APPENDIX.
Itseems strange that a primitive rite like the blood-covenant, with its world-wide sweep, and its manifold applications to the history of sacrifice, should have received so little attention from students of the latter theme. Nor has it been entirely ignored by them; although its illustrations have, in this connection, been drawn almost entirely from the field of the classic writers, where its religious aspects have a minor prominence; and, as a result, the suggestion of any real importance in the religious symbolism of this rite has been, generally, brushed aside without its receiving due consideration.
Thus, in The Speaker’s Commentary,—which is one of the more recent, and more valuable, scholarly and sensible compends of sound and thorough biblical criticism,—there are references to the rite of human blood-covenanting in its possible bearing on the blood-covenanting of God with Israel before Mount Sinai,[666]after this sort: “The instances from classical antiquity, adduced, as parallels to this sacrifice of Moses, byBähr,Knobel, andKalisch, in which animals were slaughtered on the making of covenants, are either, those in which the animal was slain to signify the punishment due to the party that might break the covenant (Hom.Il., III., 298; XIX., 252; Liv.Hist., I., 24; XXI., 45); those in which confederates dipped their hands, or their weapons, in the same blood (Æsch.Sept. c. Theb., 43; Xenoph.Anab., II., 2, § 9); or those in which thecontracting parties tasted each other’s blood (Herodot. [Hist.] I., 74; IV., 74; Tac.Annal., XII., 47). All these usages are based upon ideas which are but very superficially related to the subject; they have indeed no true connection whatever with the idea of sacrifice as the seal of a covenant between God and man.”[667]
When the entire history of man’s outreaching after an inter-union of natures with his fellow-man and with his God, is fairly studied, in the light thrown on it by the teachings of the divine-human Being, who gave of his own blood for the consummation of the longed-for divine-human inter-union, it will be more clearly seen, whether it were the relation of the primitive rite itself to the idea of sacrifice, or the study of that relation, which was “very superficial,” as a cause of its popular overlooking.
The closest and most sacred form of covenant ever known in the primitive world, was that whereby two persons covenanted to become one, through being partakers of the same blood. At Sinai, when Jehovah would covenant with Israel, a common supply of substitute blood—proffered by Israel and accepted by Jehovah—was taken; and one-half of it was cast upon the altar, Godward, while the other half of it was cast Israelward, upon the people.[668]The declaration of Moses to Israel, then, was: “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you;” or, as that declaration is repeated, in Hebrews: “This is the blood of the covenant which God covenanted to you-ward.”[669]And from that time forward, the most sacred possession of Israel,—above which hovered the visible sign of the presence of Jehovah,—was the casket which contained the record of that blood-made covenant; and it was toward the mercy-seat cover of that Covenant Casket, that House of the Covenant, that the symbolic blood of atonement through new life was sprinkled, in the supreme renewals of that covenant by Israel’s representative year by year.
Even the Speaker’s Commentary says, of this mutual blood-sharing by Israel and Jehovah at Sinai: “The blood thus divided between thetwo parties to the covenant signified the sacramental union between the Lord and his people.”[670]Of the blood which was to be poured out on Calvary, Jesus said: “This is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is shed for many.”[671]And of the sacramental union which could be secured, between his trustful disciples and himself, by tasting his blood, and by being nourished on his flesh, he said: “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.”[672]It really looks as if there were more than a superficial relation between the fact of an absolute inter-union of two natures through an inter-flow of a common life, in the rite of blood-covenanting, and the sacramental union between the Lord and his people, which was typified in the blood-covenant at Sinai, and which was consummated in the blood-covenant at Calvary.
Herbert Spencer, indeed, seems to have a clearer conception than the Speaker’s Commentary, of the relation of human blood-covenanting, to the inter-union of those in the flesh, with spiritual beings. He perceives that the primitive offerings of blood over the dead, from the living person, are, in some cases, “explicable as arising from the practice of establishing a sacred bond between living persons by partaking of each other’s blood: the derived conception being, that those who give some of their blood to the ghost of a man just dead and lingering near [and of course, the principle is the same when the offering of blood is to the gods, thereby] effect with it a union, which on the one side implies submission, and on the other side friendliness.”[673]This admission by Mr. Spencer covers the essential point in the argument of this entire volume.
Among all primitive peoples, the blood has been deemed the representative of life. The giving of blood has been counted the giving oflife. The receiving of blood has been counted the receiving of life. The sharing of blood has been counted the sharing of life. Hence, the blood has always been counted the chief thing in any sacrificial victim proffered to the gods; and whatever was sought through sacrifice, was to be obtained by means of the blood of the offering. Even though no specific reference to the blood be found in the preserved descriptions of one of the earlier sacrifices,—as, for example, the Akkadian sacrifice of the first-born (page166,supra), the very fact that the offering made was of alife, and thatbloodwas recognized as life, is in itself the proof that it was the blood which gave the offering its value.
Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, who was thoroughly familiar with both Egyptian and biblical antiquities, was impressed by the “striking resemblance” of many of the religious rites of the Jews to those of Egypt, “particularly the manner in which the sacrifices were performed;”[674]and he points out the Egyptian method of so slaying the sacrificial ox, that its blood should be fully discharged from the body; a point which was deemed of such importance in the Jewish ritual.[675]Of the illustration of this ceremony given by Wilkinson from an ancient Egyptian painting,[676]the Speaker’s Commentary says: “There is no reason to doubt that this picture accurately represents the mode pursued in the court of the [Jewish] Tabernacle.”[677]
Almost as universal as the recognition of the life in the blood, has been the identification of the heart as the blood-centre and the blood-fountain, and so as the epitome of the life itself. SaysPierret,[678]the French Egyptologist, concerning the preeminence given to the heart, by the ancient Egyptians: “The heart was embalmed separately in a vase placed under the guardianship of the genius Duaoumautew [rather, Tuau-mut-ef, or, Reverencer of his Mother. ‘My heart was my mother.’ See page99,supra] without doubt because this organ,indispensable to the resurrection, could not be replaced in the body of a man, until it had been weighed in the scale of the balance of the Osirian judgment (Todtenbuch, cxxv.); where representing the acts of the dead, it ought to make equilibrium with the statue of the goddess Truth [Maat]. (See the framed papyri in the funereal hall of the Museum of the Louvre.) Indeed the favorable sentence is thus formulated: ‘It is permitted that his heart be in its place.’ It is said to Setee I., in the temple of Abydos: ‘I bring thee thy heart to thy breast; I put it in its place.’ The heart, principle of existence and of regeneration, was symbolized by the scarabæus: it is for this reason that the texts relative to the heart were inscribed upon the funereal scarabæuses, which at a certain epoch were introduced into the body of the mummy itself, to replace the absent organ.”
The idea that the heart is in itself life, and that it can even live apart from the body, is found all the world over. References to it in ancient Egypt, in India, and in primitive America, have already been pointed out (pages100-110,supra). It shows itself, likewise, in the folk-lore of the Arctic regions, and of South Africa, as well as of the Norseland. In a Samoyed tale, “seven brothers are in the habit of taking out their hearts and sleeping without them. A captive damsel, whose mother they have killed, receives the extracted hearts, and hangs them on the tent-pole, where they remain till the following morning. One night her brother contrives to get the hearts into his possession. Next morning, he takes them into the tent, where he finds the brothers at the point of death. In vain do they beg for their hearts, which he flings on the floor. ‘And as he flings down the hearts, the brothers die.’”[679]According to a Hottentot story, “the heart of a girl, whom a lion has killed and eaten, is extracted from the lion, and placed in a calabash filled with milk [the ‘heart’ and ‘milk’; or blood and bread, life and its nourishment (See pages10-12,261f.,supra)]. ‘The calabashincreased in size; and, in proportion to this, the girl grew again inside [of] it.’”[680]“In a Norse story, a giant’s heart lies in an egg, inside a duck, which swims in a well, in a church, on an island;”[681]and this story is found in variations in other lands.[682]So, again, in a “Russian story, a prince is grievously tormented by a witch who has got hold of his heart, and keeps it perpetually seething in a magic cauldron.”[683]
This same idea is found in the nomenclature of the Bible, and in the every day speech of the civilized world of the present age. In more than nine hundred instances, in our common English Bible, the Hebrew or the Greek word for “heart,” as a physical organ, is applied to man’s personality; as if it were, in a sense, synonymous with his life, his self, his soul, his nature. In every phase of man’s character, of man’s needs, or of man’s experiences, “heart” is employed by us as significant of his innermost and realest self. He is “hard-hearted,” “tender-hearted,” “warm-hearted,” “cold-hearted,” “hearty,” or “heartless.” His words and his conduct are “heart-touching,” “heart-cheering,” “heart-searching,” “heart-piercing,” “heart-thrilling,” “heart-soothing,” or “heart-rending;” and they are a cause, in others, of “heart-burning,” “heart-aching,” “heart-easing,” or “heart-expanding.” At times, his “heart is set upon” an object of longing, or again “his heart is in his mouth” because of his excited anxiety. It may be, that he shows that “his heart is in the right place,” or that “his heart is at rest” at all times. The truest union of two young lives, is where “the heart goes with the hand” in the marriage covenant.
And so, all the world over, from the beginning, primitive man, in the lowest state of savagery and in the highest stage of civilization, hasbeen accustomed to recognize the truth, and to employ the symbolisms of speech, which are in accordance with the latest advances of physiological and psychological science, and with the highest spiritual conceptions of biblical truth, in our nineteenth Christian century, concerning the mental, the moral, and the religious needs and possibilities of the human race. Man as he is needs a “new heart,” a new nature, a new life; and that need can be supplied by the Author of life, through that regeneration which is indicated, and which, in a sense, is realized in new blood which is pure at the start, and which purifies by its purging inflow. The recognition of this truth, and the outreaching of man in its direction, are at the basis of all forms of sacrifice in all the ages. And this wonderful attainment of primitive man everywhere, we are asked to accept as man’s mere natural inheritance from the sensory quiverings of his ancestral tadpole!
“The knowledge of the ancients on the subject [of blood as the synonym of life] may, indeed, have been based on the mere observation that an animal loses its life when it loses its blood,” says the Speaker’s Commentary. But it does seem a little strange, that none of the ancients ever observed that man is very liable to lose his life when he loses hisbrains, and that few animals are actively efficient for practical service without ahead; whereas both men and the lower animals do losebloodfreely without death resulting.
It is true that in many parts of the world theliverwas made prominent as seemingly a synonym of life; but this was obviously because of the popular belief that the liver was itself a mass of coagulated blood. The idea seems to have been that as the heart was the blood-fountain, the liver was the blood-cistern; and that, as the source of life (or of blood, which life is,) was at the heart; so, the great receptacle of life, or of blood, was the liver. Thus, in the classic myth of Prometheus, the avenging eagle of Jupiter is not permitted to gnaw upon the life-giving heart itself of the tortured victim, but upon the compacted body of life in the captive’s liver; the fountain of life is not tobe destroyed, but the cistern of life is to be emptied daily of all that it had received from the out-flowing heart during the preceding night. And in the symbolism of these two organs, the ancients seem to have been agreed, that “The heart is the seat of the soul [thumos (θυμός) the nobler passions]; the liver [is the seat] of desire;”[684]or, as again it is phrased, “The seat of the soul is unquestionably the heart, even as the liver is the seat of emotion.”[685]
Burton has called attention to the fact that among the Arabs, “the liver and the spleen are both supposed to be ‘congealed blood,’” and that the Bed´ween of the Hejaz justify their eating of locusts, which belong to an “unclean” class of animals, and of liver which represents forbidden blood, by this couplet:
“We are allowed two carrions, and two bloods,The fish and locust, the liver and the spleen.”[686]
“We are allowed two carrions, and two bloods,The fish and locust, the liver and the spleen.”[686]
“We are allowed two carrions, and two bloods,The fish and locust, the liver and the spleen.”[686]
“We are allowed two carrions, and two bloods,
The fish and locust, the liver and the spleen.”[686]
He has also noted that the American Indian partakes of the liver, as well as of the heart of a fallen enemy, in order to the assimilating of the enemy’s life;[687]and he finds many correspondences between the desert dwellers of America and of Arabia. “The [American] ‘brave,’” he says, “stamps a red hand upon his mouth to show that he has drunk the blood of a foe. Of the Utaybah ‘Harami,’ it is similarly related, that after mortal combat, he tastes the dead man’s gore.”[688]
Even in modern English, the word “liver” has been thought by many to represent “life” or “blood.” Thus, in one of our dictionaries we are told that the word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon and the Scandinavian verb “to live,” “because [the liver is] of so great importance tolife, or animal vitality.”[689]In another, its derivation is ascribedtolopper, andlapper, “to coagulate,” “from its resemblance to a mass of clotted blood.”[690]
Among the aborigines of America the prominence given to the blood and to the heart was as great, and as distinctly marked, as among the peoples of ancient Egypt, or any other portion of the far East. This truth has been brought out most fully by the valuable personal researches of Mr. Frank H. Cushing, of the Smithsonian Institution, into the mythology and sociology of the Zuñis of New Mexico. From his reports it would appear that, according to the priests of that people, “all true fetiches [or, material symbols of spiritual existences] are either actual petrifactions of the animals they represent, or were such originally”—according as the present form of the fetish is natural, or is mechanically fashioned. These rude stone images of the animals of prey, “which are of course mere concretions or strangely eroded rock forms,” are supposed to be the shriveled and distorted remains of beings which were long ago turned to stone. Within these fetishes theheartof the original animal still exists; (“his heart still lives, even though his person be changed to stone”;) and it needs for its sustenance the blood, or the “life fluid,” of the game which was, from the beginning, the ordinary prey of that animal. Hence each fetish is pleased to hear the prayers and to give success to the hunting of its present possessor, in order to the obtaining of the life fluid which is essential to its nourishing.
These prey fetishes of the Zuñis belong to the Prey-God Brotherhood, and when not in use they are guarded by the “Keeper of the Medicine of the Deer.” Before they are employed in a hunt, there is an assembly for their worship; and, after ceremonial prayer to them for their assistance, they are taken out for service by members of the Brotherhood to which they belong. “The fetich is then placed in a little crescent-shaped bag of buckskin which the hunter wears suspended over the left breast (or, heart) by a buckskin thong, which is tied above the rightshoulder.” When the trail of the animal hunted is discovered by the hunter, he finds a place where the animal has lain down, and there he makes an oblation by depositing his offering “in exactly the spot over which the heart of the animal is supposed to have rested.” Then he brings out his fetish and with certain ceremonies and invocations he puts it on the track of the prey.
“As soon as the animal is dead, he [the hunter] lays open its viscera, cuts through the diaphragm, and makes an incision in the aorta, or in the sac which incloses the heart. He then takes out [of its bag] the prey fetich, breathes on it, and addresses it thus: ... ‘Si! My father, this day of the blood [literally of the ‘life fluid’] of a game-being, thou shalt drink, ([shalt] water thyself). With it thou shalt enlarge (add unto) thy heart.’ He then dips the fetich into the blood which the sac still contains, continuing meanwhile the prayer, as follows: ... ‘Likewise, I, a “done” being [a living human being], with the blood [the “life-fluid,” which is] the flesh of a raw being (game animal), shall enlarge (add unto) my heart.’ Which [prayer] finished, he scoops up, with his hand, some of the blood and sips it; then tearing forth theliver, ravenously devours a part of it [as the blood-flesh, or, the blood which is the flesh], and exclaims, ‘É-lah-kwá!’ (Thanks).” After all this, he deposits a portion of the clot of blood from within the heart, commingled with various articles, in a grave digged on the spot where the animal has died; repeating, as he does this, a prayer which seems to show his belief that the slain animal still lives in this buried heart-blood. Again, when the game is at the hunter’s home, the women “lay on either side of its body, next to the heart, an ear of corn (significant of renewed life), and say prayers” over it. Finally “the fetich is returned to the Keeper of the Deer Medicine, with thanksgiving and a prayer, not unlike that uttered on taking it forth.”[691]
In these ceremonies, it is evident that the Zuñis, like the Orientals,recognize the blood as the life, the heart as the epitome of life, the liver as a congealed mass of blood, and the transference of blood as the transference of life. Moreover, there is here a trace of that idea of the revivifying, by blood-bathing, of a being that had turned into stone; which is found in the legends of Arabia, and of the Norseland (See page119f.,supra). Is there not, indeed, a reference to this world-wide figure of the living stone, in the Apostle’s suggestion, that those who were counted as worthless stones by an ignorant world are vivified by the renewing blood of Christ, and so are shown to be a holy people? “As new born babes [renewed by the blood of Christ], long for the spiritual milk [the means of sacred nourishment] which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation; if ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious [if, indeed, ye have been made alive by the touch of his blood]: unto whom coming, [unto Him who is] a Living Stone rejected indeed of men, but with God [who knows the possibilities of that Stone], precious,—ye also, as living stones [as new blood-vivified petrifactions], are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up holy sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”[692]
There is another gleam of this idea of the stones vivified by blood, in a custom reported from among the Indians of British Columbia, in a private letter written by a careful observer of Indian habits and ceremonies. When the Indian girls arrived at the years of womanhood they were accustomed, there as in many other parts of the world, to pass through a formal initiation into a new stage of existence. Going apart by themselves, at some distance from their settlements, they would lacerate their bodies, in order that blood might flow freely; and, laying a series of stones in a row, they would walk over them, allowing their blood to fall upon them. The young woman who could cover the largest number of stones with her blood, had the fairest prospect in life, in the line of a woman’s peculiar mission. This certainly would be a not unnatural thought as an outgrowth of the belief that stonesanointed with freely surrendered blood, can be made to have life in themselves.
It is much the same in war as in the hunt, among the Zuñis. “As with the hunter, so with the warrior; the fetich is fed on the life-blood of the slain.”[693]And here, again, is a link of connection between cannibalism and religious worship. Another illustration of the preeminence given to the heart, as the epitome of the very being itself, is the fact that the animals pictured on the pottery of these people, and of neighboring peoples, commonly had the rude conventional figure of a heart represented in its place on each animal; as if to show that the animal was living, and that it had a living soul.[694]
At the other side of the world, as it were, in Borneo, there is given similar preeminence, as among the Zuñis, to the blood as the life, to the liver as a representative of blood, and to the heart as the epitome of the life. “The principal sacrifice of the Sakarang Dayaks,” says Mr. St. John, “is killing a pig and examining itsheart, which is supposed to foretell events with the utmost certainty.” This custom seems to have grown out of the idea that the heart of any God devoted organism, as the embodiment of its life is closely linked with the Author of all life; who is the Disposer of all events. A human heart is naturally deemed preferable to a pig’s; but the latter is the common substitute for the former. Yet, “not many years ago,” one of the Sakarang chiefs put to death a lad “of his own race,” remarking, as he did so: “It has been our custom heretofore to examine the heart of a pig, but now we will examine a human one.”[695]The Kayans, again, examine “theheartandliver,” as preliminary to covenant-making.[696]Among the Dayaks, the blood of a fowl sacrificed by one who is supposed to be infavor with the gods, has peculiar potency when sprinkled upon “the lintels of the doors.”[697]And a house will be deserted by its Dayak inhabitants, “if a drop of blood be seen sprinkled on the floor, unless they can prove whence it came.”[698]
An incidental connection of this recognition of the blood as the life, with the primitive rite of blood covenanting, is seen in one form of the marriage rite among the Dayaks.[699]—In the rite of blood-covenanting itself, as consummated between Mr. St. John and Siñgauding, a cigarette stained with the blood of the covenanting parties was smoked by them mutually (See page51,supra). In the marriage covenant, a cigar and betel leaf prepared with the areca nut are put first into the mouth of the bride by the bridegroom, and then into the mouth of the bridegroom by the bride; while two fowls are waved over their heads by a priest, and then killed; their blood being “caught in two cups” for examination, instead of for drinking.[700]
So, whether it be the heart as the primal fountain of blood, or the liver as the great receptacle of blood, or the blood itself in its supposed outflowing from the heart through the liver, that is made prominent in the rites and teachings of primitive peoples, the root-idea is still the same,—that “as to the life of all flesh, the blood thereof is all one with the life thereof;”[701]and that as a man is in his blood, so he is in his nature; that his “good blood” or “his bad blood,” his “hot blood” or his “cold blood,” will be evidenced in his daily walk; for that which shows out in his outer life is “in the blood” which is his inner life; and that in order to a change of his nature there must in some way be a change of his blood. Hence, the universal outreaching of the race after new blood which is new life. Hence, the provisions of God for new life through that blood which is the Life.
A belief in the transmigration of souls, from man to the lower animals, andvice versâ, has been found among various peoples, in all the historic ages. The origin of this belief has been a puzzling question to rationalistic myth-students. Starting out, as do most of these students, with the rigid theory that man worked himself slowly upward from the lowest savagery, without any external revelation, they are confronted with primitive customs on every side which go to show a popular belief in soul-transmigration, and which they must try to account for within the limits of their unproven theory. The result is, that they first presuppose some conception in the primitive man’s mind of spiritual things, and then they conveniently refer all confusing facts to that presupposed conception. “Animism” is one of the pet names for this resolvent of grave difficulties. And when “Animism” is supplemented by “Fetishism,” “Zoolatry,” and “Totemism,” the requisite number of changes is secured for the meeting of any number of perplexing facts in the religious belief of primitive man everywhere.
As a matter of simple fact, man’s conception of spiritual existences is not accounted for by the “scientists.” And the claim that such a conception was innate in primitive man, or that it was a natural growth in man’s unaided progress, is at the best but an unproved theory. In the early part of this century, there were thousands of deaf-mutes in the United States, who had never been educated by the system which is now so effective for that class in the community. This gave a rare opportunity of learning the normal spiritual attainments of unsophisticated man; of man uninfluenced by external revelation or traditions. Nor was this opportunity unimproved for a good purpose. When the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet (himself a philosophical scientist) introduced the system of deaf-mute instruction into this country, he made a careful examination into the intelligence of all the deaf mutes brought underhis care, on this point of spiritual conceptions. His declaration was, that he never found a person who, prior to specific instruction, had any conception of the nature or the existence of God. A single illustration of Mr. Gallaudet’s experiences in this line will suffice for the entire series of them. A young girl of sixteen years of age, or so, who proved to be of far more than ordinary intelligence and mental capacity, had been brought up in a New England Christian home. She had been accustomed to bow her head when grace was said at the daily meals, to kneel in family prayer, and to attend church regularly, from early childhood; yet she had no idea of God, no thought of spiritual existences of any sort whatsoever, until she was instructed in those things, in the line of her new education.[702]A writer on this subject, who differed with Mr. Gallaudet in his conclusions from these facts, added: “This testimony is confirmed by that of all the teachers of the deaf and dumb, and the fact must be admitted.”[703]Until some human being can be found with a conception of spiritual existences, without his having received instruction on that point from those who went before him, the claim—in the face of such facts as these—that primitive man ever obtained his spiritual knowledge or his spiritual conceptions from within himself alone, or without an external revelation to him, is an unscientific assumption, in the investigation of the origin of religions in the world.
But, with man’s conception of spiritual things, already existing[704](however he came by it), and with the existing belief that the blood is the life, or the soul, or the nature, of an organism, the idea of the transmigration of souls as identical with the transference of blood, is a very natural corollary. The blood being the life, or the soul, of man and ofbeast, if the blood of man passes into the body of a beast, or the blood of a beast passes into the body of a man, why should it not be inferred that the soul of the man, or of the beast, transmigrated accordingly? If the Hindoo, believing that the blood of man is the soul of man, sees the blood of a man drunk up by a tiger, is it strange that he should look upon that tiger as having within him the soul of the Hindoo, which has been thus appropriated? If the South African supposes that, by his drinking the blood or eating the heart of a lion, he appropriates the lion’s courage,[705]is it to be wondered at that when he sees a lion licking the blood and eating the heart of a South African, he should infer that the lion is thereby the possessor of whatever was distinctive in the Zulu, or the Hottentot, personality?
Indeed, as has been already stated, in the body of this work, there is still a question among physiologists, how far the transference ofbloodfrom one organism to another carries a transmigration ofsoul(of thepsyche, not of thepneuma).[706]However this may be, the popular belief in such transmigration is fully accounted for, by the recognized conviction that the blood is the soul.
In this view of the case, there is an added force in the Mosaic prohibition—repeated as it is in the Apostolic Encyclical—of the eating, or drinking, of the blood of the lower animals; with the possibility of thereby being made a partaker of the lower animal nature. And what fresh potency is given to Elijah’s prophecy against Ahab and Jezebel, by this conception of the transference of nature by the transference of blood! “Thus saith the Lord [to Ahab] Hast thou killed [Hast thou taken the blood of Naboth?], and also taken possession [of Naboth’s vineyard]?... Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.... And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the ramparts of Jezreel.” The blood, the life, the soul of royalty, shall become a portion of the very life of the prowlingscavenger dogs of the royal city. And it came to pass accordingly, to both Ahab and Jezebel.[707]
Mention is made, in the text of this volume,[708]of the fact that the primitive rite of blood-covenanting is in practice all along the Chinese border of the Burman Empire. In illustration of this truth, the following description of the rite and its linkings, is given by the Rev. R. M. Luther, of Philadelphia, formerly a missionary among the Karens, in Burmah. This interesting sketch was received, in its present form, at too late a date for insertion in its place in the text; hence its appearance here.
“The blood-covenant is well known, and commonly practised among the Karens of Burmah. There are three methods of making brotherhood, or truce, between members of one tribe and those of another.
“The first is the common method of eating together. This, however, is of but little binding force, being a mere agreement to refrain from hostilities for a limited time, and the truce thus made is liable to be broken at the briefest notice.
“The second method is that of planting a tree. The parties to this covenant select a young and vigorous sapling, plant it with certain ceremonies, and covenant with each other to keep peace so long as the tree lives. A covenant thus made is regarded as of greater force than that effected or sealed by the first method.
“The third method is that of the blood-covenant, properly so-called. In this covenant the chief stands as the representative of the tribe, if it be a tribal agreement; or, the father as the representative of the family, if it be a more limited covenant. The ceremonies are public and solemn. The most important act is, of course, the mingling of the blood. Blood is drawn from the thigh of each of the covenanting parties, and mingled together. Then each dips his finger into the blood and applies it to his lips. In some cases, it is said that the blood isactually drunk; but the more common method is that of touching the lips with the blood-stained finger.[709]
“This covenant is of the utmost force. It covers not merely an agreement of peace, or truce, but also a promise of mutual assistance in peace and in war. It also conveys to the covenanting parties mutual tribal rites. If they are chiefs, the covenant embraces their entire tribes. If one is a private individual, his immediate family and direct descendants are included in the agreement.
“I never heard of the blood-covenant being broken. I do not remember to have inquired particularly on this point, because the way in which the blood-covenant was spoken of, always implied that its rupture was an unheard-of thing. It is regarded as a perfectly valid excuse for any amount of reckless devotion, or of unreasoning sacrifice on behalf of another, for a Karen to say: ‘Thui p’aw th’coh li;’ literally, ‘The blood,—we have drunk it together.’ An appeal for help on the basis of the blood-covenant is never disregarded.
“A few of our missionaries have entered into the blood-covenant with Karen tribes; though most have been deterred, either from never having visited the ‘debatable land’ where the strong arm of British rule does not reach, or else, as in most instances, from a repugnance to the act by which the covenant is sealed. In one instance, at least, where a missionary did enter into covenant with one of these tribes, the agreement has been interpreted as covering not only his children, but one who was so happy as to marry his daughter. In an enforced absence of fifteen years from the scene of his early missionary labors nothing has been at once so touching and so painful to the writer, as the frequent messages and letters asking ‘When will you come back toyour people?’ Yet, mine is only the inherited right above mentioned.
“The blood-covenant gives even a foreigner every right which he would have, if born a member of the tribe. As an instance, the writer once shot a hawk in a Karen village, just as it was swooping downupon a chicken. He was surprised to find, an half-hour afterward, that his personal attendant, a straightforward Mountain Karen, had gone through the village and ‘collected’ a fat hen from each house. When remonstrated with, the mountaineer replied, ‘Why, Teacher, it is your right,—that is our custom,—you are one of us. These people wouldn’t understand it if I did not ask for a chicken from each house, when you killed the hawk.’
“In the wilder Karen regions, it is almost impossible to travel unless one is in blood-covenant with the chiefs, while on the other hand one is perfectly safe, if in that covenant. The disregard of this fact has cost valuable lives. When a stranger enters Karen territory, the chiefs order the paths closed. This is done by tying the long elephant grass across the paths. On reaching such a signal, the usual inquiry in the traveling party is, ‘Who is in blood-covenant with this tribe?’ If one is found, even among the lowest servants, his covenant covers the party, on the way, as far as to the principal village or hill fortress. The party goes into camp, and sends this man on as an ambassador. Usually, guides are sent back to conduct the party at once to the chief’s house. If no one is in covenant with the tribe, and the wisp of grass is broken and the party passes on, the lives of the trespassers are forfeited. A sudden attack in some defile, or a night surprise, scatters the party and drives the survivors back the way they came. It is said by the Karens that Mr. Cooper, the famous English explorer of China and Thibet, was killed ‘because he had broken the grass.’ A day’s delay for the blood-covenant would have saved his life, and given him time to complete his most important labors. The men who killed him would have been his devoted body-guard, ready and willing to give their lives in defence of his. If the Karen account of his death is true, it is most unfortunate that he entered the Karen country from China (where the blood-covenant does not now prevail), and so was ignorant of the fact that by so slight a concession to Karen custom he could obtain a guarantee of safe conduct for at least a thousand miles.”
Another account of the blood-covenant rite in Burmah is kindly furnished to me, by the Rev. Dr. M. H. Bixby, of Providence, Rhode Island; who was also for some years a missionary among the Karens. He says:
“In my first journey over the mountains of Burmah, into Shanland, toward Western China, I passed through several tribes of wild Karens among whom the practice of ‘covenanting by blood’ prevailed.
“‘If you mean what you say,’ said the old chief of the Gecho tribe to me, referring to my professions of friendship, ‘You will drink truth with me.’ ‘Well, what is drinking truth?’ I said. In reply, he said: ‘This is our custom. Each chief pierces his arm—draws blood—mingles it in a vessel with whisky, and drinks of it; both promising to be true and faithful to each other, down to the seventh generation.’
“After the chiefs had drunk of the mingled blood and whisky, each one of their followers drunk of it also, and were thereby included in the covenant of friendship.
“A company of Shans laid a plot to kill me and my company in Shanland, for the purpose of plunder. They entered into covenant with each other by drinking the blood of their leader mingled with whisky, or a kind of beer made from rice.
“Those wild mountain tribes have strange traditions which indicate that they once had the Old Testament Scriptures, although now they have no written language. Some of the Karen tribes have a written language, given them by the missionaries.
“The covenant, also, exists in modified forms, in which the blood is omitted.”
In various parts of the East, atreeis given prominence in the rite of blood-covenanting. In Burmah, as above shown, one mode of covenanting is by the mutual planting of a tree.[710]In Timor, a newly plantedfig-tree is made to bear a portion of the blood of the covenant, and to remain as a witness to the sacred rite itself.[711]In one portion of Central Africa, a forked palm branch is held by the two parties, at their entering into blood-friendship;[712]and, in another region, the ashes of a burned tree and the blood of the covenanting brothers are brought into combination, in the use of a knotted palm branch which the brothers together hold.[713]And, again, in Canaan, in the days of Abraham, the planting of a tree was an element in covenant making; as shown in the narrative of the covenant which Abraham cut with Abimelech, at Beer-sheba.[714]
It may, indeed, be fair to suppose that the trees at Hebron, which marked the dwelling-place of Abraham were covenant-trees, witnessing the covenant between Abraham and the three Amorite chiefs; and that therefore they have prominence in the sacred story. “Now he [Abram] dwelt by [or, in: Hebrew,beëlonay(בְּאֵלֹנֵי)] the [four] oaks [or, terebinths], of Mamre, the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner; and these [three it was who] were confederate [literally, were masters of the covenant] with [the fourth one] Abram.”[715]This rendering certainly gives a reason for the prominent mention of the trees at Hebron, in conjunction with Abram’s covenant with Amorite chieftains; and it accords with Oriental customs of former days, and until to-day. So, also, it would seem that the tree which witnessed[716]the confirmation, or the recognition, of the covenant between another Abimelech, and the men of Shechem and the men of Beth-millo, by the pillar (the symbol of Baal-bereeth)[717]in Shechem,[718]was a covenant-tree, after the Oriental custom in sacred covenanting.
There is apparently a trace of the blood-covenanting and tree-planting rite of primitive times, in the blood-stained “Fiery Cross” of theScottish Highlands, with its correspondent Arabian symbol of tribal covenant-duties in the hour of battle.Von Wrede, describing his travels in the south-eastern part of Arabia, tells of the use of this symbol as he saw it employed, as preliminary to a tribal warfare. A war-council had decided on conflict. Then, “the fire which had burned in the midst of the circle was newly kindled with a great heap of wood, and the up-leaping flames were greeted with loud rejoicing. The green branch of a nŭbk tree [sometimes called the ‘lote-tree,’ and again known as the ‘dôm,’ although it is not the dôm palm][719]was then brought, and also a sheep, whose feet were at once tied by the oldest shaykh. After these preparations, the latter seized the branch, spoke a prayer over it, and committed it to the flames. As soon as every trace of green had disappeared, he snatched it from the fire, again said a short prayer, and cut with hisjembeeyeh[his short sword] the throat of the sheep, with whose blood the yet burning branch was quenched. He then tore a number of little twigs from the burnt branch, and gave them to as many Bed´ween, who hastened off with them in various directions. The black bloody branch was then planted in the earth.... The little twigs, which the shaykh cut off and gave to the Bed´ween, serve as alarm signals, with which the messengers hasten from valley to valley, calling the sons of the tribe to the impending war [by this blood-stained symbol of the sacred covenant which binds them in brotherhood]. None dare remain behind, without loss of honor, when the chosen [covenant] sign appears at his encampment, and the voice of its bearer calls to the war.... At the conclusion of the war [thus inaugurated], the shaykhs of the propitiated tribe return the branches to the fire, and let them burn to ashes.”[720]
How strikingly this parallels the use and the symbolism of the Fiery Cross, in the Scottish Highlands, as portrayed in The Lady of the Lake. Sir Roderick Dhu would summon Clan Alpine against the King.