[239.1] On the blood-covenant, the three chief authorities are Robertson Smith, Kinship; and Rel. Sem.; Trumbull; and Strack. Prof. Robertson Smith and Dr. Trumbull, approaching the subject from different points of view, arrived at similar conclusions independently and simultaneously. I have a long list of examples not mentioned by these writers; but I forbear to load the page with them, as they add nothing to the ample proofs of the meaning, and but little to those of the wide distribution, of the rite. By far the most exhaustive examination of totemism is that of Mr. Frazer in his book on the subject, an expansion of his article in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
[241.1] Stoll, 47; iii. Bancroft, 486, citing Carta; Trumbull, 90, citing various authorities. Similarly, De Acosta describes the practice when at a funeral human beings were sacrificed to the dead to be their slaves in the other world; the victim’s blood was smeared on the corpse’s face from ear to ear. De Acosta, 314. A writer of the last century describes the Nogats of the Bouraits and other peoples of Eastern Siberia as idoles en peinture, representing the contour of a naked human figure, six to eight inches long, painted with the heart’s blood of the victims, or with some other red material. Georgi, 150.
[241.2] Tibullus, i. Eleg., vi. 45.
[242.1] i. Heimskringla, 165.
[242.2] i. Risley, 504, 535, and other places. The daubing of the wooden casing of the well with red lead is one of the village ceremonies at the Sarhúl festival. iii. N. Ind. N. and Q., 180, quoting L. R. Forbes’ Report.
[243.1] J. B. Andrews, in ix. Rev. Trad. Pop., 115.
[243.2] P. Sébillot, in ix. Rev. Trad. Pop., 170.
[244.1] Arnason, i. Sagen, 192. Feilberg, in iii. Am Urquell, 5, quotes it as menstrual blood. Very likely this is correct; but the German version, to which alone I have access, does not specify it.
[244.2] Von Wlislocki, Volksgl. Zig., 110, 123, 124; Schiffer, in iii. Am Urquell, 200, citing Rulikowski; viii. Rev. Trad. Pop., 487.
[244.3] Strack, 51, quoting Mannhardt.