Royal blood may not be spilt on the ground; hence kings and princes are put to death by methods which do not involve bloodshed.
It is a common rule that royal blood may not be shed upon the ground. Hence when a king or one of his family is to be put to death a mode of execution is devised by which the royal blood shall not be spilt upon the earth. About the year 1688 the generalissimo of the army rebelled against the king of Siam and put him to death “after the manner of royal criminals, or as princes of the blood are treated when convicted of capital crimes, which is by putting them into a large iron caldron, and pounding them to pieces with wooden pestles, because none of their royal blood must be spilt on the ground, it being, by their religion, thought great impiety to contaminate the divine blood by mixing it with earth.”[787] [pg 242] Other Siamese modes of executing a royal person are starvation, suffocation, stretching him on a scarlet cloth and thrusting a billet of fragrant sandal-wood into his stomach,[788] or lastly, sewing him up in a leather sack with a large stone and throwing him into the river; sometimes the sufferer's neck is broken with sandal-wood clubs before he is thrown into the water.[789] When Kublai Khan defeated and took his uncle Nayan, who had rebelled against him, he caused Nayan to be put to death by being wrapt in a carpet and tossed to and fro till he died, “because he would not have the blood of his Line Imperial spilt upon the ground or exposed in the eye of Heaven and before the Sun.”[790] “Friar Ricold mentions the Tartar maxim: ‘One Khan will put another to death to get possession of the throne, but he takes great care that the blood be not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper that the blood of the Great Khan should be spilt upon the ground; so they cause the victim to be smothered somehow or other.’ The like feeling prevails at the court of Burma, where a peculiar mode of execution without bloodshed is reserved for princes of the blood.”[791] Another writer on Burma observes that “according to Mongolian tradition, it is considered improper to spill the blood of any member of the royal race. Princes of the Blood are executed by a blow, or blows, of a bludgeon, inflicted on the back of the neck. The corpse is placed in a red velvet sack, which is fixed between two large perforated jars, and then sunk in the river Irawadi. Princesses are executed in a similar manner, with the exception that they are put to death by a blow in front, instead of the back of the neck.”[792] In 1878 the relations of Theebaw, king of Burma, were despatched by being beaten across the throat with a bamboo.[793] In Tonquin the ordinary mode of execution is beheading, but persons of the blood royal are strangled.[794] In Ashantee the [pg 243] blood of none of the royal family may be shed; if one of them is guilty of a great crime he is drowned in the river Dah.[795] As the blood royal of Dahomey may not be spilled, offenders of the royal family are drowned or strangled. Commonly they are bound hand and foot, carried out to sea in a canoe, and thrown overboard.[796] When a king of Benin came to the throne he used to put his brothers to death; but as no one might lay hands on a prince of the blood, the king commanded his brothers to hang themselves, after which he buried their bodies with great pomp.[797] In Madagascar the blood of nobles might not be shed; hence when four Christians of that class were to be executed they were burned alive.[798] In Uganda “no one may shed royal blood on any account, not even when ordered by the king to slay one of the royal house; royalty may only be starved or burned to death.”[799] Formerly when a young king of Uganda came of age all his brothers were burnt except two or three, who were preserved to keep up the succession.[800] Or a space of ground having been fenced in with a high paling and a deep ditch, the doomed men were led into the enclosure and left there till they died, while guards kept watch outside to prevent their escape.[801] Among the Bawenda of southern Africa dangerous princes are strangled, for their blood may not be shed.[802]
Reluctance to shed any human blood on the ground. Reluctance to allow human blood to fall on the ground.
The reluctance to spill royal blood seems to be only a particular case of a general unwillingness to shed blood or at least to allow it to fall on the ground. Marco Polo tells us that in his day persons caught in the streets of Cambaluc [pg 244] (Peking) at unseasonable hours were arrested, and if found guilty of a misdemeanour were beaten with a stick. “Under this punishment people sometimes die, but they adopt it in order to eschew bloodshed, for their Bacsis say that it is an evil thing to shed man's blood.”[803] When Captain Christian was shot by the Manx Government at the Restoration in 1660, the spot on which he stood was covered with white blankets, that his blood might not fall on the ground.[804] In West Sussex people believe that the ground on which human blood has been shed is accursed and will remain barren for ever.[805] Among some primitive peoples, when the blood of a tribesman has to be spilt it is not suffered to fall upon the ground, but is received upon the bodies of his fellow-tribesmen. Thus in some Australian tribes boys who are being circumcised are laid on a platform, formed by the living bodies of the tribesmen;[806] and when a boy's tooth is knocked out as an initiatory ceremony, he is seated on the shoulders of a man, on whose breast the blood flows and may not be wiped away.[807] When Australian blacks bleed each other as a cure for headache and other ailments, they are very careful not to spill any of the blood on the ground, but sprinkle it on each other.[808] We have already seen that in the Australian ceremony for making rain the blood which is supposed to imitate the rain is received upon the bodies of the tribesmen.[809] “Also the Gauls used to drink their enemies' blood and paint themselves therewith. So also they write that the old Irish were wont; and so have I seen some of the Irish do, but not their enemies' but friends' blood, as, namely, at the execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called Murrogh O'Brien, I saw an old woman, which was his foster-mother, take up his head whilst he was quartered and suck [pg 245] up all the blood that ran thereout, saying that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and therewith also steeped her face and breast and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly.”[810] After a battle in Horne Island, South Pacific, it was found that the brother of the vanquished king was among the wounded. “It was sad to see his wife collect in her hands the blood which had flowed from his wounds, and throw it on to her head, while she uttered piercing cries. All the relatives of the wounded collected in the same manner the blood which had flowed from them, down even to the last drop, and they even applied their lips to the leaves of the shrubs and licked it all up to the last drop.”[811] In the Marquesas Islands the persons who helped a woman at childbirth received on their heads the blood which flowed at the cutting of the navel-string; for the blood might not touch anything but a sacred object, and in Polynesia the head is sacred in a high degree.[812] In South Celebes at childbirth a female slave stands under the house (the houses being raised on posts above the ground) and receives in a basin on her head the blood which trickles through the bamboo floor.[813] Among the Latuka of central Africa the earth on which a drop of blood has fallen at childbirth is carefully scraped up with an iron shovel, put into a pot along with the water used in washing the mother, and buried tolerably deep outside the house on the left-hand side.[814] In West Africa, if a drop of your blood has fallen on the ground, you must carefully cover it up, rub and stamp it into the soil; if it has fallen on the side of a canoe or a tree, the place is cut out and the chip destroyed.[815] The Caffres, we are told, have a great horror of blood, and must purify themselves from the pollution if they have shed it and been bespattered by it. Hence warriors on the return from battle purge themselves with emetics, and that so violently that some of them give up the ghost. A Caffre would [pg 246] never allow even a drop of blood from his nose or a wound to lie uncovered, but huddles it over with earth, that his feet may not be defiled by it.[816] One motive of these African customs may be a wish to prevent the blood from falling into the hands of magicians, who might make an evil use of it. That is admittedly the reason why people in West Africa stamp out any blood of theirs which has fallen on the ground or cut out any wood that has been soaked with it.[817] From a like dread of sorcery natives of New Guinea are careful to burn any sticks, leaves, or rags which are stained with their blood; and if the blood has dripped on the ground they turn up the soil and if possible light a fire on the spot.[818] The same fear explains the curious duties discharged by a class of men called ramanga or “blue blood” among the Betsileo of Madagascar. It is their business to eat all the nail-parings and to lick up all the spilt blood of the nobles. When the nobles pare their nails, the parings are collected to the last scrap and swallowed by these ramanga. If the parings are too large, they are minced small and so gulped down. Again, should a nobleman wound himself, say in cutting his nails or treading on something, the ramanga lick it up as fast as possible. Nobles of high rank hardly go anywhere without these humble attendants; but if it should happen that there are none of them present, the cut nails and the spilt blood are carefully collected to be afterwards swallowed by the ramanga. There is scarcely a nobleman of any pretensions who does not strictly observe this custom,[819] the intention of which probably is to prevent these parts of his person from falling into the hands of sorcerers, who on the principles of contagious magic could work him harm thereby. The tribes of the White Nile are said never to shed human blood in their villages because they think the [pg 247] sight of it would render women barren or bring misfortune on their children. Hence executions and murders commonly take place on the roads or in the forest.[820]
Unwillingness to shed the blood of animals.
The unwillingness to shed blood is extended by some peoples to the blood of animals. Thus, when the Caffres offer an ox to the spirits, the blood of the beast must be carefully caught in a calabash, and none of it may fall on the ground.[821] When the Wanika in eastern Africa kill their cattle for food, “they either stone or beat the animal to death, so as not to shed the blood.”[822] Amongst the Damaras cattle killed for food are suffocated, but when sacrificed they are speared to death.[823] But like most pastoral tribes in Africa, both the Wanika and Damaras very seldom kill their cattle, which are indeed commonly invested with a kind of sanctity.[824] Some of the Ewe-speaking negroes of Togoland, in West Africa, celebrate a festival in honour of the Earth at which it is unlawful to shed blood on the ground. Hence the fowls which are sacrificed on these occasions have their necks wrung, not their throats cut.[825] In killing an animal for food the Easter Islanders do not shed its blood, but stun it or suffocate it in smoke.[826] When the natives of San Cristoval, one of the Solomon Islands, sacrifice a pig to a ghost in a sacred place, they take great care that the blood shall not fall on the ground; so they place the animal in a large bowl and cut it up there.[827] It is said that in ancient India the sacrificial victims were not slaughtered but strangled.[828]
Anything on which a Maori chief's blood falls becomes sacred to him.
The general explanation of the reluctance to shed blood on the ground is probably to be found in the belief that the soul is in the blood, and that therefore any ground on which it [pg 248] may fall necessarily becomes taboo or sacred. In New Zealand anything upon which even a drop of a high chief's blood chances to fall becomes taboo or sacred to him. For instance, a party of natives having come to visit a chief in a fine new canoe, the chief got into it, but in doing so a splinter entered his foot, and the blood trickled on the canoe, which at once became sacred to him. The owner jumped out, dragged the canoe ashore opposite the chief's house, and left it there. Again, a chief in entering a missionary's house knocked his head against a beam, and the blood flowed. The natives said that in former times the house would have belonged to the chief.[829] As usually happens with taboos of universal application, the prohibition to spill the blood of a tribesman on the ground applies with peculiar stringency to chiefs and kings, and is observed in their case long after it has ceased to be observed in the case of others.
The prohibition to pass under a trellised vine is probably based on the idea that the juice of the grape is the blood or spirit of the vine. This notion is confirmed by the intoxicating or inspiring effect of wine.
We have seen that the Flamen Dialis was not allowed to walk under a trellised vine.[830] The reason for this prohibition was perhaps as follows. It has been shewn that plants are considered as animate beings which bleed when cut, the red juice which exudes from some of them being regarded as the blood of the plant.[831] The juice of the grape is therefore naturally conceived as the blood of the vine.[832] And since, as we have just seen, the soul is often believed to be in the blood, the juice of the grape is regarded as the soul, or as containing the soul, of the vine. This belief is strengthened by the intoxicating effects of wine. For, according to primitive notions, all abnormal mental states, such as intoxication or madness, are caused by the entrance of a spirit into the person; such mental states, in other words, are accounted forms of possession or inspiration. Wine, therefore, is considered on two distinct grounds as a spirit, or containing a spirit; first because, as a red juice, it is identified with the blood of the plant, and second because it intoxicates or inspires. Therefore if the Flamen Dialis had walked under a trellised vine, the spirit of the vine, embodied in the [pg 249] clusters of grapes, would have been immediately over his head and might have touched it, which for a person like him in a state of permanent taboo[833] would have been highly dangerous. This interpretation of the prohibition will be made probable if we can shew, first, that wine has been actually viewed by some peoples as blood, and intoxication as inspiration produced by drinking the blood; and, second, that it is often considered dangerous, especially for tabooed persons, to have either blood or a living person over their heads.