But the closest connection is in the nature and order of the ceremonies on the fourth day at Dahome and among the Mandans. Among the latter, interrupting the bull-dance on that day, there is an apparition of “the evil spirit,”[210] graphically described by Mr Catlin (p. 22), and at Dahome (Burton, ii. 18), there intervenes between the fourth and fifth days’ ceremonies what is called “the evil night” (there are two “evil nights”) which is the night of the horrible massacre. But on this night also, at the close of the fourth day’s ceremonies among the Mandans, the infliction of tortures (very horrible, but mild in comparison with the African butchery) commence. Now, I have already ventured the opinion that these tortures were originally of an expiatory character, and this gains confirmation by the assurance made to Captain R. Burton that the victims on “the evil night” were only “criminals” and prisoners of war, the people of Dahome, on all occasions (vide infra), preferring a vicarious mode of expiation. Captain R. Burton (ii. 19) says of these massacres:—“The king takes no pleasure in the tortures and death or in the sight of blood, as will presently appear. The 2000 killed in one day, the canoe[211] paddled in a pool of gore, and other grisly nursery tales, must be derived from Whydah, where the slave-traders invented them, probably to deter Englishmen from visiting the king. It is useless to go over the ground of human sacrifice from the days of the wild Hindu’s Naramadha to the burnings of the Druids, and to the awful massacres of Peru and Mexico. In Europe the extinction of the custom began from the time of the polite Augustus,” i.e. commenced with the advent of our Lord. [Vide a reference to MS. of Sir J. Acton in Mr Gladstone’s address to the University of Edinburgh, 1865, from which it would appear that the final extinction was not until the triumph of Christianity.]
Without carrying rashness to the excess of disputing the interpretation of Dahoman words with Captain Burton, I may yet demur to accepting his explanation of the term “So-sin” (the “So-sin customs”) absolute et simpliciter. He says (i. 315), “The Sogan (‘So’ = horse, ‘gan’ captain) opens the customs by taking all the chargers from their owners and by tying them up, whence the word So-sin. The animals must be redeemed in a few days with a bag of cowries.”[212] This is certainly a very likely definition, and although secondary, is no doubt the explanation current among the present generation of Dahomans. All I shall venture to do is to supplement it. But may not the old and primitive idea still lurk in the name? At i. 242, I perceive Captain Burton says “so” and “sin” mean water,[213] and the compound word “amma-sin” means “medicine” = “leaf-water,” and again at 244 the same word “Sin” is twice used to signify liquid. If so, in the very name of the feast we find the word water, which links it into connection with “the Mandan custom” and the festivals of ancient Greece.
The word, “So” = horse, will therefore still remain, and may perhaps stand in the same relation to the “water” celebration, that the “bull” does to the Mandan celebration of the Deluge. Captain Burton, for instance, tells us (ii. 15), a “So” was brought up to us (on the fourth day of the So-sin custom, and on the fourth day of the Mandan custom “the bull-dance” was performed sixteen times round “the big canoe”); but I will place the two descriptions side by side.
Captain Burton, ii. 15.
“A ‘So’ was brought up to us, a bull-face mask of natural size, painted black, with glaring eyes and peep-holes, the horns were hung with red and white rag strips, and beneath was a dress of bamboo fibre covering the feet, and ruddy at the ends. It danced with head on one side and swayed itself about, to the great amusement of the people.” Vide also p. 93, “Four tall men singularly dressed, and with bullocks’ tails,” &c.
Mr Catlin, p. 16.
“The chief actors in these strange scenes (bull-dance) were eight men, with the entire skins of buffaloes thrown over them, enabling them closely to imitate the appearance and motions of those animals, as the bodies were kept in as horizontal a position, the horns and tails of the animals remaining on the skins, and the skins of the animals’ heads served as masks through the eyes of which the dancers were looking.” The legs of the dancers were painted red and white” (plate 6.)
If we might (on the strength of so many words of primary necessity being in common) connect “So” = horse, with the Saxon “soc” or plough (as in the soc and service tenure), we could then see a way in which the same word might apply indifferently to ox or horse; and we would, moreover, see through the common relation to Noah how the water ceremony came to be associated with the worship of Ceres in the mysteries of Eleusis. Vide Boulanger, i. 70–107.[214]
The above enumeration does not exhaust the points of resemblance. Compare the following:—
Burton, ii. 23.