Chapter XIV: Appendix (2)

In every case, it is the _blood_ that seals the mutual covenant, and the “cutting of the covenant” is that cutting which secures the covenanting, or the inter-uniting, blood. The cutting may be in the flesh of the covenanting parties; or, again it may be in the flesh of the substitute victim which is sacrificed.

BLOOD-BATHING.

In the Midrash Rabboth (_Shemoth_, Beth, 92, col. 2.) there is this comment by the Rabbis, on Exodus 2 : 23: “‘And the king of Egypt died.’ He was smitten with leprosy.... ‘And the children of Israel sighed.’ Wherefore did they sigh? Because the magicians of Egypt said: ‘There is no healing for thee save by the slaying of the little children of the Israelites. Slay them in the morning, and slay them in the evening; and bathe in their blood twice a day.’ As soon as the children of Israel heard the cruel decree, they poured forth great sighings and wailings.” That comment gives a new point, in the rabbinical mind, to the first plague, whereby the waters of the Nile, in which royalty bathed (Exod. 2 : 5), were turned into blood, because of the bondage of the children of Israel.

A survival of the blood-baths of ancient Egypt, as a means of re-vivifying the death-smitten, would seem to exist in the medical practices of the Bechuana tribes of Africa; as so many of the customs of ancient Egypt still survive among the African races (See page 15, _supra_). Thus, Moffat reports (_Missionary Labours_, p. 277) a method employed by native physicians, of killing a goat “over the sick person, allowing the blood to run down the body.”

BLOOD-RANSOMING.

Among other Bible indications that the custom of balancing, or canceling, a blood account by a payment in money, was well known in ancient Palestine, appears the record of David’s conference with the Gibeonites, concerning their claim for blood against the house of Saul, in 2 Samuel 21 : 1-9. When it was found that the famine in Israel was because of Saul’s having taken blood--or life--unjustly from the Gibeonites, David essayed to balance that unsettled account. “And the Gibeonites said unto him, It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel;” which was equivalent to saying: “Money for blood we will not take. Blood for blood we have no power to obtain.” Then said David, “What ye shall say, that will I do for you.” At this, the Gibeonites demanded, and obtained, the lives of the seven sons of Saul. The blood account must be balanced. In this case, as by the Mosaic law, it could only be by life for life.

In some parts of Arabia, if a Muhammadan slays a person of another religion, the relatives of the latter are not allowed to insist on blood for blood, but must accept an equivalent in money. The claim for the spilled blood is recognized, but a Muhammadan’s blood is too precious for its payment. (See Wellsted’s _Travels in Arabia_, I., 19.)

It is much the same in the far West as in the far East, as to this canceling of a blood-debt by blood or by other gifts. Parkman (_Jesuits in No. Am._, pp. lxi.-lxiii.; 354-360) says of the custom among the Hurons and the Iroquois, that in case of bloodshed the chief effort of all concerned was to effect a settlement by contributions to the amount of the regular tariff rates of a human life.

Another indication that the mission of the goel was to cancel the loss of a life rather than to avenge it, is found in the primitive customs of the New World. “Even in so rude a tribe as the Brazilian Topanazes,” the Farrer (citing Eschwege, in _Prim. Man. and Cust._, p. 164), “a murderer of a fellow tribesman would be conducted by his relations to those of the deceased, to be by them forthwith strangled and buried [with his forfeited blood in him], in satisfaction of their rights; the two families eating together for several days after the event as though for the purpose of [or, as in evidence of] reconciliation,”--not of satisfied revenge.

Yet more convincing than all, in the line of such proofs that it is restitution, and not vengeance, that is sought by the pursuit of blood in the mission of the goel, is the fact that in various countries, when a man has died a natural death, it is the custom to seek blood, or life, from those immediately about him; as if to restore, or to equalize, the family loss. Thus, in New South Wales, “when any one of the tribe dies a natural death, it is usual to avenge [not to avenge, but to meet] the loss of the deceased by taking blood from one or other of his friends,” and it is said that death sometimes results from this endeavor (Angas’s _Sav. Life_, II., 227). In this fact, there is added light on the almost universal custom of blood-giving to, or over, the dead. (See, _e. g._ Ellis’s _Land of Fetish_, pp. 59, 64; Stanley’s _The Congo_, II., 180-182; Angas’s _Sav. Life_, I., 98, 331; II., 84, 89 f.; Ellis’s _Polyn. Res._, I., 527-529; Dodge’s _Our Wild Indians_, p. 172 f.; _First An. Rep. of Bureau of Ethn._, pp. 109, 112, 159 f., 164, 183, 190.)

THE COVENANT-REMINDER.

It has already been shown, that the blood-stained record of the covenant of blood, shielded in a leathern case, is proudly worn as an armlet or as a necklace, by the Oriental who has been fortunate enough to become a sharer in such a covenant; and that there is reason for believing that there are traces of this custom, in the necklaces, the armlets, the rings, and the frontlets, which have been worn as the tokens of a sacred covenant, in well-nigh all lands, from the earliest days of Chaldea and Egypt down to the present time. There is a confirmation of this idea in the primitive customs of the North American Indians, which ought not to be overlooked.

The distinctive method by which these Indians were accustomed to confirm and signalize a formal covenant, or a treaty, was the exchange of belts of wampum; and that these wampum belts were not merely conventional gifts, but were actual records, tokens, and reminders, of the covenant itself, there is abundant evidence. In a careful paper on the “Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans,” in one of the reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, of the Smithsonian Institution, the writer[731] says: “One of the most remarkable customs practiced by the Americans is found in the mnemonic use of wampum.... It does not seem probable ... that a custom so unique and so widespread could have grown up within the historic period, nor is it probable that a practice foreign to the genius of tradition-loving races could have become so well established and so dear to their hearts in a few generations.... The mnemonic use of wampum is one, which, I imagine, might readily develop from the practice of gift giving and the exchange of tokens of friendship, such mementoes being preserved for future reference as reminders of promises of assistance or protection.... The wampum records of the Iroquois [and the same is found to be true in many other tribes] were generally in the form of belts [as an encircling and binding token of a covenant], the beads being strung or woven into patterns formed by the use of different colors.” Illustrations, by the score, of this mnemonic use of the covenant-confirming belts, or “necklaces,”[732] as they are sometimes called, are given, or are referred to, in this interesting article.

In the narrative of a council held by the “Five Nations,” at Onondaga, nearly two hundred years ago, a Seneca sachem is said to have presented a proposed treaty between the Wagunhas and the Senecas, with the words: “We come to join the two bodies into one”; and he evidenced his good faith in this endeavor, by the presentation of the mnemonic belts of wampum. “The belts were accepted by the Five Nations, and their acceptance was a ratification of the treaty.”[733] Lafitau, writing of the Canadian Indians, in the early years of the eighteenth century, says: “They do not believe that any transaction can be concluded without these belts;” and he mentions, that according to Indian custom these belts were to be exchanged in covenant making; “that is to say, for one belt [received] one must give another [belt].”[734] And a historian of the Moravian Missions says: “Everything of moment transacted at solemn councils, either between the Indians themselves, or with Europeans, is ratified and made valid by strings and belts of wampum.”[735] “The strings,” according to Lafitau, “are used for affairs of little consequence, or as a preparation for other more considerable presents”; but the binding “belts” were as the bond of the covenant itself.

These covenant belts often bore, interwoven with different colored wampum beads, symbolic figures, such as two hands clasped in friendship, or two figures with hands joined. As the belts commonly signalized tribal covenants, they were not worn by a single individual; but were sacredly guarded in some tribal depository; yet their form and their designation indicate the origin of their idea.

There is still preserved, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the wampum belt which is supposed to have sealed the treaty of peace and friendship between William Penn and the Indians. It contains two figures, wrought in dark colored beads, representing “an Indian grasping with the hand of friendship the hand of a man evidently intended to be represented in the European costume, wearing a hat.”[736]

Still more explicit in its symbolism, is the royal belt of the primitive kings of Tahiti. Throughout Polynesia, red feathers, which had been inclosed in a hollow image of a god, were considered not only as emblematic of the deities, but as actually representing them in their personality (Ellis’s _Polyn. Res._, I., 79, 211, 314, 316; II., 204; _Tour thro’ Hawaii_, p. 121). “The inauguration ceremony [of the Tahitian king], answering to coronation among other nations, consisted in girding the king with the _maro ura_, or sacred girdle of red feathers; which not only raised him to the highest earthly station, but _identified him with their gods_ [as by oneness of blood]. The _maro_, or girdle, was made with the beaten fibres of the ava; with these a number of _ura_, red feathers, taken from the images of their deities [where they had, seemingly, represented the blood, or the life, of the image], were interwoven; ... the feathers [as the blood] being supposed to retain all the dreadful attributes of vengeance which the idols possessed, and with which it was designed to endow the king.” In lieu of the king’s own blood, in this symbolic ceremony of inter-union, a human victim was sacrificed, for the “fastening on of the sacred maro.” “Sometimes a human victim was offered for every fresh piece added to the girdle [blood for blood, between the king and the god]; ... and the girdle was considered as consecrated by the blood of those victims.” The chief priest of the god Oro formally invested the king with this “sacred girdle, which, the [blood-representing] feathers from the idol being interwoven in it, was supposed to impart to the king a power equal to that possessed by Oro.” After this, the king was supposed to be a sharer of the divine nature of Oro, with whom he had entered into a covenant of blood-union (Ellis’s _Polyn. Res._, II., 354-360).

Thus it seems that a band, as a bond, of a sacred covenant is treasured reverently in the New World; as a similar token, of one kind, or another, was treasured, for the same reason, in the Old World. Yet, in the face of such facts as these, one of the notable rationalistic theological writers on Old Testament manners and customs, in the latest edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, coolly ascribes the idea of the Jewish phylacteries to the superstitious idea of a pagan “amulet.” He might indeed, with good reason, have ascribed the idea of the pagan amulet itself to a perversion of that common primitive idea of the binding bond of a sacred covenant, which shows itself in the blood-friendship record of Syria, in the red covenant-cord of China and India, in the divine-human covenant token of ancient Egypt, in the red-feather belt of divine-royal union, in the Pacific Islands, in the wampum belt of America, and in the evolved wedding-covenant ring, or amulet, of a large portion of the civilized world. But that would hardly have been in accordance with the fashionable method of the modern rationalistic theologian; which is, to fix on some later heathenish perversion of a primitive sacred rite, and then to ascribe the origin of all the normal uses of that primitive rite, to its own later perversions.

Yet another indication that the binding circlet of the covenant-token stands, among primitive peoples, as also among cultivated ones, as the representative, or proof, of this very covenant itself, is found in a method of divorce prevailing among the Balau Dayaks, of Borneo. It has already been shown (page 73, _supra_) that a ring of blood is a binding symbol in the marriage covenant in some parts of Borneo. It seems, also, that when a divorce has been agreed on by a Balau couple, “it is necessary for the offended husband to send a ring to his wife, before the marriage can be considered as finally dissolved; without which, should they marry again, they would be liable to be punished for infidelity.”[737] This practice seems to have grown out of the old custom already referred to (page 73 f.), of the bride giving to the bridegroom a blood-representing ring in the marriage cup. Until that symbolic ring is returned to her by the bridegroom, it remains as the proof of her covenant with him.

This connection of the encircling ring with the heart’s blood, is of very ancient origin, and of general, if not of universal, application. Wilkinson (_Anc. Egypt._, III., 420) cites Macrobius as saying, that “those Egyptian priests who were called prophets, when engaged in the temple near the altars of the gods, moistened [anointed] the ring-finger of the left hand (which was that next to the smallest) with various sweet ointments, in the belief that a certain nerve communicated with it from the heart.” He also says, that among the Egyptian women, many finger rings were worn, and that “the left was considered the hand peculiarly privileged to wear these ornaments; and it is remarkable that its third finger [next to the little finger] was considered by them, as by us, _par excellence_ the ring finger; though there is no evidence [to his knowledge] of its having been so honored at the marriage ceremony.” Birch adds (_Ibid._, II., 340), that “it is very difficult to distinguish between the ring worn for mere ornament, and the signet [standing for the wearer’s very life] employed to seal [and to sign] epistles and other things.” The evidence is, in fact, ample, that the ring, in ancient Egypt, as elsewhere, was not a mere ornament, nor yet a superstitious amulet, but represented one’s heart, or one’s life, as a symbol and pledge of personal fidelity.

In South Australia, the rite of circumcision is one of the steps by which a lad enters into the sphere of manhood. This involves his covenanting with his new god-father, and with his new fellows in the sphere of his entering. In this ceremony, the very ring of flesh itself is placed “on the third finger of the boy’s left hand” (Angas’s _Sav. Life_, I., 99). What stronger proof than this could be given, that the finger-ring is a vestige of the primitive blood-covenant token?

An instance of the use of a large ring, or bracelet, encircling the two hands of persons joining in the marriage covenant, is reported to me from the North of Ireland, in the present century. It was in the county Donegal. The Roman Catholic priest was a French exile. In marrying the people of the poorer class, who could not afford to purchase a ring, he “would take the large ring from his old-fashioned double-cased watch, and hold it on the hands, or the thumbs, of the contracting parties, while he blessed their union.”

Yet another illustration of the universal symbolism of the ring, as a token of sacred covenant, is its common use as a pledge of friendship, even unto death. The ring given by Queen Elizabeth to the unfortunate Earl of Essex, is an instance in point. Had that covenant-token reached her, her covenant promises would have been redeemed.

There is an old Scottish ballad, “Hynd Horn,”--perhaps having a common origin with the Bohemian lay on which Scott based The Noble Moringer,[738]--which brings out the idea of a covenant-ring having the power to indicate to its wearer the fidelity of its giver; corresponding with the popular belief to that effect, suggested by Bacon.[739] Hynd Horn has won the heart of the king’s daughter, and the king sends him over the sea, as a means of breaking up the match. As he sets out Hynd Horn carries with him a symbol of his lady-love’s troth.

“O his love gave him a gay gold ring,
With a hey lillelu, and a how lo lan;
With three shining diamonds set therein,
And the birk and the broom blooms bonnie.

“As long as these diamonds keep their hue,
With a hey lillelu, and a how lo lan,
Ye’ll know that I’m a lover true,
And the birk and the broom blooms bonnie.

“But when your ring turns pale and wan,
With a hey lillelu, and a how lo lan,
Then I’m in love with another man,
And the birk and the broom blooms bonnie.”[740]

Seven years went by, and then the ring-gems grew “pale and wan.” Hynd Horn hastened back, entered the wedding-hall disguised as a beggar, sent the covenant-ring to the bride in a glass of wine; and the sequel was the same as in The Noble Moringer.

At a Brahman wedding, in India, described by Miss H. G. Brittan (in “The Missionary Link,” for October, 1864; cited in _Women of the Orient_, pp. 176-179) a silver dish, filled with water, (probably with water colored with saffron, or with turmeric, according to the common custom in India,) “also containing a very handsome ruby ring, and a thin iron bracelet,” was set before the father of the bride, during the marriage ceremony. At the covenanting of the young couple, “the ring was given to the groom; the bracelet to the bride; then some of the [blood-colored?] water was sprinkled on them (See page 194, _supra_), and some flowers [were] thrown at them.” Here seem to be combined, the symbolisms of the ring, the bracelet, and the blood, in a sacred covenanting.

HINTS OF BLOOD-UNION.

From the very fact that so little attention has been given to the primitive rite of blood-covenanting, in the studies of modern scholars, there is reason for supposing that the rite itself has very often been unnoticed by travelers and missionaries in regions where it was practiced almost under their eyes. Indeed, there is proof of this to be obtained, by comparing the facts recorded in this volume with the writings of visitors to the lands here reported from. Hence, it is fair to infer, that more or less of the brotherhoods or friendships noted among primitive peoples, without any description of the methods of their consummating, are either directly based on the rite of blood-covenanting, or are outgrowths and variations of that rite; as, for example, in Borneo, blood-tasting is sometimes deemed essential to the rite, and again it is omitted. It may be well, therefore, to look at some of the hints of blood-union among primitive peoples, in relationships and in customs where not all the facts and processes involved, are known to us.

Peculiarly is it true, that wherever we find the idea of an absolute merging of two natures into one, or of an inter-union or an inter-changing of two personalities in loving relation, there is reason for suspecting a connection with the primitive rite of inter-union through a common blood flow. And there are illustrations of this idea in the Old World and in the New, all along the ages.

It has already been mentioned (page 109, _supra_) that, in India, the possibility of an inter-union of two natures, and of their inter-merging into one, is recognized in the statement that “the heart of Vishnu is Sivâ, and the heart of Sivâ is Vishnu”; and it is a well-known philosophical fact that man must have an actual basis of human experience for the symbolic language with which he illustrates the nature and characteristics of Deity.

In the most ancient portion of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead,[741] there is a description of the inter-union of Osiris and Rā, not unlike that above quoted concerning Sivâ and Vishnoo. It says, that “Osiris came to Tattu (Mendes) and found the soul of Rā there; each embraced the other, and become as one soul in two souls”[742]--as one life in two lives; or, as it would be phrased concerning two human beings united in blood-friendship, “one soul in two bodies”; a common life in two personalities. Again it is said in an Egyptian sacred text, “Rā is the soul of Osiris, and Osiris is the soul of Rā.”[743]

An exchange of names, as if in exchange of personalities, in connection with a covenant of friendship, is a custom in widely diverse countries; and this custom seems to have grown out of the idea of an inter-union of natures by an inter-union of blood; even if it be not actually an accompaniment of that rite in every instance. It is common in the Society Islands,[744] as an element in the adoption of a “tayo,” or a personal friend and companion (See page 56, _supra_). It is to be found in various South Sea islands, and on the American continent.

Among the Araucanians, of South America, the custom of making brothers, or brother-friends, is called _Lacu_. It includes the killing of a lamb and dividing it--“cutting” it--between the two covenanting parties; and each party must eat his half of the lamb--either by himself or by such assistance as he chooses to call in. None of it must be left uneaten. Gifts also pass between the parties; and the two friends exchange names. “The giving [the exchanging] of a name [with this people] establishes between the namesakes a species of relationship which is considered almost as sacred as that of blood, and obliges them to render to each other certain services, and that consideration which naturally belongs to relatives.”[745]

It is related of Tolo, a chief of the Shastika Indians, on the Pacific coast, that when he made a treaty with Col. McKee, an American soldier, in 1852, for the cession of certain tribal rights, he was anxious for some ceremony of brotherhood, that should give binding sacredness to the mutual covenant. After some parleying, he proposed the formal exchange of names, and this was agreed to. Thenceforward he desired to be known as “McKee.” The American colonel was now “Tolo.” But after a while the Indian found that, as in too many other instances, the terms of the treaty were not adhered to by the authorities making it. Then he discarded his new name, “McKee,” and refused to resume his former name, “Tolo.” He would not answer to either, and to the day of his death he insisted that his name, his identity, was “lost.”[746]--There is a profound sentiment underneath such a course, and such a custom, as that.

So fully is the identity of one’s name and one’s life recognized by primitive peoples, that to call on the name of a dead person is generally supposed to summon the spirit of that person to the caller’s service. Hence, among the American Indians, if one calls the dead by name, he must answer to the dead man’s goel. He must surrender his own blood, or pay blood-money, in restitution of the life--of the dead--taken by him. (_First An. Rep. of Bureau of Ethnol._, p. 200.)

Even Herbert Spencer sees the correspondence of the blood-covenant and the exchange of names. He says: “By absorbing each other’s blood, men are supposed to establish actual community of nature. Similarly with the ceremony of exchanging names.... This, which is a widely-diffused practice, arises from the belief that the name is vitally connected with its owner.... To exchange names, therefore, is to establish some participation in one another’s being.”[747] Hence, as we may suppose, came the well-nigh universal Oriental practice of inter-weaving the name of one’s Deity with one’s name, as a symbolic evidence of one’s covenant-union with the Deity. The blood-covenant, or the blood-union, idea is at the bottom of this.

Another custom, having a peculiar bearing upon this thought of a new name, or a new identity, through new blood, is the rite of initiation into manhood, by the native Australians. During childhood the Australian boys are under the care of their mothers, and they bear names which designate the place and circumstances of their birth. But when the time comes for them to put away childish things,[748] they are subjected to a series of severe and painful tests, to prove their powers of physical and mental endurance, preparatory to their reception of a new name, as indicative of a new life. A rite resembling circumcision is one step in their progress. During these ceremonies, there is selected for each lad a sponsor (or godfather) who is a representative of that higher life into which the lad seeks an entrance. One of the latest steps in the long series of ceremonies, is the choosing and conferring, by the sponsor, of the lad’s new name, which he is to retain thenceforward during his life. With a stone-knife, the sponsor opens a vein in his own arm, and causes the lad to drink his warm-flowing blood. After this, the lad drops forward on his hands and knees, and the sponsor’s blood is permitted to form a pool on his back, and to coagulate there. Then the sponsor cuts, with his stone-knife, broad gashes in the lad’s back, and pulls open the gaping wounds with the fingers. The scars of these gashes remain as permanent signs of the covenant ceremony.[749] And encircling tokens of the covenant[750] are bound around the neck, each arm, and the waist, of the young man; who is now reckoned a new creature[751] in the life represented by that godfather, who has given him his new name, and has imparted to him of his blood.[752]

That the transfusion of blood in this ceremony is the making of a covenant between the youth and his sponsor, and not the giving him blood in vivification, is indicated in another form of the same rite of manhood-initiation, as practised in New South Wales. There, the youth is seated upon the shoulders of his sponsor; while one of his teeth is knocked out. The blood that flows from the boy’s lacerated gum in this ceremony is not wiped away, but is suffered to run down upon his breast, and thence upon the head of his sponsor, whose name he takes. This blood, which secures, by its absorption, a common life between the two, who have now a common name, is permitted to dry upon the head of the man and upon the breast of the boy, and to remain there untouched for several days.

In this New South Wales ceremonial, there is another feature, which seems to suggest that remarkable connection of life with a stone, which has been already referred to (page 307, _supra_); and yet again to suggest the giving of a new name as the token of a new life. A white stone, or a quartz crystal, called _mundie_, is given to each novitiate in manhood, at the time he receives his new name. This stone is counted a gift from deity, and is held peculiarly sacred. A test of the young man’s moral stamina is made by the old men’s trying, by all sorts of persuasion, to induce him to surrender this possession, when first he has received it. This accompaniment of a new name “is worn concealed in the hair, tied up in a packet, and is never shown to the women, who are forbidden to look at it under pain of death.” The youths receiving and retaining these white stones, with their new names, are termed “_Kebarrah_, from _keba_, a rock, or stone.” (Angas’s _Savage Life_, II., 221.) That the idea of a sacred covenant, a covenant of brotherhood and friendship, is underneath these ceremonies, is indicated by the fact, that when the rites of Kebarrah are celebrated, even “hostile tribes meet in peace; all animosity between them being laid aside during the performance of these ceremonies.” “To him that overcometh, [saith the Spirit,] ... I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it” (Rev. 2 : 17). The Rabbis recommend the giving secretly of a new name, as a means of new life, to him who is in danger of dying. (See _Seph. Hakhkhay._, p. 37 f. and note.)

Again, in a form of marriage ceremony in Tahiti, there is a hint of this universal idea of inter-union by blood. An observer of this ceremony, in describing it says: “The female relatives cut their faces and brows[753] with the instrument set with shark’s teeth,[754] received the flowing blood on a piece of native cloth, and deposited the cloth, sprinkled with the mingled blood of _the mothers_ of the married pair, at the feet of the bride. By the latter parts of the ceremony, any inferiority of rank that might have existed was removed, and they were [now] considered as equal. The two families, also, to which they respectively belonged, were ever afterwards regarded as one [through this new blood-union].”[755] Had these mothers mingled and interchanged their own blood before the births of their children, the children--as children of a common blood--would have been debarred from marriage; but now that the two children were covenanting to be one, their mothers might interchange their blood, that the young couple might have an absolute equality of family nature.

There are frequent references by travelers to the rite of brotherhood, or of close friendship, in one part of the world or another, with or without a description of its methods. Thus of one of the tribes in Central Africa it is said: “The Wanyamuezi have a way of making brotherhood, similar to that which has already been described, except that instead of drinking each other’s blood, the newly made brothers mix it [their blood] with butter on a leaf, and exchange leaves. The butter is then rubbed into the incisions, so that it acts as a healing ointment at the same time that blood is exchanged.[756] The ceremony is concluded by tearing the leaves to pieces and showering the fragments on the heads of the brothers.”[757] The Australians, again, are said to have “the custom of making ‘_Kotaiga_,’ or brotherhood, with strangers. When Europeans visit their districts, and behave as they ought to do, the natives generally unite themselves in bonds of fellowship with the strangers; each selecting one of them as his Kotaiga. The new relations are then considered as having mutual responsibilities, each being bound to forward the welfare of the other.”[758] Once more, in Feejee, two warriors sometimes bind themselves to each other by a formal ceremony, and although its details are not described, a missionary writer says of it: “The manner in which they do this is singular, and wears the appearance of a marriage contract; and the two men entering into it are spoken of as man and wife, to indicate the closeness of their military union. By this mutual bond, the two men pledge themselves to oneness of purpose and effort, to stand by each other in every danger, defending each other to the death, and if needful to die together.”[759]

With the American Indians, there are various traces of the blood-brotherhood idea. Says Captain Clark, in his work on the Indian Sign Language: “Among many tribes there are brothers by adoption, and the tie seems to be held about as sacredly as though created by nature.”[760] Stephen Powell, writing of the Pacific Coast Indians, gives this tie of brotherhood-adoption yet more prominence, than does Clark. He says: “There is an interesting institution found among the Wyandots, as among some other of our North American tribes, namely, that of fellowship. Two young men agree to be perpetual friends to each other, or _more than brothers_. Each reveals to the other the secrets of his life, and counsels with him on matters of importance, and defends him from wrong and violence, and at his death is chief mourner.”[761] This certainly suggests the relation of blood-brotherhood; whether blood be intermingled in the consummation of the rite, or not.

Colonel Dodge tells of a ceremony of Indian-brotherhood, which includes a bloody rite, worthy of notice in this connection. He says: “A strong flavor of religious superstition attaches to a scalp, and many solemn contracts and binding obligations can only be made over or by means of a scalp;” for is it not the representative of a life? In illustration of this, he gives an incident which followed an Indian battle, in which the Pawnees had borne a part with the whites against the Northern Cheyennes. Colonel Dodge was sitting in his tent, when “the acting head-chief of the Pawnees stalked in gravely, and without a word.” The Colonel continues: “We had long been friends, and had on several occasions been in tight places together. He sat down on the side of my bed, looked at me kindly, but solemnly, and began in a low tone to mutter in his own language, half chant, half recitative. Knowing that he was making ‘medicine’ [that he was engaged in a religious exercise] of some kind, I looked on without comment. After some moments, he stood erect, and stretched out his hand to me. I gave him my hand. He pulled me into a standing position, embraced me, passed his hands lightly over my head, face, arms, body, and legs to my feet, muttering all the while; embraced me again, then turned his back upon me, and with his face toward heaven, appeared to make adoration. He then turned to embrace and manipulate me again. After some five minutes of this performance, he drew from his wallet a package, and unrolling it, disclosed a freshly taken [and therefore still bloody] scalp of an Indian. Touching me with this [blood-vehicle] in various places and ways, he finally drew out his knife, [and ‘cutting the covenant’ in this way, he] divided the scalp carefully along the part [the seam] of the hair, and handing me one half, embraced me again, kissing me on the forehead. ‘Now,’ said he in English, ‘you are my brother.’ He subsequently informed me that this ceremony could not have been performed without this scalp.”[762]

Here seems to be an illustration of cutting the covenant of blood-brotherhood, by sharing the life of a substitute human victim. It is much the same in the wild West as in the primitive East.

So simple a matter as the clasping of hands in token of covenant fidelity, is explicable, in its universality, only as a vestige of the primitive custom of joining pierced hands in the covenant of blood-friendship. Hand-clasping is not, by any means, a universal, nor is it even the commonest, mode of friendly and fraternal salutation among primitive peoples. Prostrations, embracings, kissings, nose-rubbings, slappings of one’s own body, jumpings up and down, the snappings of one’s fingers, the blowing of one’s breath, and even the rolling upon one’s back, are all among the many methods of primitive man’s salutations and obeisances (See, e. g., Spencer’s _Principles of Sociology_, II., 16-19). But, even where hand clasping is unknown in salutation, it is recognized as a symbol of the closest friendship. Thus, for example, among tribes of North American Indians where nose-rubbing is the mode of salutation, there is, in their widely diffused sign language, the sign of clasped, or inter-locked, hands, as indicative of friendship and union. (_First An. Rep. of Bureau of Ethnol._, pp. 385 f., 521, 534 f.) So again, similarly, in Australia (_Ibid._, citation from Smith’s _Aborigines of Victoria_, II., 308). In the Society Islands, the clasping of hands marks the marriage union, and marks a loving union between two brothers in arms; although it has no place in ordinary greetings (Ellis’s _Polyn. Res._, II., 11, 492, 569). And so, again, in other primitive lands.

There seems, indeed, to be a gleam of this thought in Job 17 : 3:

“Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thyself;
Who is there that will strike hands with me?”

The Hebrew word _taq’a_[763] (תָּקַע) here translated “strike,” has also the meaning “to pierce” (Judg. 4 : 21) and “to blow through,” or “to drive through” (Num. 10 : 3); and Job’s question might be freely rendered; Who is there that will pierce [or that will clasp pierced] hands with me, in blood-friendship? Thus, suretyship grew out of blood-covenanting.

Again, in Zechariah 13 : 6, where the prophet foretells the moral reformation of Judah, there is a seeming reference to the pierced hands of blood-friendship. When one is suspected of being a professional prophet, by certain marks of cuttings between his hands, he declares that these are marks of his blood-covenant with his friends. “And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds [these cuttings] between thine hands? Then he shall answer, [They are] these [cuttings] with which I was wounded [or stricken, or pierced] in the house of my friends [in the covenant of friendship].” If, indeed, the translation of the Revisers, “between thine arms,” were justified, the cuttings would still seem to be the cuttings of the blood-covenant (See pages 13, 45, _supra_).

It is a noteworthy fact, that among the Jews in Tunis, near the old Phœnician settlement of Carthage, the sign of a bleeding hand is still an honored and a sacred symbol, as if in recognition of the covenant-bond of their brotherhood and friendship. “What struck me most in all the houses,” says a traveler (Chevalier de Hesse-Wartegg) among these Jews, “was the impression of an open bleeding hand, on every wall of each floor. However white the walls, this repulsive [yet suggestive] sign was to be seen everywhere.”

How many times, in the New Testament epistles, does the idea show itself, of an inter-union of lives, between Christ and his disciples, and between these disciples and each other. “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another” (Rom. 12 : 5). “We are members of his body” (Eph. 5 : 30). “We are members one of another” (Eph. 4 : 25). “Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ?” (1 Cor. 6 : 15). “Ye are the body of Christ, and severally [are] members thereof” (1 Cor. 12 : 27).

It is in this truth of truths, concerning the possibility of an inter-union of the human life with the divine, through a common inter-bloodflow, that there is found a satisfying of the noblest heart yearnings of primitive man everywhere, and of the uttermost spiritual longings of the most advanced Christian believer, in the highest grade of intellectual and moral enlightenment. No attainment of evolution, or of development, has brought man’s latest soul-cry beyond the intimations of his earliest soul-outreaching.

“Take, dearest Lord, this crushed and bleeding heart,
And lay it in thine hand, thy piercèd hand;
That thine atoning blood may mix with mine,
_Till I and my Beloved are all one_.”

FOOTNOTES:

[666] See pages 238-240, _supra_.

[667] _Speaker’s Comm._, at Exod. 24 : 8.

[668] Exod. 24 : 3-8.

[669] Heb. 9 : 20.

[670] _Speaker’s Com._, at Exod. 24 : 8.

[671] Mark 14 : 24.

[672] John 6 : 53, 54.

[673] _Principles of Sociology_, II., § 364.

[674] _Anc. Egypt._, III., 411.

[675] See pages 245 f., _supra_.

[676] _Anc. Egypt._, II., 32.

[677] Note on Lev. chap. 17.

[678] _Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Égyptienne_, s. v. “Cœur.”

[679] In substance from Castren’s _Ethnologische Vorlesungen über die Altaischen Völker_, p. 174, as cited in Ralston’s _Russian Folk Tales_, p. 122.

[680] From Bleek’s _Reynard the Fox in South Africa_, p. 55; as cited _Ibid._, p. 123, note.

[681] From _Asbjornsen and Moe_, No. 36, Dasent, No. 9, p. 71, as cited _Ibid._, p. 120.

[682] See references to Köhler’s _Orient und Occident_, II., 99-103, _Ibid._, p. 123, note.

[683] From Khudyakof, No. 110, as cited _Ibid._, p. 124.

[684] Timæus of Locri, cited in Liddell and Scott’s _Greek Eng. Lex._, s. v., “Hepar.” See also page 108 f., _supra_.

[685] Pollux’s _Onomasticon_, II., 4, 226.

[686] _Pilgrim. to Mec. and Med._, p. 376.

[687] See page 128, _supra_.

[688] _Pilgrim. to Mec. and Med._, p. 378. See also page 129 f., _supra_.

[689] Richardson’s _Eng. Dict._, s. v., “Liver.”

[690] Annandale’s Ogilvie’s _Imperial Dict._, s. v., “Liver.”

[691] See Cushing’s paper on “Zuñi Fetiches,” in _Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. 3-43.

[692] 1 Peter 2 : 2-5.

[693] Cushing’s “Zuñi Fetiches,” p. 43.

[694] See “Illustrated Catalogue of Collections from Indians of New Mexico and Arizona,” 1879, in _Second Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology_, Figures 361-387; 421-430.

[695] St. John’s _Life in Far East_, I., 74 f.

[696] _Ibid._, I., 115 f.

[697] St. John’s _Life in Far East_, I., 160.

[698] _Ibid._, I., 187.

[699] This is a different form from that reported at page 192 f., _supra_.

[700] St. John’s _Life in Far East_, I., 61.

[701] Lev. 17 : 14.

[702] As to this specific instance, I can bear personal testimony, from my frequent communications on the subject, with the person whose experience is here recited.

[703] _Am. Annals of Deaf and Dumb_, Vol. VI., p. 134.

[704] Paul’s claim, in Romans 1 : 18-23, is not that man knows God intuitively; but that, having the knowledge of God, which he does have by tradition, man ought not to liken God to “four-footed beasts and creeping things.”

[705] See page 136, _supra_.

[706] See page 133 f., _supra_.

[707] 1 Kings 21 : 17-23; 22 : 35-38; 2 Kings 9 : 30-37.

[708] At page 44, _supra_.

[709] See page 154, _supra_.

[710] See page 313, _supra_.

[711] See page 53, _supra_.

[712] See page 35, _supra_.

[713] See page 37, _supra_.

[714] Gen. 21 : 33.

[715] See Gen. 13 : 18; 14 : 13; 18 : 1.

[716] The covenant was “with” [Hebrew, עִם _’im_, not “with” as an instrument, but “with” as in the presence of, as accompanied by] the tree at Shechem.

[717] See page 218, _supra_, note.

[718] Judges 9 : 1-6.

[719] Robinson’s _Biblical Researches_, II., 210 f., note.

[720] Von Wrede’s _Reise in Hadhramaut_, p. 197 f.

[721] See reference (in footnote 585 at page 268 f. _supra_) to the custom in Sumatra, of taking an oath over the “grave of the original patriarch of the Passumah.”

[722] _Lady of the Lake_, Canto III.

[723] _Ibid._, note.

[724] See pages 13, 86 f., _supra_.

[725] Athenæus’s _Deipnosophistæ_, II., 24 (45).

[726] St. John’s _Life in Far East_, Comp. I., 38, 46, 56, 74-76, 115, 117, 185.

[727] A trace of the burnt branch of the covenant-tree.

[728] See page 270, _supra_.

[729] See page 270, _supra_.

[730] See pages 9, 154, _supra_.

[731] W. H. Holmes, in _Second Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnol._, pp. 240-254.

[732] W. H. Holmes, in _Second Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnol._, p. 243.

[733] _Events in Indian History_, p. 143: cited _Ibid._, p. 242 f.

[734] _Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriq._, tom. II., pp. 502-507; cited _Ibid._, p. 243 ff.

[735] Loskiel’s _Missions of the United Brethren_, Trans. by La Trobe, Bk. I., p. 26; cited in _Ibid._, p. 245 f.

[736] _Ibid._, p. 253 f.

[737] St. John’s _Life in the Far East_, I., 67.

[738] See page 73, _supra_.

[739] See page 75, _supra_.

[740] Allingham’s _Ballad Book_, p. 6 f.

[741] _Todtenbuch_, xvii., 42, 43.

[742] Renouf’s _The Relig. of Anc. Egypt_, p. 107.

[743] Renouf’s _The Relig. of Anc. Egypt_, p. 107.

[744] _Miss. Voyage to So. Pacif. Ocean_, p. 65.

[745] See E. R. Smith’s _The Araucanians_, p. 262.

[746] Power’s “Tribes of California,” in _Contrib. to No. Am. Ethnol._, III., 247.

[747] _Principles of Sociology_, II., 21.

[748] 1 Cor. 13 : 11.

[749] See note at page 218, _supra_.

[750] See pages 65-77, _supra_.

[751] 2 Cor. 5 : 17; Eph. 4 : 24; Col. 3 : 9, 10.

[752] Angas’s _Savage Life_, I., 114-116.

[753] See references to drawing blood from the forehead, at page 86 ff., _supra_.

[754] See pages 85-88, _supra_.

[755] Ellis’s _Polynesian Researches_, II., 569 f.

[756] See Prov. 27 : 9.

[757] Cited from Capt. Grant’s description; in Wood’s _Unciv. Races_, I., 440.

[758] _Ibid._, II., 81.

[759] Williams and Calvert’s _Fiji and Fijians_, p. 35.

[760] _Indian Sign Language_, s. v. “Brother.”

[761] _Contributions to No. Am. Ethnology_, Vol. III., p. 68.

[762] Dodge’s _Our Wild Indians_, page 514 f.

[763] Is there any correspondence between this word, _taq’a_, and the Hindoo word _tika_ (the blood-mark on the Rajput chief), referred to at page 137, _supra_?

INDEXES.

TOPICAL INDEX.

Abel, his blood-giving, 210 ff.

Abimelech, his covenant:
with Abraham, 265;
with Isaac, 267 f.

Abraham:
The friend of God, 215-221;
his blood-giving, 217-221;
his faith-testing, 224-230;
his covenant with Abimelech, 265 f.

Adoption, blood used in, 195 f.

Ahab’s fate, significance of, 312.

Altar, a table of communion, 167, 292 f.

Amulet:
house of the, 7, 65, 298;
of the covenant, 81 f., 83, 232-238.
See Phylactery: Token of covenant.

Anointing with blood:
in Central America, 90 f.;
in Arabia, 120;
in the Arthurian romance, 120 f.;
among the Bheels, 136 f.;
among the Caribs, 137 f.;
among the Central Africans, 138;
among the Chinese, 154;
among the North American Indians, 306 f.;
among the Australians, 336 f.

Antiquity of the blood-covenant, 6, 58 ff., 77 ff., 206, 320.

Ark, the, covering record of blood covenant, 298.
See Amulet, house of the.

Assiratum, its meaning, 63 ff.

Avenger of blood. See Goel.

Baal-bereeth:
god-father in circumcision, 218;
god of the covenant, 218, 317.

Banquet, connection of, with sacrifice:
in China, 148 ff.;
in India, 159 ff.;
in Babylonia and Assyria, 167;
among the Bed´ween, 179 f.;
among American Indians, 179 f.

Bed´ween Brotherhoods, 9 f.
See also Blood-covenant.

Belt:
royal, of Tahiti, 328;
wampum of American Indian, a covenant record, 326 ff.

Blood:
thicker than milk, 10;
not eaten. See Prohibition of blood.
Vivifying power of, 110 ff.;
belongs to God, 204;
symbolism of, in universal speech, 309 f.;
life-giving, in:
Mexican legend, 111 f.;
Egyptian legend, 111 f.;
Chaldean legend, 112;
Phœnician legend, 112;
Greek legend, 112;
modern science, 115 f.;
sacredness of, in:
Egypt, 99 ff.;
America, 105 ff.;
India, 109, 158 ff.;
China, 109.
See Offerings of blood.

Blood-baths:
in Egypt, 116 f., 324;
in mediæval Europe, 117 ff.;
in Scandinavia, 121 f.;
in India, 122 f.;
in Bechuana-land, 324.

Blood-covenant:
defined, 4 f.;
a primitive rite, 4, 6, 8;
its sacredness, 6 f.;
influence of, 15;
refused, 21;
recognized, 26 f.;
in Syria, 5 ff.;
in Africa, 12-38;
in Europe, 39-43;
in China, 43 f.;
in Burmah, 44, 313 f.;
in Madagascar, 44 f., 44-49;
in Borneo, 49-52;
in Timor, 53 f.;
in Yucatan, 54 f.;
in Brazil, 55;
in Scythia, 58 f., 61 f.;
in South America, 334;
in Egypt, 77-84;
traces of, in China, 153;
full symbolism of, 202 f.;
Noah’s, 213;
at Sinai, 238-240, 298;
importance commonly undervalued, 297;
a safeguard in Burmah, 315.

Blood-lickers, 11, 59.
See Drinking of Blood.

Blood-money:
in the East, 260 ff.;
refused by Gibeonites, 324 f.;
accepted:
by Arabs, 325;
by North American Indians, 325.
See Goel.

Blood-sucking, 8, 30, 43, 92, 114 f.
See Drinking of blood.

Blood-transference. See Blood-covenant; Transfusion of blood.

Book of the Dead, 78-83.

Bracelet, as symbol, 65-76.

Bread:
of Rā, 173;
covenant of, 293, 313.

Breaking the grass, 315.

Brébeuf, heart of, 127.

Brotherhoods, blood. See Blood-covenant.

Bruce, heart of, 107 f.

Burial in brotherhood, 41.

Cain, his blood withholding, 210 ff.

Cameron, Commander, making blood-friendship, 15 ff.

Cannibalism:
religious origin of, 183 f., 184;
in India, 185 f.;
in Feejee, 187;
in North America, 187 f., 308;
in Central and South America, 180 f.;
in Europe, 189 f.

Caste-distinctions lost in communion, 161 ff.

Cataline’s blood-covenant, 60 f.
(See stamp on outside cover)

Christ, his blood, fulfillment of human desire, 271-286.

Christians, charges of cannabalism against, 321.

Circumcision, a mode of blood-covenanting, 215-223, 237;
its modern methods, 218 f.

Clasped hands: a relic of the covenant, 328, 340.
See Hands.

Classics, references to blood-covenant in, 58-65, 267, 297, 312.

Communion:
through blood, 147 ff.;
in China, 148 ff.;
in Assyria, 168 f.;
divine-human, in Egypt, 172.
See Altar; Banquet; Union.
In Christ, foretold, 275-278;
instituted, 280-284;
realized, 285 f.

Covenant, between those of different religions, 7.
See Blood-covenant.

Covenant of Bread, its symbolism, 293, 313.

Cry of blood from the ground, 212.

Cutting covenant:
meaning of term, 267 f., 322;
between Jacob and Laban, 269;
in one’s own body, 322;
in substitute victim, 322;
both methods in Borneo.

Cuttings in flesh, 218;
in friendship, in Zechariah, 341.

David and Jonathan, covenanting, 269 ff.

Dead, blood-covenant with, 299.

Discerning the communion-body, 172.

Drinking of blood:
in North America, 127;
in Syria, 6;
in Central Africa, 13, 28 ff.;
in Europe, 41, 60 f.;
in Madagascar, 44, 48;
in Borneo, 49 f., 52;
in Timor, 53;
in Scythia, 59, 62, 126;
in Egypt, 83;
in India, 92 f.;
in China, 123 f.;
in France, 124;
in Italy, 124 f.;
in language of Fellaheen, 130;
among the Germans, 320;
in Persia, 321;
in Australia, 336;
charge of, against Jews, 179, 321;
charge of, against Christians, 321.

Drinking the covenant: 9, 17 f., 60, 191 f.;
in Borneo, 102;
in Feejee, 193;
in China, 196;
in Central America, 197;
in Europe, 198 ff.

Eating together, in covenant, 268 f.

Exchange:
of gifts, 14, 16, 20 f., 22, 25 f., 27 f., 32;
of garments, 14, 270;
of arms, 270.

Evolution, or deterioration, 4.

Feathers, red, their significance, 328 f.
See Red, as a symbol.

Feeding on the god: 176 f.
See Communion; Union.

Fiery cross:
its significance in Arabia, 317 f.;
in Scotland, 319 ff.

Fire, a gift of the gods, 174.

Firstborn, blood of the, 156.

---- sacrifice of:
in China, 150 f.;
in pre-Semitic times, 166.

Food restrictions removed in communion:
in India, 161 ff.;
in Assyria, 168.

Friend, closer than brother, 7 f., 10.

Friendship, blood. See Blood-covenant.

Girdle. See Belts.

Ghouls seeking life in blood, 114 f.

Giving blood:
in proof of love, 85-92;
in worship, 89-93, 96.

_Goel_, pursuer, not avenger, of blood, 259-263;
in Brazil, 325;
in Australia, 325 f.

Golden legend, Blood transference in, 118 ff.

Hand, bleeding, in Tunis, 342.

Hands:
joined in blood, 12, 41 f., 235 f.;
clasped, token of, 328, 340 ff.

Healths, drinking of, relic of blood-drinking, 201 f.

Heart:
sacredness of, in Egypt, 99 ff., 300 ff.;
as life, outside of the body, 103 ff., 301 f.;
sacredness of, in Greece and Rome, 108 f.;
epitome of man, 107;
the symbol of personality, 204;
new, is new life, 303;
the seat of the soul, 304;
living, in petrifactions, 305;
source of life, 99 ff.;
of strength, 135;
of manhood, 135;
of courage, 136.

Heart-eating:
among American Indians, 128;
in British Guiana, 128;
in Australia, 129;
in Africa, 129;
in Borneo, 129.

Heathen communions and the Christian sacrament, 177.

Human sacrifices. See Sacrifices, human.

Idols, anointed with blood, 176 f., 306 f.

Illustrations of blood-covenant, in Bible, 264-271.

Imprecatory oaths, 6, 9, 16, 20, 31, 45 ff., 51, 53, 60 f., 62.

Imputation, doctrine of, 221.

Incest, in marriage of blood-friends, 10, 55 f.

Influence of blood-covenant, 15, 48.

Inspiration through blood:
in Homer, 113 ff.;
in Norseland legends, 119 f.;
on Pacific coast, 140 f.;
in India, 141 f.

Isaac:
his blood proffered, 225-230;
his covenant with Abimelech, 267 f.

Isis, blood of, 81 f., 233.

Jacob, his covenant with Laban, 268 f.

Jagan-natha, communion of, 163 f.

Jews, charged with human sacrifices, 178 f., 321.

Jezebel’s fate, significance of, 312 f.

Jonathan and David, covenanting, 269 ff.

Kali, human sacrifices to, 158 f.

_Khatan_, one bound through bleeding, 222 f.

Krishna, communion of, 163 f.

Leprosy:
blood baths, for cure of, in Syria, 116;
in Egypt, 117, 324;
in mediæval Europe, 117.

Life: blood is, 38, 57, 79 ff., 88 f., 99, 211-215, 241-263,
299 ff., 306.

---- from divine blood:
in Egypt, 111 f.;
in Mexico, 111 f.;
in Chaldea, 112;
in Phœnicia, 112;
in Greece, 112.

Life-transference in blood-transference, 126 ff.
See Soul transference; Transfusion of blood.

Liver:
a symbol of life, 303 f.;
proposed derivations of the word, 304 f.;
symbolism of:
as a blood-cistern, 303 f.;
as seat of emotion, 304;
as congealed blood, 304 f.;
eaten, like the heart, 306.

Livingstone, Dr., making blood-friendship, 13 ff.

Mandrakes, symbolism of, 111.