[81] Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 238 sqq.
[82] Herrera, op. cit. ii. 111.
[83] Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton, op. cit. p. 7; also by Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 71.
“The best known case of human sacrifices, systematically offered to ensure good crops,” says Dr. Frazer, “is supplied by the Khonds or Kandhs.” The victims, or Meriahs, are represented by our authorities[84] as being offered to propitiate the Earth goddess, Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu, but from their treatment both before and after death it appears to Dr. Frazer that the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacrifice. The flesh and the ashes of the Meriah, he observes, were believed to possess a magic power of fertilising the land, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which they might have as an offering to secure the goodwill of the deity. For, though a part of the flesh was offered to the Earth Goddess, the rest of it was buried by each householder in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts of the body were scattered over the fields, laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. The same intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriah, his blood causing the redness of the turmeric and his tears producing rain; and magic power as an attribute of the victim appears, also in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his person, as his hair or spittle. Considering further that, according to our authorities, the Meriah was regarded as “something more than mortal,” or that “a species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, is paid to him,” Dr. Frazer concludes that he may originally have represented the Earth deity or perhaps a deity of vegetation, and that he only in later times came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate deity.[85]
[84] Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khondistan. Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India.
[85] Frazer, op. cit. ii. 245 sq.
The premise on which Dr. Frazer bases his argument appears to me quite untenable. It is an arbitrary supposition that the ascription of a magical power to the Meriah “indicates that he was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a deity.”[86] A sacrifice is very commonly believed to be endowed with such a power, not as an original quality, but in consequence of its contact or communion with the supernatural being to which it is offered. Just as the Meriah of the Kandhs is taken round the village, from door to door, and some pluck hair from his head, while others beg for a drop of his spittle, so, among the nomadic Arabs of Morocco, at the Muhammedan “Great Feast,” a man dressed in the bloody skin of the sheep which has been sacrificed on that occasion, goes from tent to tent, and beats each tent with his stick so as to confer blessings on its inhabitants. For he is now endowed with l-baraka del-ʿid, “the benign virtue of the feast”; and the same power is ascribed to various parts of the sacrificed sheep, which are consequently used for magical purposes. If Dr. Frazer’s way of arguing were correct we should have to conclude that the victim was originally the god himself, or a representative of the god, to whom it is now offered in sacrifice. But the absurdity of any such inference becomes apparent at once when we consider that, in Morocco, every offering to a holy person, for instance to a deceased saint, is considered to participate in its sanctity. When the saint has his feast, and animals and other presents are brought to his tomb, it is customary for his descendants—who have a right to the offerings—to distribute some flesh of the slaughtered animals among their friends, thereby conferring l-baraka of the saint upon those who eat it; and even candles which have been offered to the saint are given away for the same purpose, being instinct with his baraka. Of course, what holds good of the Arabs in Morocco does not necessarily hold good of the Kandhs of Bengal; but it should be remembered that Dr. Frazer’s argument is founded on the notion that the ascription of a magic power to a victim which is offered in sacrifice to a god indicates that the victim was once regarded as a divine being or as the god himself; and the facts I have recorded certainly prove the arbitrariness of this supposition.
[86] Ibid. ii. 246.
This is by no means the only objection which may be raised against Dr. Frazer’s hypothesis. In his description of the rite in question he has emphasised its connection with agriculture to a degree which is far from being justified by the accounts given by our authorities. Mr. Macpherson states that the human sacrifice to Tari Pennu was celebrated as a public oblation by tribes, branches of tribes, or villages, both at social festivals held periodically, and when special occasions demanded exceptional propitiations. It was celebrated “upon the occurrence of an extraordinary number of deaths by disease; or should very many die in childbirth; or should the flocks or herds suffer largely from disease, or from wild beasts; or should the greater crops threaten to fail”; while the occurrence of any marked calamity to the families of the chiefs, whose fortunes were regarded as the principal indication of the disposition of Tari towards their tribes, was held to be a token of wrath which could not be too speedily averted.[87] Moreover, besides these social offerings, the rite was performed by individuals to avert the wrath of Tari from themselves and their families, for instance, if a child, when watching his father’s flock, was carried off by a tiger.[88] So, also, Mr. Campbell observes that the human blood was offered to the Earth goddess, “in the hope of thus obtaining abundant crops, averting calamity, and insuring general prosperity”;[89] or that it was supposed “that good crops, and safety from all disease and accidents, were ensured by this slaughter.”[90] According to another authority, Mr. Russell, the assembled multitude, when dancing round the victim, addressed the earth in the following words, “O God, we offer this sacrifice to you; give us good crops, seasons, and health.”[91] Nor was the magic virtue of the Meriah utilised solely for the benefit of the crops. According to one account, part of the flesh was buried near the village idol as an offering to the earth, and part on the boundaries of the village;[92] whilst in the invocation made by the priest, the goddess was represented as saying, “Let each man place a shred of the flesh in his fields, in his grain-store, and in his yard.”[93] The ashes, again, were scattered over the fields, or “laid as paste over the houses and granaries.”[94] It is also worth noticing that, among the Kandhs of Maji Deso, the offering was not at all made for the special purpose of obtaining cereal produce, “but for general prosperity, and blessings for themselves and families”;[95] and that in the neighbouring principality, Chinna Kimedy, inhabited for the most part by Ooryahs, the sacrifice was not offered to the earth alone, “but to a number of deities, whose power is essential to life and happiness,” especially to the god of war, the great god, and the sun god.[96] Now, whilst all these facts are in perfect agreement with the theory of substitution, they certainly do not justify the supposition that the Meriah was the representative of a deity of vegetation.
[87] Macpherson, op. cit. p. 113 sq. See, also, ibid. pp. 120, 128 sqq.