[115] Burton, Abeokuta, i. 19 n.*
[116] Supra, [p. 443 sq.]
The practice of offering human victims for the purpose of preventing drought and famine by producing rain is apparently not restricted to West Africa. In the beginning of their year, the ancient Mexicans sacrificed many prisoners of war and children who had been purchased for that purpose, to the gods of water, so as to induce them to give the rain necessary for the crops.[117] The Pipiles of Guatemala celebrated every year two festivals which were accompanied by human sacrifices, the one in the beginning of the rainy season, the other in the beginning of the dry season.[118] In India, among the aboriginal tribes to the south-west of Beerbhoom, Sir W. W. Hunter “heard vague reports of human sacrifices in the forests, with a view to procuring the early arrival of the rains.”[119] Without venturing to express any definite opinion on a very obscure subject which has already led to so many guesses,[120] I may perhaps be justified in here calling attention to the fact that Zeus Lycæus, in whose cult human sacrifices played a prominent part, was conceived of as a god who sent the rain.[121] It appears from ancient traditions or legends that the idea of procuring rainfall by means of such sacrifices was not unfamiliar to the Greeks. A certain Molpis offered himself to Zeus Ombrios, the rain-god, in time of drought.[122] Pausanias tells us that once, when a drought had for some time afflicted Greece, messengers were sent to Delphi to inquire the cause, and to beg for a riddance of the evil. The Pythian priestess told them to propitiate Zeus, and that Aeacus should be the intercessor; and then Aeacus, by sacrifices and prayers to Panhellenian Zeus, procured rain for Greece.[123] But Diodorus adds that the drought and famine, whilst ceasing in all other parts of the country, still continued in Attica, so that the Athenians once more resorted to the Oracle. The answer was now given them that they had to expiate the murder of Androgeus, and that this should be done in any way his father, Minos, required. The satisfaction demanded by the latter was, that they every nine years should send seven boys and as many girls to be devoured by the Minotaur, and that this should be done as long as the monster lived. So the Athenians did, and the calamity ceased.[124]
[117] Sahagun, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, i. 50. Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana, ii. 251. Clavigero, op. cit. i. 297.
[118] Stoll, Ethnologie der Indianerstämme von Guatemala, p. 46.
[119] Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal, i. 128.
[120] See Immerwahr, Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens, i. 16 sqq. Professor Robertson Smith suggests (‘Sacrifice,’ in Encyclopædia Britannica, xxi. 136) that the human sacrifices offered to Zeus Lycæus were originally cannibal feasts of a wolf tribe.
[121] Pausanias, viii. 38. 4. Farnell, op. cit. i. 41.
[122] Farnell, op. cit. i. 42.
[123] Pausanias, ii. 29. 7 sq.