III.SACRED BOUNDARY LINE.
Man’s first dwelling-place was the cave, or the tent, or the hut, in which he made a home with his family. The threshold and hearth of that dwelling-place was the boundary of his earthly possessions. It was the sacred border or limit of the portion of the earth’s surface over which he claimed control, and where he and his were under the special protection of the deity with whom he was in covenant. Therefore the threshold hearth was hallowed as a place of covenant worship.
As families were formed into tribes and communities, they came to have a common ruler or priest, and his dwelling-place was counted by all as the common center of covenant with their common deity; and when they would worship that deity there, they worshiped at the threshold altar of his sanctuary. So it was that the threshold was the place of the hearth-fire and altar, in both house and temple.
When man acquired property rights beyond his dwelling-place, and communities and peoples gained control over portions of country more or less extensive, the boundary limits of their possessions were extended, but were no less real and positive than before. The protecting deity of the region thus bounded was recognized as having sway in that domain; and those who were dwellers there were in covenant relations with him. Therefore it was that the boundary line of such domain was deemed its threshold, and as such was held sacred as a place of worship and of sacrifice.
A private landmark was a sacred boundary, and was a threshold altar for its possessor. To remove or to disregard such a local threshold, was an offense not only against its owner, but against the deity in whose name it had been set up.
Among the earliest remains from unearthed Babylonia are local landmarks, or threshold boundary stones, inscribed, severally, with a dedication and an appeal to the deity honored by him who erected the stone. These local landmarks were ordinarily in the form of a phallus; as phallic forms were numerous under Babylonian temple thresholds. Among therecords of those peoples are writings, showing the importance attached to such threshold stones, in the contracts accompanying their setting up, and in the sacred ceremonies on that occasion.
Illustrations of the importance attached by the ancient Babylonians to a boundary stone, or threshold landmark, are found in the records of the imprecations inscribed on these phallic pillars, as directed against the violator of their sacredness.[471]For example, a Babylonian, Sir-usur [“O snake-god protect”], a descendant of the house of Habban, presented a valuable tract of land to his daughter on her betrothal to Tâbashâp-Marduk. The withering curse inscribed on the conventional boundary-stone pillar is as follows:
“For all future time: Whosoever, of the brothers, sons, family, relatives, descendants, servants purchased or house-born, of the house of Habban, be he a prefect, or an overseer, or anybody else, shall rise and stand up to take this field away, or to remove this boundary stone, and causes this field to be presented to a god, or sends some one to take it away [for the state], or brings it into his own possession; who changes the area, the limit, or the boundary stone, divides it into pieces, or takes a piece from it, saying, ‘The fieldandmulugi[472]have not been presented;’ or who on account of the dire curse [written] on this boundary stone, sends a fool, a deaf man, a blind man, a reckless man, an enemy, an alien, an ignorant man, and causes this inscribed stone to be removed, throws it into the water, hides it in the earth, crushes it with a stone, burns it with fire, effaces it and writes something else on it, or puts it into a place where nobody can see it,–upon this man may the great gods Anu, Bêl, Ea, and Nusku, look wrathfully, uproot his foundation, and destroy his offspring. May Marduk, the great lord, cause him to carry dropsy as an ever-entangling net; may Shamash the judge, greatest of heaven and earth, decide all his lawsuits, standing relentlessly against him; may Sin, the light dwelling in the brilliant heavens, cover him with leprosy as a garment; like a wild ass may he lie down at the wall surrounding his city; may Ishtar, mistress of heaven and earth, lead him into evil daily before the god and the king; may Ninib, born in the temple Ekura, the sublime son of Bêl, uproot his area, his limit, and his boundary stone; may Gula, the great physician, consort of the god Ninib, put never-ceasing poison into his body till he urinates blood and pus like water; may Rammân, first of heaven and earth, the strong son of the god Anu, inundate his field, and destroy the corn,that thorns may shoot up, and may his feet tread down vegetation and pasturage; may Nabû, the sublime messenger, bring want and famine upon him, and whatsoever he desires for the hole of his mouth may he not obtain; and may the great gods, as many names as are mentioned on this inscribed stone, curse him with a dire curse that cannot be removed, and destroy his seed for ever and ever.”[473]
Prominence is given, in the ancient laws of India, to the manner in which disputed boundaries between villages, and between land owners, shall be settled; and it is made evident that a peculiar sacredness attaches to these landmarks. The king was to decide the dispute, after hearing testimony and examining evidence. Trees, and mounds, or heaps of earth, were preferred as landmarks; and tanks, wells, cisterns, and fountains, as also temples, were desired on boundary lines.[474]
Emphasis was laid on the sacredness of the local landmark, in the laws of the Hebrews; and a curse was pronounced against him who dared remove this threshold altar. “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’slandmark, which they of old time have set, in thine inheritance which thou shalt inherit, in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee,” was an injunction in the fundamental law of the Promised Land.[475]And it passed into a proverb of duty: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”[476]It was a reproach to a people that there were those among them who would “remove the landmarks” and disregard sacred property rights.[477]And among the curses which were to be spoken from the summit of Ebal, when Israel took possession of Canaan, was this: “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s landmark. And,” it was added, “all the people shall say, Amen.”[478]
Abraham and Abimelech found that their followers were quarreling over the boundary line between their respective domains on the borders of the Negeb. Abraham claimed the well at Beer-sheba as his by right, but the servants of Abimelech forcibly took possession of it. So the two chieftains met and agreed upon a border line, and made a covenant with accompanying sacrifices. “And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba” as his border landmark, “and called there on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.”[479]Border landmarks were in the formof a pillar, a tree, a heap, or a stele, in Oriental countries generally.
When Jacob and Laban agreed to part in peace after their stormy meeting in Gilead, they set up a heap of stones and a stone pillar as a monument of witness of their mutual covenant, and as a landmark of their agreed territorial boundary. This memorial of their covenant was called “Galeed,” or “Witness Heap,” and “Mizpah,” or “Watch Tower.” “And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and behold the pillar, which I have set betwixt me and thee. This heap be witness, and the pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God [or, gods] of their father, judge betwixt us.”[480]The new boundary mark was a token of a sacred covenant.
In classic literature and customs the sacred boundary landmark is prominent as devoted to, or as representing, various deities, at different times. Zeus and Hermes among the Greeks; Jupiter, Mercury, Silvanus, and Terminus, among the Romans, are sometimes interchangeably referred to in this connection. The legends and symbols employed seem to indicate that life and its transmission took their start at the threshold boundary, and therefore a pillar or a phallusmarked every new beginning along a road or at a territorial boundary.
An image of Zeus, or Jupiter, was sometimes employed as a boundary landmark, and an image of Hermes, or Mercury, was at the starting-point of a road, and again at various points along the road. Zeus, or Jupiter, was chief of gods as the arbiter of life. Hermes, or Mercury, was earliest known as the fertilizing god of earth, and hence was the promoter of all forms of life, as guardian of flocks, fish, fields, and fruits. He also guarded those who went out from the threshold. Sacrifices were offered to him by Athenian generals as they started on their expeditions. He was even spoken of as the inventor of sacrifices and the promoter of commerce and of enrichment.[481]
Of Terminus, Ovid say: “When the night shall have passed away [and the threshold of a new day is to be crossed], let the god who by his landmark divides the fields be worshiped with the accustomed honors. Terminus,[482]whether thou art a stone, or whether a stock sunk deep in the field by the ancients,yet even in this form thou dost possess divinity.”[483]This symbol of Terminus was regularly “sprinkled with the blood of a slain lamb,” in recognition of its sacredness.
It is said that Numa, the second king of Rome, who was revered by the Romans as the author of their whole system of religious worship, directed that every one should mark the boundaries of his landed property by stones consecrated to Jupiter, and that yearly sacrifices should be offered at these boundary stones, at the festival of the Terminalia.[484]At this festival the two owners of adjacent property crowned the statue or stone pillar with garlands, and raised a rude altar, on which they offered up corn, honeycombs, and wine, and sacrificed a lamb or a sucking pig, with accompanying praises to the god.[485]
Silvanus also was a god of the boundary. He was represented by a tree grove, as Terminus was by a pillar, and offerings of fruit, grain, and milk, and of pigs, were made to him. When he would be guarded against as a source of evil in a home, the protectors of the inmates would perform certain ceremonies at the threshold of the house.
A tree, and sometimes a grove, was the sacred landmarkof a village boundary in primitive lands. Such trees and groves are still to be found in Equatorial Africa. Describing some of these in Zinga and its vicinity, Stanley expresses surprise that they have so long remained untouched in “a country left to the haphazard care of patriarchal chiefs ignorant of written laws.”[486]But reverence for a threshold landmark seems to be in the very nature of a primitive people, as truly as any primitive sentiment; and sentiment is in itself a dominant law.
At the boundary line between two villages in Samoa, in olden time, there were two stones said to have been two living beings. When any quarrel arose, those engaged in it were told, “Go and settle it at the stones;” and they went to those boundary line stones and fought out their contest.[487]
Trees and stone pillars are still known as boundary landmarks between parishes and townships in Europe and America, as in Asia, Africa, and Polynesia in more primitive days; and their importance is recognized as peculiar, even if not always absolutely sacred. The annual custom of “beating the bounds” of a parish by the parish authorities survives in some parts of England to-day. A procession makes the circuit of the parish boundary, under the care of a “select vestryman,” or other parish official, halting at everylandmark to identify it and carefully to observe its location.
In former times it was customary to take the boys of the parish on this round, and beat them at every landmark, in order to impress upon their memories its precise position. More recently the boys are permitted to carry willow wands peeled white, and with these to beat the landmarks. The later plan is certainly more satisfactory to the boys, and it is quite as likely to impress their memories. Formerly this ceremony was accompanied by religious services, in which the clergyman invoked curses on him who “transgresseth the bounds and doles of his neighbor,” and blessings on him who regarded the landmarks.[488]
It has been suggested that this fixing and honoring of the landmarks by an annual festival goes back to the Roman Terminalia, in the days of Numa, but there is reason to believe that it was far earlier than that. There are traces of it in primitive times, among various primitive peoples.
In Russia, the Cossacks long had a custom somewhat like this, in the case of a disputed boundary line. When the boundary had been formally determined, all the boys of the two contiguous stanitsas, or land divisions, were collected, and driven by the peoplealong the frontier line. “At each landmark a number of boys were soundly whipped and allowed to run home,” in order that in later years they might be able to testify as to the spot where that landmark stood. In cases where the boys’ memory failed to be accurate, an arbiter was chosen from the older inhabitants, and sworn to act honestly to the best of his knowledge; and his decision was accepted as final.[489]
A similar custom of beating the bounds under a “selectman” of the town has existed in portions of New England until recently, and perhaps it has not yet died out there. Thus Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks of the selectmen of Concord perambulating the bounds of its township “once in five years,” up to 1858.[490]Is there not a survival of this old custom in the habit of striking a child on his birthday as many blows as he has passed years, when he comes to the threshold of another year of his life?
Mile-posts would seem to have been originally landmarks separating the public way from private lands, being placed at regular distances along the road for convenience of measurement and locating. They marked the threshold of the “king’s highway” to and from his capital in the Roman empire, as trees marked the border-lines of the principal roads in Greece.
3. NATIONAL BORDERS.
Stone pillars marking the exact boundaries of states or nations, whether settled by a joint commission or by a conqueror’s fiat, are not a modern invention, although they are in use to-day. They are of old time, and of primitive ages. And these boundaries of a country are by their very nature its thresholds.
In Babylonia, the name of Nebuchadrezzar meant literally, “Nebo protect the boundary!” The threshold of the empire was sacred; and the deity, with whom the Babylonian king was in covenant, was the protector of that boundary, and of those who dwelt within it. From the earliest times onward an Oriental sovereign would set up a pillar, or pillars, or stele, at the extreme limits of his newly extended dominion, as the outer threshold or doorway of his empire.
From Tiglath-Pileser I. to Esarhaddon, from about 1100 B.C. to 669 B.C., the great Assyrian kings tell us, in their inscriptions, that whenever they restored an old boundary of their predecessors that had been lost to them, or extended their boundary beyond its former limits, they had set up a large stele bearing their image at this threshold of their empire.[491]Frequentlythese stele doorways,[492]with the king represented on the threshold, had inscriptions on them giving the story of the new conquests, with an ascription of honor to the covenant god by whose power they had been wrought. Prominent mountain peaks, sources of rivers, the temples or market-places of conquered cities, the banks of lakes, or the shores of the sea, are chosen as conspicuous places for such steles. National boundary marks of this character are still to be seen on the rocks of Nahr-el-Kelb, above Beyroot, on the shores of the Mediterranean, and at the sources of the Tigris and the Euphrates.[493]
Ashurnâsirapli (king of Assyria, 885–860 B.C.) tells of such a new boundary mark set up by him at the farthest point of his conquests, “whither nobody of my royal ancestors had advanced.... At that time I made a picture [a stele] of my person. The glory of my power I wrote upon it. On the mountain Eki, in the city Ashurnâsirapli [named after the king], at a spring I set it up.”[494]
A similar custom would seem to have prevailed with the rulers of ancient Egypt. Sneferu, a king of the fourth dynasty, greatest among the very early names of the Old Empire (say, about 4000 B.C.), wentdown as a conqueror into the Peninsula of Sinai, and left there inscribed a mammoth figure of himself, on the granite hills above the famous copper and turquoise mines of Wady Magharah. He is styled in the accompanying inscription the “vanquisher of a foreign people.”[495]
As early as the twelfth dynasty of ancient Egypt, before the days of Abraham, stone thresholds marked the upper border of that mighty empire. “Two huge pillars of stone, covered with long inscriptions, served formerly as boundary marks between the Egyptian empire and the negro-land called Heh.”[496]King Usurtasen III., who set up these landmarks, says in an inscription on the second of them: “Every one of my sons who maintains this boundary which I have fixed, he shall be called my son who was born of me. My son is like the protector of his father (that is Horus), like the preserver of the boundary of his father (that is Osiris.) But if he abandons it, so that he does not fight upon it, he is not my son, he is not then born of me. I have caused my own image to be set up, on this boundary which I have fixed, not that ye may (only) worship it (the image of the founder), but that ye may fight upon it.”
On the oldest map in the world, a map of the gold districts in Nubia, in the nineteenth dynasty of Egypt, there is a mention of the “memorial stone of King Mineptah I. Seti I.” And that memorial stone, of this new threshold of domain, marked the boundary line of empire in that direction.[497]
Rameses II. had it recorded on the walls of the rock grotto of Bayt-el-Walli concerning his threshold extensions: “The deeds of victory are inscribed a hundred thousand times on the glorious Persea. As the chastiser of the foreigners,who has placed his boundary-marks according to his pleasurein the land of the Ruthennu, he is in truth the son of Ra, and his very image.”[498]
On the eastern border of Lower Egypt, the main passage way from the Delta into Arabia, the great gateway of the empire toward the north and the east, is still known asEl Gisr, or “The Threshold.”[499]This point is near Lake Timsah, on the line of the modern Suez Canal.
In ancient Greece, Theseus “set up a pillar,” as a threshold stone between Peloponnesus and Attica,–then called Ionia,–“writing upon it an epigram in two trimeters, bounding the land. Of these [inscriptions] the one toward the east side said, ‘This is not Pelopennesus,but Ionia,’ and that toward the west, ‘This is Pelopennesus, not Ionia.’”[500]
Even the term, the “Pillars of Hercules,” as the boundaries of the Grecian empire and the then known world, is an indication of this idea in the classic age, as well as in the primitive mind. Calpë and Abyla were the door-posts of the great outer passage way, and the threshold between those pillars was founded upon the seas, and established upon the floods.[501]
As showing that the term “threshold” is not applied to these boundary stones merely by accommodation, it is sufficient to quote from Justinian in the case. He declares specifically that “as the threshold makes a certain boundary in a house, so also the ancients designed that the boundary of the empire should be its threshold; hence it is called the ‘threshold,’ as if it were a certain bound and term.”[502]Speaking of one who has been in foreign captivity, and who desires a resumption, or a restoration, of his civil rights, on his coming back to his country, Justinian says that such a return “is calledpostliminium[a recrossing of the threshold], because at that same threshold the thing which he has lost is restored to him.”[503]
When the old Portuguese navigators started out ontheir voyages of discovery, they were accustomed to take with them stone pillars to set up in a prominent place at the farthest limits of their newly claimed territory as the national door-posts or threshold in that direction. Such a pillar was erected at the mouth of the Congo River, at the time of its discovery by Diego Cão, or Cam, in 1484–85. On this account, the river was known for a time as the “Rio de Padrão,” or “Pillar River.”[504]It might, indeed, have been called the “River of the Threshold.”
This custom of setting up stone pillars as boundary marks along the borders of countries, nations, and states, has been continued down to the present day. Such landmarks are still to be seen along the borders of the great divisions of Europe, and they are on the lines of the several states of the United States of America. The line between the English grants in America, originally made to the Duke of York and to Lord Baltimore, was, after much dispute, run by two English surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, in 1763–67, and marked by stone pillars at intervals of five miles. This was generally known as “Mason and Dixon’s line;” it separated Pennsylvania from Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and was the dividing line between the free and the slave states before the Civil War of 1861–65. One of thoseearly stone landmarks on that line is still to be seen near Oxford, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, as an illustration of a practice beginning in Babylonia as far back as 4000 B.C., and continued in America down to A.D. 1895.[505]
European titles of rank bear traces of the importance formerly attached to national boundary lines and their preservation. The old German title of “markgraf,” the “graf” or count or warden of the marches, designated a representative or servant of the king who was in charge of the “marches,” or “marks,” or “border lines,” which guarded the thresholds of the empire in different directions. It was under “Henry the Fowler,” early in the tenth century, that this title, as a title, first gained prominence. Afterwards it became hereditary; “and hence have come the innumerable margraves, marquises, and such like of modern times.”[506]
“Letters of marque” were letters of commission, or permission, granted by the government to individuals, in time of war, to pass over the boundary mark, or national threshold, for purposes of seizure or reprisal. And a “marquee” is primarily a tent over, or before, the threshold of a military commander’s tent.
4. BORDER SACRIFICES.
An altar would have no meaning unless sacrifices were offered at it. If, therefore, the boundary threshold of an empire were an altar for that empire, sacrifices would surely be offered there; and the records of history, and the customs of old times and later, show this to have been the case.
Sacrifices were offered at the new boundary of an empire, by ancient Assyrian and Egyptian kings, when they set up a pillar, or stele, at the freshly acquired threshold in that direction. Thus, for example, Ashurnâsirapli (king of Assyria, 885–860 B.C.), telling of his far-reaching conquests, says that he marched with his armies to the slopes of the Lebanon, and to the great sea of the Westland, and that at the mountains of Ammanus he made and set up a stele of victory, and offered sacrifices unto his gods.[507]
At the Egyptian boundary line in the Sinaitic Peninsula, there was a temple with its sacrifices to “the sublime Hathor, queen of heaven and earth and the dark depths below, whom the Egyptians worshiped as the protectress of the land of Mafkat.” There were other temples with their sacrifices at that point.[508]On the southern boundary of Egypt, in thegold district of Nubia, there was “the temple of Amon in the holy mountain,” where threshold sacrifices were offered.[509]
One of the most ancient of Chinese classics is the Shih King. Its age is not known, but it is certain that it was a classic in the days of Confucius, five centuries before the Christian era. This work contains frequent references to sacrifices at the border altars, or the altars of the boundary. There were public sacrifices at the “border altar” in the beginning of every new year; and again when a ruler crossed his border line on a warlike mission.[510]
When, in ancient times, a Chinese emperor passed over the outer threshold of his empire, he offered a sacrifice of a dog, by running over it with the wheels of his chariot. This is supposed to have been a propitiatory offering to the dog-shaped guardians of the roadway threshold, known also among the Indo-Aryans and the Assyro-Babylonians.[511]
From what is known of modern customs in this line, and from occasional historical references to the matter, it would seem that where there were no gateways, or double columns to stand for door-posts, or doorwaystele, it was the practice to divide or separate the animals offered in sacrifice, so as to make a passage-way between them, as through a door or gate, and to pour out the blood of the victims on the earth between the two portions, so that the offerer, or the one welcomed, might pass over, or step across, that blood, as in a threshold covenant.
It has already been noted that when General Grant came to the border line of Assioot, in Upper Egypt, as he landed from his Nile boat, a bullock was sacrificed in covenant welcome, its head being put on one side of the gang-plank, and its body on the other; while its blood was between the two, so that it should be stepped over in the act of landing.[512]And every year, when the great Hajj procession returns from Meccah to Syria, it is welcomed, as it approaches Damascus, by just such sacrifices as this. Sheep and oxen are sacrificed before the caravan, their blood being poured out in the middle of the road, and their bodies being divided and placed on either side of the way. Then those who approach by this “new and living way,”[513]on the boundary line of their country, renew their covenant with those within, by passing over the blood.[514]
There seems to be a reference to such a mode ofboundary sacrifices, in the description of the Lord’s covenant welcome to Abraham, on the border of the land promised to him for a possession.[515]Abraham was near the southern boundary of Canaan. He had the promise of the Lord, that he and his seed should possess that land; but as yet he was childless, and he had no control over any portion of the land. He naturally desired some tangible assurance, in accordance with the customs of mankind, that the Lord’s promises to him would be made good. Therefore when the Lord said to him, “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it,” Abraham replied with the question, “O Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?”
Then the Lord responded with these directions, apparently in accordance with a well-known mode of covenanting among men: “Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abraham seems to have understood what was to be done with these victims for sacrifice. “And he took him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each half over against the other: but the birds divided he not.” The blood of the victims was doubtless poured out on the earth where they weresacrificed, midway between the places of the divided portions, as is the present custom.
“And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace [or brazier, or censer], and a flaming torch [a fire and a light as a symbol of the Divine presence] that passed [covenant-crossed the blood on the threshold] between these pieces.” And the record adds: “In that day the Lord made a covenant [a border-altar covenant] with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.”
Thus Abram was assured that the Lord had covenanted to protect his boundaries; as Nebuchadrezzar long afterward desired that his god Nebo would protect his empire boundary or threshold. As to the fact of boundary sacrifices in these lands and elsewhere, in those days and earlier, there would seem to be no room for question.
It is not to be expected that border sacrifices would at all times, and in all places, be just alike; but a common primitive symbolism would be likely to show itself in them all. In Persia, these sacrifices are still common, when one is to be received with honors atthe border of a new territory or jurisdiction.[516]Morier, describing his journey through Persia, in the early part of this century, speaks of the first entrance of a new ruler into the territory he was to govern. “The khan, with all his attendants, accompanied us about two miles. He was preparing to enter Bushire, his new government, with all splendor. From the town to the swamps [from the territorial border to the border of the capital] were erected stages on which bullocks were to be sacrificed, and from which their heads were to be thrown under his horse’s feet as he advanced; a ceremony, indeed, appropriated to princes alone, and to them only on particular occasions.”[517]
On another occasion, when the British envoy approached Kauzeroon, on a visit of ceremony, he was welcomed at the threshold of the town by a corresponding ceremony. “A bottle which contained sugar candy was broken under the feet of the envoy’s horse, a ceremony never practiced in Persia to any but to royal personages.”[518]
the gates “oxen and sheep in great numbers were sacrificed just as he passed, and their heads thrown under his horse’s feet.” And “glass vases filled with sugar were broken before him.” On this occasion the Shah frequently looked at a watch, “anxious that he should enter the gates exactly at the time prescribed by the astrologers” for his crossing the threshold.[519]
More recently, Layard has testified to the prevalence of such customs. Speaking of his reception among the Yezidis, he tells of his approach to the village of Guzelder, and of his welcome there: “The head of the village of Guzelder, with the principal inhabitants, had come to invite me to eat bread in his house, and we followed him.... Before we reached Guzelder, the procession had swollen to many hundreds.... As I approached, sheep were brought into the road and slain before my horse’s feet, and as we entered the yard of Akko’s house the women and men joined in the loud and piercing ‘tahlel.’”[520]
Again, as Layard entered the village of Redwan, he was similarly welcomed. “I alighted,” he says, “amidst the din of music and the ‘tahlel’ at the house of Nazi, the chief of the whole Yezidi district; two sheep being slain before me as I took my feet from the stirrups.”[521]
When, some twenty years ago, a European prince visited the Mt. Lebanon region,[522]a generous host killed a valuable cow on the road by which the prince must come into his region. Then the royal visitor and his retinue were requested to step over, not upon, the blood of the slaughtered cow, at the threshold of that host’s domain.
On the occasion of a caravan starting out from the boundary line of a country in the East, there are border sacrifices offered, even in recent times. Thus Burckhardt tells of this ceremony, when he went from Egypt to Nubia.
The various traders going with this caravan assembled at the starting-point, having their goods with them. “At noon the camels were watered, and knelt down by the side of their respective loads. Just before the lading commenced, the Ababde women appeared with earth vessels in their hands, filled with burning coals. They set them before the several loads, and threw salt upon them.” It has already been shown that salt stands for blood, in the minds of primitive peoples. “At the rising of the bluish flame produced by the burning of the salt, they exclaimed, ‘May you be blessed in going and in coming!’”[523]And this sacrifice was supposed to secure safety against evil spirits encountered in crossing the boundary line.
Thus it would seem that, from the beginning, on the national threshold, as on the threshold of the temple and of the home, sacrifices were offered, and boundary marks were set up, in recognition of a peculiar sacredness of the border line,–which is in itself a foundation and a limit. These boundary marks were commonly a pillar or a tree, in apparent symbolism of a fructifying or a fruit-bearing agency, of the transmission or the continuance of life. And the establishment and protection of these boundary marks was deemed well pleasing to God or to the gods, and in the nature of a holy covenant service.