[210] Compare the “Bhain-sasur” or buffalo-demon at Usayagiri, carrying a trident. Vide “The Bhilsa Tope,” Major Alex. Cunningham, 1854.
[211] It is as well to note, however, that the Dahomans have recently altered their customs. The one Captain Burton witnessed (ii. 34) was a “mixed custom,” and elsewhere allusion is made to “the new” ceremony.
[212] Analogies may perhaps be discovered in the representations of the procession escorting a relic casket on the architraves of the western gate at Sanchi. (Vide “The Bhilsa Tope,” by Major Alex. Cunningham, p. 227.)
“Street of a city on the left, houses on each side filled with spectators,... a few horsemen heading a procession, ... immediately outside the gate are four persons bearing either trophies or some peculiar instruments of office. Then follows a led horse, ... a soldier with a bell-shaped shield, two fifers, three drummers, and two men blowing conches. Next comes the king on an elephant, carrying the holy relic casket on his head and supporting it with his right hand. Then follows two peculiarly dressed men on horseback, perhaps prisoners. They wear a kind of cap (now only known in Barmawar, on the upper course of the Ravi) and boots or leggings. The procession is closed by two horsemen (one either the minister or a member of the royal family) and by an elephant with two riders.”
It may have had connection with the Aswarnedha or horse sacrifice (Cunningham, p. 363.) Boulanger (i. 109) says, “That after the winter solstice the ancient inhabitants of India descended with their king to the banks of the Indus; they there sacrificed horses and black bulls, signs of a funeral ceremony; they then threw a bushel measure into the water without their assigning any reason for it.” Compare the throwing the cakes into the gulf at Athens, and the hatchets into the water at the Mandan custom. Could it be that at the Dahoman ceremony the horses were redeemed because the wretched victims were substituted, carrying out the idea of vicarious sacrifice and expiation?
Sir John Lubbock (“Origin of Civilization,” p. 199) says, speaking of water worship, “The kelpie or spirit of the waters assumed various forms, those of a man, woman, horse, or bull being the most common.” Compare supra, pp. [196], [202], [204], Manou, Bacchus.
Homer (Hom. Il., Heynii, xxi. 130, Lord Derby, 145), says—
“Shall aught avail ye, though to him (the river Scamander)
In sacrifice, the blood of countless bulls you pay,
And living horses in his waters sink;”