[271] Pausanias, ix. 16. 10.
[272] Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris, 1458 sqq.
Besides the ceremony of nawgia, already described,[273] the Tonga Islanders had another ceremony called tootoo-nima, or cutting off a portion of the little finger, as a sacrifice to the gods, for the recovery of a superior relation who was ill; and so commonly was this done that, in Mariner’s days, there was scarcely a person living in the Tonga Islands who had not lost one or both little fingers, or at least a considerable portion of them.[274] In Chinese literature there are frequently mentioned instances of persons cutting off flesh from their bodies to cure parents or paternal grandparents dangerously ill. In most cases it remains unmentioned how the flesh was prepared; but it is sometimes stated that porridge or broth was made of it, or that it was mixed with medicine. Dr. de Groot maintains that it was in the first place the ascription of therapeutic virtues to parts of the human body that prompted such filial self-mutilation. But he adds that “often also we read of thigh-cutters invoking Heaven beforehand, solemnly asking this highest power to accept their own bodies as a substitute for the patients’ lives they wanted to save; their mutilation thus assuming the character of self-immolation.”[275] According to the testimony of a native writer, there is scarcely a respectable house in all Bengal, the mistress of which has not at one time or other shed her blood, under the notion of satisfying the goddess Chandiká by the operation. “Whenever her husband or a son is dangerously ill, a vow is made that on the recovery of the patient, the goddess would be regaled with human blood… The lady performs certain ceremonies, and then bares her breast in the presence of the goddess, and with a nail-cutter (naruna) draws a few drops of blood from between her breasts and offers them to the divinity.”[276] Garcilasso de la Vega states that, whilst some of the Peruvian Indians before the time of the Incas sacrificed men, there were others who, though they mixed human blood in their sacrifices, did not obtain it by killing anyone, but by bleeding the arms and legs, according to the importance of the sacrifice, and, in the most solemn cases, by bleeding the root of the nose where it is joined by the eyebrows.[277]
[274] Mariner, op. cit. ii. 222.
[275] de Groot, Religious System of China, (vol, iv. book) ii. 386 sq.
[276] Rájendralála Mitra, op. cit. i. 111 sq.
[277] Garcilasso de la Vega, op. cit. i. 52.
There is one form of human sacrifice which has outlived all others, namely, the penal sacrifice of offenders. There can be no moral scruples in regard to a rite which involves a punishment regarded as just. Indeed, this kind of human sacrifice is even found where the offering of animals or lifeless things has fallen out of use or become a mere symbol. For this is the only sacrifice which is intended to propitiate the deity by the mere death of the victim; and gods are believed to be capable of feeling anger and revenge long after they have ceased to have material needs. The last trace of human sacrifice has disappeared only when men no longer punish offenders capitally with a view to appeasing resentful gods.
Human beings are sacrificed not only to gods, but to dead men, in order to serve them as companions or servants, or to vivify their spirits, or to gratify their craving for revenge.