The Covenant of Salt / As Based on the Significance and Symbolism of Salt in Primitive Thought

by H. Clay Trumbull

In this line of thought Florus says of salt: "Consider farther whether its power of preserving a long time dead bodies from rotting be not a divine property, and opposite to death; since it preserves part, and will not suffer that which is mortal wholly to be destroyed. But as the soul, which is our diviner part, connects the limbs of animals, and keeps the composure from dissolution; thus salt applied to dead bodies, and imitating the work of the soul, stops those parts that were falling to corruption, binds and confines them, and so makes them keep their union and agreement with one another."[76]

Philinus goes a step farther when he asks: "Do you not think that that which is generative is to be esteemed divine, seeing God is the principle of all things?"[77] And Plutarch adds suggestively that salt is by some supposed to be a means of life, not only exciting desire for generation, but actually causing procreation; "the females (among the lower animals), as some imagine, conceiving without the help of the males, only by licking salt. But [as he thinks] it is most probable that the salt raiseth an itching in animals, and so makes them salacious and eager to couple. And perhaps for the same reason they call a surprising and bewitching beauty, such as is apt to move and entice, halmuron kai drimu, 'saltish.' And I think the poets had a respect to this generative power of salt in their fable of Venus springing from the sea."[78]

In Central and South America it was deemed necessary to abstain from salt while praying and sacrificing, with a desire to obtain children. So far it was among the Maya nations of the New World as among the priests of Ancient Egypt.[79]

An Oriental proverb says: "If thou takest the salt [the life, or soul] from the flesh [the body] then thou mayest throw it [the flesh] to the dogs." This has been explained by the rabbis, as considering "salt" here synonymous with the soul, or life, of man, which comes from God, in distinction from man's body, which comes from his parents. "God gives the spirit [the breath], the soul, the features, the hearing, the organs of speech, the gait, the perceptions, the reason, and the intuition. When now the time comes for man to depart out of the world, God takes his part, and the part which comes from the parents [the body] he lays before them."[80]

When Elisha, the prophet of Israel, was met by the men of Jericho, as he came from the scene of Elijah's translation to enter upon his mission as the successor of Elijah and was told of the death-dealing power of the waters of the city, his words and action seemed to emphasize the correspondence of salt with life. "He said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast salt therein, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or miscarrying [of the land]. So the waters were healed [were restored to life] unto this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spake."[81]

A spring of water is in itself so important to a primitive people that it is not to be wondered at that water is called the Gift of God, and that a living spring is looked at as in a sense divine, and that it has even been worshiped as a god among primitive peoples.[82] When, therefore, salt, as the synonym of life or of blood, is found in a spring of living water, it is natural to recognize the spot as peculiarly favored of God, or of the gods. Thus "among inland peoples a salt spring was regarded as a special gift of the gods. The Chaonians in Epirus had one which flowed into a stream where there were [as in the Dead Sea] no fish; and the legend was that Heracles had allowed their forefathers to have salt instead of fish (Aristotle). The Germans waged war for saline streams, and believed that the presence of salt invested a district with peculiar sanctity, and made it a place where prayers were most readily heard (Tacitus, Ann., XIII., 57)."[83]

There is said to be a salt lake in the mountain region of Koordistan, which was changed from fresh water to salt, by St. Peter, when he first came thither preaching Christianity. He wrought this change so that he could influence the people to accept his teaching through sharing his life by partaking of the salt. To this day the tradition remains, that, if the natives will bathe in that lake, they will renew their faith. Aside from the question of any basis of truth in the legend, it remains as a survival of the primitive idea of a real connection of shared salt with shared life.

It is customary among some primitive peoples to anoint or smear a new-born babe with blood, as a means of giving him more and fuller life.[84] Thus among the ancient Caribs, of South America, "as soon as a male child was brought into the world, he was sprinkled with some drops of his father's blood;" the father "fondly believing that the same degree of courage which he had himself displayed, was by these means transmitted to his son."[85] In one of the Kaffir tribes of South Africa, when a new chief assumes authority, it was customary to wash him in the blood of a near relative, generally a brother, who was put to death on the occasion. In order to give more life and character to the freshly elevated representative of the ruling family, the family life was drawn from the veins of one near him, in order that it might be absorbed by him who could use it more imposingly.[86]

The Bheels are a brave and warlike race of mountaineers of Hindostan. They claim to have been, formerly, the rulers of all their region, but either by defeat in war or by voluntary concession to have yielded their power to other peoples, whom they now authorize to rule in their old domain. When, therefore, a new rajput, or chief ruler, comes into power in any of the surrounding countries, this right to rule is conceded, or ratified, by an anointing of blood drawn from the toe or thumb of a Bheel. The right of giving this blood, or new life, is claimed by particular Bheel families; and the belief that the individual from whose veins the blood is drawn never lives beyond a twelvemonth, in no degree operates to repress the desire of the Bheels to furnish the blood of anointing.[87]