[216] See Sanchoniathon’s references to blood libations, in Cory’s Ancient Fragments, pp. 7, 11, 16.
[217] See “The Hindu Pantheon,” in Birdwood’s Indian Arts, p. 96.
[218] Frere’s Old Deccan Days, p. 266.
[219] Williams’s Middle Kingdom, I., 194.
[220] Edkins’s Religion in China, p. 22.
[221] Williams’s Mid. King., I., 76-78.
[222] The inscription was first found, in 1875, in the tomb of Setee I., the father of Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the oppression. A translation of it appeared in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, Vol. 4, Part I. Again it has been found, in the tomb of Rameses III. Its earliest and its latest translations were made by M. Édouard Naville, the eminent Swiss Egyptologist. Meantime, Brugsch, De Bergmann, Lauth, Lefébure, and others, have aided in its elucidation (See Proceed. of Soc. of Bib. Arch., for March 3, 1885).
Is there not a reference to this legend in the Book of the Dead, chapter xviii., sixth section?
[223] Mandrakes, or “love-apples,” among the ancient Egyptians, as also among the Orientals generally, from the days of Jacob (Gen. 30 : 14-17) until to-day, carried the idea of promoting a loving union; and the Egyptian name for mandrakes—tetmut—combined the root-word tet already referred to as meaning “arm,” or “bracelet,” and mut—with the signification of “attesting,” or “confirming.” Thus the blood and the mandrake juice would be a true assiratum. (See Pierret’s Vocabulaire Hiéroglyphique, p. 723.) “Belief in this plant [the mandrake] is as old as history.” (Napier’s Folk-Lore, p. 90.) See, also, Lang’s Custom and Myth, pp. 143-155.
[224] Mendieta’s Hist. Eccl. Ind., 77 ff.; cited in Spencer’s Des. Soc., II., 38; also Brinton’s Myths of the New World, p. 258.