“A heap of withered boughs was piled,Of juniper and rowan wild,Mingled with shivers from the oak,Rent by the lightning’s recent stroke.Brian the Hermit by it stood,Barefooted, in his frock and coat.. . . . . . . . . . .’Twas all prepared;—and from the rockA goat, the patriarch of the flock,Before the kindling fire was laid,And pierced by Roderick’s ready blade.Patient the sickening victim eyedThe life-blood ebb in crimson tideDown his clogged beard and shaggy limb,Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,A slender crosslet framed with care,A cubit’s length in measure due;The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach waveTheir shadows o’er Clan Alpine’s grave.”
“A heap of withered boughs was piled,Of juniper and rowan wild,Mingled with shivers from the oak,Rent by the lightning’s recent stroke.Brian the Hermit by it stood,Barefooted, in his frock and coat.. . . . . . . . . . .’Twas all prepared;—and from the rockA goat, the patriarch of the flock,Before the kindling fire was laid,And pierced by Roderick’s ready blade.Patient the sickening victim eyedThe life-blood ebb in crimson tideDown his clogged beard and shaggy limb,Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,A slender crosslet framed with care,A cubit’s length in measure due;The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach waveTheir shadows o’er Clan Alpine’s grave.”
“A heap of withered boughs was piled,Of juniper and rowan wild,Mingled with shivers from the oak,Rent by the lightning’s recent stroke.Brian the Hermit by it stood,Barefooted, in his frock and coat.. . . . . . . . . . .’Twas all prepared;—and from the rockA goat, the patriarch of the flock,Before the kindling fire was laid,And pierced by Roderick’s ready blade.Patient the sickening victim eyedThe life-blood ebb in crimson tideDown his clogged beard and shaggy limb,Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,A slender crosslet framed with care,A cubit’s length in measure due;The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach waveTheir shadows o’er Clan Alpine’s grave.”
“A heap of withered boughs was piled,
Of juniper and rowan wild,
Mingled with shivers from the oak,
Rent by the lightning’s recent stroke.
Brian the Hermit by it stood,
Barefooted, in his frock and coat.
. . . . . . . . . . .
’Twas all prepared;—and from the rock
A goat, the patriarch of the flock,
Before the kindling fire was laid,
And pierced by Roderick’s ready blade.
Patient the sickening victim eyed
The life-blood ebb in crimson tide
Down his clogged beard and shaggy limb,
Till darkness glazed his eyeballs dim.
The grisly priest, with murmuring prayer,
A slender crosslet framed with care,
A cubit’s length in measure due;
The shaft and limbs were rods of yew,
Whose parents in Inch-Cailliach wave
Their shadows o’er Clan Alpine’s grave.”
Lifting up this fragment of the tree from the grave of the patriarch of the Clan,[721]the old priest sounded anathemas against those who should be untrue to their covenant obligations as clansmen, when they recognized this symbol of their common brotherhood.
“Burst with loud roar their answer hoarse,‘Woe to the traitor, woe!’Ben-an’s gray scalps the accents knew,The joyous wolf from covert drew,The exulting eagle screamed afar,—They knew the voice of Alpine’s war.“The shout was hushed on lake and fell,The monk resumed his muttered spell:Dismal and low its accents came,The while he scathed the cross with flame.. . . . . . . . . . . . .The crosslet’s points of sparkling woodHe quenched among the bubbling blood,And, as again the sign he reared,Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:‘When flits this cross from man to man,Vich-Alpine’s summons to his clan,Burst be the ear that fails to heed!Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!. . . . . . . . . . . . .Then Roderick with impatient lookFrom Brian’s hand the symbol took:‘Speed, Malise, speed!’ he said, and gaveThe crosslet to his henchman brave.‘The muster-place be Lanrick mead—Instant the time—Speed, Malise, speed!’”[722]
“Burst with loud roar their answer hoarse,‘Woe to the traitor, woe!’Ben-an’s gray scalps the accents knew,The joyous wolf from covert drew,The exulting eagle screamed afar,—They knew the voice of Alpine’s war.“The shout was hushed on lake and fell,The monk resumed his muttered spell:Dismal and low its accents came,The while he scathed the cross with flame.. . . . . . . . . . . . .The crosslet’s points of sparkling woodHe quenched among the bubbling blood,And, as again the sign he reared,Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:‘When flits this cross from man to man,Vich-Alpine’s summons to his clan,Burst be the ear that fails to heed!Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!. . . . . . . . . . . . .Then Roderick with impatient lookFrom Brian’s hand the symbol took:‘Speed, Malise, speed!’ he said, and gaveThe crosslet to his henchman brave.‘The muster-place be Lanrick mead—Instant the time—Speed, Malise, speed!’”[722]
“Burst with loud roar their answer hoarse,‘Woe to the traitor, woe!’Ben-an’s gray scalps the accents knew,The joyous wolf from covert drew,The exulting eagle screamed afar,—They knew the voice of Alpine’s war.
“Burst with loud roar their answer hoarse,
‘Woe to the traitor, woe!’
Ben-an’s gray scalps the accents knew,
The joyous wolf from covert drew,
The exulting eagle screamed afar,—
They knew the voice of Alpine’s war.
“The shout was hushed on lake and fell,The monk resumed his muttered spell:Dismal and low its accents came,The while he scathed the cross with flame.. . . . . . . . . . . . .The crosslet’s points of sparkling woodHe quenched among the bubbling blood,And, as again the sign he reared,Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:‘When flits this cross from man to man,Vich-Alpine’s summons to his clan,Burst be the ear that fails to heed!Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!. . . . . . . . . . . . .Then Roderick with impatient lookFrom Brian’s hand the symbol took:‘Speed, Malise, speed!’ he said, and gaveThe crosslet to his henchman brave.‘The muster-place be Lanrick mead—Instant the time—Speed, Malise, speed!’”[722]
“The shout was hushed on lake and fell,
The monk resumed his muttered spell:
Dismal and low its accents came,
The while he scathed the cross with flame.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The crosslet’s points of sparkling wood
He quenched among the bubbling blood,
And, as again the sign he reared,
Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:
‘When flits this cross from man to man,
Vich-Alpine’s summons to his clan,
Burst be the ear that fails to heed!
Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Then Roderick with impatient look
From Brian’s hand the symbol took:
‘Speed, Malise, speed!’ he said, and gave
The crosslet to his henchman brave.
‘The muster-place be Lanrick mead—
Instant the time—Speed, Malise, speed!’”[722]
“At sight of the Fiery Cross,” says Scott, “every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous.... During the civil war of 1745-6, the Fiery Cross often made its circuit; and upon one occasion it passed through the whole district of Breadalbane, a tract of thirty-two miles, in three hours.”[723]
Another item of evidence that the blood-covenant in its primitive form was a well-known rite in primitive Europe, is a citation by Athenæus from Poseidonios to this effect: “Concerning the Germans, Poseidonios says, that they, embracing each other in their banquets, open the veins upon their foreheads,[724]and mixing the flowing blood with their drink, they present it to each other; esteeming it the farthest attainment of friendship, to taste each other’s blood.”[725]As Poseidonios was earlier than our Christian era, this testimony shows that the custom with our ancestors was in no sense an outgrowth, nor yet a perversion, of Christian practices.
In Moore’s Lalla Rookh, the young maiden, Zelica, being induced by Mokanna, the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, to accompany him to the charnel-house, pledged herself to him, body and soul, in a draught of blood.
“There in that awful place, when each had quaffedAnd pledged in silence such a fearful draught,Such—oh! the look and taste of that red bowlWill haunt her till she dies—he bound her soulBy a dark oath, in hell’s own language fram’d.”
“There in that awful place, when each had quaffedAnd pledged in silence such a fearful draught,Such—oh! the look and taste of that red bowlWill haunt her till she dies—he bound her soulBy a dark oath, in hell’s own language fram’d.”
“There in that awful place, when each had quaffedAnd pledged in silence such a fearful draught,Such—oh! the look and taste of that red bowlWill haunt her till she dies—he bound her soulBy a dark oath, in hell’s own language fram’d.”
“There in that awful place, when each had quaffed
And pledged in silence such a fearful draught,
Such—oh! the look and taste of that red bowl
Will haunt her till she dies—he bound her soul
By a dark oath, in hell’s own language fram’d.”
It was after this, that he reminded her of the binding force of this blood-covenant:
“That cup—thou shudderest, Lady—was it sweet?That cup we pledg’d, the charnel’s choicest wine,Hath bound thee—aye—body and soul all mine.”
“That cup—thou shudderest, Lady—was it sweet?That cup we pledg’d, the charnel’s choicest wine,Hath bound thee—aye—body and soul all mine.”
“That cup—thou shudderest, Lady—was it sweet?That cup we pledg’d, the charnel’s choicest wine,Hath bound thee—aye—body and soul all mine.”
“That cup—thou shudderest, Lady—was it sweet?
That cup we pledg’d, the charnel’s choicest wine,
Hath bound thee—aye—body and soul all mine.”
And her bitter memory of that covenant-scene, in the presence of the “bloodless ghosts,” was:
“The dead stood round us, while I spoke that vow,Their blue lips echo’d it. I hear them now!Their eyes glared on me, while I pledged that bowl,’Twas burning blood—I feel it in my soul!”
“The dead stood round us, while I spoke that vow,Their blue lips echo’d it. I hear them now!Their eyes glared on me, while I pledged that bowl,’Twas burning blood—I feel it in my soul!”
“The dead stood round us, while I spoke that vow,Their blue lips echo’d it. I hear them now!Their eyes glared on me, while I pledged that bowl,’Twas burning blood—I feel it in my soul!”
“The dead stood round us, while I spoke that vow,
Their blue lips echo’d it. I hear them now!
Their eyes glared on me, while I pledged that bowl,
’Twas burning blood—I feel it in my soul!”
Although this is Western poetry, it had a basis of careful Oriental study in its preparation; and the blood-draught of the covenant is known to Persian story and tradition.
One of the indications of the world-wide belief in the custom of covenanting, and again of life seeking, by blood-drinking, is the fact that both Jews and Christians have often been falsely charged with drinking the blood of little children, at their religious feasts. This was one of the frequent accusations against the early Christians (See Justin Martyr’sApol., I., 26; Tertullian’sApol., VIII., IX.) And it has been repeated against the Jews, from the days of Apion down to the present decade. Such a baseless charge could not have gained credence, but for the traditional understanding that men were wont to pledge each other to a close covenant by mutual blood-drinking.
It is worthy of note that when the Lord enters into covenant with Abraham by means of a prescribed sacrifice (Gen. 15 : 7-18), it is said that the Lord “cut a covenant with Abram”; but when the Lord calls on Abraham to cut a covenant of blood-friendship, by the rite of circumcision (Gen. 17 : 1-12), the Lord says, for himself, “I will make [or I will fix] my covenant between me and thee.” In the one case, the Hebrew word iskarath(כָּרַת) “to cut”; in the other, it isnathan(נָתַן) “to give,” or “to fix.” This change goes to show that the idea of cutting a covenant includes the act of a cutting—of a cutting of one’s person or the cutting of the substitute victim—as an integral part of the covenant itself; that a covenant may be made, or fixed, without a cutting, but that the term “cutting” involves the act of cutting.
Thus, again, in Jeremiah 34 : 18, there is a two-fold reference to covenant-cutting; where the Lord reproaches his people for their faithlessness to their covenant. “And I will give [to destruction] the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they made [literally, ‘cut’] before me [in my sight] when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof.” In this instance, there is in the Hebrew, a pun, as it were, to give added force to the accusation and reproach. The same word’abhar(עָבַר) means both “to transgress” and “to pass over” [or, “between”], so that, freely rendered, the charge here made, is, that they went through the covenant when they had gone through the calf; which is another way of saying that they cut their duty when they claimed to cut a covenant.
The correspondence of cutting the victim of sacrifice, and of cutting into the flesh of the covenanting parties, in the ceremony of making blood-brotherhood, or blood-friendship, is well-illustrated in the interchanging of these methods in the primitive customs of Borneo.[726]The pig is the more commonly prized victim of sacrifice in Borneo. Itseems, indeed, to be there valued only next after a human victim. In some cases, blood-brotherhood is made, in Borneo, by “imbibing each other’s blood.” In other cases, “a pig is brought and placed between the two [friends] who are to be joined in brotherhood. A chief addresses an invocation to the gods, and marks with a lighted brand[727]the pig’s shoulder. The beast is then killed, and after an exchange of jackets,[728]a sword is thrust into the wound, and the two [friends] are marked with the blood of the pig.” On one occasion, when two hostile tribes came together to make a formal covenant of brotherhood, “the ceremony of killing a pig for each tribe” was the central feature of the compact; as in the case of two Kayans becoming one by interchanging their own blood, actually or by a substitute pig. And it is said of the tribal act of cutting the covenant by cutting the pig, that “it is thought more fortunate if the animal be severed in two by one stroke of the parang (half sword, half chopper).” In another instance, where two tribes entered into a covenant, “a pig was placed between the representatives of [the] two tribes; who, after calling down the vengeance of the spirits on those who broke the treaty, plunged their spears into the animal [‘cutting a covenant’ in that way], and then exchanged weapons.[729]Drawing their krises, they each bit the blade of the other [as if ‘drinking the covenant’],[730]and so completed the affair.” So, again, “if two men who have been at deadly feud, meet in a house [where the obligations of hospitality restrain them], they refuse to cast their eyes upon each other till a fowl has been killed, and the blood sprinkled over them.”
In every case, it is thebloodthat 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.
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 page15,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.”
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 inIsrael;” 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’sTravels 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 (citingEschwege, inPrim. 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 naturaldeath, 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’sSav. 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’sLand of Fetish, pp. 59, 64; Stanley’sThe Congo, II., 180-182; Angas’sSav. Life, I., 98, 331; II., 84, 89 f.; Ellis’sPolyn. Res., I., 527-529; Dodge’sOur Wild Indians, p. 172 f.;First An. Rep. of Bureau of Ethn., pp. 109, 112, 159 f., 164, 183, 190.)
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 couldhave 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 toLafitau, “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’sPolyn. 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 themaro ura, or sacred girdle of red feathers; which not only raised him to the highest earthly station, butidentified him with their gods[as by oneness of blood]. Themaro, or girdle, was made with the beaten fibres of the ava; with these a number ofura, 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 thedreadful 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’sPolyn. 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 (page73,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 (page73f.), 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 excellencethe 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 evidenceis, 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’sSav. 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]
“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]
“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.
“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.
“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]
“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 inWomen 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 page194,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.
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 unnoticedby 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 (page109,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 humanbeings 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 page56,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 calledLacu. 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 desiredto 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 bearnames 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 nowa 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 (page307,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, calledmundie, 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, fromkeba, a rock, or stone.” (Angas’sSavage 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. (SeeSeph. 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 ofthe mothersof 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 detailsare 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, ormore 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 “theacting 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 ownbody, 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’sPrinciples 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’sAborigines 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’sPolyn. 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: