Henry M. Stanley, who was sent to rescue Livingstone, gives many interesting accounts of his experience with the blood-covenanters. In 1871, Stanley encountered the forces of Mirambo, the greatest of African warriors. They agreed to make “strong friendship” with each other. The ceremony is thus described:
“Manwa Sera, Stanley's ‘chief captain,' was requested to seal our friendship by performing the ceremony of blood-brotherhood between Mirambo and myself. Having caused us to sit fronting each other on a straw carpet, he made an incision in each of our right legs, from which he extracted blood, and, interchanging it, he exclaimed aloud, 'If either of you break this brotherhood now established between you, may the lion devour him, the serpent poison him, bitterness be in his food, his friends desert him, his gun burst in his hands and wound him, and everything that is bad do wrong to him until death.'” The same blood now flowed in the veins of both Stanley and Mirambo. They were friends and brothers in a sacred covenant—life for life. At the conclusion of the covenant they exchanged gifts, as the customary ratification or accompaniment of the compact. They even vied with each other in proofs of their unselfish fidelity in this new covenant of friendship.
Again and again, before and after this incident, Stanley entered into the covenant of blood-brotherhood with representative Africans more than fifty times, in some instances by the opening of his own veins; at other times by allowing one of his personal escort to bleed for him.
Thus we see that in ancient and modern times, among all people and in all portions of the earth, this idea of blood-friendship prevailed. In the primitive East, in the wild West, in the cold North, and in the torrid South this rite shows itself. “It will be observed,” says Dr. Trumbull, “that we have already noted proofs of the independent existence of this rite of blood-brotherhood or blood-friendship among the three great primitive divisions of the race—the Semitic, the Hamitic, and the Japhetic; and this in Asia, Africa, Europe, America, and the islands of the sea; again, among the five modern and more popular divisions of the human family—Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, Malay, and American. This fact in itself would seem to point to a common origin of its various manifestations in the early Oriental home of the now scattered peoples of the world.
“The Egyptian amulet of blood-friendship was red, as representing the blood of the gods. The Egyptian word for 'red' sometimes stood for 'blood.' The sacred directions in the Book of the Dead were written in red; hence follows our word ‘rubric,' The Rabbis say that when persecution forbade the wearing of the phylacteries with safety, a red thread might be substituted for this token of the covenant with the Lord. It was a red thread which Joshua gave to Rahab as a token of her covenant relations with the people of the Lord. The red thread in China to-day binds the double cup from which the bride and bridegroom drink their covenant draught of ‘wedding wine,' as if in symbolism of the covenant of blood. And it is a red thread which in India to-day is used to bind a sacred amulet around the arm or the neck. Among the American Indians scarlet, or red, is the color which stands for sacrifices or for sacrificial blood in all their picture-painting; and the shrine, or tunkan, which continues to have its devotees, 'is painted red, as a sign of active or living worship.' The same is true of the shrines in India; the color red shows that worship is still living there; red continues to stand for blood.”
When a Jewish child is circumcised, it is commonly said of him that he is caused “to enter into the covenant of Abraham and his godfather or sponsor is called Baal-beerith, master of the covenant.” Moreover, even down to modern times the rite of circumcision has included a recognition, however unconscious, of the primitive blood-friendship rite, by the custom of the a rabbi, God’s representative, receiving into his mouth the prepuce or foreskin that is cut from the boy, and thereby made a partaker of the blood mingled with the wine according to the method described among the Orientals, in the rite of blood-friendship, from the earliest days of history. We make this statement on the testimony of Buxtorf, who is a recognized authority in matters of Jewish customs, though he gives it in Latin, with a view of limiting a knowledge of the facts.
All that we have stated concerning the blood-covenant brings us nearer and nearer to the disgusting and beastly habit of cannibalism. Dr. Trumbull says: “It would even seem to be indicated, by all the trend of historic facts, that cannibalism—gross, repulsive, inhuman cannibalism—had its basis in man’s perversion of this outreaching of his nature (whether that outreach-ing were first directed by revelation or by divinely-given innate promptings) after inter-union and intercommunion with God, after life in God’s life, and after growth through the partaking of God’s food or of that food which represents God. The studies of many observers in widely-different fields have led both the rationalistic and the faith-filled student to conclude that in their sphere of observation it was a religious sentiment, and not a mere animal craving—either through a scarcity of food or from a spirit of malignity—that was at the bottom of cannibalistic practices there, even if that field were an exception to the world’s fields generally. And now we have a glimpse of the nature and workings of that religious sentiment which prompted cannibalism wherever it has been practised. In misdirected pursuance of this thought men have given the blood of a consecrated human victim to bring themselves into union with God; and then they have eaten the flesh of that victim which had supplied the blood which made them one with God. This seems to be the basis of fact in the premises, whatever may be the understood philosophy of the facts. Why men reasoned thus may indeed be in question. That they reasoned thus seems evident. Certain it is, that where cannibalism has been studied in modern times it has commonly been found to have had originally a religious basis; and the inference is a fair one that it must have been the same wherever cannibalism existed in earlier times. Even in some regions where cannibalism has long since been prohibited there are traditions and traces of its former existence as a purely religious rite. Thus, in India little images of flour paste or clay are now made for decapitation or other mutilation in the temples, in avowed imitation of human beings who were once offered and eaten there.”
Réville, treating of the native religions of Mexico and Peru, comes to a similar conclusion with Dorman, and he argues that the state of things which was there was the same the world over, so for as it related to cannibalism. “Cannibalism,” he says, “which is now restricted to a few of the savage tribes who have remained closest to the animal life, was once universal to our race. For no one would ever have conceived the idea of offering to the gods a kind of food which excited nothing but disgust and horror.” In this suggestion Réville indicates his conviction that the primal idea of an altar was a table of blood-bought communion.
There is something that looks very much like cannibalism in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel. The Jews murmured that Jesus spoke of himself as the bread which came down from heaven, and inquired, “How can this man give us of his flesh to eat? Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers did eat, and died; he that eateth this bread shall live for ever. These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.”
This was spoken nearly two years before he is said to have instituted the memorial Supper, and has always been a mystery to commentators, though they allege that the whole mystery is explained in John 6: 63: