The modes of thought portrayed in the ritual of sacrifice are entirely analogous to those disclosed by the practices we discussed in the last chapter. Their great aim is union with the deity. It is attained by placing in contact with him something already part of ourselves, as our blood, hair, clothing, or other property; or else the blood of a victim of which we are about to consume the remainder, just as among medical practices we found that of giving part of the patient’s food to an animal before partaking of the rest, with the object of being united with a healthy body. It may, indeed, be, if we were to trace back the superstition in these medical cases, that the animal made use of was at first a totem-beast. To investigate this, however, would require much greater space than I have at command.
I have on an earlier page alluded to the compacts alleged to be made with the Devil by a writing signed with the blood of the person who enters into the contract. With this may be compared a practice said to be sometimes followed on the Riviera, where two lovers write to one another in their own blood in sign of fidelity.[243.1] A Breton folktale represents the Devil as aiding the hero on condition of his giving him a drop of his blood or a lock of his hair.[243.2] According to an Icelandic saga, witches enter into a still closer relation with the Father of Evil by giving him of their blood to drink,[244.1] thus constituting him their blood-brother; and the same belief seems to be current among the Gipsies of the Danube valley, the Poles and Esthonians.[244.2] To drink a witch’s blood was also a means of destroying her witchcraft, and doubtless for the same reason: it united her with her victim. Mannhardt quotes a case in Germany where, no longer since than the year 1868, two ignorant men were sent to prison for three months for assaulting a young woman whom they believed to have bewitched a friend, drawing blood and compelling her to drop it into his mouth.[244.3] But in general it is considered quite sufficient simply to draw blood from her. According to the Scottish prescription she should be “scored aboon her breath”—that is, in the upper part of her face.[244.4] The superstition, of course, has long been in decay. Merely to draw blood does not of itself constitute blood-relationship; but the barbarous rite of the blood-covenant having practically died out of north-western Europe, the real reason of drawing blood has been forgotten. A similar protection is invoked by Gipsy thieves in Servia. They make a certain powder with which they mix drops of their own blood and put it into the food of any one they suspect knows of their crime. In this way the thief believes that he not merely prevents the person who consumes the mixture from betraying him, but on the other hand causes him henceforth to cherish a friendly feeling towards him.[245.1]
More difficult of interpretation is a horrible usage of the Hurons of North America. Unless they are belied, while torturing a prisoner to death, they would sometimes open the aorta and mingle the blood that gushed from it with some of their own, in the hope of being at all times apprised of an enemy’s approach, and so assuring safety against a sudden attack.[245.2] Let us compare it, however, with a few cases of cannibalism. The Botocudos devoured their fallen enemies, in the belief that they would thus be protected from the revenge of the dead and would be rendered invulnerable by the arrows of the hostile tribe.[245.3] The inhabitants of New Britain, notorious cannibals, eat their enemies, and fix the arm- and leg-bones of the men at the butt-end of their spears, thinking thus not only to acquire the strength of the deceased owner of the bone, but also to become invulnerable by his relatives.[245.4] When the Tchuktchis murder a man they eat a piece of his heart or liver, in order to make his kindred sick.[245.5] The Eskimo of Greenland do the like, because then the relations of the murdered man will lack the courage to revenge his death.[245.6] Even in the south of Italy it is still believed that a murderer will not be able to escape unless he taste, or beslubber himself with, his victim’s blood:[245.7] a superstition which, in these days, has sometimes the contrary effect of leading to his discovery. By means of these examples we may perhaps conjecture the origin of the widely prevalent custom of eating the dead body of an enemy. Little doubt can at all events remain that the savage Hurons intended so to unite themselves with their captive that they would be secured from the blood-revenge of his kindred, and that it was against the kindred and them only that the precaution was adopted. And if this result could be attained by commingling the blood in a manner similar to that of the blood-covenant, it could also be achieved by eating a portion of the foe. Closely connected with cannibalism of the kind I am referring to is the custom of alumbi practised by several tribes in Equatorial West Africa. It consists in serving in food to a guest powder scraped from the skull of a deceased ancestor. “The idea is, that by consuming the scrapings of the skull, the blood of their ancestors enters into your body, and thus, becoming of one blood, you are naturally led to love them and grant them what they wish.”[246.1] In other words, a blood-covenant is entered into unwittingly by the guest with his host; and it need hardly be said that the trick is only played on those guests whose hearts a greedy host considers it is worth his while to soften.
Naturally superstition extended the blood-covenant by analogy to the lower animals, both in their relations with one another and with man, and utilised it for human profit. Servian Gipsy thieves draw blood from the left shoulder of a stolen beast, dry it to powder and mix the powder with the fodder of other beasts which they intend to steal, so as to be able to capture them without hindrance.[246.2] An Icelandic story is told of a fairy who used to send her kine to graze with those of a peasant-farmer. One day the farmer found a fairy cow in his stable. He cut its ear until it bled, and so appropriated the animal, to the fairy’s great annoyance.[247.1] The story is incomplete in not telling us what was done with the blood. It is clear, however, that a bond of blood was created which, in the stage of civilisation wherein the story arose, meant, as between man and one of the lower animals, ownership. From the Arctic circle to the southern Sporades may seem a far cry; yet it is from the island of Calymnos that we are able to supply the missing detail. One day in the spring of last year (1894) Mr. W. R. Paton saw a little girl, the daughter of a shepherd, with her face besmeared with blood. Her mother told him, by way of explanation, that the father had been marking the kids in his daughter’s name. Further inquiry showed that it was the custom to mark these animals by cutting their ears, every shepherd having his own distinctive mark, that they were marked in the name of one or other child of the family, and that some of the blood was smeared on the face of the child in whose name they were marked.[247.2] A better illustration could hardly be found of the manner in which the customs of one country will throw light upon the customs and traditions of another. Distance in space counts for naught where we are dealing with similar conditions of culture.
This sketch of totemism, including the means of union and communion between the clan and its totem on the one hand, and between the individual members of the clan on the other hand, is hasty and imperfect. Yet I hope it may prove sufficient for our purpose, the more so as the writings of Professor Robertson Smith and Mr. Frazer, who have studied the subject with great detail, are happily easy of access. Without, therefore, dwelling longer upon it we may turn to glance at some of the modifications undergone by the ceremony of the blood-covenant. A rite so barbarous would not maintain itself unimpaired as culture advanced. Other rites are softened in course of time; a part is taken for the whole, or a sham for the real thing; and this is no exception. I have referred to some of the forms it has assumed, but only to such as bear to the most casual observer the mark and witness of the original whence they are derived. There remain to be briefly considered some of the remoter variations.
The sacramental essence of the rite has escaped many modern travellers. Yet it might have been thought obvious enough. It is, perhaps, most clearly brought out where the blood is mingled with the food of the participants. It has been well insisted on, and its connection with the totem-sacrifice exhibited at length, by Professor Robertson Smith. Nor, after what has been said about it in the foregoing pages, and after the analogous superstitions discussed in preceding chapters, is it necessary to dwell on the point here. But it can excite no surprise that the rite should have degenerated into a solemn meal eaten together by the persons entering into the new bond. In early times no one would have a right to eat together save the brethren of a clan; and on the other hand, all who ate together would, presumably at least, be members of the same clan. Hospitality—the relation of host and guest—would form the only exception; and hospitality, as practised in savage and barbarous communities, may be described as a temporary reception into the kin or family. But none save brethren habitually shared the common meal. To eat together, therefore, would of itself be a sign, though not an infallible sign, of kinship. Eating together is—not merely on solemn occasions, as the sacrifice of the totem-beast, but in a lesser degree at other times—an act of communion. The sharing of a common substance as food unites those who partake of it in a common life: it makes them parts of one another: they incorporate one another’s substance. This is the significance of eating “things sacrificed to idols,” and of “sitting at meat in an idol’s temple.” The idol is supposed to have partaken of the meat; and those who afterwards eat of it share by that act the idol’s life; they partake of his substance. This is the significance of the offering of first-fruits; the bulk is holy and fit for the worshippers’ food, because a portion, and through that portion the whole, is first united with the god. What is true of special feasts, and of communion with the god, holds good of everyday meals, and of communion by the clansmen with one another. To admit a stranger into the clan, then, it will be enough that he be allowed to partake of the common meal. If the admission be simply for a temporary purpose as a guest, it will take place without any extraordinary formalities. If a permanent union be contemplated, then ceremonies must be performed indicative of the intention, and uniting the parties in the unmistakable bond of a common life.
One or two examples will suffice. The aboriginal tribes of Bengal have now in many instances undergone a transformation, under the influence of the dominant Aryan religion and organisation, from tribal organisation and status into that of castes. The Mahilis, “a Dravidian caste of labourers, palanquin-bearers and workers in bamboo, found in Chota Nagpur and Western Bengal,” readily admit “men of any caste ranking higher than their own.” The person seeking admission “has merely to pay a small sum to the headman of the caste and to give a feast to the Mahilis of the neighbourhood. This feast he must attend himself and signify his entrance into the brotherhood by tasting a portion of the food left by each of the guests on the leaf which on these occasions serves as a plate.”[250.1] The Máls of Western and Central Bengal, another tribe which has become converted into a caste, while still retaining many distinctly tribal practices, also admit outsiders. The fashion among them is for the neophyte to give a feast to the Máls of the neighbourhood, and to drink water wherein the headman of the village has dipped his toes.[250.2] The Mysteries of Greece and Western Asia were celebrated with the sacrifice and consumption of the divine animal; and the persons who joined in the ceremony entered into a brotherhood which, though in the latter times of classic heathendom regarded as spiritual rather than literal, must have derived its significance from a more archaic state of society, when to partake of the totem-animal was to consummate the most sacred rite of kinship. Among the Battas of Sumatra alliances are concluded by the slaughter of a hog or cow. As soon as its throat is cut the heart is torn out and divided into as many pieces as there are chiefs present. The share of each is put on a pointed stick and roasted by holding it over the fire. In turn the chiefs then hold up their respective morsels, saying: “If I should ever violate my oath, I am willing to be slaughtered like the bleeding animal which lies before me, and to be devoured like the piece of heart I am about to eat.”[251.1] This oath, which is reported to be more than a mere form, points back to an earlier period before the cow or the hog was substituted for a man. In classical antiquity a blood-rite of this kind is many times mentioned which not improbably may represent an early form of the blood-covenant. In the oath said to have been administered by Catiline to his fellow-conspirators, a slave was put to death, and every one drank out of the same cup his blood mingled with wine. The oath they swore was deemed irrevocable: it united them like the brethren of one blood to support one another in life and avenge one another’s death. The same is doubtless the meaning of the act recorded by Herodotus of the Greek and Carian allies of Psammenitus, when one of their number, Phanes of Halicarnassus, deserted to Cambyses, the Persian invader of Egypt. They put to death his sons in Phanes’ sight, drained their blood into a vase, which they filled up with wine and water, and, having drunk it together, they rushed madly but vainly on the foe.[251.2] And Diodorus Siculus relates of Apollodorus, who aspired in the third century before Christ to the government of the city of Cassandrea in Macedonia, that he slew a youth to the gods, gave his fellow-conspirators the entrails to eat and the blood mingled with wine to drink.[251.3] A relic of some such ceremony is found in India. Among the Saráogi Baniyás, who are reckoned of the Súdra caste, on the occasion of a marriage the relatives only of the parties meet in a private apartment around the figure of a Brahman, made in dough and filled with honey. The bridegroom’s father, “armed with a miniature bow and arrows, topples over the effigy, which is then disembowelled, so to speak, of its honey, into which all present dip a finger and suck it.”[252.1] In the New World the bloodthirsty Aztecs ate their human sacrifices. The Yncas, a little more human, offered and ate animals, called by De Molina sheep. Their sacrament consisted of a pudding of coarsely-ground maize, of which a portion had been smeared on the idol. The priest sprinkled it with the blood of the victim, before distributing it to the people.[252.2] A curious rite is reported as taking place among the Isubus, in the west of Africa, when entering into a covenant to do some murderous or warlike deed. A pot is placed upon the fire, and in the pot a stone, supposed to become by cooking as soft as a plantain. It is then cut with a knife, and each of the covenanting parties must swallow a piece, binding himself thereby to do or abet the deed proposed.[252.3] A Danubian Gipsy saga relates the mode of admission into a tribe. The chief eats with the candidate a piece of salted bread, and gives him brandy in a glass. When the brandy is drunk the glass is smashed.[252.4] Drinking, indeed, often becomes the substitute for eating. Among the aborigines of Formosa the manner of taking an oath of friendship is by putting their arms round one another’s necks and drinking simultaneously from the same cup of wine.[252.5] Among the Slavs the blood-covenant is still practised; and the Church has taken it under her own protection. In her hands it has become transformed into the ritual drinking of wine together. Thus in Crnagora the comrades who are about to enter into the bond of brotherhood attend the church, where the priest awaits them. He hands them the chalice, out of which they thrice drink wine together. They kiss the cross, the gospels and the sacred images, and finally kiss one another thrice upon the cheek. Afterwards the one on whose suggestion the league is formed, gives a dinner to the brother of his choice and adds to it some more valuable gift.[253.1]
But we have seen that an entirely different modification of the rite early took place. The actual drinking of the blood was dropped in favour of mixing it by inoculation,[253.2] or outwardly upon the bleeding flesh. Among the Norsemen in later times the blood was drawn from each party and simply allowed to flow together in their footprints.[253.3] Herodotus describes the covenant among the Arabs on the borders of Egypt. Blood was drawn with a sharp stone from the thumb of either party. With a shred of each person’s robe it was then smeared upon seven sacred stones, with an invocation to the divinities Orotal and Alilat, whom the historian identifies with Dionysos and Urania.[253.4] Professor Robertson Smith commenting on the passage observes that the smearing on the stones “makes the gods parties to the covenant, but evidently the symbolical act is not complete unless at the same time the human parties taste each other’s blood.” And he surmises that “this was actually done, though Herodotus does not say so. But,” he admits, “it is also possible that in the course of time the ritual had been so far modified that it was deemed sufficient that the two bloods should meet on the sacred stone.”[254.1] I cannot help thinking that what we have learnt in the course of our previous inquiries may help us to the solution of the difficulty. When Abruzzian girls hide their hairs in some secret place of the sanctuary on vowing eternal friendship, they seem at first sight to be performing an act parallel to that recorded of the Arabs; and if so we need not suspect that Herodotus has omitted any feature of the rite. Probably, however, the true explanation does not lie here. We may suppose that the shreds torn by the master of the ceremonies from either garment were roughly tied or twisted together into a wisp, which was then dipped into the flowing blood of both persons, and the blood thus mingled after the fashion of many tribes before it was painted on the stones; or, in the alternative, that the shred from the garment of the one person was dipped in the blood of the other. We have had abundant evidence that a man’s clothes are deemed a part of himself, and that what is done to them is done to him. To dip a portion of my clothes in my friend’s blood, therefore, is to unite me to him, to make him my blood-brother, without the necessity of tasting his blood, or even of literally mixing our blood together. In either way the act would be complete, and the historian’s accuracy justified. Even less than this is necessary among other nations. A man is deemed a blood-brother if the blood of another touch him only by accident and without any outpouring of his own blood. So Dr. Livingstone involuntarily contracted blood-relationship with a Balonda woman in opening a tumour in her arm, by the spurting of some of her blood in his eye.[255.1] Similarly in the Irish saga of The Wooing of Emer we find Cuchulainn becoming the blood-brother of Devorgoil by sucking from her wound the stone that had struck her from his sling.[255.2] An Abruzzian prescription for epilepsy is for some one on the first attack of the disease to strike the patient on the ear with something of iron, so that the blood flows. The operator becomes the “gossip” (compare o comare) of the person thus cured. Here it seems to suffice if the blood simply touch the instrument used: a much degraded form of the rite, comparable with that in the Icelandic story of the fairy cow, and with the practice of scoring a witch. In a variant remedy, however, a person unacquainted with the patient bites the ear until the blood flows.[255.3]
A further modification of the rite appears in ancient Arabic literature, whereby the blood shed is not that of one of the contracting parties but of another human victim slain at the sanctuary, and the hands of all who shared in the compact were simply dipped into the gore. At first it would seem likely that the victim was already a member of one of the clans entering into the alliance. This was the case in the province of Zacatecas in Central America. The victim chosen was first mercifully intoxicated to deaden his pain. It does not appear that he was put to death; but his ears were pierced in turn by each member of the contracting clans, who rubbed the spurting blood over his own body.[256.1] After a while, however, the human victim would be dispensed with, or perhaps among many nations the victim may always have been a sacred animal, originally of course a totem-animal. So, among the Dyaks for the purpose of reconciling two foes, or of welcoming a stranger, a fowl is killed and its blood sprinkled over the parties and the dwelling.[256.2] In the Chittagong Hills the Kumi and the Shendoos kill a goat or a heifer and smear with its blood the feet and foreheads of the contracting parties. Before doing so, however, the presiding chief takes a mouthful of liquor from a cup and blows it over one party, blows another mouthful over the other party and a third over the victim. Some other ceremonies follow, including the imprecation frequently occurring on any one who violates the compact.[256.3]
The ritual of other peoples deviates yet more from the type. The cannibal Bondjos of Africa merely put red ochre on the arms and rub them together.[256.4] Two men of the Limbu, a Bengali tribe of Mongolian descent, contract brotherhood by a ceremony at which a Brahman, or, when the parties are Buddhists, a Lama, presides and reads mantras or mystic formulæ, while the two friends thrice exchange rupees, handkerchiefs or scarves, and daub each other between the eyebrows with a paste made of rice and curds. And the description of the performance holds good of the Muriari and other tribes of the same province.[256.5] In other parts of the world the rite further degenerates into the mere rubbing of noses, or the striking of one another’s breasts with an exchange of names.[257.1] Our hand-shaking is a pledge of goodwill and fidelity which, we can hardly doubt, points to the same course of ceremonial decay. The exchange of names, practised so frequently among savage peoples by intimate friends, has no different effect. For the name being part of the person, to confer it upon another and to take that other’s name in exchange is to effect union as close as the mixture of one another’s blood. Among the Abruzzians in Italy, as I mentioned just now, the blood-rite is not yet extinct. It is practised in a milder form by two girls who wish to swear eternal friendship after the manner of maidens. Taking each other by the hand and repeating certain prescribed rhymes, in which they pray with emphasis that the one who breaks the bond may go straight to hell, each of them pulls a hair from her own head and puts it on the other’s. Thenceforth they salute one another as “Gossip,” and may safely make one another the recipient of the most sacred confidences.[257.2]