The answer lies in certain ideas which refer to human as well as divine protectors of refugees. The god or saint is in exactly the same position as a man to whose house a person has fled for shelter. Among various peoples the domicile of the chief or king is an asylum for criminals;[203] nobody dares to attack a man who is sheltered by so mighty a personage, and from what has been said above, in connection with the rules of hospitality, it is also evident why the chief or king feels himself compelled to protect him. By being in close contact with his host, the suppliant is able to transfer to him a dangerous curse. Sometimes a criminal can in a similar way be a danger to the king even from a distance, or by meeting him, and must in consequence be pardoned. In Madagascar an offender escaped punishment if he could obtain sight of the sovereign, whether before or after conviction; hence criminals at work on the highroad were ordered to withdraw when the sovereign was known to be coming by.[204] Among the Bambaras “une fois la sentence prononcée, si le condamné parvient à cracher sur un prince, non-seulement sa personne est sacrée, mais elle est nourrie, logée, etc., par le grand seigneur qui a eu l’imprudence de se tenir à portée de cet étrange projectile.”[205] In Usambara even a murderer is safe as soon as he has touched the person of the king.[206] Among the Marutse and neighbouring tribes a person who is accused of any crime receives pardon if he lays a cupa—the fossilised base of a conical shell, which is the most highly valued of all their instruments—at the feet of his chief; and a miscreant likewise escapes punishment if he reaches and throws himself on the king’s drums.[207] On the Slave Coast “criminals who are doomed to death are always gagged, because if a man should speak to the king he must be pardoned.”[208] In Ashantee, if an offender should succeed in swearing on the king’s life, he must be pardoned, because such an oath is believed to involve danger to the king; hence knives are driven through the cheeks from opposite sides, over the tongue, to prevent him from speaking.[209] So also among the Romans, according to an old Jewish writer, a person condemned to death was gagged to prevent him from cursing the king.[210] Fear of the curses pronounced by a dissatisfied refugee likewise, in all probability, underlay certain other customs which prevailed in Rome. A servant or slave who came and fell down at the feet of Jupiter’s high-priest, taking hold of his knees, was for that day freed from the whip; and if a prisoner with irons and bolts at his feet succeeded in approaching the high-priest in his house, he was let loose and his fetters were thrown into the road, not through the door, but from the roof.[211] Moreover, if a criminal who had been sentenced to death accidentally met a Vestal virgin on his way to the place of execution, his life was saved.[212] So sensitive to imprecations were both Jupiter’s high-priest and the priestesses of Vesta, that the Praetor was never allowed to compel them to take an oath.[213] Now, as a refugee may by his curse force a king or a priest or any other man with whom he establishes some kind of contact to protect him, so he may in a similar manner constrain a god or saint as soon as he has entered his sanctuary. According to the Moorish expression he is then in the ʿâr of the saint, and the saint is bound to protect him, just as a host is bound to protect his guest. It is not only men that have to fear the curses of dissatisfied refugees. Let us once more remember the words which Aeschylus puts into the mouth of Apollo, when he declares his intention to assist his suppliant, Orestes:—“Terrible both among men and gods is the wrath of a refugee, when one abandons him with intent.”[214]
[203] Harmon, Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America, p. 297 (Tacullies). Lewin, Hill Tracts of Chittagong, p. 100 (Kukis). Junghuhn, Die Battaländer auf Sumatra, (Macassars and Bugis of Celebes). Tromp, ‘Uit de Salasila van Koetei,’ in Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxvii. 84 (natives of Koetei, a district of Borneo). Jung, quoted by Kohler, ‘Recht der Marschallinsulaner,’ in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xiv. 447 (natives of Nauru in the Marshall Group). Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 334 (Samoans). Rautanen, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhältnisse, p. 342 (Ondonga). Schinz, op. cit. p. 312 (Ovambo). Rehme, ‘Das Recht der Amaxosa,’ in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. x. 50. Merker, quoted by Kohler, ‘Banturecht in Ostafrika,’ ibid. xv. 55 (Wadshagga). Merker, Die Masai, p. 206. Among the Barotse the residences of the Queen and the Prime Minister are places of refuge (Decle, op. cit. p. 75).
[204] Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 376.
[205] Raffenel, Nouveau voyage dans le pays des nègres, i. 385.
[206] Krapf, Reisen in Ost-Afrika, ii. 132, n. * See also Schinz, op. cit. p. 312 (Ovambo).
[207] Gibbons, Exploration in Central Africa, p. 129. I am indebted to Mr. N. W. Thomas for drawing my attention to this statement.
[208] Ellis, Ew̔e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 224.
[209] Ibid. p. 224.
[210] Quoted by Levias, ‘Cursing,’ in Jewish Encyclopedia, iv. 390.
[211] Plutarch, Questiones Romanæ, 111. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticæ, x. 15. 8, 10.