Chapter 41

42Ellis,Ew̔e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 119.

43von Kotzebue,op. cit.iii. 248.Cf.Lisiansky,op. cit.120.

44von Amira, in Paul’sGrundriss der germanischen Philologie, ii. pt. ii. 177. Brunner,Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 587, 684sq.Vigtusson and Powell,op. cit.i. 410. Gummere,Germanic Origins, p. 463.

45Lex Frisionum, Additio sapientium, 12.

46Granger,Worship of the Romans, p. 260.

47Ovid,Fasti, vi. 457sq.Cf.Mommsen,Römisches Strafrecht, p. 902.

48Pausanias, vii. 19. 4.

49Kuenen,Religion of Israel, i. 290sq.

50Seesupra,p. 197sq.For various instances of expiatory human sacrifice, involving vicarious atonement, seesupra,p. 66sq.

It is impossible to discover in every special case in what respect the worshippers believe the offering of a fellow-creature to be gratifying to the deity. Probably they have not always definite views on the subject themselves. They know, or believe, that on some certain occasion, they are in danger of losing their lives; they attribute this to the designs of a supernatural being; and, by sacrificing a man, they hope to gratify that being’s craving for human life, and thereby avert the danger from themselves. That this principle mainly underlies the practice of human sacrifice appears from the circumstances in which such sacrifices generally occur.

Human victims are often offered in war, before a battle, or during a siege.

Cæsar wrote of the Gauls, “They who are engaged in battles and dangers, either sacrifice men as victims, or vow that they will sacrifice them …; because they think that unless the life of a man be offered for the life of a man, the mind of the immortal gods cannot be rendered propitious.”51The Lusitanians sacrificed a man and a horse at the commencement of a military enterprise.52Before going to war, or before the beginning of a battle, or during a siege, the Greeks offered a human victim to ensure victory.53When hard-pressed in battle,the King of Moab sacrificed his eldest son as a burnt offering on the wall.54In times of great calamities, such as war, the Phenicians sacrificed some of their dearest friends, who were selected by votes for this purpose.55During a battle with king Gelo of Syracuse, the general Hamilcar sacrificed innumerable human victims, from dawn to sunset;56and when Carthage was reduced to the last extremities, the noble families were compelled to give up two hundred of their sons to be offered to Baal.57In Hindu scriptures and traditions success in war is promised to him who offers a man in sacrifice.58In Jeypore “the blood-red god of battle” is propitiated by human victims. “Thus, on the eve of a battle, or when a new fort, or even an important village is to be built, or when danger of any kind is to be averted, this sanguinary being must be propitiated with human blood.”59In Great Benin human blood was shed in a case of common danger when an enemy was at the gate of the city.60The Yorubas sacrifice men in times of national need.61Among the Ew̔e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, such sacrifices “are ordinarily only made in time of war, pestilence, or great calamity.”62The Tahitians offered human sacrifices in seasons of war, or when war was in agitation.63

51Cæsar,De bello gallico, vi. 16.

52Livy,Epitome, 49.

53Pausanias, iv. 9. 4sqq.; ix. 17. 1. Plutarch,Themistocles, 13.Idem,Aristides, 9.Idem,Pelopidas, 21sq.Lycurgus,Oratio in Leocratem, (ch. 24) 99. Apollodorus,Bibliotheca, iii. 15. 4. Porphyry,De abstinentia ab esu animalium, ii. 56. Geusius,op. cit.i. ch. 16sq.Stengel,op. cit.p. 115sq.

542 Kings, iii. 27.

55Porphyry,op. cit.ii. 56.

56Herodotus, vii. 167.

57Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14.

58Chevers,op. cit.p. 399.

59Campbell,Wild Tribes of Khondistan, p. 52.

60Ling Roth,Great Benin, p. 72.

61Ellis,Yoruba-speaking People of the Slave Coast, p. 296.

62Idem,Ew̔e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 117.

63Ellis,Polynesian Researches, i. 276sqq., 346.

After a victory, captured enemies are sacrificed to the god to whose assistance the success is ascribed. This sacrifice has been represented as a thank-offering;64but, in many cases at least, it seems to be offered either to fulfil a vow previously made, or to induce the god to continue his favours for the future.65Among the Kayans of Borneo it is the custom that, when captives are brought to an enemy’s country, “one should suffer death, to bring prosperity and abolish the curse of the enemy in their lands.”66

64Diodorus Siculus, xx. 65 (Carthaginians). de Molina,loc. cit.p. 59 (Incas); &c.

65Ellis,Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. 170. Cruickshank,op. cit.ii. 173. Dubois,Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India, p. 488. Jordanes,De origine actibusque Getarum, 5 (41).Cf.Jephthah’s vow (Judges, xi. 30sqq.).

66Brook,Ten Years in Saráwak, ii. 304sq.

Human sacrifices are offered for the purpose of stopping or preventing epidemics.

The Phenicians sacrificed “some of their dearest friends,” not only in war, but in times of pestilence.67In similar circumstances the ancient Greeks had recourse to human sacrifices.68In seasons of great peril, as when a pestilence was raging, the ancient Italians made a vow that they would sacrifice every living being that should be born in the following spring.69In West Gothland, in Sweden, the people decreed a human sacrifice to stay thedigerdöd, or Plague, hence two beggar children, having just then come in, were buried alive.70In Fur, in Denmark, there is a tradition that, for the same purpose, a child was interred alive in the burial ground.71Among the Chukchi, in 1814, when a sudden and violent disease had broken out and carried off both men and reindeer, the Shamans, after having had recourse in vain to their usual conjurations, determined that one of the most respected chiefs must be sacrificed to appease the irritated spirits.72In Great Benin, “when the doctors declared a man had died owing to Ogiwo, if they think an epidemic imminent, they can tell Overami [the king] that Ogiwo vex. Then he can take a man and a woman, all the town can fire guns and beat drums. The man and woman are brought out, and the head Jujuman can make this prayer: ‘Oh, Ogiwo, you are very big man; don’t let any sickness come for Ado. Make all farm good, and every woman born man son.’”73In the same country twelve men, besides various animals, were offered yearly on the anniversary of the death of Adolo, king Overami’s father. King Overami, calling his father loudly by name, spoke as follows: “Oh, Adolo, our father, look after all Ado [that is, Great Benin], don’t let any sickness come to us, look after me and my people, our slaves, cows, goats, and fowls, and everything in the farms.”74

67Porphyry,op. cit.ii. 56.

68Geusius,op. cit.i. ch. 13. Stengel,op. cit.p. 116. Frazer,Golden Bough, iii. 125sq.

69Festus,De verborum significatione, ‘Ver sacrum,’ Müller’s edition, p. 379. Nonius Marcellus,De proprietate sermonis, ‘Versacrum,’ p. 522. Servius,In Virgilii Æneidos, vii. 796.

70Afzelius,Swenska Folkets Sago-Häfder, iv. 181.

71Nyrop,Romanske Mosaiker, p. 69, n. 1.

72von Wrangell,Expedition to the Polar Sea, p. 122sq.

73Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton,Antiquities from the City of Benin, p. 7; also by Ling Roth,Great Benin, p. 71sq.

74Moor and Roupell, quoted by Ling Roth,op. cit.p. 70sq.; also by Read and Dalton,op. cit.p. 6.

The sacrifice of human victims is resorted to as a method of putting an end to a devastating famine.

Instances of this practice are reported to have occurred among the ancient Greeks75and Phenicians.76In a grievous famine, after other great sacrifices, of oxen and of men, had proved unavailing, the Swedes offered up their own king Dómaldi.77Chinese annals tell us that there was a great drought and famine for seven years after the accession of T‘ang, the noble and pious man who had overthrown the dynasty of Shang. It was then suggested at last by some one that a human victim should be offered in sacrifice to Heaven, and prayer be made for rain, to which T‘ang replied, “If a man must be the victim I will be he.”78Up to quite recent times, the priests of Lower Bengal have, in seasons of scarcity, offered up children to Siva; in the years 1865 and 1866, for instance, recourse was had to such sacrifices in order to avert famine.79

75Pausanias, vii. 19. 3sq.Diodorus Siculus, iv. 61. 1sqq.Geusius,op. cit.i. ch. 14.

76Porphyry,op. cit.ii. 56.

77Snorri Sturluson, ‘Ynglingasaga,’ 15, inHeimskringla, i. 30.

78Legge,Religions of China, p. 54.

79Hunter,Annals of Rural Bengal, i. 128.

For people subsisting on agriculture a failure of crops means starvation and death,80and is, consequently, attributed to the murderous designs of a superhuman being, such as the earth spirit, the morning star, the sun, or the rain-god. By sacrificing to that being a man, they hope to appease its thirst for human blood; and whilst some resort to such a sacrifice only in case of actual famine, others try to prevent famine by making the offering in advance. This I take to be the true explanation of the custom of securing good crops by means of human sacrifice, of which many instances have been produced by Dr. Frazer.81There are obvious links between this custom and that of the actual famine-sacrifice. Thus the ancient Peruvians sacrificed children after harvest, when they prepared to make ready the land for the next year, not every year, however, but “only when the weather was not good, and seasonable.”82In Great Benin, “if there is too muchrain, then all the people would come from farm and beg Overami [the king] to make juju, and sacrifice to stop the rain. Accordingly a woman was taken, a prayer made over her, and a message saluting the rain god put in her mouth, then she was clubbed to death and put up in the execution tree so that the rain might see…. In the same way if there is too much sun so that there is a danger of the crops spoiling, Overami can sacrifice to the Sun God.”83The principle of substitution admits of a considerable latitude in regard to the stage of danger at which the offering is made; the danger may be more imminent, or it may be more remote. This holds good of various kinds of human sacrifice, not only of such sacrifices as are intended to influence the crops. I am unable to subscribe to the hypothesis cautiously set forth by Dr. Frazer, that the human victim who is killed for the purpose of ensuring good crops is regarded as a representative of the corn-spirit and is slain as such. So far as I can see, Dr. Frazer has adduced no satisfactory evidence in support of his supposition; whereas a detailed examination of various cases mentioned by him in connection with it indicates that they are closely related to human sacrifices offered on other occasions, and explicable from the same principle, that of substitution.

80Cf.Sleeman,Rambles and Recollections, i. 204sqq.:—“In India, unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous consequences than in Europe…. More than three-fourths of the whole population are engaged in the cultivation of the land, and depend upon its annual returns for subsistence…. Tens of thousands die here of starvation, under calamities of season, which in Europe would involve little of suffering to any class.”

81Frazer,Golden Bough, ii. 238sqq.

82Herrera,op. cit.ii. 111.

83Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton,op. cit.p. 7; also by Ling Roth,Great Benin, p. 71.

“The best known case of human sacrifices, systematically offered to ensure good crops,” says Dr. Frazer, “is supplied by the Khonds or Kandhs.” The victims, or Meriahs, are represented by our authorities84as being offered to propitiate the Earth goddess, Tari Pennu or Bera Pennu, but from their treatment both before and after death it appears to Dr. Frazer that the custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacrifice. The flesh and the ashes of the Meriah, he observes, were believed to possess a magic power of fertilising the land, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which they might have as an offering to secure the goodwill of the deity. For, though a part of the flesh was offered to the Earth Goddess, the rest of itwas buried by each householder in his fields, and the ashes of the other parts of the body were scattered over the fields, laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. The same intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriah, his blood causing the redness of the turmeric and his tears producing rain; and magic power as an attribute of the victim appears, also in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his person, as his hair or spittle. Considering further that, according to our authorities, the Meriah was regarded as “something more than mortal,” or that “a species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from adoration, is paid to him,” Dr. Frazer concludes that he may originally have represented the Earth deity or perhaps a deity of vegetation, and that he only in later times came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate deity.85

84Campbell,Wild Tribes of Khondistan. Macpherson,Memorials of Service in India.

85Frazer,op. cit.ii. 245sq.

The premise on which Dr. Frazer bases his argument appears to me quite untenable. It is an arbitrary supposition that the ascription of a magical power to the Meriah “indicates that he was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a deity.”86A sacrifice is very commonly believed to be endowed with such a power, not as an original quality, but in consequence of its contact or communion with the supernatural being to which it is offered. Just as the Meriah of the Kandhs is taken round the village, from door to door, and some pluck hair from his head, while others beg for a drop of his spittle, so, among the nomadic Arabs of Morocco, at the Muhammedan “Great Feast,” a man dressed in the bloody skin of the sheep which has been sacrificed on that occasion, goes from tent to tent, and beats each tent with his stick so as to confer blessings on its inhabitants. For he is now endowed withl-baraka del-ʿid, “the benign virtue of the feast”; and the same power is ascribed to various parts of the sacrificed sheep, which are consequently used for magical purposes. If Dr. Frazer’s way of arguing were correct we should have to conclude that the victim was originally the god himself, or a representative of the god, to whom it is now offered in sacrifice. But the absurdity of any such inference becomes apparent at once when we consider that, in Morocco, every offering to a holy person, for instance to a deceased saint, is considered to participate in its sanctity. When the saint has his feast, and animals and other presents are brought to his tomb, it is customary for his descendants—who have a right to the offerings—to distributesome flesh of the slaughtered animals among their friends, thereby conferringl-barakaof the saint upon those who eat it; and even candles which have been offered to the saint are given away for the same purpose, being instinct with hisbaraka. Of course, what holds good of the Arabs in Morocco does not necessarily hold good of the Kandhs of Bengal; but it should be remembered that Dr. Frazer’s argument is founded on the notion that the ascription of a magic power to a victim which is offered in sacrifice to a god indicates that the victim was once regarded as a divine being or as the god himself; and the facts I have recorded certainly prove the arbitrariness of this supposition.

86Ibid.ii. 246.

This is by no means the only objection which may be raised against Dr. Frazer’s hypothesis. In his description of the rite in question he has emphasised its connection with agriculture to a degree which is far from being justified by the accounts given by our authorities. Mr. Macpherson states that the human sacrifice to Tari Pennu was celebrated as a public oblation by tribes, branches of tribes, or villages, both at social festivals held periodically, and when special occasions demanded exceptional propitiations. It was celebrated “upon the occurrence of an extraordinary number of deaths by disease; or should very many die in childbirth; or should the flocks or herds suffer largely from disease, or from wild beasts; or should the greater crops threaten to fail”; while the occurrence of any marked calamity to the families of the chiefs, whose fortunes were regarded as the principal indication of the disposition of Tari towards their tribes, was held to be a token of wrath which could not be too speedily averted.87Moreover, besides these social offerings, the rite was performed by individuals to avert the wrath of Tari from themselves and their families, for instance, if a child, when watching his father’s flock, was carried off by a tiger.88So, also, Mr. Campbell observes that the human blood was offered to the Earth goddess, “in the hope of thus obtaining abundant crops, averting calamity, and insuring general prosperity”;89or that it was supposed “that good crops, and safety from all disease and accidents, were ensured by this slaughter.”90According to another authority, Mr. Russell, the assembled multitude, when dancing round the victim, addressed the earth in the following words, “O God, we offer this sacrifice to you; give us good crops, seasons, and health.”91Nor was the magicvirtue of the Meriah utilised solely for the benefit of the crops. According to one account, part of the flesh was buried near the village idol as an offering to the earth, and part on the boundaries of the village;92whilst in the invocation made by the priest, the goddess was represented as saying, “Let each man place a shred of the flesh in his fields, in his grain-store, and in his yard.”93The ashes, again, were scattered over the fields, or “laid as paste over the houses and granaries.”94It is also worth noticing that, among the Kandhs of Maji Deso, the offering was not at all made for the special purpose of obtaining cereal produce, “but for general prosperity, and blessings for themselves and families”;95and that in the neighbouring principality, Chinna Kimedy, inhabited for the most part by Ooryahs, the sacrifice was not offered to the earth alone, “but to a number of deities, whose power is essential to life and happiness,” especially to the god of war, the great god, and the sun god.96Now, whilst all these facts are in perfect agreement with the theory of substitution, they certainly do not justify the supposition that the Meriah was the representative of a deity of vegetation.

87Macpherson,op. cit.p. 113sq.See, also,ibid.pp. 120, 128sqq.

88Ibid.p. 113sq.

89Campbell,op. cit.p. 51.

90Ibid.p. 56.Cf.ibid.p. 73.

91Russell, quotedibid.p. 54.

92Russell, quotedibid.p. 55.

93Macpherson,op. cit.p. 122sq.

94Ibid.p. 128.

95Campbell,op. cit.p. 181.

96Ibid.p. 120.Cf.ibid.p. 197:—Among the Ooryahs human sacrifice is “performed on important occasions, such as going to battle, building a fort in an important village, and to avert any threatened danger.”

The same may be said about other cases mentioned by Dr. Frazer, when more closely examined. “The Indians of Guayaquil, in Ecuador,” he says, “used to sacrifice human blood and the hearts of men when they sowed their fields.”97But our authority, Cieza de Leon, adds that those Indians also offered human victims when their chiefs were sick “to appease the wrath of their gods.“98“The Pawnees,” Dr. Frazer writes, “annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when they sowed their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been enjoined on them by the Morning Star, or by a certain bird which the Morning Star had sent to them as its messenger…. They thought that an omission of this sacrifice would be followed by the total failure of the crops of maize, beans, and pumpkins.99James, to whom Dr. Frazer refers, and other authorities say that the human sacrifice was a propitiatory offering madetothat star,100a planet which especially with the Skidi—the only sectionof the Pawnees who offered human sacrifices—was an object of superstitious veneration.101Sickness, misfortune, and personal mishaps of various kinds were often spoken of as attributable to the incurred ill-will of the heavenly bodies;102and the object of the sacrifice to the morning star is expressly said to have been “to avert the evil influences exerted by that planet.”103According to Mr. Dunbar, whose important104article dealing with the subject has escaped Dr. Frazer’s notice, “the design of the bloody ordeal was to conciliate that being and secure a good crop. Hence,” he continues, “it has been supposed that the morning star was regarded by them as presiding over agriculture, but this was a mistake. They sacrificed to that star because they feared it, imagining that it exerted malign influence if not well disposed. It has also been stated that the sacrifice was made annually. This, too, was an error. It was made only when special occurrences were interpreted as calling for it.”105At the present day the Indians speak of the sacrifice as having been made to Ti-ra’-wa, the Supreme Being or the deity “who is in and of everything.”106In the detailed account of the rite, which was given to Mr. Grinnell by an old chief who had himself witnessed it several times, it is said:—“While the smoke of the blood and the buffalo meat, and of the burning body, ascended to the sky, all the people prayed to Ti-ra’-wa, and walked by the fire and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and passed it over their bodies and over those of their children, and prayed Ti-ra’-wa to take pity on them, and to give them health, and success in war, and plenteous crops…. This sacrifice always seemed acceptable to Ti-ra’-wa, and when the Skidi made it they always seemed to have good fortune in war, and good crops, and they were always well.”107According to this description, then, the human sacrifice of the Pawnees, like that of the Kandhs, was not an exclusively agricultural rite, but was performed for the purpose of averting dangers of various kinds. And this is also suggested by Mr. Dunbar’s relation of the last instance of this sacrifice, which occurred in April, 1838. In the previous winter the Skidi, soon after starting on their hunt, had a successful fight with a band of Oglala Dacotahs, and fearing that the Dacotahs would retaliate by coming upon them in overwhelming force,they returned for safety to their village before taking a sufficient number of buffaloes. “With little to eat, they lived miserably, lost many of their ponies from scarcity of forage, and, worst of all, one of the captives proved to have the small-pox, which rapidly spread through the band, and in the spring was communicated to the rest of the tribe. All these accumulated misfortunes the Ski’-di attributed to the anger of the morning star; and accordingly they resolved to propitiate its favour by a repetition of the sacrifice, though in direct violation of a stipulation made two years before that the sacrifice should not occur again.”108

97Frazer,op. cit.ii. 238.

98Cieza de Leon,La Crónica del Perú[parte primera], ch. 55 (Biblioteca de autores españoles, xxvi. 409).

99Frazer,op. cit.ii. 238.

100James,Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky Mountains, i. 357. Grinnell,Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales, p. 357. Dunbar, ‘Pawnee Indians,’ inMagazine of American History, viii. 738.

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