[231] Frazer, op. cit. iii. 112 sq.
[232] Strabo, xi. 4. 7.
[233] Frazer, op. cit. iii. 113.
[234] Herodotus, ii. 39.
[235] Hale, in American Antiquarian, vii. 10 sqq. Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 217 sq.
[236] Hale, loc. cit. p. 10.
[237] Morgan, op. cit. p. 216.
I think we can see the reason why, in some cases, a sacrificial victim is used as scapegoat. The transference of sins or evils is not looked upon as a mere “natural” process, it can hardly be accomplished without the aid of mysterious, magic energy. Among the Berbers of Ait Zelṭn, in Southern Morocco, sick people used to visit a miracle-working wild olive-tree, growing in the immediate vicinity of the supposed grave of Sîdi Butlîla. They there relieve themselves of their complaints by tying a woollen string to one of its branches; in case of headache the patient previously winds the string three times round the top of his head, whilst, in case of fever, he spits on the string, and, when tying it to the tree, says, “I left my fever in thee, O wild olive-tree.” He believes that he may thus transfer his disease to this tree because there is baraka, “benign virtue,” in it; he would not expect to be cured by tying the string to any ordinary tree. This illustrates a principle of probably world-wide application. In Morocco, and, I presume, in other countries where disease-transference is believed in, rags tied to a tree are a sure indication that the tree is regarded as holy. Similarly I venture to believe that the transference of sins and evils to a scapegoat is generally supposed to require magic aid of some kind or other. Among the Hebrews, it took place on the Day of Atonement only, and the act was performed by the high-priest.[238] Among the Iroquois, it was by “a kind of magic” that the sins of the people were worked into the white dogs;[239] and that the animals themselves were held to be charged with supernatural energy, appears from the fact that, according to one account, the ashes of the pyre on which one of them was burnt were “gathered up, carried through the village, and sprinkled at the door of every house.”[240] Considering, then, that sacrificial victims, owing to their close contact with the deities to whom they are offered, are held more or less sacred, the idea of employing them as scapegoats is certainly near at hand. But this does not make the sacrifice expiatory. In fact, I know of no instance of an expiatory sacrifice being connected with a ceremony of sin-transference. Hence the materialistic conception of sin hardly helps to explain the belief that the sins of a person may be atoned by another person being offered as a sacrifice to the offended god.
[238] Leviticus, xvi. 21.
[239] Seaver, op. cit. p. 160.