My own belief is that all sacrificial feasts of this godeating character most probably originated in actual cannibalism; and that later an animal victim was substituted for the human meat; but I do not insist on this point, nor attempt, strictly speaking, to prove it. It is hardly more than a deeply grounded suspicion. Nevertheless, I will begin for convenience’ sake with the cannibal class of sacrifice, and will come round in time to the familiar slaughter of sheep and oxen, which in many cases is known to have supplanted a human offering.
Acosta’s account of the Mexican custom is perhaps the best instance we now possess of the ritual of cannibal mystic sacrifice in its fullest barbarity. “They took a captive,” says that racy old author, “at random; and before sacrificing him to their idols, they gave him the name of the idol to whom he should be sacrificed, and dressed him in the same ornaments, identifying him with the god. During the time that the identification lasted, which was for a year in some feasts, six months or less in others, they reverenced and worshipped him in the same manner as the idol itself. Meanwhile, he was allowed to eat, drink, and make merry. When he went through the streets, the people came forth to worship him; and every one brought alms, with children and sick people that he might cure them and bless them. He did as he pleased in everything except that he had ten or twelve men about him, to prevent him from escaping. In order that he might be reverenced as he passed, he sometimes sounded upon a small flute, to tell the people to worship him. When the feast arrived, and he had grown fat, they killed him, opened him, and making a solemn sacrifice, eat him.” There, in the words of a competent authority, we have the simple cannibal feast in its fullest nakedness.
I need hardly point out how much this account recalls the Khond custom of the Meriah. The victim, though not really of royal blood, is made artificially into a divine king; he is treated with all the honours of royalty and godhead, is dressed like the deity with whom he is identified, and is finally killed and eaten. The last point alone differs in any large degree from the case of the Meriah. We have still to enquire, “Why did they eat him?”
The answer to this enquiry takes us into the very heart and core of the sacramental concept.
It is a common early belief that to eat of any particular animal gives you the qualities of that animal. The Miris of Northern India prize tiger’s flesh for men; it gives them strength and courage; but women must not eat it; ‘twould make them “too strong-minded.” The Namaquas abstain from eating hare; they would become faint-hearted if they swallowed it; but they eat the meat of the lion or drink the blood of the leopard, in order to gain their strength and courage. Among the Dyaks, young men and warriors must not eat deer; it would render them cowardly; but women and very old men are allowed to eat it. Men of the Buro and Aru Islands feed on the flesh of dogs in order to be bold and nimble. Mr. Frazer has collected an immense number of similar instances, which show both how widespread and how deep-seated are such beliefs. Even scrapings of the bones are sufficient to produce the desired result; in Corea, the bones of tigers fetch a higher price than those of leopards as inspirers of courage. The heart of a lion is also particularly good for this purpose; and the tongues of birds are recommended for eloquence.
Again, on the same analogy, the flesh and blood of brave men are eaten in order to inspire bravery. The Australian Kamilaroi eat the heart and liver of a valiant warrior in order to acquire his courage. The Philippine Islanders drink the blood of their bravest enemies. In the Shire Highlands of Africa, those who kill a distinguished fighter eat his heart to get his courage. Du Chaillu’s negro, attendants, we saw, scraped their ancestors’ skulls, and drank the powder in water. “Our ancestors were brave,” said they; “and by drinking their skulls, we shall be brave as they were.” Here again I can only refer the reader for numerous examples to Mr. Frazer’s inexhaustible storehouse.
The case of Du Chaillu’s warriors, however, takes us with one bound into the heart of the subject. Many savages for similar reasons actually eat their own dead fathers. * We learn from Strabo that the ancient Irish “deemed it honourable to devour the bodies of their parents.” So, Herodotus tells us, did the Issedones of Central Asia. The Massagetæ used “from compassion” to club and eat their aged people. The custom was quite recently common among the Battas of Sumatra, who used “religiously and ceremonially to eat their old relations.” In Australia, it was usual to eat relatives who died by mischance. Of the Cucumas we read that “as soon as a relation died, these people assembled and eat him roasted or boiled, according as he was thin or fat.” The Tarianas and Tucanas, who drink the ashes of their relatives, “believe that thus the virtues of the deceased will be transmitted to the drinkers.” The Arawaks think it the highest mark of honour they could pay to the dead to drink their powdered bones mixed in water. Generally speaking, in a large number of cases, the parents or relatives were eaten in order “not to let the life go out of the family” or to preserve the bodies and souls in a kindred body; or to gain the courage and other qualities of the dead relation. In short, the dead were eaten sacramentally or, as one writer even phrases it, “eucharistically.” Mr. Hartland has collected many striking instances.
* Since this chapter was written, the subject of honorific
cannibalism has been far more fully treated by Mr. Sidney
Hartland in the chapter on Funeral Rites, in the second
volume of The Legend of Perseus.
How this strange custom originates we may guess from Mr. Wyatt Gill’s description of a New Guinea funeral. “The women lacerated their faces and beat their breasts most affectingly,” he says; “and then, in the madness of their grief, pressed the matter out of the wounded thigh, and smeared it over their faces and persons, and even licked it up.” Of the Koiari corpses he says: “A fire is kept burning day and night at the head and feet for months. The entire skin is removed by means of the thumb and forefinger, and the juices plastered all over the face and body of the operator,—parent, husband, or wife of the deceased. The fire gradually desiccates the flesh, so that little more than the skeleton is left.” This naturally leads on to eating the dead, which indeed is practised elsewhere in New Guinea.
But if men eat the bodies of their fathers, who are their family and household gods, they will also naturally eat the bodies of the artificial gods of cultivation, or of the temporary kings who die for the people. By eating the body of a god, you absorb his divinity; he and you become one; he is in you and inspires you. This is the root-idea of sacramental practice; you eat your god by way of complete union; you subsume him in yourself; you and he are one being.