[68] Vasishtha, xi. 13.
[69] Laws of Manu, iii. 106.
[70] Aeschylus, Supplices, 632 sqq.
[71] Bergmann, op. cit. ii. 282.
[72] Burckhardt, Bedouin and Wahábys p. 198.
[73] Idem, Arabic Proverbs, p. 218. Chassebœuf de Volney, Travels through Syria and Egypt, i. 413.
[74] Yate, op. cit. p. 100. Cf. Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 325 (Samoans); Sproat, op. cit. p. 57 (Ahts).
If efficacy is ascribed to the blessings even of an ordinary man, the blessings of a stranger are naturally supposed to be still more powerful. For the unknown stranger, like everything unknown and everything strange, arouses a feeling of mysterious awe in superstitious minds. The Ainos say, “Do not treat strangers slightingly, for you never know whom you are entertaining.”[75] According to the Hitopadesa, “a guest consists of all the deities.”[76] It is significant that in the writings of ancient India, Greece, and Rome, guests are mentioned next after gods as due objects of regard.[77] Thus Aeschylus speaks of a man’s “impious conduct to a god, or a stranger, or to his parents dear.”[78] According to Homeric notions, “the gods, in the likeness of strangers from far countries, put on all manner of shapes, and wander through the cities, beholding the violence and the righteousness of men.”[79] The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”[80]
[75] Batchelor, Ainu and their Folk-Lore, p. 259.
[76] Hitopadesa, Mitralâbhâ, 65.