[169] Beauchamp, ‘Iroquois White Dog Feast,’ in American Antiquarian, vii. 236 sq. Hale, ‘Iroquois Sacrifice of the White Dog,’ ibid. vii. 7.
[170] Beauchamp, loc. cit. p. 237 sq.
[171] Seaver, Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison, p. 158 sqq. Cf. Mr. Clark’s description, quoted by Beauchamp, loc. cit. p. 238.
[172] Thurston, ‘Badágas of the Nilgiris,’ in the Madras Government Museum’s Bulletin, ii. 4. Cf. Metz, Tribes inhabiting the Neilgherry Hills, p. 78; Graul, Reise nach Ostindien, iii. 296 sqq.
[173] Schuyler, Turkistan, ii. 28.
In ancient Peru, an Inca, after confession of guilt, bathed in a neighbouring river, and repeated this formula:—“O thou River, receive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun, carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear.”[174] According to Vedic beliefs, sin is a contamination which may be inherited, or contracted in various ways,[175] and of which the sinner tries to rid himself by transferring it to some enemy,[176] or by invoking the gods of water or fire.[177] It is washed out by Varuna, in his capacity of a water-god,[178] and by Trita, another water-god,[179] and even by “the Waters” in general, as appears from the prayer addressed to them:—“O Waters, carry off whatever sin is in me and untruth.”[180] For a similar reason, as it seems, water became in the later, Brahmanic age, the “essence (sap) of immortality”[181] and the belief in its purifying power still survives in modern India. No sin is too heinous to be removed, no character too black to be washed clean, by the waters of Ganges.[182] At sacred places of pilgrimage on the banks of rivers, the Hindus perform special religious shavings for the purpose of purifying soul and body from pollution; and persons who have committed great crimes or are troubled by uneasy consciences, travel hundreds of miles to such holy places where “they may be released from every sin by first being relieved of every hair and then plunging into the sacred stream.”[183] So, also, according to Hindu beliefs, contact with cows purifies, and, as in the Parsi ritual, the dung and urine of cows have the power of preventing or cleansing away not only material, but moral defilements.[184] In post-Homeric Greece, individuals and a whole people were cleansed from their sins by water or some other material means of purification.[185] Plutarch, after observing that “there are other properties that have connection and communication, and that transfer themselves from one thing to another with incredible quickness and over immense distances,” asks whether it is “more wonderful that Athens should have been smitten with a plague which started in Arabia, than that, when the Delphians and Sybarites became wicked, vengeance should have fallen on their descendants.”[186] The Hebrews annually laid the sins of the people upon the head of a goat, and sent it away into the wilderness;[187] and they cleansed every impurity with consecrated water or the sprinkling of blood.[188] To this day, the Jews in Morocco, on their New-Year’s day, go to the sea-shore, or to some spring, and remove their sins by throwing stones into the water. The words of the Psalmist, “wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin,”[189] were not altogether a figure of speech; nor is Christian baptism originally a mere symbol. Its result is forgiveness of sins;[190] by the water, as a medium of the Holy Ghost, “the stains of sin are washed away.”[191] That sin is contagious has been expressly stated by Christian writers. Novatian says that “the one is defiled by the sin of the other, and the idolatry of the transgressor passes over to him who does not transgress.”[192]
[174] Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 435.
[175] Atharva-Veda, v. 30. 4; x. 3. 8; vii. 64. i. sq. Cf. Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 290.
[176] Rig-Veda, x. 36. 9; x. 37. 12.
[177] Ibid. x. 164. 3. Atharva-Veda, vii. 64. 2. Cf. Kaegi, Rig-Veda, p. 157; Oldenberg, op. cit. pp. 291-298, 319 sqq.