiths of the World.
Oven (Heb. 1*150, tannur', from the same root with the Chal- dee "Sri, to smoke, Gr. K\i(3arog), originally any receptacle for fire, as a furnace or kiln (comp. Gen. XV, 17; Isa. xxxi, 9); but usual- ly an oven for baking bread and cakes (see Exod. vii, 28 ; Lev. ii, 4), not only that used by the baker (Hos. vii, 4, C, 7), but also
Ancient Egyptian Ovens.
that in which the mistress of a house baked her bread (Lev. xxvi, 26; and see Jahn, Bihl. Archceol. i, 213; ii, 182). This oven was built of brick, and was smeared within and without with clay. A fire was kindled within it, and the dough was placed npon the side, where it baked, and was called "lliO tlEN'O, maapheh tannur (Lev. ii, 4). The K\l(3avog of the Greeks ap- pears to have been of a similar construction. Each household possessed such an article (Exod. viii, 3), and it was only in times of extreme dearth that the same oven sufficed for several families (Lev. xxvi, 2G). It was heated with dry twigs and grass (Matt, vi, 30), and the loaves were placed both inside and outside of it. It was also used for roasting meat (Mishna, Taan. iii, 8). The heat of the oven furnished Hebrew writers with an image of rapid and violent destruction (Psa. xxi, 9 ; Hos. vii, 7 ; Mai. iv, 1). But the Hebrews did not al- ways possess such an oven, and often seem to have baked their bread on the ground, which was first heated by a fire, or on thin plates of metal, and sometimes to have made an excavation in the earth, which answered the purpose (see Gesenius, Tkesaur. s. v. I'liPl). See Bake.
Among the modern Orientals the dough, when pre- pared, is not always baked at home. In towns there are public ovens and bakers by trade ; and although the general rule in large and respectable families is to bake the bread at home, much bread is bought of the bakers by unsettled individuals and poor persons; and many small households send their dough to be baked at the public oven, the baker receiving for his trouble a por- tion of the baked bread, which he adds to his day's stock of bread for sale. Such public ovens and bakers by trade must have existed anciently in Palestine, and in the East generally, as is evident from Hos. vii, 4 and Jer. xxxvii, 21. The latter text mentions the bakers' street (or, rather, bakers' place or market), and this would suggest that, as is the case at present, the bakers, as well as other trades, had a particular part of the ba-
Moderu EirviJliau Oven
OVEN
490
OVERALL
zaar or market entirely appropriated to their business, instead of beint? dispersed in different parts of the towns where they lived. See Ckacknel.
For their larger operations the bakers have ovens of brick, not altogether unlike our own; and in large houses there are similar ovens. The ovens used in do- mestic baking are, however, usually of a portable de- scription, and are large vessels of stone, earthenware, or copper, inside of which, when properly heated, small loaves and cakes are baked, and on the outer surface of which thin Haps of bread, or else a large wafer-like bis- cuit, may be prepared. This is adapted to the nomad state, and is the article generally intended by the He- brew term tanmh: It usually consists of a large jar made of clay, about three feet high, and widening to- wards the bottom, with a hole for the extraction of the ashes (Niebuhr, I)esc. de VArah. p. 46). Occasionally, however, it is not an actual jar, but an erection of clay in the form of a jar, built on the tloor of the house (Wellsted, TractU, i, 350). The oven is frequently covered with a chimney made of mud, to create a draught.
Another mode of making bread is much used, espe- cially in the villages. A pit is sunk in the middle of the tloor of the principal room, about four or five feet deep by three in diameter, well lined with compost or cement. "When sufhciently heated by a tire kindled at the bottom, tlie bread is made by the thin pancake-like flaps of dough being, by a peculiar knack of hand in the women, stuck against the oven, to which they adhere for a few moments, till they are sufficientlj' dressed. As this oven requires considerable fuel, it is seldom used except in those parts wliere that article is somewhat abundant, and where tlie winter cold is severe enough to render the warmth of the oven desirable, not only for baking bread, but for warming the apartment. See Furnace.