The correspondence of cutting the victim of sacrifice, and of cutting into the flesh of the covenanting parties, in the ceremony of making blood-brotherhood, or blood-friendship, is well-illustrated in the interchanging of these methods in the primitive customs of Borneo.[726] The pig is the more commonly prized victim of sacrifice in Borneo. It seems, indeed, to be there valued only next after a human victim. In some cases, blood-brotherhood is made, in Borneo, by “imbibing each other’s blood.” In other cases, “a pig is brought and placed between the two [friends] who are to be joined in brotherhood. A chief addresses an invocation to the gods, and marks with a lighted brand[727] the pig’s shoulder. The beast is then killed, and after an exchange of jackets,[728] a sword is thrust into the wound, and the two [friends] are marked with the blood of the pig.” On one occasion, when two hostile tribes came together to make a formal covenant of brotherhood, “the ceremony of killing a pig for each tribe” was the central feature of the compact; as in the case of two Kayans becoming one by interchanging their own blood, actually or by a substitute pig. And it is said of the tribal act of cutting the covenant by cutting the pig, that “it is thought more fortunate if the animal be severed in two by one stroke of the parang (half sword, half chopper).” In another instance, where two tribes entered into a covenant, “a pig was placed between the representatives of [the] two tribes; who, after calling down the vengeance of the spirits on those who broke the treaty, plunged their spears into the animal [‘cutting a covenant’ in that way], and then exchanged weapons.[729] Drawing their krises, they each bit the blade of the other [as if ‘drinking the covenant’],[730] and so completed the affair.” So, again, “if two men who have been at deadly feud, meet in a house [where the obligations of hospitality restrain them], they refuse to cast their eyes upon each other till a fowl has been killed, and the blood sprinkled over them.”
In every case, it is the blood that seals the mutual covenant, and the “cutting of the covenant” is that cutting which secures the covenanting, or the inter-uniting, blood. The cutting may be in the flesh of the covenanting parties; or, again it may be in the flesh of the substitute victim which is sacrificed.
BLOOD-BATHING.
In the Midrash Rabboth (Shemoth, Beth, 92, col. 2.) there is this comment by the Rabbis, on Exodus 2 : 23: “‘And the king of Egypt died.’ He was smitten with leprosy.... ‘And the children of Israel sighed.’ Wherefore did they sigh? Because the magicians of Egypt said: ‘There is no healing for thee save by the slaying of the little children of the Israelites. Slay them in the morning, and slay them in the evening; and bathe in their blood twice a day.’ As soon as the children of Israel heard the cruel decree, they poured forth great sighings and wailings.” That comment gives a new point, in the rabbinical mind, to the first plague, whereby the waters of the Nile, in which royalty bathed (Exod. 2 : 5), were turned into blood, because of the bondage of the children of Israel.
A survival of the blood-baths of ancient Egypt, as a means of re-vivifying the death-smitten, would seem to exist in the medical practices of the Bechuana tribes of Africa; as so many of the customs of ancient Egypt still survive among the African races (See page [15], supra). Thus, Moffat reports (Missionary Labours, p. 277) a method employed by native physicians, of killing a goat “over the sick person, allowing the blood to run down the body.”
BLOOD-RANSOMING.
Among other Bible indications that the custom of balancing, or canceling, a blood account by a payment in money, was well known in ancient Palestine, appears the record of David’s conference with the Gibeonites, concerning their claim for blood against the house of Saul, in 2 Samuel 21 : 1-9. When it was found that the famine in Israel was because of Saul’s having taken blood—or life—unjustly from the Gibeonites, David essayed to balance that unsettled account. “And the Gibeonites said unto him, It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel;” which was equivalent to saying: “Money for blood we will not take. Blood for blood we have no power to obtain.” Then said David, “What ye shall say, that will I do for you.” At this, the Gibeonites demanded, and obtained, the lives of the seven sons of Saul. The blood account must be balanced. In this case, as by the Mosaic law, it could only be by life for life.
In some parts of Arabia, if a Muhammadan slays a person of another religion, the relatives of the latter are not allowed to insist on blood for blood, but must accept an equivalent in money. The claim for the spilled blood is recognized, but a Muhammadan’s blood is too precious for its payment. (See Wellsted’s Travels in Arabia, I., 19.)
It is much the same in the far West as in the far East, as to this canceling of a blood-debt by blood or by other gifts. Parkman (Jesuits in No. Am., pp. lxi.-lxiii.; 354-360) says of the custom among the Hurons and the Iroquois, that in case of bloodshed the chief effort of all concerned was to effect a settlement by contributions to the amount of the regular tariff rates of a human life.