In the light of these passages we may recall Judg. v. 28-30, where the mother of Sisera is vividly depicted looking from the “window,” together with her “wise ladies,” in expectation of the return of her victorious son with the spoils of battle. It is not an undue stretch of the imagination to suppose that if victory instead of defeat had fallen to Sisera’s lot, we should have had a description of his mother watching the women going forth with timbrels and dances to welcome home the victorious warriors.
Taking these Old Testament passages by themselves, then, there is no reason to suppose that the custom of which they speak is anything more than a simple and natural expression of joy and in one case, at any rate, of thankfulness to Jahwe, for victory in battle, together with an appropriate tribute to the victorious leader. And the same is true in the case of other civilized peoples of antiquity. But it is unnecessary to give illustrations of this type of dance among them because this would throw no light on the original object of it. For this we must go to races in a lower stage of culture, among whom we are so often able to see the antecedents of both the nature and the purpose of customs which among civilized peoples appear in a developed form, and with a different purpose and meaning. If the consideration of a few examples of this type of dance among uncivilized peoples appears to lead us away somewhat from our main point, the digression must be excused on the ground that side-lights do inevitably, at times, cast their rays from a distance.
But before coming to these examples we should like to say a word about the “consecration” for battle, as it is conceivable that this may have had an indirect bearing on the “primitive” object of this type of dance. The Old Testament tells us, as we have seen, that warriors consecrated themselves before entering battle by assisting at a sacrifice[292]. The sacrifice was a means of propitiation which would induce the national God to look favourably upon the expedition and give His help to those who were about to take part in it. But this is a relatively advanced religious conception; there is a long history behind it, and some of the stages in that history are discernible in the preparation for battle among uncivilized races. We will give one instance, of many; more are unnecessary, for the same idea underlies them all. Schoolcraft, quoted by Frazer[293], tells us that
on extraordinary occasions the bravest warriors of the Dakotahs used to perform a dance at which they devoured the livers of dogs raw and warm in order thereby to acquire the sagacity and bravery of the dog. The animals were thrown to them alive, killed and cut open; then the livers were extracted, cut into strips and hung on a pole. Each dancer grabbed at a piece of liver with his teeth, and chewed and swallowed it as he danced; he might not touch it with his hands, only the medicine-man enjoyed that privilege. Women did not join in the dance.
To the savage this acquisition of bravery would be an appropriate preparation for battle. In the many instances of analogous rites the choice of the animal appears to depend upon some quality characteristic of it. But it is possible that there is something more behind this. In the case just cited there are two points which suggest that the choice of the dog was not solely due to its qualities of sagacity and bravery; the sacred dance performed during the eating of its liver, and the prohibition to touch it, point to something sacrosanct about the animal. Frazer points out elsewhere[294] that the custom of killing a god in animal form
belongs to a very early stage of human culture, and is apt in later times to be misunderstood. The advance of thought tends to strip the old animal and plant gods of their bestial and vegetable husk, and to leave their human attributes (which are always the kernel of the conception) as the final and sole residuum. In other words, animal and plant gods tend to become purely anthropomorphic. When they have become wholly or nearly so, the animals and plants which were at first the deities themselves, still retain a vague and ill-understood connexion with the anthropomorphic gods who have been developed out of them. The origin of the relationship between the deity and the animal or plant having been forgotten, various stories are invented to explain it. These explanations may follow one of two lines according as they are based on the habitual or on the exceptional treatment of the sacred animal or plant. The sacred animal was habitually spared, and only exceptionally slain; and accordingly the myth might be devised to explain either why it was spared or why it was killed.
The principle here laid down is only in part applicable to the case under consideration; but it suggests that the dog, which was clearly sacred to the Dakotahs, was not eaten solely on account of its qualities of sagacity and bravery; these happened to be its characteristics which were absorbed by eating it. As a sacred animal it possessed supernatural powers, exemplified especially by its characteristic qualities. In a different stage of the development of this general conception a sacred animal would be partaken of, divine power being thereby acquired, irrespective of any quality that it might possess[295].
“Holy animals,” says Robertson Smith, “and holy things generally, are primarily conceived, not as belonging to the deity, but as being themselves instinct with divine power or life. Thus a holy animal is one which has a divine life; and if it be holy to a particular god, the meaning must be that its life and his are somehow bound up together. From what is known of primitive ways of thought we may infer that this means that the sacred animal is akin to the god, for all valid and permanent relation between individuals is conceived as kinship[296].”
In a still later stage of development, with an advanced conception of deity, a sacrifice to the god would be regarded as the means of securing what was desired, e.g. in the present case, divine aid to victory, as we find in 1 Sam. xiii. 9, 10.