(M71) The custom of eating bread sacramentally as the body of a god was

practised by the Aztecs before the discovery and conquest of Mexico by the

Spaniards. Twice a year, in May and December, an image of the great

Mexican god Huitzilopochtli or Vitzilipuztli was made of dough, then

broken in pieces, and solemnly eaten by his worshippers. The May ceremony

is thus described by the historian Acosta: “The Mexicans in the month of

May made their principal feast to their god Vitzilipuztli, and two days

before this feast, the virgins whereof I have spoken (the which were shut

up and secluded in the same temple and were as it were religious women)

did mingle a quantity of the seed of beets with roasted maize, and then

they did mould it with honey, making an idol of that paste in bigness like

to that of wood, putting instead of eyes grains of green glass, of blue or

white; and for teeth grains of maize set forth with all the ornament and

furniture that I have said. This being finished, all the noblemen came and

brought it an exquisite and rich garment, like unto that of the idol,

wherewith they did attire it. Being thus clad and deckt, they did set it

in an azured chair and in a litter to carry it on their shoulders. The

morning of this feast being come, an hour before day all the maidens came

forth attired in white, with new ornaments, the which that day were called

the Sisters of their god Vitzilipuztli, they came crowned with garlands of

maize roasted and parched, being like unto azahar or the flower of orange;

and about their necks they had great chains of the same, which went

bauldrickwise under their left arm. Their cheeks were dyed with vermilion,

their arms from the elbow to the wrist were covered with red parrots’

feathers.” Young men, dressed in red robes and crowned like the virgins

with maize, then carried the idol in its litter to the foot of the great

pyramid-shaped temple, up the steep and narrow steps of which it was drawn

to the music of flutes, trumpets, cornets, and drums. “While they mounted

up the idol all the people stood in the court with much reverence and

fear. Being mounted to the top, and that they had placed it in a little

lodge of roses which they held ready, presently came the young men, which

strewed many flowers of sundry kinds, wherewith they filled the temple

both within and without. This done, all the virgins came out of their

convent, bringing pieces of paste compounded of beets and roasted maize,

which was of the same paste whereof their idol was made and compounded,

and they were of the fashion of great bones. They delivered them to the

young men, who carried them up and laid them at the idol’s feet, wherewith

they filled the whole place that it could receive no more. They called

these morsels of paste the flesh and bones of Vitzilipuztli. Having laid

abroad these bones, presently came all the ancients of the temple,

priests, Levites, and all the rest of the ministers, according to their

dignities and antiquities (for herein there was a strict order amongst

them) one after another, with their veils of diverse colours and works,

every one according to his dignity and office, having garlands upon their

heads and chains of flowers about their necks; after them came their gods

and goddesses whom they worshipped, of diverse figures, attired in the

same livery; then putting themselves in order about those morsels and

pieces of paste, they used certain ceremonies with singing and dancing. By

means whereof they were blessed and consecrated for the flesh and bones of

this idol. This ceremony and blessing (whereby they were taken for the

flesh and bones of the idol) being ended, they honoured those pieces in

the same sort as their god.

(M72) “Then come forth the sacrificers, who began the sacrifice of men in

the manner as hath been spoken, and that day they did sacrifice a greater

number than at any other time, for that it was the most solemn feast they

observed. The sacrifices being ended, all the young men and maids came out

of the temple attired as before, and being placed in order and rank, one

directly against another, they danced by drums, the which sounded in

praise of the feast, and of the idol which they did celebrate. To which

song all the most ancient and greatest noblemen did answer dancing about

them, making a great circle, as their use is, the young men and maids

remaining always in the midst. All the city came to this goodly spectacle,

and there was a commandment very strictly observed throughout all the

land, that the day of the feast of the idol of Vitzilipuztli they should

eat no other meat but this paste, with honey, whereof the idol was made.

And this should be eaten at the point of day, and they should drink no

water nor any other thing till after noon: they held it for an ill sign,

yea, for sacrilege to do the contrary: but after the ceremonies ended, it

was lawful for them to eat anything. During the time of this ceremony they

hid the water from their little children, admonishing all such as had the

use of reason not to drink any water; which, if they did, the anger of God

would come upon them, and they should die, which they did observe very

carefully and strictly. The ceremonies, dancing, and sacrifice ended, they

went to unclothe themselves, and the priests and superiors of the temple

took the idol of paste, which they spoiled of all the ornaments it had,

and made many pieces, as well of the idol itself as of the truncheons

which they consecrated, and then they gave them to the people in manner of

a communion, beginning with the greater, and continuing unto the rest,

both men, women, and little children, who received it with such tears,

fear, and reverence as it was an admirable thing, saying that they did eat

the flesh and bones of God, wherewith they were grieved. Such as had any

sick folks demanded thereof for them, and carried it with great reverence

and veneration.”(241)

(M73) From this interesting passage we learn that the ancient Mexicans,

even before the arrival of Christian missionaries, were fully acquainted

with the theological doctrine of transubstantiation and acted upon it in

the solemn rites of their religion. They believed that by consecrating

bread their priests could turn it into the very body of their god, so that

all who thereupon partook of the consecrated bread entered into a mystic

communion with the deity by receiving a portion of his divine substance

into themselves. The doctrine of transubstantiation, or the magical

conversion of bread into flesh, was also familiar to the Aryans of ancient

India long before the spread and even the rise of Christianity. The

Brahmans taught that the rice-cakes offered in sacrifice were substitutes

for human beings, and that they were actually converted into the real

bodies of men by the manipulation of the priest. We read that “when it

(the rice-cake) still consists of rice-meal, it is the hair. When he pours

water on it, it becomes skin. When he mixes it, it becomes flesh: for then

it becomes consistent; and consistent also is the flesh. When it is baked,

it becomes bone: for then it becomes somewhat hard; and hard is the bone.

And when he is about to take it off (the fire) and sprinkles it with

butter, he changes it into marrow. This is the completeness which they

call the fivefold animal sacrifice.”(242) These remarkable

transformations, daily wrought by the priest, on the rice-wafer, were,

however, nothing at all to those which the gods themselves accomplished

when they first instituted the rite. For the horse and the ox which they

sacrificed became a _bos gaurus_ and a gayal respectively; the sheep was

turned into a camel; and the goat was converted into a remarkable species

of deer, enriched with eight legs, which slew lions and elephants.(243) On

the whole it would seem that neither the ancient Hindoos nor the ancient

Mexicans had much to learn from the most refined mysteries of Catholic

theology.

(M74) Now, too, we can perfectly understand why on the day of their solemn

communion with the deity the Mexicans refused to eat any other food than

the consecrated bread which they revered as the very flesh and bones of

their God, and why up till noon they might drink nothing at all, not even

water. They feared no doubt to defile the portion of God in their stomachs

by contact with common things. A similar pious fear led the Creek and

Seminole Indians, as we saw, to adopt the more thoroughgoing expedient of

rinsing out their insides by a strong purgative before they dared to

partake of the sacrament of first-fruits.(244) We can now also conjecture

the reason why Zulu boys, after eating the flesh of the black bull at the

feast of first-fruits, are forbidden to drink anything till the next

day.(245)

(M75) At the festival of the winter solstice in December the Aztecs killed

their god Huitzilopochtli in effigy first and ate him afterwards. As a

preparation for this solemn ceremony an image of the deity in the likeness

of a man was fashioned out of seeds of various sorts, which were kneaded

into a dough with the blood of children. The bones of the god were

represented by pieces of acacia wood. This image was placed on the chief

altar of the temple, and on the day of the festival the king offered

incense to it. Early next day it was taken down and set on its feet in a

great hall. Then a priest, who bore the name and acted the part of the god

Quetzalcoatl, took a flint-tipped dart and hurled it into the breast of

the dough-image, piercing it through and through. This was called “killing

the god Huitzilopochtli so that his body might be eaten.” One of the

priests cut out the heart of the image and gave it to the king to eat. The

rest of the image was divided into minute pieces, of which every man great

and small, down to the male children in the cradle, received one to eat.

But no woman might taste a morsel. The ceremony was called _teoqualo_,

that is, “god is eaten.”(246)

(M76) At another festival the Mexicans made little images like men, which

stood for the cloud-capped mountains. These images were moulded of a paste

of various seeds and were dressed in paper ornaments. Some people

fashioned five, others ten, others as many as fifteen of them. Having been

made, they were placed in the oratory of each house and worshipped. Four

times in the course of the night offerings of food were brought to them in

tiny vessels; and people sang and played the flute before them through all

the hours of darkness. At break of day the priests stabbed the images with

a weaver’s instrument, cut off their heads, and tore out their hearts,

which they presented to the master of the house on a green saucer. The

bodies of the images were then eaten by all the family, especially by the

servants, “in order that by eating them they might be preserved from

certain distempers, to which those persons who were negligent of worship

to those deities conceived themselves to be subject.”(247) In some cities

of Mexico, as in Tlacopan and Coyohuacan, an idol was fashioned out of

grains of various kinds, and the warriors ate it in the belief that the

sacred food would increase their forces fourfold when they marched to the

fight.(248) At certain festivals held thrice a year in Nicaragua all the

men, beginning with the priests and chiefs, drew blood from their tongues

and genital organs with sharp knives of flint, allowed it to drip on some

sheaves of maize, and then ate the bloody grain as a blessed food.(249)

(M77) But the Mexicans did not always content themselves with eating their

gods in the outward and visible shape of bread or grain; it was not even

enough that this material vehicle of the divine life should be kneaded and

fortified with human blood. They craved, as it seems, after a closer union

with the living god, and attained it by devouring the flesh of a real man,

who, after he had paraded for a time in the trappings and received the

honours of a god, was slaughtered and eaten by his cannibal worshippers.

The deity thus consumed in effigy was Tetzcatlipoca, and the man chosen to

represent him and die in his stead was a young captive of handsome person

and illustrious birth. During his captivity the youth thus doomed to play

the fatal part of divinity was allowed to range the streets of Mexico

freely, escorted by a distinguished train, who paid him as much respect as

if he had been indeed the god himself instead of only his living image.

Twenty days before the festival at which the tragic mockery was to end,

that he might taste all the joys of this transient world to which he must

soon bid farewell, he received in marriage four women, from whom he parted

only when he took his place in the last solemn procession. Arrived at the

foot of the sacred pyramid on the top of which he was to die, the

sacrificers saluted him and led him up the long staircase. On the summit

five of them seized him and held him down on his back upon the sacrificial

stone, while the high priest, after bowing to the god he was about to

kill, cut open his breast and tore out the throbbing heart with the

accustomed rites. But instead of being kicked down the staircase and sent

rolling from step to step like the corpses of common victims, the body of

the dead god was carried respectfully down, and his flesh, chopped up

small, was distributed among the priests and nobles as a blessed food. The

head, being severed from the trunk, was preserved in a sacred place along

with the white and grinning skulls of all the other victims who had lived

and died in the character of the god Tetzcatlipoca.(250)

(M78) The custom of entering into communion with a god by eating of his

effigy survived till lately among the Huichol Indians of Mexico. In a

narrow valley, at the foot of a beetling crag of red rock, they have a

small thatched temple of the God of fire, and here down to recent years

stood a small image of the deity in human form roughly carved out of

solidified volcanic ash. The idol was very dirty and smeared with blood,

and in his right side was a hole, which owed its existence to the piety

and devotion of his worshippers. For they believed that the power of

healing and a knowledge of mysteries could be acquired by eating a little

of the god’s holy body, and accordingly shamans, or medicine-men, who

desired to lay in a stock of these accomplishments, so useful in the

exercise of their profession, were wont to repair to the temple, where,

having deposited an offering of food or a votive bowl, they scraped off

with their finger-nails some particles of the god’s body and swallowed

them. After engaging in this form of communion with the deity they had to

abstain from salt and from all carnal converse with their wives for five

months.(251) Again, the Malas, a caste of pariahs in Southern India,

communicate with the goddess Sunkalamma by eating her effigy. The

communion takes place at marriage. An image of the goddess in the form of

a truncated cone is made out of rice and green grain cooked together, and

it is decorated with a nose jewel, garlands, and other religious symbols.

Offerings of rice, frankincense, camphor, and a coco-nut are then made to

the image, and a ram or he-goat is sacrificed. After the sacrifice has

been presented, all the persons assembled prostrate themselves in silence

before the image, then they break it in pieces, and distributing the

pieces among themselves they swallow them. In this way they are, no doubt,

believed to absorb the divine essence of the goddess whose broken body has

just passed into their stomachs.(252) In Europe the Catholic Church has

resorted to similar means for enabling the pious to enjoy the ineffable

privilege of eating the persons of the Infant God and his Mother. For this

purpose images of the Madonna are printed on some soluble and harmless

substance and sold in sheets like postage stamps. The worshipper buys as

many of these sacred emblems as he has occasion for, and affixing one or

more of them to his food swallows the bolus. The practice is not confined

to the poor and ignorant. In his youth Count von Hoensbroech and his

devout mother used thus to consume portions of God and his Mother with

their meals.(253)

§ 3. Many Manii at Aricia.

(M79) We are now able to suggest an explanation of the proverb “There are

many Manii at Aricia.”(254) Certain loaves made in the shape of men were

called by the Romans _maniae_, and it appears that this kind of loaf was

especially made at Aricia.(255) Now, Mania, the name of one of these

loaves, was also the name of the Mother or Grandmother of Ghosts,(256) to

whom woollen effigies of men and women were dedicated at the festival of

the Compitalia. These effigies were hung at the doors of all the houses in

Rome; one effigy was hung up for every free person in the house, and one

effigy, of a different kind, for every slave. The reason was that on this

day the ghosts of the dead were believed to be going about, and it was

hoped that, either out of good nature or through simple inadvertence, they

would carry off the effigies at the door instead of the living people in

the house. According to tradition, these woollen figures were substitutes

for a former custom of sacrificing human beings.(257) Upon data so

fragmentary and uncertain, it is impossible to build with confidence; but

it seems worth suggesting that the loaves in human form, which appear to

have been baked at Aricia, were sacramental bread, and that in the old

days, when the divine King of the Wood was annually slain, loaves were

made in his image, like the paste figures of the gods in Mexico, India,

and Europe, and were eaten sacramentally by his worshippers.(258) The

Mexican sacraments in honour of Huitzilopochtli were also accompanied by

the sacrifice of human victims. The tradition that the founder of the

sacred grove at Aricia was a man named Manius, from whom many Manii were

descended, would thus be an etymological myth invented to explain the name

_maniae_ as applied to these sacramental loaves. A dim recollection of the

original connexion of the loaves with human sacrifices may perhaps be

traced in the story that the effigies dedicated to Mania at the Compitalia

were substitutes for human victims. The story itself, however, is probably

devoid of foundation, since the practice of putting up dummies to divert

the attention of ghosts or demons from living people is not uncommon. As

the practice is both widely spread and very characteristic of the manner

of thought of primitive man, who tries in a thousand ways to outwit the

malice of spiritual beings, I may be pardoned for devoting a few pages to

its illustration, even though in doing so I diverge somewhat from the

strict line of argument. I would ask the reader to observe that the

vicarious use of images, with which we are here concerned, differs wholly

in principle from the sympathetic use of them which we examined

before;(259) and that while the sympathetic use belongs purely to magic,

the vicarious use falls within the domain of religion.

(M80) The Tibetans stand in fear of innumerable earth-demons, all of whom

are under the authority of Old Mother Khön-ma. This goddess, who may be

compared to the Roman Mania, the Mother or Grandmother of Ghosts, is

dressed in golden-yellow robes, holds a golden noose in her hand, and

rides on a ram. In order to bar the dwelling-house against the foul

fiends, of whom Old Mother Khön-ma is mistress, an elaborate structure

somewhat resembling a chandelier is fixed above the door on the outside of

the house. It contains a ram’s skull, a variety of precious objects such

as gold-leaf, silver, and turquoise, also some dry food, such as rice,

wheat, and pulse, and finally images or pictures of a man, a woman, and a

house. “The object of these figures of a man, wife, and house is to

deceive the demons should they still come in spite of this offering, and

to mislead them into the belief that the foregoing pictures are the

inmates of the house, so that they may wreak their wrath on these bits of

wood and so save the real human occupants.” When all is ready, a priest

prays to Old Mother Khön-ma that she would be pleased to accept these

dainty offerings and to close the open doors of the earth, in order that

the demons may not come forth to infest and injure the household.(260)

(M81) Further, it is often supposed that the spirits of persons who have

recently departed this life are apt to carry off with them to the world of

the dead the souls of their surviving relations. Hence the savage resorts

to the device of making up of dummies or effigies which he puts in the way

of the ghost, hoping that the dull-witted spirit will mistake them for

real people and so leave the survivors in peace. Hence in Tahiti the

priest who performed the funeral rites used to lay some slips of plantain

leaf-stalk on the breast and under the arms of the corpse, saying, “There

are your family, there is your child, there is your wife, there is your

father, and there is your mother. Be satisfied yonder (that is, in the

world of spirits). Look not towards those who are left in the world.” This

ceremony, we are told, was designed “to impart contentment to the

departed, and to prevent the spirit from repairing to the places of his

former resort, and so distressing the survivors.”(261) When the

Galelareese bury a corpse, they bury with it the stem of a banana-tree for

company, in order that the dead person may not seek a companion among the

living. Just as the coffin is being lowered into the earth, one of the

bystanders steps up and throws a young banana-tree into the grave, saying,

“Friend, you must miss your companions of this earth; here, take this as a

comrade.”(262) In the Banks Islands, Melanesia, the ghost of a woman who

has died in childbed cannot go away to Panoi or ghost-land if her child

lives, for she cannot leave the baby behind. Hence to bilk her ghost they

tie up a piece of banana-trunk loosely in leaves and lay it on her bosom

in the grave. So away she goes, thinking she has her baby with her, and as

she goes the banana-stalk keeps slipping about in the leaves, and she

fancies it is the child stirring at her breast. Thus she is happy, till

she comes to ghost-land and finds she has been deceived; for a baby of

banana-stalk cannot pass muster among the ghosts. So back she comes

tearing in grief and rage to look for the child; but meantime the infant

has been artfully removed to another house, where the dead mother cannot

find it, though she looks for it everywhere.(263) In the Pelew Islands,

when a woman has died in childbed, her spirit comes and cries, “Give me

the child!” So to beguile her they bury the stem of a young banana-tree

with her body, cutting it short and laying it between her right arm and

her breast.(264) The same device is adopted for the same purpose in the

island of Timor.(265) In like circumstances negroes of the Niger Delta

force a piece of the stem of a plantain into the womb of the dead mother,

in order to make her think that she has her babe with her and so to

prevent her spirit from coming back to claim the living child.(266) Among

the Yorubas of West Africa, when one of twins dies, the mother carries

about, along with the surviving child, a small wooden figure roughly

fashioned in human shape and of the sex of the dead twin. This figure is

intended not merely to keep the live child from pining for its lost

comrade, but also to give the spirit of the dead child something into

which it can enter without disturbing its little brother or sister.(267)

Among the Tschwi of West Africa a lady observed a sickly child with an

image beside it which she took for a doll. But it was no doll, it was an

effigy of the child’s dead twin which was being kept near the survivor as

a habitation for the little ghost, lest it should wander homeless and,

feeling lonely, call its companion away after it along the dark road of

death.(268)

(M82) At Onitsha, a town on the left bank of the Niger, a missionary once

met a funeral procession which he describes as very singular. The real

body had already been buried in the house, but a piece of wood in the form

of a sofa and covered up was being borne by two persons on their heads,

attended by a procession of six men and six women. The men carried

cutlasses and the women clapped their hands as they passed along each

street, crying, “This is the dead body of him that is dead, and is gone

into the world of spirits.” Meantime the rest of the villagers had to keep

indoors.(269) The sham corpse was probably intended as a lure to draw away

prowling demons from the real body. So among the Angoni, who inhabit the

western bank of Lake Nyassa, there is a common belief that demons hover

about the dying and dead before burial in order to snatch away their souls

to join their own evil order. Guns are fired and drums are beaten to repel

these spiritual foes, but a surer way of baulking their machinations is to

have a mock funeral and so mislead and confound them. A sham corpse is

made up out of anything that comes to hand, and it is treated exactly as

if it were what it pretends to be. This lay figure is then carried some

distance to a grave, followed by a great crowd weeping and wailing as if

their hearts would break, while the rub-a-dub of drums and the discharge

of guns add to the uproar. Meantime the real corpse is being interred as

quietly and stealthily as possible near the house. Thus the demons are

baffled; for when the dummy corpse has been laid in the earth with every

mark of respect, and the noisy crowd has dispersed, the fiends swoop down

on the mock grave only to find a bundle of rushes or some such trash in

it; but the true grave they do not know and cannot find.(270) Similarly

among the Bakundu of the Cameroons two graves are always made, one in the

hut of the deceased and another somewhere else, and no one knows where the

corpse is really buried. The custom is apparently intended to guard the

knowledge of the real grave from demons, who might make an ill use of the

body, if not of the soul, of the departed.(271) In like manner the

Kamilaroi tribe of Australia are reported to make two graves, a real one

and an empty one, for the purpose of cheating a malevolent spirit called

Krooben.(272) So, too, some of the Nagas of Assam dig two graves, a sham

grave made conspicuous on purpose to attract the notice of the evil

spirits, and the real grave made inconspicuous to escape their attention:

a figure is set up over the false grave.(273) Isis is said to have made

many false graves of the dead Osiris in Egypt in order that his foe Typhon

might not be able to find the true one.(274) In Bombay, if a person dies

on an unlucky day, a dough figure of a man is carried on the bier with him

and burnt with his corpse. This is supposed to hinder a second death from

occurring in the family,(275) probably because the demons are thought to

take the dough figure instead of a real person.

(M83) Again, effigies are often employed as a means of preventing or

curing sickness; the demons of disease either mistake the effigies for

living people or are persuaded or compelled to enter them, leaving the

real men and women well and whole.(276) Thus the Alfoors of Minahassa, in

Celebes, will sometimes transport a sick man to another house, while they

leave on his bed a dummy made up of a pillow and clothes. This dummy the

demon is supposed to mistake for the sick man, who consequently

recovers.(277) Cure or prevention of this sort seems to find especial

favour with the Dyaks of Borneo. Thus, when an epidemic is raging among

them, the Dyaks of the Katoengouw river set up wooden images at their

doors in the hope that the demons of the plague may be deluded into

carrying off the effigies instead of the people.(278) Among the Oloh

Ngadju of Borneo, when a sick man is supposed to be suffering from the

assaults of a ghost, puppets of dough or rice-meal are made and thrown

under the house as substitutes for the patient, who thus rids himself of

the ghost. So if a man has been attacked by a crocodile and has contrived

to escape, he makes a puppet of dough or meal and casts it into the water

as a vicarious offering; otherwise the water-god, who is conceived in the

shape of a crocodile, might be angry.(279) In certain of the western

districts of Borneo if a man is taken suddenly and violently sick, the

physician, who in this part of the world is generally an old woman,

fashions a wooden image and brings it seven times into contact with the

sufferer’s head, while she says: “This image serves to take the place of

the sick man; sickness, pass over into the image.” Then, with some rice,

salt, and tobacco in a little basket, the substitute is carried to the

spot where the evil spirit is supposed to have entered into the man. There

it is set upright on the ground, after the physician has invoked the

spirit as follows: “O devil, here is an image which stands instead of the

sick man. Release the soul of the sick man and plague the image, for it is

indeed prettier and better than he.” Similar substitutes are used almost

daily by these Dyaks for the purpose of drawing off evil influences from

anybody’s person. Thus, when an Ot Danom baby will not stop squalling, its

maternal grandmother takes a large leaf, fashions it into a puppet to

represent the child, and presses it against the infant’s body. Having thus

decanted the spirit, so to speak, from the baby into the puppet, she

pierces the effigy with little arrows from a blow-gun, thereby killing the

spirit that had vexed her child.(280) Similarly in the island of Dama,

between New Guinea and Celebes, where sickness is ascribed to the agency

of demons, the doctor makes a doll of palm-leaf and lays it, together with

some betel, rice, and half of an empty eggshell, on the patient’s head.

Lured by this bait the demon quits the sufferer’s body and enters the

palm-leaf doll, which the wily doctor thereupon promptly decapitates. This

may reasonably be supposed to make an end of the demon and of the sickness

together.(281) A Dyak sorcerer, being called in to prescribe for a little

boy who suffered from a disorder of the stomach, constructed two effigies

of the boy and his mother out of bundles of clothes and offered them,

together with some of the parents’ finery, to the devil who was plaguing

the child; it was hoped that the demon would take the effigies and leave

the boy.(282) Batta magicians can conjure the demon of disease out of the

patient’s body into an image made out of a banana-tree with a human face

and wrapt up in magic herbs; the image is then hurriedly removed and

thrown away or buried beyond the boundaries of the village.(283) Sometimes

the image, dressed as a man or a woman according to the sex of the

patient, is deposited at a cross-road or other thoroughfare, in the hope

that some passer-by, seeing it, may start and cry out, “Ah! So-and-So is

dead”; for such an exclamation is supposed to delude the demon of disease

into a belief that he has accomplished his fell purpose, so he takes

himself off and leaves the sufferer to get well.(284) The Mai Darat, a

Sakai tribe of the Malay Peninsula, attribute all kinds of diseases to the

agency of spirits which they call _nyani_; fortunately, however, the

magician can induce these maleficent beings to come out of the sick person

and take up their abode in rude figures of grass, which are hung up

outside the houses in little bell-shaped shrines decorated with peeled

sticks.(285)

(M84) In the island of Nias people fear that the spirits of murdered

infants may come and cause women with child to miscarry. To divert the

unwelcome attention of these sprites from a pregnant woman an elaborate

mechanism has been contrived. A potent idol called Fangola is set up

beside her bed to guard her slumbers during the hours of darkness from the

evil things that might harm her; another idol, connected with the first by

a chain of palm-leaves, is erected in the large room of the house; and

lastly a small banana-tree is planted in front of the second idol. The

notion is that the sprites, scared away by the watchful Fangola from the

sleeping woman, will scramble along the chain of palm-leaves to the other

idol, and then, beholding the banana-tree, will mistake it for the woman

they were looking for, and so pounce upon it instead of her.(286) In

Bhutan, when the Lamas make noisy music to drive away the demon who is

causing disease, little models of animals are fashioned of flour and

butter and the evil spirit is implored to enter these models, which are

then burnt.(287) So in Tibet, when a man is very ill and all other

remedies have failed, his friends will sometimes, as a last resort, offer

an image of him with some of his clothes to the Lord of Death, beseeching

that august personage to accept the image and spare the man.(288) A

Burmese mode of curing a sick man is to bury a small effigy of him in a

tiny coffin, after which he ought certainly to recover.(289) In Siam, when

a person is dangerously ill, the magician models a small image of him in

clay and carrying it away to a solitary place recites charms over it which

compel the malady to pass from the sick man into the image. The sorcerer

then buries the image, and the sufferer is made whole.(290) So, too, in

Cambodia the doctor fashions a rude effigy of his patient in clay and

deposits it in some lonely spot, where the ghost or demon takes it instead

of the man.(291) The same ideas and the same practices prevail much

further to the north among the tribes on the lower course of the River

Amoor. When a Goldi or a Gilyak shaman has cast out the devil that caused

disease, an abode has to be provided for the homeless devil, and this is

done by making a wooden idol in human form of which the ejected demon

takes possession.(292)

(M85) The Chinese of Amoy make great use of cheap effigies as means of

diverting ghostly and other evil influence from people. These effigies are

kept in stock and sold in the shops which purvey counterfeit paper money

and other spurious wares for the use of simple-minded ghosts and gods, who

accept them in all good faith instead of the genuine articles. Nothing

could well be cruder than the puppets that are employed to relieve

sufferers from the many ills which flesh is heir to. They are composed of

two bamboo splinters fastened together crosswise with a piece of paper

pasted on one side to represent a human body. Two other shreds of paper,

supposed to stand for boots, distinguish the effigy of a man from the

effigy of a woman. Armed with one of these “substitutes for a person,” as

they are called, you may set fortune at defiance. If a member of your

family, for example, is ailing, or has suffered any evil whatever, or even

is merely threatened by misfortune, all that you have to do is to send for

one of these puppets, pass it all over his body while you recite an

appropriate spell, and then burn the puppet. The maleficent influence is

thus elicited from the person of the sufferer and destroyed once for all.

If your child has tumbled into one of those open sewers which yawn for the

unwary in the streets, you need only fish him out, pass the puppet over

his filthy little body, and say: “This contact (of the substitute) with

the front of the body brings purity and prosperity, and the contact with

the back gives power to eat till an old, old, old age; the contact with

the left side establishes well-being for years and years, and the contact

with the right side bestows longevity; happy fate, come! ill fate, be

transferred to the substitute!” So saying you burn the substitute, by

choice near the unsavoury spot where the accident happened; and if you are

a careful man you will fetch a pail of water and wash the ashes away.

Moreover, the child’s head should be shaven quite clean; but if the

sufferer was an adult, it is enough to lay bare with the razor a small

patch on his scalp to let out the evil influence.(293) In Corea effigies

are employed on much the same principle for the purpose of prolonging

life. On the fourteenth and the fifteenth day of the first month all men

and women born under the Jen or “Man” star make certain straw images

dressed in clothes and containing a number of the copper cash which form

the currency of the country. Strictly speaking, there should be as many

cash in the image as the person whom it represents has lived years; but

the rule is not strictly observed. These images are placed on the path

outside the house, and the poor people seize them and tear them up in

order to get the cash which they contain. The destruction of the image is

supposed to save the person represented from death for ten years.

Accordingly the ceremony need only be performed once in ten years, though

some people from excess of caution appear to observe it annually.(294)

(M86) The Abchases of the Caucasus believe that sickness is sometimes

caused by Mother Earth. So in order to appease her and redeem the life of

the sick man, an innocent maiden will make a puppet in human form, richly

clad, and bury it in the earth, saying, “Instead of the sick man, play and

delight yourself with this.”(295) The Ewe negroes of Togoland, in West

Africa, think that the spirits of all living people come from heaven,

where they live in the intervals between their incarnations. Life in

Amedzowe, as they call that heavenly region, which lies a little to the

east of the town of Ho, is very like life on earth. There are fields there

and wildernesses and forests. Also there are all kinds of food, such as

yams and maize and likewise stock-yams, not to speak of cotton; in fact,

all these things came from heaven just as men themselves did. Moreover,

everybody has his spiritual mother in heaven and his spiritual aunt, also

his spiritual uncle, his spiritual grandfather, and so on, just as on

earth. Now the spirits in heaven are apt to resent it when one of their

number quits them to go and be born as a child on earth; and sometimes

they will pursue the truant and carry him back to the celestial country,

and that is what we call death. Little children are most commonly fetched

away by their mother in heaven; for she wearies for them and comes and

lays an invisible hand on the child, and it sickens and dies. If you hear

a child whimpering of nights, you may be sure that its mother from heaven

has laid her hand on it and is drawing it away to herself. If the child

grows very sick and its earthly mother fears that it will die, she will

mould two figures of clay, a man and a woman, and offer them in exchange

to the heavenly mother, saying, “O thou bearer and mother of children!

instead of the child that has gone away from thee we bring thee here in

exchange these clay men. Take them and withdraw thy hand from the child in

this visible world.” Grown-up people also, when they fall sick, will

sometimes make images of clay and offer them as substitutes to the

messengers who have come from heaven to fetch them away. These images are

deposited with other offerings, such as cowry-shells and a musket, by the

roadside; and if the messengers accept them instead of the sick man, he

recovers.(296) During an epidemic of small-pox the Ewe negroes will

sometimes clear a space outside of the town, where they erect a number of

low mounds and cover them with as many little clay figures as there are

people in the place. Pots of food and water are also set out for the

refreshment of the spirit of small-pox who, it is hoped, will take the

clay figures and spare the living folk; and to make assurance doubly sure

the road into the town is barricaded against him.(297)

(M87) Among the Nishga Indians of British Columbia when a medicine-man

dreams a dream which portends death to somebody, he informs the person

whose life is threatened, and together they concert measures to avert the

evil omen. The man whose life is at stake has a small wooden figure called

a _shigigiadsqu_ made as like himself as the skill of the wood-carver will

allow, and this he hangs round his neck by a string so that the figure

lies exactly over his heart. In this position he wears it long enough to

allow the heat of his body to be imparted to it, generally for about four

days. On the fourth day the medicine-man comes to the house, arrayed in

his bearskin and other insignia of office and bringing with him a wisp of

teased bark and a toy canoe made of cedar-bark. Thus equipped, he sings a

doleful ditty, the death-song of the tribe. Then he washes the man over

the region of the heart with the wisp of bark dipped in water, places the

wisp, together with the wooden image, in the canoe, and after again

singing the death-chant, commits image, wisp, and canoe to the flames,

where they are all consumed. The death-chant is now changed to a song of

joy, and the man who was lately in fear of his life joins in. He may well

be gay, for has he not given death the slip by devoting to destruction,

not merely a wisp saturated with the dangerous defilement of his body, but

also a substitute made in his own likeness and impregnated with his very

heart’s warmth?(298)

(M88) With these examples before us we may fairly conclude that the

woollen effigies, which at the festival of the Compitalia might be seen

hanging at the doors of all the houses in ancient Rome, were not

substitutes for human victims who had formerly been sacrificed at this

season, but rather vicarious offerings presented to the Mother or

Grandmother of Ghosts, in the hope that on her rounds through the city she

would accept or mistake the effigies for the inmates of the house and so

spare the living for another year. It is possible that the puppets made of

rushes, which in the month of May the pontiffs and Vestal Virgins annually

threw into the Tiber from the old Sublician bridge at Rome,(299) had

originally the same significance; that is, they may have been designed to

purge the city from demoniac influence by diverting the attention of the

demons from human beings to the puppets and then toppling the whole

uncanny crew, neck and crop, into the river, which would soon sweep them

far out to sea. In precisely the same way the natives of Old Calabar used

periodically to rid their town of the devils which infested it by luring

the unwary demons into a number of lamentable scarecrows, which they

afterwards flung into the river.(300) This interpretation of the Roman

custom is supported to some extent by the evidence of Plutarch, who speaks

of the ceremony as “the greatest of purifications.”(301) However, other

explanations of the rite have been proposed: indeed these puppets of

rushes have been a standing puzzle to Roman antiquaries in ancient and

modern times.

CHAPTER XI. THE SACRIFICE OF FIRST-FRUITS.

(M89) In the preceding chapter we saw that primitive peoples often partake

of the new corn and the new fruits sacramentally, because they suppose

them to be instinct with a divine spirit or life. At a later age, when the

fruits of the earth are conceived as created rather than as animated by a

divinity, the new fruits are no longer partaken of sacramentally as the

body and blood of a god; but a portion of them is offered to the divine

beings who are believed to have produced them. Originally, perhaps,

offerings of first-fruits were supposed to be necessary for the

subsistence of the divinities, who without them must have died of

hunger;(302) but in after times they seem to be looked on rather in the

light of a tribute or mark of homage rendered by man to the gods for the

good gifts they have bestowed on him. Sometimes the first-fruits are

presented to the king, perhaps in his character of a god; very often they

are made over to the spirits of the human dead, who are sometimes thought

to have it in their power to give or withhold the crops. Till the

first-fruits have been offered to the deity, the dead, or the king, people

are not at liberty to eat of the new crops. But, as it is not always

possible to draw a sharp line between the sacrament and the sacrifice of

first-fruits, it may be well to round off this part of the subject by

giving some examples of the latter.

(M90) The Ovambo or Ovakuanjama of South-West Africa stand in great fear

of the spirits of the dead, who are believed to exercise a powerful

influence over the living; in particular the spirits of dead chiefs can

give or withhold rain, a matter of vital importance in the parched region

of Ovamboland. Accordingly the people pay great respect to the spirits of

the departed, and they hold a thanksgiving festival in their honour at the

close of the harvest. When the new corn has been reaped and ground, a

portion of it is made into porridge and carried to the quarters of the

principal wife. Here all the inhabitants of the kraal assemble; the head

of the family takes some of the porridge, dips it in melted fat, and

throws it to the east, saying, “Take it, ye spirits of the East!” Then he

does the same towards the west, saying, “Take it, ye spirits of the West!”

This is regarded as a thank-offering presented to the spirits of the dead

for not visiting the people with sickness while they were cultivating the

fields, and especially for sending the rain.(303)

(M91) Among the Basutos, when the corn has been threshed and winnowed, it

is left in a heap on the threshing-floor. Before it can be touched a

religious ceremony must be performed. The persons to whom the corn belongs

bring a new vessel to the spot, in which they boil some of the grain. When

it is boiled they throw a few handfuls of it on the heap of corn, saying,

“Thank you, gods; give us bread to-morrow also!” When this is done the

rest is eaten, and the provision for the year is considered pure and fit

to eat.(304) Here the sacrifice of the first-fruits to the gods is the

prominent idea, which comes out again in the custom of leaving in the

threshing-floor a little hollow filled with grain, as a thank-offering to

these powerful beings.(305) Still the Basutos retain a lively sense of the

sanctity of the corn in itself; for, so long as it is exposed to view, all

defiled persons are carefully kept from it. If it is necessary to employ a

defiled person in carrying home the harvest, he remains at some distance

while the sacks are being filled, and only approaches to place them upon

the draught oxen. As soon as the load is deposited at the dwelling he

retires, and under no pretext may he help to pour the corn into the

baskets in which it is kept.(306) The Makalaka worship a god called

Shumpaoli, whose image is to be found in the enclosure outside of their

huts. The image consists of the head of an axe, a stone from the river,

and a twig or long stalk of grass planted between them in the ground.

About this god they scatter the first-fruits of their harvest, and when

they brew beer they pour some of it on him.(307) Of the Bantu tribes of

South Africa in general we are told that they might not eat of the new

crops till the chief gave them leave to do so. When the millet was ripe he

appointed a general assembly of the people at his residence, which was

known as the Great Place; he then performed certain rites, and in

particular he offered a small quantity of the fresh grain to the spirits

of his ancestors, either by laying it on their graves or by casting it

into a stream. After that he granted the people permission to gather and

eat the new corn.(308)

(M92) Among the Maraves or Zimbas, a tribe of the Upper Zambesi, bordering

on the Portuguese territory, it is the custom that first-fruits of all

produce must be offered to the spirits of the dead (_muzimos_), to whom

they attribute all the good and ill that befall them. Every year at

harvest-time the offerings are brought to these mighty beings. Small

portions of all kinds of fruits, together with cooked fowls and _pombe_

(the native intoxicant), are carried in procession, with songs, dances,

and the beating of drums, to the burial-ground, which is always situated

in a grove or a wilderness and is esteemed a sacred place; no tree may be

felled and no animal killed on the holy ground, for the natives believe

that a spirit of the dead is present in everything within the

precincts.(309) Among the Yaos of British Central Africa “offerings are

made to the spirit world or to _mulungu_ as the great agency in the

affairs of human life. Outside the village, or beside the head-man’s hut,

may often be seen a rough shed. In this are placed the first-fruits of the

new crop, green maize, beans, pumpkins, peas, etc., as a thank offering

from the villagers for their harvest. This is described as _kulomba __

mulungu_, to worship _mulungu_.”(310) By _mulungu_ the Yaos mean primarily

and strictly the soul of a dead person, which is believed to influence the

lives and fortunes of the survivors, and therefore needs to be honoured

and propitiated; but they employ the word in an extended sense to signify

the aggregate of the spirits of all the dead, and missionaries have

adopted it as the nearest equivalent for the word God.(311) Among the

Winamwanga, a tribe of north-eastern Rhodesia, between Lake Nyassa and

Lake Tanganyika, it is customary to offer the first beer and the first

flour made from the new harvest of millet to the spirits of the dead. The

head of the family pours out some beer and a small quantity of the new

flour in a heap on the floor of his own house, after which he prays to the

spirits of his forefathers, thanks them for the harvest, and invites them

to come and partake of it with the family. The priest performs the same

ceremony at the shrine for the whole village. The householder or the

priest speaks to the spirits as if they were sitting around him. Thus he

may say, “O ye great spirits, fathers in the spirit world, mothers in the

spirit world, and all ye others, bless us now. Here is the food, and here

is the offering, call ye all of you each other.” Then after summoning the

dead by their names he may go on: “Come all of you and partake of this

offering. Ye great spirits, all things of this earth were known to you

while yet ye were here. Take care of this your family, and of all these

your children. May we ever go in our ways in prosperity. Oh! ye great

spirits, give to us food and all the produce of the land. Drive ye away

all illnesses from your family, ye great spirits; every evil spirit put

far away from us, and whatever might seek to hurt us may it fly away on

the wind. Cause ye us to abide in peace.”(312) Among the Yombe of Northern

Rhodesia, to the west of Lake Tanganyika, no one is allowed to partake of

the new fruits until certain ceremonies have been performed. Escorted by a

band of drummers, his medicine-men, and the village elders, the chief

ascends the Kalanga Mountain until he reaches the hollow fastness which in

former days his forefathers held against the marauding Angoni. Here the

grandfather of the present chief lies buried. Before his tomb a bull is

slain, and pots of freshly-brewed beer and porridge made from the

first-fruits are deposited before the shrine. The ground is then carefully

cleaned of weeds, and the blood of the bull is sprinkled on the

freshly-turned-up soil and on the rafters of the little hut. After

offering the customary prayers in thanksgiving for the harvest, and

beseeching the spirits to partake with them of the first-fruits, the

procession retires. On their return to the village, the carcase of the

bull is divided, all partake of the fresh porridge and beer awaiting them,

and the day closes with beer-drinking and dancing.(313)

(M93) The A-Kamba of British East Africa offer first-fruits to the spirits

of their dead before anybody may eat of the new crop. Sometimes these

offerings are piled on the graves of chiefs and left there along with the

meat of a goat which has been sacrificed. Sometimes the offerings are made

in a cleared place under the sacred wild fig tree (_mumbo_) of the

village; for the A-Kamba think that the spirits of the dead (_aiimu_)

dwell in wild fig trees, and they build miniature huts at the foot of the

trees for the accommodation of the ghosts. The clearing under the wild fig

tree of the village is called the Place of Prayer (_ithembo_). When any

crop is ripe, all the inhabitants of the district assemble, and a very old

man and woman, chosen for the purpose, leave the crowd and go to the Place

of Prayer, where they call aloud to the spirits of the dead and ask leave

to eat the crop. The people then dance, and during the dance one of the

women is sure to be seized with a fit of shaking and to cry aloud, which

is deemed the answer of the spirits to the people’s prayer.(314) Amongst

the Baganda a man used to offer the first-fruits of a new garden to his

god, imploring the blessing of the deity on the future crops.(315) Among

the Dinka of the White Nile no member of a family may eat the new fruits

until the father or mother has scattered some of them over the courtyard

of the house in order to ensure the blessing of God.(316) When the millet

is ripe, the Nubas of Jebel-Nuba, a range of mountains in the eastern

Sudan, observe the following ceremony. Every group of villages is presided

over by a sacred pontiff called a _cogiour_ or _codjour_, who is believed

to act under the inspiration of a spirit named Laro. So when it is known

that the grain is ready to be cut, a drum is beaten, the pontiff mounts

his horse and, attended by all the elderly men and women, repairs to his

fields, while the rest of the people betake themselves to their own farms.

There the people whose eldest child is a boy break five ears of corn, and

those whose eldest child is a girl break four. But young unmarried people

break five or four ears according as they desire to have a boy or a girl

for their first-born. All then return to the village and place the ears

they have gathered on the hedge which serves as an enclosure. When the

beat of the drum and multitudinous cries of joy announce the return of the

pontiff, the people take the gathered ears and advance to meet him. He

rides at the head of a cavalcade composed of all the men who have horses.

After that, attended by the elders, he retires to his house, while the

rest of the people deposit the ears of corn in the cave of Laro, the being

who inspires the holy pontiff. Feasting, drinking, and horse-races

conclude the ceremony. At the races the young folk amuse themselves by

flinging stalks of millet before the horses to make them shy and throw

their riders.(317)

(M94) The Igbiras, a pagan tribe at the confluence of the Niger and the

Benue, bury their dead in their houses and have great faith in the power

of the ghosts, whose guidance and protection they seek to ensure by

periodical offerings of goats and cocks. Also they offer the first-fruits

of their crops to the dead, hanging bunches of the new grain over the

burial-places in their huts. The Igbiras also celebrate the festival of

the new yams with great pomp. It is their New Year’s Day. Sacrifices of

fowls and goats are offered, and wine and oil are freely poured out. The

king takes a prominent part in the feast.(318) Among the Cross River

natives, in the lower valley of the Niger, the eating of the new yams is

an occasion of great rejoicing, but no one may partake of them until a

portion has been ceremonially offered to the deities. The festival is not

held simultaneously but separately for each village according to the state

of the crops. High and low, old and young, men, women, and children dance

to music on these joyful occasions.(319) The Matse tribe of Ewe negroes in

Togoland worship the Earth at the times when they dig the ripe yams in

September, when they reap the ripe maize in November, and when they burn

the grass in February. The place where they offer sacrifices to the Earth

goddess is called “the Wood of our Mother.” In the month of November the

hunters, led by the Chief Huntsman and the High Priest, repair to the

maize-fields, where they gather cobs of the ripe grain. Some of these they

deposit, with prayers, in the sacrificial place in the wood, but they keep

the finest cobs for themselves. After this sacrifice of the new corn to

the Earth goddess everybody is free to get in his maize.(320) Amongst the

Hos, another Ewe tribe of Togoland, when a man is about to dig up his yam

crop, he first of all digs up two yams which he had planted for the

goddess Mawu Sodza. These he holds up to her and prays, saying, “O Mawu

Sodza, thou ship full of yams, give to me, and I will give to you; pass me

over, and I will pass you over. Here are thy yams, which I have dug for

thee. When I dig mine, grant that I may have plenty.” Thereupon he begins

to dig the crop.(321) Among the Bassari, another tribe of Togoland, no man

may eat of the new yams until the people have paid a tribute of the

first-fruits to the king. At such times long files of men, women, and

children may be seen wending their way to the capital to render to the

king his dues. But the king himself may not partake of the new yams until

he has offered a portion of them, along with ten white fowls, to the

fetish.(322) Before the Adeli of the Slave Coast may eat of the new yams,

the owner of each farm must bring the first yams of his field to the

fetish priest, who offers them to the fetish, after which he declares that

the harvest may take place. The festival, accompanied by shooting and

dancing, lasts several days; it generally falls in August.(323)

(M95) Among the Betsileo of Madagascar the king used to receive

first-fruits of all the crops, such as rice, maize, manioc, beans, and

sweet potatoes: indeed this tribute of first-fruits formed a large part of

his revenue.(324) The Hovas of Madagascar present the first sheaves of the

new grain to the sovereign. The sheaves are carried in procession to the

palace from time to time as the grain ripens.(325) So in Burma, when the

_pangati_ fruits ripen, some of them used to be taken to the king’s palace

that he might eat of them; no one might partake of them before the

king.(326) It has been suggested that the modern system of taxation may be

directly derived from the ancient obligation of paying first-fruits to a

sacred pontiff or king.(327)

(M96) Every year, when they gather their first crops, the Kochs of Assam

offer some of the first-fruits to their ancestors, calling to them by name

and clapping their hands.(328) Before they harvest any of their crops, the

Garos, another people of Assam, deem it necessary to sacrifice the

first-fruits of the crops to the gods. Thus, for example, they gather some

ears of rice or millet, pound them between two stones, and offer them up

on a piece of plantain stem.(329) In August, when the rice ripens, the Hos

of Bengal offer the first-fruits of the harvest to Sing Bonga, who dwells

in the sun. Along with the new rice a white cock is sacrificed; and till

the sacrifice has been offered no one may eat the new rice.(330) Among the

Oraons of Bengal no one will partake of the new rice until some of it has

been offered to the ancestors. A handful of it is cooked and spread on the

ground, and a pot of rice-beer is brewed and some of the beer also spilt

on the ground. Before drinking every one dips his finger in his cup and

lets fall some drops in honour of the ancestors. Further, a whity grey

fowl is killed, and the eldest of the family, addressing the ancestral

spirits, says, “O old mothers and fathers, you have always been so good to

us on these days. Here we are rejoicing: we cannot forget you: come and

rejoice with us.”(331) In Ladakh the peasants offer the first two or three

handfuls of the wheat-crop to the spirit who presides over agriculture.

These offerings they attach to the tops of the pillars which support the

roofs of their houses; and thus the bands of straw and ears of wheat form

a primitive sort of capital. Rams’ horns are sometimes added to this

decoration.(332) In the Himalayan districts of the North-Western provinces

of India the fields and boundaries are under the protection of a

beneficent local deity named Kshetrpal or Bhumiya. Every village possesses

a small temple sacred to him. When a crop is sown, a handful of grain is

sprinkled over a stone in the corner of the field nearest to the temple,

in order that the god may protect the growing crop from hail, blight, and

the ravages of wild beasts; and at harvest he receives the first-fruits in

order that he may save the garnered grain from the inroads of rats and

insects.(333) Among the hill tribes near Rajamahall, in India, when the

_kosarane_ grain is being reaped in November or early in December, a

festival is held as a thanksgiving before the new grain is eaten. On a day

appointed by the chief a goat is sacrificed by two men to a god called

Chitariah Gossaih, after which the chief himself sacrifices a fowl. Then

the vassals repair to their fields, offer thanksgiving, make an oblation

to Kull Gossaih (who is described as the Ceres of these mountaineers), and

then return to their houses to eat of the new _kosarane_. As soon as the

inhabitants have assembled at the chief’s house—the men sitting on one

side and the women on the other—a hog, a measure of _kosarane_, and a pot

of spirits are presented to the chief, who in return blesses his vassals,

and exhorts them to industry and good behaviour; “after which, making a

libation in the names of all their gods, and of their dead, he drinks, and

also throws a little of the _kosarane_ away, repeating the same pious

exclamations.” Drinking and festivity then begin, and are kept up for

several days. The same tribes have another festival at reaping the Indian

corn in August or September. Every man repairs to his fields with a hog, a

goat, or a fowl, which he sacrifices to Kull Gossaih. Then, having

feasted, he returns home, where another repast is prepared. On this day it

is customary for every family in the village to distribute to every house

a little of what they have prepared for their feast. Should any person eat

of the new _kosarane_ or the new Indian corn before the festival and

public thanksgiving at the reaping of these crops, the chief fines him a

white cock, which is sacrificed to Chitariah.(334) In the Central

Provinces of India the first grain of the season is commonly offered to

the god Bhímsen or Bhím Deo.(335) When the new rice crop is ripe, the

Gadbas, a primitive tribe of the Central Provinces, cook the first-fruits

and serve them to the cattle in new bamboo baskets; after that the men

themselves partake of the new rice.(336) The Nahals, a forest tribe of the

same region, worship the forest god Jharkhandi in the month of Chait, and

until this rite has been performed they may not use the leaves or fruits

of the _Butea frondosa_, _Phyllanthus emblica_, and mango trees. When the

god is worshipped, they collect branches and leaves of these trees and

offer cooked food to them: after that they begin to use the new leaves,

fruit, and timber.(337) Again, when the Mannewars, another forest tribe of

the Central Provinces, pick the flowers of the _mahua_ tree (_Bassia

latifolia_), they worship the tree and offer it some of the liquor

distilled from the new flowers, along with a fowl and a goat.(338) The

principal festivals of the Parjas, a small tribe of the Central Provinces,

are the feast of new vegetation in July, the feast of the new rice in

August or September, and the feast of the new mango crop in April or May.

At these feasts the new season’s crop is eaten, and offerings of them are

presented to the ancestors of the family, who are worshipped on these

occasions.(339) In the Punjaub, when sugar-cane is planted, a woman puts

on a necklace and walks round the field, winding thread on a spindle;(340)

and when the sugar-cane is cut the first-fruits are offered on an altar,

which is built close to the press and is sacred to the sugar-cane god.

Afterwards the first-fruits are given to Brahmans. Also, when the women

begin to pick the cotton, they go round the field eating rice-milk, the

first mouthful of which they spit upon the field toward the west; and the

first cotton picked is exchanged at the village shop for its weight in

salt, which is prayed over and kept in the house till the picking is

finished.(341)

(M97) Among the ancient Hindoos the first-fruits were sacrificed to the

gods at the beginning of harvest, generally at the new or the full moon.

There were two harvests in the year; the barley was reaped in spring and

the rice in autumn. From the new grain, whether barley or rice, a

sacrificial cake was prepared and set forth on twelve potsherds for the

two great gods Indra and Agni; a pap or gruel of boiled grain, sodden

either in water or milk, was offered to the Visve Devah, that is, to the

common mob of deities; and a cake on one potsherd was presented to Heaven

and Earth. The origin of these sacrifices of first-fruits was explained by

the following myth. They say that the gods and their powerful rivals the

Asuras once strove with each other for the mastery. In this strife the

Asuras defiled, both by magic and by poison, the plants on which men and

beasts subsist; for thus they hoped to get the better of the gods.

Therefore neither man nor beast could eat food, and for lack of it they

well nigh perished. When the gods heard of it, they said one to the other,

“Come let us rid the plants of the defilement,” and they did so by means

of the sacrifice. But they could not agree as to which of them should

receive the sacrifices, so to decide this delicate question they ran a

race, and Indra and Agni came in first; that is why the cake is offered to

them on twelve potsherds, while the common mob of the gods have to put up

with a simple pap or gruel. To this day, therefore, he who offers the

first-fruits to the gods does it either because no one will then be able

to defile the plants, neither by magic nor yet by poison; or perhaps he

does it because the gods did so before him. Be that as it may, certain it

is that he thereby renders both kinds of plants wholesome and innocuous,

both the plants which men eat and the plants on which cattle graze; that

indeed is the reason why the sacrificer sacrifices the first-fruits. And

the priest’s fee for the sacrifice is the first-born calf of the season,

which is, as it were, the first-fruit of the cattle.(342)

(M98) The Kachins of Upper Burma worship the spirit (_nat_) of the earth

every year before they sow their crops. The worship is performed by the

chief on behalf of all the villagers, who contribute their offerings. The

priest afterwards determines by exorcism which particular household shall

start sowing first in order that the crop may be a good one. Then the

household on which the lot has fallen goes out and sows its fields. When

the crop is ripe, it may not be reaped until the household which was the

first to sow its fields has gathered the first-fruits and offered them to

its own domestic spirits (_nats_). This is usually done before the crop is

quite ripe, in order that the reaping of the other crops may not be

delayed.(343) The Chins, another people of Upper Burma, eat the

first-fruits of their corn as a religious rite, but before doing so they

offer some of the new corn or vegetables to their dead ancestors. They

also offer the first-fruits to the goddess Pok Klai, a single glance of

whose eyes is enough to give them a plentiful harvest of rice.(344) Among

the Thay of Indo-China the first-fruits of the rice are offered at harvest

to the guardian spirit of the family before the household may partake of

the new crop. The guardian spirit of the family is the last ancestor who

died; he mounts guard until he is relieved by his successor; his shrine is

a corner of the house screened off by a low trellis of bamboo. But besides

the first-fruits offered him at harvest this guardian spirit receives some

of the parched grain in spring, at the time when the first thunder of the

season is heard to mutter. The grain which is presented to him on this

occasion was plucked from the crop before the rice was quite ripe, and it

has been carefully kept to be offered to him when the first peal of

thunder in spring announces the reviving energies of nature. When all is

ready, the rice is served up together with fish, which have been caught

for the purpose, on a table set in the corner which is sacred to the

guardian spirit. A priest drones out a long invitation to the spirit to

come and feast with his children; then the family sits down to table and

consumes the offerings. At the close of the banquet the daughter-in-law of

the deceased ancestor hangs up a basket containing rice and fish for his

use in the corner, after which she closes the shrine for another

year.(345) In Corea the first-fruits of all the crops used to be offered

to the king with religious pomp, and he received almost divine honours

from his subjects.(346) This suggests that, as I have already conjectured,

the common practice, of presenting the first-fruits to kings is founded on

a belief in their divinity.

(M99) In the island of Tjumba, East Indies, a festival is held after

harvest. Vessels filled with rice are presented as a thankoffering to the

gods. Then the sacred stone at the foot of a palm-tree is sprinkled with

the blood of a sacrificed animal; and rice, with some of the flesh, is

laid on the stone for the gods. The palm-tree is hung with lances and

shields.(347) The Dyaks of Borneo hold a feast of first-fruits when the

paddy or unhusked rice is ripe. The priestesses, accompanied by a gong and

drum, go in procession to the farms and gather several bunches of the ripe

paddy. These are brought back to the village, washed in coco-nut water,

and laid round a bamboo altar, which at the harvest festivals is erected

in the common room of the largest house. The altar is gaily decorated with

white and red streamers, and is hung with the sweet-smelling blossom of

the areca palm. The feast lasts two days, during which the village is

tabooed; no one may leave it. Only fowls are killed, and dancing and

gong-beating go on day and night. When the festival is over the people are

free to get in their crops.(348) The pounding of the new paddy is the

occasion of a harvest festival which is celebrated all over Celebes. The

religious ceremonies which accompany the feast were witnessed by Dr. B. F.

Matthes in July 1857. Two mats were spread on the ground, each with a

pillow on it. On one of the pillows were placed a man’s clothes and a

sword, on the other a woman’s clothes. These were seemingly intended to

represent the deceased ancestors. Rice and water were deposited before the

two dummy figures, which were also sprinkled with the new paddy. Moreover,

dishes of rice were set down for the rest of the family and the slaves of

the deceased. This was the end of the ceremony.(349) In Minahassa, a

district of Celebes, the people have a festival of “eating the new rice.”

Fowls or pigs are killed; some of the flesh, with rice and palm-wine, is

set apart for the gods, and then the eating and drinking begin.(350) The

people of Kobi and Sariputi, two villages on the north-east coast of

Ceram, offer the first-fruits of the paddy, in the form of cooked rice,

with tobacco and other things, to their ancestors as a token of gratitude.

The ceremony is called “feeding the dead.”(351) In the Tenimber and

Timor-laut Islands, East Indies, the first-fruits of the paddy, along with

live fowls and pigs, are offered to the _matmate_. The _matmate_ are the

spirits of their ancestors, which are worshipped as guardian-spirits or

household gods. They are supposed to enter the house through an opening in

the roof, and to take up their abode temporarily in their skulls, or in

images of wood or ivory, in order to partake of the offerings and to help

the family. They also assume the form of birds, pigs, crocodiles, turtles,

sharks, and so forth.(352) In Amboyna, after the rice or other harvest has

been gathered in, some of the new fruits are offered to the gods, and till

this is done, the priests may by no means eat of them. A portion of the

new rice, or whatever it may be, is boiled, and milk of the coco-nut is

poured on it, mixed with Indian saffron. It is then taken to the place of

sacrifice and offered to the god. Some people also pour out oil before the

deity; and if any of the oil is left over, they take it home as a holy and

priceless treasure, wherewith they smear the forehead and breast of sick

people and whole people, in the firm conviction that the oil confers all

kinds of blessings.(353) In the Kei Islands, to the south-west of New

Guinea, the first-fruits are offered to Lir majoran, the god of husbandry,

when the harvest is ripe.(354) After the rice has been reaped, the people

of Nias deck the images of their ancestors with wreaths, and offer to them

the first dishful of boiled rice, while they thank them for the blessings

they have bestowed on the family.(355) The Irayas and Catalangans of

Luzon, tribes of the Malay stock, but of mixed blood, worship chiefly the

souls of their ancestors under the name of _anitos_, to whom they offer

the first-fruits of the harvest. The _anitos_ are household deities; some

of them reside in pots in the corners of the houses; and miniature houses,

standing near the family dwelling, are especially sacred to them.(356)

When the Bagobos of the Philippines have got in their harvest of rice or

maize, they will neither eat of it nor sell so much as a grain till they

have made a pretence of feeding all their agricultural implements.(357)

(M100) The Bukaua of German New Guinea think that the spirits of their

dead have power to make the fruits of the earth to grow. Accordingly when

they have cleared a patch in the forest for cultivation and are planting

their crops, they take particular care to plant slips near the tree-stumps

which have been left standing in the field, because the spirits of their

long dead ancestors are supposed to perch on them. While they plant, they

call out the names of the dead, praying them to guard the field, so that

their children, the living, may have food to eat and not suffer hunger.

And similarly, when they plant stones shaped like taro bulbs in the

ground, which are supposed to produce a fine crop of taro, they pray to

their forefathers to grant them an abundance of the fruits. When the crops

are ripe, the people fetch bundles of taro, clusters of bananas,

sugar-canes, and vegetables from the fields and bring them back solemnly

to the village; a feast is prepared and a portion of the new fruits, along

with tobacco, betel, and dog’s flesh, is put in a coco-nut shell and set

on a scaffold in the house of the owner of the field, while he prays to

the spirits of his forefathers, saying, “Ye who have guarded our field as

we asked you to do, there is something for you; now look on us favourably

also for the time to come.” Afterwards, while the people are feasting, the

owner privily stirs the contents of the coco-nut shell with his finger,

and then calls the attention of the others to it as a proof that the

spirits have partaken of the offering provided for them. Finally the food

remaining in the shell is consumed by the banqueters.(358)

(M101) In certain tribes of Fiji “the first-fruits of the yam harvest are

presented to the ancestors in the Nanga [sacred enclosure] with great

ceremony before the bulk of the crop is dug for the people’s use, and no

man may taste of the new yams until the presentation has been made. The

yams thus offered are piled in the Great Nanga, and are allowed to rot

there. If any one were impiously bold enough to appropriate them to his

own use, he would be smitten with madness. The mission teacher before

mentioned told me that, when he visited the Nanga he saw among the weeds

with which it was overgrown, numerous yam vines which had sprung up out of

the piles of decayed offerings. Great feasts are made at the presentations

of the first-fruits, which are times of public rejoicing, and the Nanga

itself is frequently spoken of as the _Mbaki_, or Harvest.”(359) In other

parts of Fiji the practice with regard to the first-fruits seems to have

been different, for we are told by another observer that “the first-fruits

of the yams, which are always presented at the principal temple of the

district, become the property of the priests, and form their revenue,

although the pretence of their being required for the use of the god is

generally kept up.”(360) In Tana, one of the New Hebrides, the general

name for gods appeared to be _aremha_, which meant “a dead man.” The

spirits of departed ancestors were among the gods of the people. Chiefs

who reached an advanced age were deified after their death, addressed by

name, and prayed to on various occasions. They were supposed to preside

especially over the growth of the yams and fruit-trees. The first-fruits

were presented to them. A little of the new fruit was laid on a stone, or

on a shelving branch of the tree, or on a rude temporary altar, made of a

few sticks lashed together with strips of bark, in the form of a table,

with its four feet stuck in the ground. All being quiet, the chief acted

as high priest, and prayed aloud as follows: “Compassionate father! here

is some food for you; eat it; be kind to us on account of it.” Then all

the people shouted. This took place about noon, and afterwards the

assembled people feasted and danced till midnight or morning.(361)

(M102) In Florida, one of the Solomon Islands, the canarium nut is much

used in the native cookery, but formerly none might be eaten till the

sacrifice of the first-fruits had been offered to the ghosts of the dead.

This was done on behalf of a whole village by a man who inherited a

knowledge of the way in which the sacrifice should be offered, and who

accordingly had authority to open the season. When he saw that the time

had come, he raised a shout early in the morning, then climbed a tree,

cracked the nuts, ate some himself, and put some on the stones in his

sacred place for the particular ghost whom he worshipped. Then all the

people might gather the nuts for themselves. The chief offered food, in

which the new nuts were mixed, on the stones of the village sanctuary; and

every man who revered a ghost of his own did the same in his private

sanctuary.(362) This sacrifice of first-fruits was witnessed by Mr.

Woodford at the village of Aola, in the neighbouring island of

Guadalcanar. The canarium nuts, or Solomon Island almonds, had been ripe

for a week, and Mr. Woodford had expressed a wish to taste them, but he

was told that this was quite impossible till the offering to the ghost had

been made. As a native put it, “Devil he eat first; all man he eat

behind.” All the inhabitants of the village adjourned to the sea-shore in

groups of ten or twelve to perform the sacrifice. The party to which Mr.

Woodford attached himself swept a space clean beneath the spreading

branches of a Barringtonia, and there constructed half-a-dozen tiny

altars, each about six inches square, out of dry sticks. On these altars

they laid offerings of yams, taros, bananas, and a little flesh; and a few

of the nuts were skinned and set up on sticks round about the altars. Fire

was then made by the friction of wood, for matches might not be used for

this purpose, though probably every man had a box of them in his bag. With

the sacred flame thus produced the altars were kindled and the offerings

consumed. When this was done, the women produced large flat cakes baked of

a paste of pounded nuts, and these were eaten by all.(363) In Saa, another

of the Solomon Islands, when the yams are ripe, the people fetch some from

each garden to offer to the ghosts. Early in the morning all the male

members of a family assemble at the sanctuary of the particular ancestral

ghosts whom they revere. One of them goes with a yam into the holy place

and cries with a loud voice to the ghosts, “This is yours to eat,” and

with that he sets the yam beside the skull which is in the sanctuary. The

others call quietly upon all the ancestors and present their yams, which

are many in number, because one from each garden is given to each of the

ghosts. Moreover, if any man has a relic of the dead at home, such as a

head, or bones, or hair, he takes back a yam to his house and places it

beside the head or whatever it may be. In the same island, as in Florida,

the new canarium nuts may not be eaten until the first-fruits have been

offered to the ghosts. Moreover, the first flying-fish of the season must

be sacrificed to these spirits of the dead before the living are allowed

to partake of the fish. The ghosts to whom the flying-fish are offered

have the form of sharks. Some of them have sanctuaries ashore, where

images of sharks are set up; and the flying-fish are laid before these

images. Other shark-ghosts have no place on shore; so the fish offered to

them are taken out to sea and shredded into the water, while the names of

the ghosts are called out.(364)

(M103) In some of the Kingsmill Islands the god most commonly worshipped

was called Tubuériki. He was represented by a flat coral stone, of

irregular shape, about three feet long by eighteen inches wide, set up on

end in the open air. Leaves of the coco-nut palm were tied about it,

considerably increasing its size and height. The leaves were changed every

month, that they might be always fresh. The worship paid to the god

consisted in repeating prayers before the stone, and laying beside it a

portion of the food prepared by the people for their own use. This they

did at their daily meals, at festivals, and whenever they specially wished

to propitiate the deity. The first-fruits of the season were always

offered to him. Every family of distinction had one of these stones which

was considered rather in the light of a family altar than as an idol.(365)

(M104) In the Tonga Islands the first-fruits of the year were offered with

solemn ceremony to the sacred chief Tooitonga, who was regarded as divine.

The ceremony generally took place about October, and the people believed

that if the rite were neglected the vengeance of the gods would fall in a

signal manner upon them. The following is a description of the festival as

it was celebrated in the days when a European flag rarely floated among

the islands of the Pacific: “_Inachi._ This word means, literally, a share

or portion of anything that is to be or has been distributed out: but in

the sense here mentioned it means that portion of the fruits of the earth,

and other eatables, which is offered to the gods in the person of the

divine chief Tooitonga, which allotment is made once a year, just before

the yams in general are arrived at a state of maturity; those which are

used in this ceremony being of a kind which admit of being planted sooner

than others, and, consequently, they are the first fruits of the yam

season. The object of this offering is to insure the protection of the

gods, that their favour may be extended to the welfare of the nation

generally, and in particular to the productions of the earth, of which

yams are the most important.

“The time for planting most kinds of yams is about the latter end of July,

but the species called _caho-caho_, which is always used in this ceremony,

is put in the ground about a month before, when, on each plantation, there

is a small piece of land chosen and fenced in, for the purpose of growing

a couple of yams of the above description. As soon as they have arrived at

a state of maturity, the _How_ [the King] sends a messenger to Tooitonga,

stating that the yams for the _inachi_ are fit to be taken up, and

requesting that he would appoint a day for the ceremony: he generally

fixes on the tenth day afterwards, reckoning the following day for the

first. There are no particular preparations made till the day before the

ceremony: at night, however, the sound of the conch is heard occasionally

in different parts of the islands, and as the day of the ceremony

approaches it becomes more frequent, so that the people of almost every

plantation sound the conch three or four times, which, breaking in upon

the silence of the night, has a pleasing effect, particularly at Vavaoo,

where the number of woods and hills send back repeated echoes, adding

greatly to the effect. The day before the ceremony, the yams are dug up,

and ornamented with a kind of ribbons prepared from the inner membrane of

the leaf of a species of pandanus, and dyed red; when thus prepared, it is

called _mellecoola_ and is wrapped round the yam, beginning at one end,

and running round spirally to the other, when it is brought back in the

opposite direction, the turns crossing each other in a very neat manner.

As the ceremony is always performed at the island where Tooitonga chooses

to reside, the distant islands must make these preparations two or three

days beforehand, that the yams, etc., may be sent in time to Vavaoo, where

we will suppose the affair is to take place. The ninth day then is

employed in preparing and collecting the yams and other provisions, such

as fish, cava root, and _mahoa_, and getting ready mats, _gnatoo_, and

bundles of _mellecoola_: but the yams only are to be carried in the

procession about to be described....

(M105) “The sun has scarcely set when the sound of the conch begins again

to echo through the island, increasing as the night advances. At the Mooa

[capital], and all the plantations, the voices of men and women are heard

singing _Nófo óooa tegger gnaoóe, óooa gnaoóe_, ‘Rest thou, doing no work;

thou shalt not work.’ This increases till midnight, men generally singing

the first part of the sentence, and the women the last, to produce a more

pleasing effect: it then subsides for three or four hours, and again

increases as the sun rises. Nobody, however, is seen stirring out in the

public roads till about eight o’clock, when the people from all quarters

of the island are seen advancing towards the Mooa, and canoes from all the

other islands are landing their men; so that all the inhabitants of Tonga

seem approaching by sea and land, singing and sounding the conch. At the

Mooa itself the universal bustle of preparation is seen and heard; and the

different processions entering from various quarters, of men and women,

all dressed up in new _gnatoos_, ornamented with red ribbons and wreaths

of flowers, and the men armed with spears and clubs, betoken the

importance of the ceremony about to be performed. Each party brings in its

yams in a basket, which is carried in the arms with great care, by the

principal vassal of the chief to whom the plantation may belong. The

baskets are deposited in the _malái_(366) (in the _Mooa_), and some of

them begin to employ themselves in slinging the yams, each upon the centre

of a pole about eight or nine feet long, and four inches diameter. The

proceedings are regulated by attending matabooles.(367) The yams being all

slung, each pole is carried by two men upon their shoulders, one walking

before the other, and the yam hanging between them, ornamented with red

ribbons. The procession begins to move towards the grave of the last

Tooitonga (which is generally in the neighbourhood, or the grave of one of

his family will do), the men advancing in a single line, every two bearing

a yam, with a slow and measured pace, sinking at every step, as if their

burden were of immense weight. In the meantime the chiefs and matabooles

are seated in a semicircle before the grave, with their heads bowed down,

and their hands clasped before them.” The procession then marched round

the grave twice or thrice in a great circle, the conchs blowing and the

men singing. Next the yams, still suspended from the poles, were deposited

before the grave, and their bearers sat down beside them. One of the

_matabooles_ of Tooitonga, seating himself before the grave, a little in

advance of the men, now addressed the gods generally, and afterwards

particularly, mentioning the late Tooitonga, and the names of several

others. He thanked them for their divine bounty in favouring the land with

the prospect of so good a harvest, and prayed that their beneficence might

be continued in future. When he had finished, the men rose and resumed

their loads, and after parading two or three times before the grave,

marched back to the _malái_ the same way they came, singing and blowing

the conchs as before. The chiefs and _matabooles_ soon followed to the

same place, where the yams had been again deposited and loosened from the

poles, though they still retained their ornaments. Here the company sat

down in a great circle, presided over by Tooitonga, while the king and

other great chiefs retired into the background among the mass of the

people. Then the other articles that formed part of the _inachi_ were

brought forward, consisting of dried fish, mats, etc., which, with the

yams, were divided into shares by one of the _matabooles_ of Tooitonga.

About a fourth was allotted to the gods, and appropriated by the priests;

about a half fell to the king; and the remainder belonged to Tooitonga.

The materials of the _inachi_ having been carried away, the company set

themselves to drink _cava_. Some _cava_ root was brought and prepared; a

large quantity of provisions, perhaps a hundred and fifty baskets-full,

was set forth, and a small part of it was distributed to be eaten with the

_cava_. While the infusion was preparing, a _mataboole_ made a speech to

the people, saying that, as they had performed this important ceremony,

the gods would protect them and grant them long lives, if only they

continued to observe the religious rites and to pay due respect to the

chiefs. When the _cava_ was all drunk, the circle separated, and the

provisions were shared out to each chief according to his rank. The day

concluded with wrestling, boxing, and so forth, and then the night dances

began. When these were ended, the people went home perfectly assured of

the protection of the gods. At this ceremony, we are informed, the

quantity of provisions distributed was incredible, and the people looked

upon it as a very heavy tribute.(368)

(M106) In this Tongan festival the solemn presentation of the first-fruits

to the divine chief at the grave of his predecessor is highly significant:

it confirms the conclusion which we have already reached, that wherever

the first-fruits are paid to the chief, it is rather in his religious than

in his civil capacity that he receives them. It is true that the king of

Tonga received a large share of the first-fruits, indeed a larger share

than was allotted to the divine chief; but it is very noticeable that

while the division of the first-fruits was taking place under the

presidency of the divine chief, the king and the other great chiefs

retired from the scene and mingled with the mass of the people, as if to

indicate that as mere laymen they had no right to participate in a

religious rite of such deep solemnity.

(M107) The Samoans used to present the first-fruits to the spirits

(_aitus_) and chiefs.(369) For example, a family whose god was in the form

of an eel presented the first-fruits of their taro plantations to the

eel.(370) In Tahiti “the first fish taken periodically on their shores,

together with a number of kinds regarded as sacred, were conveyed to the

altar. The first-fruits of their orchards and gardens were also _taumaha_,

or offered, with a portion of their live stock, which consisted of pigs,

dogs, and fowls, as it was supposed death would be inflicted on the owner

or the occupant of the land, from which the god should not receive such

acknowledgment.”(371) In Huahine, one of the Society Islands, the

first-fruits were presented to the god Tani. A poor person was expected to

bring two of the earliest fruits gathered, of whatever kind; a _raatira_

had to bring ten, and chiefs and princes had to bring more, according to

their rank and riches. They carried the fruits to the temple, where they

threw them down on the ground, with the words, “Here, Tani, I have brought

you something to eat.”(372) The chief gods of the Easter Islanders were

Make-Make and Haua. To these they offered the first of all the produce of

the ground.(373) Amongst the Maoris the offering of the first-fruits of

the sweet potatoes to Pani, son of Rongo, the god of sweet potatoes, was a

solemn religious ceremony. The crop of sweet potatoes (_kumara_) was

sacred, and all persons engaged in its cultivation were also sacred or

tabooed; they might not quit the place nor undertake any other work.(374)

(M108) It has been affirmed that the old Prussians offered the

first-fruits of their crops and of their fishing to the god Curcho, but

doubt rests on the statement.(375) We have seen that the Athenians and

other Greek peoples offered the first-fruits of the wheat and barley

harvests to Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis.(376) The Troezenians

sacrificed the first-fruits to Poseidon, whom they worshipped as the

guardian deity of their city.(377) In Attica the first-fruits of the

vintage were presented to Icarius and Erigone.(378) The Romans sacrificed

the first ears of corn to Ceres, and the first of the new wine to Liber;

and until the priests had offered these sacrifices, the people might not

eat the new corn nor drink the new wine.(379) In various parts of ancient

Italy the vintage was solemnly inaugurated by the priests. At Rome the

duty devolved on the Flamen Dialis, who sacrificed a lamb to Jupiter and

then gathered the first grapes over the entrails of the victim. Till this

ceremony had been performed, the new wine might not be brought into the

city.(380)

(M109) The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia used to offer the

first berries of the season to the earth, or more generally to the

mountains. The offering was made by an old grey-haired person, who danced

and held out the fruit towards the mountain-tops. The rest of the people

painted their faces red and danced for some time.(381) The Okanaken

Indians of British Columbia “observed first-fruits ceremonies. When the

first berries or roots were ripe, the chief would send out his wife or

eldest daughter to gather a portion. The whole community would then come

together, and prayers would be offered to those spirits of the sky who

were supposed to preside over the operations of nature, portions of the

fruit or roots would be distributed to all present, after which any one

was free to gather all he or she desired; but no one would think of

picking a berry or digging a root until after the feast had been

held.”(382) When the ears of maize were formed, the Quiches of Central

America gathered the first-fruits and carried them to the priests;

moreover, they baked loaves or cakes, which they offered to the idol who

guarded their fields, but afterwards these cakes were given to the poor or

the infirm to eat.(383) It was the custom of the Arkansas Indians to offer

the first-fruits of the ripe maize and melons to the Master of Life; even

children would die of hunger rather than touch the new fruits before this

offering had been made. Some of the new maize, melons, and other fruits

were minced up with the carcase of a dog in the presence of the old men,

who alone were privileged to assist at this solemn rite. Then, after

performing certain ceremonies, the old men began to dance, and some young

girls, wound up to a pitch of frenzy, threw themselves on the offering and

bolted it in an instant. Thereupon the old men seized the damsels and

ducked them in the river Arkansas, which had a sobering influence on the

minds of the devotees.(384) From this account we may perhaps infer that in

eating the new fruits the girls were believed to be inspired by the Master

of Life, who thus consumed the offering by deputy. The chief solemnity of

the Natchez, an Indian tribe on the Lower Mississippi, was the Harvest

Festival or the Festival of New Fire. An early account of this ceremony

has been already submitted to the reader,(385) but it may not be amiss to

add here for comparison the later description by Chateaubriand, which

differs from the other in some particulars, and lays stress on the

sacrifice rather than on the sacrament of first-fruits. According to

Chateaubriand, then, when the time for the festival drew near, a crier

went through the villages calling upon the people to prepare new vessels

and new garments, to wash their houses, and to burn the old grain, the old

garments, and the old utensils in a common fire. He also proclaimed an

amnesty to criminals. Next day he appeared again, commanding the people to

fast for three days, to abstain from all pleasures, and to make use of the

medicine of purification. Thereupon all the people took some drops

extracted from a root which they called the “root of blood.” It was a kind

of plantain and distilled a red liquor which acted as a violent emetic.

During their three days’ fast the people kept silence. At the end of it

the crier proclaimed that the festival would begin on the following day.

So next morning, as soon as it began to grow light in the sky, the people

streamed from all quarters towards the temple of the Sun. The temple was a

large building with two doors, one opening to the east, the other to the

west. On this morning the eastern door of the temple stood open. Facing

the eastern door was an altar, placed so as to catch the first beams of

the rising sun. An image of a _chouchouacha_ (a small marsupial) stood

upon the altar; on its right was an image of a rattlesnake, on its left an

image of a marmoset. Before these images a fire of oak-bark burned

perpetually. Once a year only, on the eve of the Harvest Festival, was the

sacred flame suffered to die out. To the right of the altar, on the

morning of this holy day, stood the great chief, who took his title and

traced his descent from the Sun. To the left of the altar stood his wife.

Round them were grouped, according to their ranks, the war chiefs, the

sachems, the heralds, and the young braves. In front of the altar were

piled bundles of dry reeds, stacked in concentric rings.

The high priest, standing on the threshold of the temple, kept his eyes

fixed on the eastern horizon. Before presiding at the festival he had to

plunge thrice into the Mississippi. In his hands he held two pieces of dry

wood which he kept rubbing slowly against each other, muttering magic

words. At his side two acolytes held two cups filled with a kind of black

sherbet. All the women, their backs turned to the east, each leaning with

one hand on her rude mattock and supporting her infant with the other,

stood in a great semicircle at the gate of the temple. Profound silence

reigned throughout the multitude while the priest watched attentively the

growing light in the east. As soon as the diffused light of dawn began to

be shot with beams of fire, he quickened the motion of the two pieces of

wood which he held in his hands; and at the moment when the upper edge of

the sun’s disc appeared above the horizon, fire flashed from the wood and

was caught in tinder. At the same instant the women outside the temple

faced round and held up their infants and their mattocks to the rising

sun.

The great chief and his wife now drank the black liquor. The priests

kindled the circle of dried reeds; fire was set to the heap of oak-bark on

the altar, and from this sacred flame all the hearths of the village were

rekindled. No sooner were the circles of reeds consumed than the chief’s

wife came from the temple and placing herself at the head of the women

marched in procession to the harvest-fields, whither the men were not

allowed to follow them. They went to gather the first sheaves of maize,

and returned to the temple bearing them on their heads. Some of the

sheaves they presented to the high priest, who laid them on the altar.

Others they used to bake the unleavened bread which was to be eaten in the

evening. The eastern door of the sanctuary was now closed, and the western

door was opened.

When day began to decline, the multitude assembled once more at the

temple, this time at its western gate, where they formed a great crescent,

with the horns turned towards the west. The unleavened bread was held up

and presented to the setting sun, and a priest struck up a hymn in praise

of his descending light. When darkness had fallen the whole plain twinkled

with fires, round which the people feasted; and the sounds of music and

revelry broke the silence of night.(386)

CHAPTER XII. HOMOEOPATHIC MAGIC OF A FLESH DIET.

(M110) The practice of killing a god has now been traced amongst peoples

who have reached the agricultural stage of society. We have seen that the

spirit of the corn, or of other cultivated plants, is commonly represented

either in human or in animal form, and that in some places a custom has

prevailed of killing annually either the human or the animal

representative of the god. One reason for thus killing the corn-spirit in

the person of his representative has been given implicitly in an earlier

part of this work: we may suppose that the intention was to guard him or

her (for the corn-spirit is often feminine) from the enfeeblement of old

age by transferring the spirit, while still hale and hearty, to the person

of a youthful and vigorous successor. Apart from the desirability of

renewing his divine energies, the death of the corn-spirit may have been

deemed inevitable under the sickles or the knives of the reapers, and his

worshippers may accordingly have felt bound to acquiesce in the sad

necessity.(387) But, further, we have found a widespread custom of eating

the god sacramentally, either in the shape of the man or animal who

represents the god, or in the shape of bread made in human or animal form.

The reasons for thus partaking of the body of the god are, from the

primitive standpoint, simple enough. The savage commonly believes that by

eating the flesh of an animal or man he acquires not only the physical,

but even the moral and intellectual qualities which were characteristic of

that animal or man; so when the creature is deemed divine, our simple

savage naturally expects to absorb a portion of its divinity along with

its material substance. It may be well to illustrate by instances this

common faith in the acquisition of virtues or vices of many kinds through

the medium of animal food, even when there is no pretence that the viands

consist of the body or blood of a god. The doctrine forms part of the

widely ramified system of sympathetic or homoeopathic magic.

(M111) Thus, for example, the Creeks, Cherokee, and kindred tribes of

North American Indians “believe that nature is possest of such a property,

as to transfuse into men and animals the qualities, either of the food

they use, or of those objects that are presented to their senses; he who

feeds on venison is, according to their physical system, swifter and more

sagacious than the man who lives on the flesh of the clumsy bear, or

helpless dunghill fowls, the slow-footed tame cattle, or the heavy

wallowing swine. This is the reason that several of their old men

recommend, and say, that formerly their greatest chieftains observed a

constant rule in their diet, and seldom ate of any animal of a gross

quality, or heavy motion of body, fancying it conveyed a dullness through

the whole system, and disabled them from exerting themselves with proper

vigour in their martial, civil, and religious duties.”(388) The Zaparo

Indians of Ecuador “will, unless from necessity, in most cases not eat any

heavy meats, such as tapir and peccary, but confine themselves to birds,

monkeys, deer, fish, etc., principally because they argue that the heavier

meats make them unwieldy, like the animals who supply the flesh, impeding

their agility, and unfitting them for the chase.”(389) Similarly some of

the Brazilian Indians would eat no beast, bird, or fish that ran, flew, or

swam slowly, lest by partaking of its flesh they should lose their agility

and be unable to escape from their enemies.(390) The Caribs abstained from

the flesh of pigs lest it should cause them to have small eyes like pigs;

and they refused to partake of tortoises from a fear that if they did so

they would become heavy and stupid like the animal.(391) Among the Fans of

West Africa men in the prime of life never eat tortoises for a similar

reason; they imagine that if they did so, their vigour and fleetness of

foot would be gone. But old men may eat tortoises freely, because having

already lost the power of running they can take no harm from the flesh of

the slow-footed creature.(392) Some of the Chiriguanos of eastern Bolivia

would not touch the flesh of the vicuña, because they imagined that if

they ate it they would become woolly like the vicuña.(393) On the other

hand the Abipones of Paraguay ate the flesh of jaguars in order to acquire

the courage of the beast;(394) indeed the number of jaguars which they

consumed for this object is said to have been very great, and with a like

intent they eagerly devoured the flesh of bulls, stags, boars, and

ant-bears, being persuaded that by frequently partaking of such food they

increased their strength, activity, and courage. On the other hand they

all abhorred the thought of eating hens, eggs, sheep, fish, and tortoises,

because they believed that these tender viands begot sloth and

listlessness in their bodies and cowardice in their minds.(395) The

Thompson Indians of British Columbia would not eat the heart of the

fool-hen, nor would they allow their dogs to devour the bird, lest they

should grow foolish like the bird.(396)

(M112) While many savages thus fear to eat the flesh of slow-footed

animals lest they should themselves become slow-footed, the Bushmen of

South Africa purposely ate the flesh of such creatures, and the reason

which they gave for doing so exhibits a curious refinement of savage

philosophy. They imagined that the game which they pursued would be

influenced sympathetically by the food in the body of the hunter, so that

if he had eaten of swift-footed animals, the quarry would be swift-footed

also and would escape him; whereas if he had eaten of slow-footed animals,

the quarry would also be slow-footed, and he would be able to overtake and

kill it. For that reason hunters of gemsbok particularly avoided eating

the flesh of the swift and agile springbok; indeed they would not even

touch it with their hands, because they believed the springbok to be a

very lively creature which did not go to sleep at night, and they thought

that if they ate springbok, the gemsbok which they hunted would likewise

not be willing to go to sleep, even at night. How, then, could they catch

it?(397)

(M113) Certain tribes on the Upper Zambesi believe in transmigration, and

every man in his lifetime chooses the kind of animal whose body he wishes

at death to enter. He then performs an initiatory rite, which consists in

swallowing the maggots bred in the putrid carcase of the animal of his

choice; thenceforth he partakes of that animal’s nature. And on the

occasion of a calamity, while the women are giving themselves up to

lamentation, you will see one man writhing on the ground like a boa

constrictor or a crocodile, another howling and leaping like a panther, a

third baying like a jackal, roaring like a lion, or grunting like a

hippopotamus, all of them imitating the characters of the various animals

to perfection.(398) Clearly these people imagine that the soul or vital

essence of the animal is manifested in the maggots bred in its decaying

carcase; hence they imagine that by swallowing the maggots they imbue

themselves with the very life and spirit of the creature which they desire

to become. The Namaquas abstain from eating the flesh of hares, because

they think it would make them faint-hearted as a hare. But they eat the

flesh of the lion, or drink the blood of the leopard or lion, to get the

courage and strength of these beasts.(399) The Bushmen will not give their

children a jackal’s heart to eat, lest it should make them timid like the

jackal; but they give them a leopard’s heart to eat to make them brave

like the leopard.(400) When a Wagogo man of German East Africa kills a

lion, he eats the heart in order to become brave like a lion; but he

thinks that to eat the heart of a hen would make him timid.(401) Among the

Ja-luo, a tribe of Nilotic negroes, young men eat the flesh of leopards in

order to make themselves fierce in war.(402) The flesh of the lion and

also that of the spotted leopard are sometimes cooked and eaten by native

warriors in South-Eastern Africa, who hope thereby to become as brave as

lions.(403) When a Zulu army assembles to go forth to battle, the warriors

eat slices of meat which is smeared with a powder made of the dried flesh

of various animals, such as the leopard, lion, elephant, snakes, and so

on; for thus it is thought that the soldiers will acquire the bravery and

other warlike qualities of these animals. Sometimes if a Zulu has killed a

wild beast, for instance a leopard, he will give his children the blood to

drink, and will roast the heart for them to eat, expecting that they will

thus grow up brave and daring men. But others say that this is dangerous,

because it is apt to produce courage without prudence, and to make a man

rush heedlessly on his death.(404) Among the Wabondei of Eastern Africa

the heart of a lion or leopard is eaten with the intention of making the

eater strong and brave.(405) In British Central Africa aspirants after

courage consume the flesh and especially the hearts of lions, while

lecherous persons eat the testicles of goats.(406) Among the Suk of

British East Africa the fat and heart of a lion are sometimes given to

children to eat in order that they may become strong; but they are not

allowed to know what they are eating.(407) Arab women in North Africa give

their male children a piece of a lion’s heart to eat to make them

fearless.(408) The flesh of an elephant is thought by the Ewe-speaking

peoples of West Africa to make the eater strong.(409) Before they go forth

to fight, Wajagga warriors drink a magical potion, which often consists of

shavings of the horn and hide of a rhinoceros mixed with beer; this is

supposed to impart to them the strength and force of the animal.(410) When

a serious disease has attacked a Zulu kraal, the medicine-man takes the

bone of a very old dog, or the bone of an old cow, bull, or other very old

animal, and administers it to the healthy as well as to the sick people,

in order that they may live to be as old as the animal of whose bone they

have partaken.(411) So to restore the aged Aeson to youth, the witch Medea

infused into his veins a decoction of the liver of the long-lived deer and

the head of a crow that had outlived nine generations of men.(412) In

antiquity the flesh of deer and crows was eaten for other purposes than

that of prolonging life. As deer were supposed not to suffer from fever,

some women used to taste venison every morning, and it is said that in

consequence they lived to a great age without ever being attacked by a

fever; only the venison lost all its virtue if the animal had been killed

by more blows than one.(413) Again, ancient diviners sought to imbue

themselves with the spirit of prophecy by swallowing vital portions of

birds and beasts of omen; for example, they thought that by eating the

hearts of crows or moles or hawks they took into their bodies, along with

the flesh, the prophetic soul of the creature.(414)

(M114) Among the Dyaks of North-West Borneo young men and warriors may not

eat venison, because it would make them as timid as deer; but the women

and very old men are free to eat it.(415) However, among the Kayans of the

same region, who share the same view as to the ill effect of eating

venison, men will partake of the dangerous viand provided it is cooked in

the open air, for then the timid spirit of the animal is supposed to

escape at once into the jungle and not to enter into the eater.(416) The

Aino of Japan think that the otter is a very forgetful animal, and they

often call a person with a bad memory an “otter head.” Therefore it is a

rule with them that “the otter’s head must not lightly be used as an

article of food, for unless people are very careful they will, if they eat

it, become as forgetful as that creature. And hence it happens that when

an otter has been killed the people do not usually eat the head. But if

they are seized with a very strong desire for a feast of otter’s head,

they may partake thereof, providing proper precautions are taken. When

eating it the people must take their swords, knives, axes, bows and

arrows, tobacco-boxes and pipes, trays, cups, garden tools, and everything

they possess, tie them up in bundles with carrying slings, and sit with

them attached to their heads while in the act of eating. This feast may be

partaken of in this way, and no other. If this method be carefully adhered

to, there will be no danger of forgetting where a thing has been placed,

otherwise loss of memory will be the result.”(417) On the other hand the

Aino believe that the heart of the water-ousel is exceedingly wise, and

that in speech the bird is most eloquent. Therefore whenever he is killed,

he should be at once torn open and his heart wrenched out and swallowed

before it has time to grow cold or suffer damage of any kind. If a man

swallows it thus, he will become very fluent and wise, and will be able to

argue down all his adversaries.(418) In Northern India people fancy that

if you eat the eyeballs of an owl you will be able like an owl to see in

the dark.(419)

(M115) When the Kansas Indians were going to war, a feast used to be held

in the chief’s hut, and the principal dish was dog’s flesh, because, said

the Indians, the animal who is so brave that he will let himself be cut in

pieces in defence of his master, must needs inspire valour.(420) On

extraordinary occasions the bravest warriors of the Dacotas used to

perform a dance at which they devoured the livers of dogs raw and warm in

order thereby to acquire the sagacity and bravery of the dog. The animals

were thrown to them alive, killed, and cut open; then the livers were

extracted, cut into strips, and hung on a pole. Each dancer grabbed at a

strip of liver with his teeth and chewed and swallowed it as he danced: he

might not touch it with his hands, only the medicine-man enjoyed that

privilege. Women did not join in the dance.(421) Men of the Buru and Aru

Islands, East Indies, eat the flesh of dogs in order to be bold and nimble

in war.(422) Amongst the Papuans of the Port Moresby and Motumotu

districts, New Guinea, young lads eat strong pig, wallaby, and large fish,

in order to acquire the strength of the animal or fish.(423) Some of the

natives of Northern Australia fancy that by eating the flesh of the

kangaroo or emu they are enabled to jump or run faster than before.(424)

The Miris of Assam prize tiger’s flesh as food for men; it gives them

strength and courage. But “it is not suited for women; it would make them

too strong-minded.”(425) In Corea the bones of tigers fetch a higher price

than those of leopards as a means of inspiring courage. A Chinaman in

Seoul bought and ate a whole tiger to make himself brave and fierce.(426)

The special seat of courage, according to the Chinese, is the

gall-bladder; so they sometimes procure the gall-bladders of tigers and

bears, and eat the bile in the belief that it will give them courage.(427)

Again, the Similkameen Indians of British Columbia imagine that to eat the

heart of a bear inspires courage.(428)

(M116) In Norse legend, Ingiald, son of King Aunund, was timid in his

youth, but after eating the heart of a wolf he became very bold; Hialto

gained strength and courage by eating the heart of a bear and drinking its

blood;(429) and when Sigurd killed the dragon Fafnir and tasted his

heart’s blood, he acquired thereby a knowledge of the language of

birds.(430) The belief that the language of birds or of animals in general

can be learned by eating some part of a serpent appears to be ancient and

wide-spread. Democritus is reported to have said that serpents were

generated from the mixed blood of certain birds, and that therefore

whoever ate a serpent would understand the bird language.(431) The Arabs

in antiquity were supposed to be able to draw omens from birds because

they had gained a knowledge of the bird language by eating either the

heart or liver of a serpent; and the people of Paraka in India are said to

have learned the language of animals in general by the same means.(432)

Saxo Grammaticus relates how Rollo acquired all knowledge, including an

understanding of the speech of animals, both wild and tame, by eating of a

black serpent.(433) In Norway, Sweden, and Jutland down to the nineteenth

century the flesh of a white snake was thought to confer supernatural

wisdom on the eater;(434) it is a German and Bohemian superstition that

whoever eats serpent’s flesh understands the language of animals.(435)

Notions of the same sort, based no doubt on a belief in the extraordinary

wisdom or subtlety of the serpent, often meet us in popular tales and

traditions.(436)

(M117) In Morocco lethargic patients are given ants to swallow, and to eat

lion’s flesh will make a coward brave;(437) but people abstain from eating

the hearts of fowls, lest thereby they should be rendered timid.(438) When

a child is late in learning to speak, the Turks of Central Asia will give

it the tongues of certain birds to eat.(439) A North American Indian

thought that brandy must be a decoction of hearts and tongues, “because,”

said he, “after drinking it I fear nothing, and I talk wonderfully.”(440)

In Java there is a tiny earthworm which now and then utters a shrill sound

like that of the alarum of a small clock. Hence when a public dancing girl

has screamed herself hoarse in the exercise of her calling, the leader of

the troop makes her eat some of these worms, in the belief that thus she

will regain her voice and will, after swallowing them, be able to scream

as shrilly as ever.(441) The people of Darfur, in Central Africa, think

that the liver is the seat of the soul, and that a man may enlarge his

soul by eating the liver of an animal. “Whenever an animal is killed its

liver is taken out and eaten, but the people are most careful not to touch

it with their hands, as it is considered sacred; it is cut up in small

pieces and eaten raw, the bits being conveyed to the mouth on the point of

a knife, or the sharp point of a stick. Any one who may accidentally touch

the liver is strictly forbidden to partake of it, which prohibition is

regarded as a great misfortune for him.” Women are not allowed to eat

liver, because they have no soul.(442)

(M118) Again, the flesh and blood of dead men are commonly eaten and drunk

to inspire bravery, wisdom, or other qualities for which the men

themselves were remarkable, or which are supposed to have their special

seat in the particular part eaten. Thus among the mountain tribes of

South-Eastern Africa there are ceremonies by which the youths are formed

into guilds or lodges, and among the rites of initiation there is one

which is intended to infuse courage, intelligence, and other qualities

into the novices. Whenever an enemy who has behaved with conspicuous

bravery is killed, his liver, which is considered the seat of valour; his

ears, which are supposed to be the seat of intelligence; the skin of his

forehead, which is regarded as the seat of perseverance; his testicles,

which are held to be the seat of strength; and other members, which are

viewed as the seat of other virtues, are cut from his body and baked to

cinders. The ashes are carefully kept in the horn of a bull, and, during

the ceremonies observed at circumcision, are mixed with other ingredients

into a kind of paste, which is administered by the tribal priest to the

youths. By this means the strength, valour, intelligence, and other

virtues of the slain are believed to be imparted to the eaters.(443) When

Basutos of the mountains have killed a very brave foe, they immediately

cut out his heart and eat it, because this is supposed to give them his

courage and strength in battle. At the close of the war the man who has

slain such a foe is called before the chief and gets from the doctor a

medicine which he chews with his food. The third day after this he must

wash his body in running water, and at the expiry of ten days he may

return to his wives and children.(444) So an Ovambo warrior in battle will

tear out the heart of his slain foe in the belief that by eating it he can

acquire the bravery of the dead man.(445) A similar belief and practice

prevail among some of the tribes of British Central Africa, notably among

the Angoni. These tribes also mutilate the dead and reduce the severed

parts to ashes. Afterwards the ashes are stirred into a broth or gruel,

“which must be ‘lapped’ up with the hand and thrown into the mouth, but

not eaten as ordinary food is taken, to give the soldiers courage,

perseverance, fortitude, strategy, patience and wisdom.”(446) In former

times whenever a Nandi warrior killed an enemy he used to eat a morsel of

the dead man’s heart to make himself brave.(447) The Wagogo of German East

Africa do the same thing for the same purpose.(448) When Sir Charles

M’Carthy was killed by the Ashantees in 1824, it is said that his heart

was devoured by the chiefs of the Ashantee army, who hoped by this means

to imbibe his courage. His flesh was dried and parcelled out among the

lower officers for the same purpose, and his bones were long kept at

Coomassie as national fetishes.(449) The Amazons of Dahomey used to eat

the hearts of foes remarkable for their bravery, in order that some of the

intrepidity which animated them might be transfused into the eaters. In

former days, if report may be trusted, the hearts of enemies who enjoyed a

reputation for sagacity were also eaten, for the Ewe-speaking negro of

these regions holds that the heart is the seat of the intellect as well as

of courage.(450) Among the Yoruba-speaking negroes of the Slave Coast the

priests of Ogun, the war-god, usually take out the hearts of human

victims, which are then dried, crumbled to powder, mixed with rum, and

sold to aspirants after courage, who swallow the mixture in the belief

that they thereby absorb the manly virtue of which the heart is supposed

to be the seat.(451) Similarly, Indians of the Orinoco region used to

toast the hearts of their enemies, grind them to powder, and then drink

the powder in a liquid in order to be brave and valiant the next time they

went forth to fight.(452) The Nauras Indians of New Granada ate the hearts

of Spaniards when they had the opportunity, hoping thereby to make

themselves as dauntless as the dreaded Castilian chivalry.(453) The Sioux

Indians of North America used to reduce to powder the heart of a valiant

enemy and swallow the powder, hoping thus to appropriate the dead man’s

valour.(454) The Muskoghees also thought that to eat the heart of a foe

would “communicate and give greater heart against the enemy. They also

think that the vigorous faculties of the mind are derived from the brain,

on which account, I have seen some of their heroes drink out of a human

skull; they imagine, they only imbibe the good qualities it formerly

contained.”(455) For a similar reason in Uganda a priest used to drink

beer out of the skull of a dead king in order that he might be possessed

by the king’s spirit.(456) Among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait, when

young men had slain an enemy for the first time in war, they were wont to

drink some of the blood and to eat a small piece of the heart of their

victim in order to increase their bravery.(457) In some tribes of

North-Western Australia, when a man dies who had been a great warrior or

hunter, his friends cut out the fat about his heart and eat it, because

they believe that it imparts to them the courage and cunning of the

deceased.(458)

(M119) But while the human heart is thus commonly eaten for the sake of

imbuing the eater with the qualities of its original owner, it is not, as

we have already seen, the only part of the body which is consumed for this

purpose. Thus in New Caledonia the victors in a fight used to eat the

bodies of the slain, “not, as might be supposed, from a taste for human

flesh, but in order to assimilate part of the bravery which the deceased

was supposed to possess.”(459) Among the tribes about Maryborough in

Queensland, when a man was killed in a ceremonial fight, it was customary

for his friends to skin and eat him, in order that his warlike virtues

might pass into the eaters.(460) Warriors of the Theddora and Ngarigo

tribes in South-Eastern Australia used to eat the hands and feet of their

slain enemies, believing that in this way they acquired some of the

qualities and courage of the dead.(461) In the Dieri tribe of Central

Australia, when a man had been condemned and killed by a properly

constituted party of executioners, the weapons with which the deed was

done were washed in a small wooden vessel, and the bloody mixture was

administered to all the slayers in a prescribed manner, while they lay

down on their backs and the elders poured it into their mouths. This was

believed to give them double strength, courage, and great nerve for any

future enterprise.(462) The Kamilaroi of New South Wales ate the liver as

well as the heart of a brave man to get his courage.(463) In Tonquin also

there is a popular superstition that the liver of a brave man makes brave

any who partake of it. Hence when a Catholic missionary was beheaded in

Tonquin in 1837, the executioner cut out the liver of his victim and ate

part of it, while a soldier attempted to devour another part of it

raw.(464) With a like intent the Chinese swallow the bile of notorious

bandits who have been executed.(465) The Dyaks of Sarawak used to eat the

palms of the hands and the flesh of the knees of the slain in order to

steady their own hands and strengthen their own knees.(466) The Tolalaki,

notorious head-hunters of Central Celebes, drink the blood and eat the

brains of their victims that they may become brave.(467) The Italones of

the Philippine Islands drink the blood of their slain enemies, and eat

part of the back of their heads and of their entrails raw to acquire their

courage. For the same reason the Efugaos, another tribe of the

Philippines, suck the brains of their foes.(468) In like manner the Kai of

German New Guinea eat the brains of the enemies they kill in order to

acquire their strength.(469) Among the Kimbunda of Western Africa, when a

new king succeeds to the throne, a brave prisoner of war is killed in

order that the king and nobles may eat his flesh, and so acquire his

strength and courage.(470) The notorious Zulu chief Matuana drank the gall

of thirty chiefs, whose people he had destroyed, in the belief that it

would make him strong.(471) It is a Zulu fancy that by eating the centre

of the forehead and the eyebrow of an enemy they acquire the power of

looking steadfastly at a foe.(472) In Tud or Warrior Island, Torres

Straits, men would drink the sweat of renowned warriors, and eat the

scrapings from their finger-nails which had become coated and sodden with

human blood. This was done “to make strong and like stone; no

afraid.”(473) In Nagir, another island of Torres Straits, in order to

infuse courage into boys a warrior used to take the eye and tongue of a

man whom he had killed, and after mincing them and mixing them with his

urine he administered the compound to the boy, who received it with shut

eyes and open mouth seated between the warrior’s legs.(474) Before every

warlike expedition the people of Minahassa in Celebes used to take the

locks of hair of a slain foe and dabble them in boiling water to extract

the courage; this infusion of bravery was then drunk by the warriors.(475)

In New Zealand “the chief was an _atua_ [god], but there were powerful and

powerless gods; each naturally sought to make himself one of the former;

the plan therefore adopted was to incorporate the spirits of others with

their own; thus, when a warrior slew a chief, he immediately gouged out

his eyes and swallowed them, the _atua tonga_, or divinity, being supposed

to reside in that organ; thus he not only killed the body, but also

possessed himself of the soul of his enemy, and consequently the more

chiefs he slew the greater did his divinity become.”(476)

(M120) Even without absorbing any part of a man’s bodily substance it is

sometimes thought possible to acquire his moral virtues through simple

contact with his bones. Thus among the Toradjas of Central Celebes, when a

youth is being circumcised he is made to sit on the skull of a slain foe

in order to make him brave in war;(477) and when Scanderbeg, Prince of

Epirus, was dead, the Turks, who had often felt the force of his arm in

battle, are said to have imagined that by wearing a piece of his bones

near their heart they should be animated with a strength and valour like

his.(478) A peculiar form of communion with the dead is practised by the

Gallas of Eastern Africa. They think that food from the house of a dead

man, especially food that he liked, or that he cooked for himself,

contains a portion of his life or soul. If at the funeral feast a man eats

some of that food, he fancies that he has thereby absorbed some of the

life or soul of the departed, a portion of his spirit, intelligence, or

courage.(479)

(M121) Strange as it may seem to us, one motive which induces a savage

warrior to eat the flesh or drink the blood of the foe whom he has slain

appears to be a wish to form an indissoluble covenant of friendship and

brotherhood with his victim. For it is a widespread belief among savages

that by transfusing a little of their blood into each other’s bodies two

men become kinsmen and allies; the same blood now circulating in the veins

of both, neither can injure the other without at the same time injuring

himself; the two have therefore given each other the strongest bond, the

best possible hostages, for their good behaviour.(480) Acting on this

theory, the primitive warrior seeks to convert his slain foe into the

firmest of friends by imbibing the dead man’s blood or swallowing his

flesh. That at all events appears to be the idea at the root of the

following customs. When an Arawak Indian of British Guiana has murdered

another, he repairs on the third night to the grave of his victim, and

pressing a pointed stick through the corpse he licks off and swallows any

blood that he finds adhering to the stick. For he believes that if he did

not taste his victim’s blood, he would go mad and die; whereas by

swallowing the blood he averts any ill consequences that might flow to him

from the murder.(481) The belief and practice of the Nandi are similar:

“To the present day, when a person of another tribe has been slain by a

Nandi, the blood must be carefully washed off the spear or sword into a

cup made of grass, and drunk by the slayer. If this is not done it is

thought that the man will become frenzied.”(482) So among the tribes of

the Lower Niger “it is customary and necessary for the executioner to lick

the blood that is on the blade”; moreover, “the custom of licking the

blood off the blade of a sword by which a man has been killed in war is

common to all these tribes, and the explanation given me by the Ibo, which

is generally accepted, is, that if this was not done, the act of killing

would so affect the strikers as to cause them to run amok among their own

people; because the sight and smell of blood render them absolutely

senseless as well as regardless of all consequences. And this licking the

blood is the only sure remedy, and the only way in which they can recover

themselves.”(483) Among the Shans executioners believe that they would

soon fall ill and die if they did not taste the blood of their

victims.(484)

(M122) The most probable explanation of these practices seems to be that a

manslayer is thought to be driven mad by the ghost of his victim, who

takes possession of his murderer’s body and causes him to demean himself

in a frantic manner; whereas, as soon as the slayer has tasted the blood

of the slain, he becomes a blood-brother of his victim, whose ghost

accordingly will do him no harm.(485) This hypothesis is strongly

confirmed by the reason alleged for a similar custom formerly observed by

the Maoris. When a warrior had slain his foe in combat, he tasted his

blood, believing that this preserved him from the avenging spirit of his

victim; for they imagined that “the moment a slayer had tasted the blood

of the slain, the dead man became a part of his being and placed him under

the protection of the _atua_ or guardian-spirit of the deceased.”(486) In

the light of these facts we can now explain the opinion, still widely held

in Calabria, that if a murderer is to escape, he must suck his victim’s

blood from the reeking blade of the dagger with which he did the

deed;(487) and, further, we can see at least a glimmering of reason,

however misapplied, in the confidence cherished by the Botocudos of

Brazil, that if only they ate a morsel of the flesh of their enemies, the

arrows of the fellow tribesmen of the slain would not be able to hit

them.(488) Indeed the evidence which I have just adduced suggests that the

intention of forming a blood-covenant with the dead may have been a common

motive for the cannibalism which has been so often practised by savage

victors on the bodies of their victims.(489) If that was so, it would to

some extent mitigate the horror with which such a practice is naturally

viewed by civilised observers; since it would reveal the cannibal feast,

no longer in the lurid light of a brutal outburst of blind rage and hatred

against the vanquished, but in the milder aspect of a solemn rite designed

to wipe out the memory of past hostilities and to establish a permanent

relation of friendship and good fellowship with the dead.

(M123) Another mode of entering into communion with the dead by means of

their bodily relics is to grind their bones to powder or to burn them to

ashes, and then to swallow the powder or the ashes mixed with food or

drink. This method of absorbing the virtues or appropriating the souls of

deceased kinsfolk has been practised by a number of Indian tribes of South

America. Thus the Tarianas, Tucanos, and other tribes in the valley of the

Amazon, about a month after the funeral, disinter the corpse, which is

then much decomposed, and put it in a great pan or oven over the fire till

all the volatile parts are driven off with a most horrible stench, leaving

only a black carbonaceous paste. This paste is then pounded into a fine

powder, and being mixed in several large vats of the native beer, the

liquor is drunk by the assembled company until all is consumed. They

believe that thus the virtues of the deceased are transmitted to the

drinkers.(490) Similarly among the Xomanas and Passes of the Rio Negro and

Japura River in Brazil, it was customary to burn the bones of the dead and

mingle the ashes in their drink; “for they fancied, that by this means

they received into their own bodies the spirits of their deceased

friends.”(491) We may suppose that a similar motive underlies the custom

wherever it has been observed by the Indians of South America, even when

this particular motive is not expressly alleged by our authorities. For

example, the Retoroños, Pechuyos, and Guarayos of eastern Bolivia

“manifested their feeling for the dead by a remarkable custom: when the

body had mouldered they dug up the bones, reduced them to powder, and

mingling it with maize, composed a sort of cake, which they considered it

the strongest mark of friendship to offer and partake. Some of the first

missionaries were regaled with this family bread, before they knew what

they were eating.”(492) Again, in the province of Coro, in north-western

Venezuela, when a chief died, they lamented him in the night, celebrating

his actions; then they parched his body at the fire, and reducing it to

powder drank it up in their liquor, deeming this act the highest honour

they could pay him.(493) The Tauaré Indians of the Rio Enivra burn their

dead, keep their ashes in hollow reeds, and eat a portion of the ashes

with every meal.(494) So in antiquity Artemisia expressed her love and

grief for her dead husband Mausolus by powdering his ashes and drinking

them in water.(495) It is said that Mwamba, a recent king or chief of the

Wemba in Northern Rhodesia, having detected one of his wives in an

intrigue with another man, caused the guilty pair to be burned alive,

while he watched their tortures from a raised seat. “Shortly after this,

however, he would seem to have been stricken with remorse and the dread of

Nemesis. The presiding witch-doctor was therefore ordered to collect the

ashes of the twain, and decoct therefrom a potion, which was administered

to the king to avert the avenging furies of evil spirits of the murdered

pair, which might otherwise have hounded him into a fit of madness.”(496)

By drinking the ashes of his victims the king sought to identify himself

with them and so to protect himself against their angry ghosts, just as we

have seen that manslayers seek to protect themselves against the ghosts of

their victims by drinking their blood.(497)

(M124) Just as the savage thinks that he can swallow the moral and other

virtues in the shape of food, so he fondly imagines that he can inoculate

himself with them. Here in Europe we as yet inoculate only against

disease; in Basutoland they have learned the art of inoculating not merely

against disease but against moral evil and public calamity, against wild

beasts and winter cold. For example, if an epidemic is raging, if public

affairs go ill, or war threatens to break out, the chief, with paternal

solicitude, seeks to guard his people against the evils that menace them

by inoculating them with his own hand. Armed with a lancet, he makes a

slight incision in the temples of each one, and rubs into the wound a

pinch of magic powder which has been carefully compounded of the ashes of

certain plants and animals. The plants and animals whose ashes compose

this sovereign medicine are always symbolical; in other words, they are

supposed to be imbued with the virtues which the chief desires to impart

to his people. They consist, for example, of plants whose foliage

withstands the rigours of winter; mimosas, whose thorns present an

impenetrable barrier to all animals of the deer kind; the claws or a few

hairs from the mane of a lion, the bravest of beasts; the tuft of hair

round the root of the horns of a bull, which is the emblem of strength and

fecundity; the skin of a serpent; the feathers of a kite or a hawk.(498)

So when the Barotsé wish to be swift of foot, to cripple the fleeing game,

and to ensure an abundant catch, they scarify their arms and legs and rub

into the wounds a powder made of the burnt bones of various beasts and

birds.(499) Among some tribes of South-Eastern Africa the same magic

powder which is made from various parts of slain foes, and is eaten by

boys at circumcision,(500) is used to inoculate the fighting-men in time

of war. The medicine-man makes an incision in the forehead of each

warrior, and puts the powder into the cut, thus infusing strength and

courage for the battle.(501) Among some Caffre tribes the powdered

charcoal with which the warriors are thus inoculated in various parts of

their bodies is procured by burning the flesh of a live ox with a certain

kind of wood or roots, to which magic virtue is attributed.(502) The

Basutos think that they can render themselves invulnerable by

inoculation,(503) and the Zulus imagine that they can protect themselves

against snake-bite by similar means. But the saving virtue of the

inoculation is not permanent; like vaccination, it has to be periodically

renewed. Hence every year, about October, Zulu men, women, and children

have a small piece of skin cut from the back of the left hand, and the

poison of a snake, mixed with spittle, is rubbed into the wound. No snake

will ever approach a man who has thus been inoculated; and what is even

more curious, if the shadow of an inoculated man should touch the shadow

of a man who has not been inoculated, the latter will fall down as if he

had been shot, overcome by the poison transmitted through the shadow: so

exceedingly virulent is the virus.(504) Among the Jukos, a tribe of the

Benue River in Northern Nigeria, before a hunter goes forth to hunt

elephants, he makes four cuts in his left arm and rubs in “medicine”; this

helps him to see the beast next day.(505)

(M125) Again, the Zulus know how to inoculate themselves not merely with

moral virtue, but even with celestial power. For you must know that the

Zulus have heaven-herds or sky-herds, who drive away clouds big with hail

and lightning, just as herdsmen drive cattle before them. These

heaven-herds are in sympathy with the heaven. For when the heaven is about

to be darkened, and before the clouds appear or the thunder mutters, the

heart of the heaven-herd feels it coming, for it is hot within him and he

is excited by anger. When the sky begins to be overcast, he too grows dark

like it; when it thunders, he frowns, that his face may be black as the

scowl of the angry heaven. Now the way in which he thus becomes

sympathetic with all the changing moods of the inconstant heaven is this:

he eats the heaven and scarifies himself with it. And the way in which he

eats the heaven and scarifies himself with it is as follows. When a

bullock is struck by lightning, the wizard takes its flesh and puts it in

a sherd and eats it while it is hot, mixed with medicine; and thus he eats

the heaven by eating the flesh, which came from the beast, which was

struck by the lightning, which came down from the heaven. And in like

manner he scarifies himself with the heaven, for he makes cuts in his body

and rubs in medicine mixed with the flesh of a bullock that was struck by

lightning.(506) In some Caffre tribes, when an animal or a man has been

struck by lightning, the priest comes straightway and vaccinates every

person in the kraal, apparently as a sort of insurance against lightning.

He sets to work by tying a number of charms round the neck of every man

and woman in the village, in order that they may have power to dig the

dead man’s grave; for in these tribes beasts and men alike that have been

struck by lightning are always buried, and the flesh is never eaten. Next

a sacrificial beast is killed and a fire kindled, in which certain magic

woods or roots are burned to charcoal, and then ground to powder. The

priest thereupon makes incisions in various parts of the bodies of each

inmate of the kraal, and rubs a portion of the powdered charcoal into the

cuts; the rest of the powder he mixes with sour milk, and gives to them

all to drink. From the time the lightning strikes the kraal until this

ceremony has been performed, the people are obliged to abstain entirely

from the use of milk. Their heads are then shaved. Should a house have

been struck by lightning it must be abandoned, with everything in it.

Until all these rites have been performed, none of the people may leave

the kraal or have any intercourse whatever with others; but when the

ceremonies have been duly performed, the people are pronounced clean, and

may again associate with their neighbours. However, for some months

afterwards none of the livestock of the kraal and few other things

belonging to it are allowed to pass into other hands, whether by way of

sale or of gift.(507) Hence it would appear that all persons in a village

which has been struck by lightning are supposed to be infected with a

dangerous virus, which they might communicate to their neighbours; and the

vaccination is intended to disinfect them as well as to protect them

against the recurrence of a like calamity. Young Carib warriors used to be

inoculated for the purpose of making them brave and hardy. Some time

before the ceremony the lad who was to be operated on caught a bird of

prey of a particular sort and kept it in captivity till the day appointed.

When the time was come and friends had assembled to witness the ceremony,

the father of the boy seized the bird by its legs and crushed its head by

beating it on the head of his son, who dared not wince under the rain of

blows that nearly stunned him. Next the father bruised and pounded the

bird’s flesh, and steeped it in water together with a certain spice; after

which he scored and slashed his son’s body in all directions, washed his

wounds with the decoction, and gave him the bird’s heart to eat, in order,

as it was said, that he might be the braver for it.(508)

(M126) It is not always deemed necessary either that the mystical

substance should be swallowed by the communicant, or that he should

receive it by the more painful process of scarification and inoculation.

Sometimes it is thought enough merely to smear or anoint him with it.

Among some of the Australian blacks it used to be a common practice to

kill a man, cut out his caul-fat, and rub themselves with it, in the

belief that all the qualities, both physical and mental, which had

distinguished the original owner of the fat, were thus communicated by its

means to the person who greased himself with it.(509) The Kamilaroi tribe

of New South Wales sometimes deposited their dead on the forks of trees,

and lighting fires underneath caught the fat as it dropped; for they hoped

with the droppings to acquire the strength and courage of the

deceased.(510) The Wollaroi, another tribe of New South Wales, used to

place the dead on a stage, and the mourners sat under it and rubbed their

bodies with the juices of putrefaction which exuded from the rotten body,

believing that this made them strong. Others collected these juices in

vessels, and the young men rubbed the stinking liquid into their persons

in order to acquire the good qualities of the departed.(511) Wherever a

like custom has been practised, as it has been, for example, by some of

the natives of New Guinea, Timor Laut, and Madagascar,(512) we may

conjecture that the motive has been similar. Again, the negroes of

Southern Guinea regard the brain as the seat of wisdom, and think it a

pity that, when a wise man dies, his brain and his wisdom should go to

waste together. So they sever his head from his body and hang it up over a

mass of chalk, which, as the head decays, receives the drippings of brain

and wisdom. Any one who applies the precious dripping to his forehead is

supposed to absorb thereby the intelligence of the dead.(513) Among the

Beku, a tribe of dwarfs attached to the Fans in West Africa, the great

charm for success in hunting is procured by killing a man and afterwards,

when the corpse has begun to moulder in the grave, detaching the head from

the body. The brain, heart, eyes and hairs of the body are then removed

and mixed, according to a secret formula, with special incantations. When

the compound is dry, the hunter rubs himself with it “in order to acquire

a dash of the higher power with which people are endowed in the other

life, and in particular their invisibility.”(514) Among the Digger Indians

of California, when a man died, it was customary to burn the body to

ashes, mix the ashes with a thick resinous gum extracted from a pine-tree,

and then smear the gum on the head of the mourner, where it was allowed to

remain till it gradually wore away.(515) The motive for the custom is not

mentioned, but it was probably, like the motive for the parallel custom of

swallowing the ashes of the dead, a desire to participate in the powers

and virtues of the departed. At a certain stage of the ceremonies by

which, in the Andaman Islands, a boy is initiated into manhood, the chief

takes the carcase of a boar and presses it heavily down on the shoulders,

back, and limbs of the young man as he sits, silent and motionless, on the

ground. This is done to make him brave and strong. Afterwards the animal

is cut up, and its melted fat is poured over the novice, and rubbed into

his body.(516) The Arabs of Eastern Africa believe that an unguent of

lion’s fat inspires a man with boldness, and makes the wild beasts flee in

terror before him.(517) In the forests of North-western Brazil there lives

a small falcon with a red beak which is so sharp-sighted that it can

detect even a worm on the ground from a considerable height. When a Kobeua

Indian has killed one of these birds, he pokes out its eyes and allows the

fluid to drip into his own, believing that in this way they will be

sharp-sighted like those of the falcon.(518) Most of the Baperis, or

Malekootoos, a Bechuana tribe of South Africa, revere or, as they say,

sing the porcupine, which seems to be their totem, as the sun is the totem

of some members of the tribe, and a species of ape the totem of others.

Those of them who have the porcupine for their totem swear by the animal,

and lament if any one injures it. When a porcupine has been killed, they

religiously gather up its bristles, spit on them, and rub their eyebrows

with them, saying, “They have slain our brother, our master, one of

ourselves, him whom we sing.” They would fear to die if they ate of its

flesh. Nevertheless they esteem it wholesome for an infant of the clan to

rub into his joints certain portions of the paunch of the animal mixed

with the sap of some plants to which they ascribe an occult virtue.(519)

So at the solemn ceremony which is observed by the Central Australian

tribes for the purpose of multiplying kangaroos, men of the kangaroo totem

not only eat a little kangaroo flesh as a sacrament, but also have their

bodies anointed with kangaroo fat. Doubtless the intention alike of the

eating and of the anointing is to impart to the man the qualities of his

totem animal, and thus to enable him to perform the ceremonies for the

multiplication of the breed.(520)

(M127) In ancient Mexico the priests of the god Tezcatlipoca, before they

engaged in religious rites which tried the nerve, used to smear their

bodies with a magic ointment, which had the effect of banishing all fear,

so that they would confront wild beasts in their dens or slaughter people

in sacrifice with the utmost indifference. The ointment which had this

marvellous property was compounded of the ashes of venomous reptiles and

insects, such as spiders, scorpions, centipedes, and vipers, which were

brayed up in a mortar along with living specimens of the same creatures,

tobacco, soot, and the ashes of black caterpillars. This precious

substance was then set before the god in little pots, because they said it

was his victuals; therefore they called it a divine food. And when the

priests had besmeared themselves with it, they were ready to discharge the

duties of their holy office by butchering their fellow men in the human

shambles without one qualm of fear or one visiting of compassion.

Moreover, an unction of this ointment was deemed a sovereign remedy for

sickness and disease; hence they named it “the divine physic”; and sick

people came from all quarters to the priests, as to their saviours, to

have their ailing parts anointed with the divine physic and to be made

whole.(521)

(M128) Sometimes the valuable qualities of an animal or of a person may be

imparted to another by the more delicate and ethereal process of

fumigation. This refined mode of cultivating the moral virtues is or used

to be practised by the Caffres of South Africa. Thus in former times as

soon as a baby was born, some dirt was scraped from the forearm and other

parts of the father’s body and mixed with special medicines. The mixture

was then made to smoulder and the baby was fumigated or “washed” in the

smoke. This ceremony was deemed of great importance, being the established

way of communicating to the child a portion of the ancestral spirit

(_itongo_) through the physical medium of the father’s dirt, to which the

spirit naturally adheres. But while the dirt was endowed with this

spiritual potency, the moral character of the infant depended in a large

measure on the nature of the medicines with which the dirt was compounded,

and accordingly much thought and skill were devoted to their selection and

preparation. Foremost among the ingredients was a meteorite, burnt to a

cinder and ground to powder. The effect of this powder, well mixed with

the dirt, and introduced into the orifices of the child’s body by means of

smoke, is to close the anterior fontanelle of the baby’s skull, to

strengthen the bones of that important part of his person, to communicate

vigour to his mind and courage to his disposition, and in general to brace

and harden his whole system with the strength and hardness of the

meteorite. Other ingredients which have a most beneficial effect are the

powdered whiskers of a leopard, the claws of a lion, and the skin of a

salamander. The mode of administering the medicine is as follows. You set

fire to the compound, and while it smoulders, you hold the infant, wrapt

up in a blanket, over the burning mass so as to compel it to inhale the

smoke. To make sure of producing the desired effect, some of the powdered

medicine is mixed with the baby’s food.(522) In like manner by holding the

smouldering feather of a vulture under a baby’s nose you render the child

valiant and brave like a vulture, and if you do the same with a peacock’s

feather, your offspring will be, like a peacock, impavid and never

dismayed by thunder or other terrible noises.(523)

(M129) It is now easy to understand why a savage should desire to partake

of the flesh of an animal or man whom he regards as divine. By eating the

body of the god he shares in the god’s attributes and powers. And when the

god is a corn-god, the corn is his proper body; when he is a vine-god, the

juice of the grape is his blood; and so by eating the bread and drinking

the wine the worshipper partakes of the real body and blood of his god.

Thus the drinking of wine in the rites of a vine-god like Dionysus is not

an act of revelry, it is a solemn sacrament.(524) Yet a time comes when

reasonable men find it hard to understand how any one in his senses can

suppose that by eating bread or drinking wine he consumes the body or

blood of a deity. “When we call corn Ceres and wine Bacchus,” says Cicero,

“we use a common figure of speech; but do you imagine that anybody is so

insane as to believe that the thing he feeds upon is a god?”(525) In

writing thus the Roman philosopher little foresaw that in Rome itself, and

in the countries which have derived their creed from her, the belief which

he here stigmatises as insane was destined to persist for thousands of

years, as a cardinal doctrine of religion, among peoples who pride

themselves on their religious enlightenment by comparison with the blind

superstitions of pagan antiquity. So little can even the greatest minds of

one generation foresee the devious track which the religious faith of

mankind will pursue in after ages.

CHAPTER XIII. KILLING THE DIVINE ANIMAL.

§ 1. Killing the Sacred Buzzard.

(M130) In the preceding chapters we saw that many communities which have

progressed so far as to subsist mainly by agriculture have been in the

habit of killing and eating their farinaceous deities either in their

proper form of corn, rice, and so forth, or in the borrowed shapes of

animals and men. It remains to shew that hunting and pastoral tribes, as

well as agricultural peoples, have been in the habit of killing the beings

whom they worship. Among the worshipful beings or gods, if indeed they

deserve to be dignified by that name, whom hunters and shepherds adore and

kill are animals pure and simple, not animals regarded as embodiments of

other supernatural beings. Our first example is drawn from the Indians of

California, who living in a fertile country(526) under a serene and

temperate sky, nevertheless rank near the bottom of the savage scale.

Where a stretch of iron-bound coast breaks the long line of level sands

that receive the rollers of the Pacific, there stood in former days, not

far from the brink of the great cliffs, the white mission-house of San

Juan Capistrano. Among the monks who here exercised over a handful of

wretched Indians the austere discipline of Catholic Spain, there was a

certain Father Geronimo Boscana who has bequeathed to us a precious record

of the customs and superstitions of his savage flock. Thus he tells us

that the Acagchemem tribe adored the great buzzard, and that once a year

they celebrated a great festival called _Panes_ or bird-feast in its

honour. The day selected for the festival was made known to the public on

the evening before its celebration and preparations were at once made for

the erection of a special temple (_vanquech_), which seems to have been a

circular or oval enclosure of stakes with the stuffed skin of a coyote or

prairie-wolf set up on a hurdle to represent the god Chinigchinich. When

the temple was ready, the bird was carried into it in solemn procession

and laid on an altar erected for the purpose. Then all the young women,

whether married or single, began to run to and fro, as if distracted, some

in one direction and some in another, while the elders of both sexes

remained silent spectators of the scene, and the captains, tricked out in

paint and feathers, danced round their adored bird. These ceremonies being

concluded, they seized upon the bird and carried it to the principal

temple, all the assembly uniting in the grand display, and the captains

dancing and singing at the head of the procession. Arrived at the temple,

they killed the bird without losing a drop of its blood. The skin was

removed entire and preserved with the feathers as a relic or for the

purpose of making the festal garment or _paelt_. The carcase was buried in

a hole in the temple, and the old women gathered round the grave weeping

and moaning bitterly, while they threw various kinds of seeds or pieces of

food on it, crying out, “Why did you run away? Would you not have been

better with us? you would have made _pinole_ (a kind of gruel) as we do,

and if you had not run away, you would not have become a _Panes_,” and so

on. When this ceremony was concluded, the dancing was resumed and kept up

for three days and nights. They said that the _Panes_ was a woman who had

run off to the mountains and there been changed into a bird by the god

Chinigchinich. They believed that though they sacrificed the bird

annually, she came to life again and returned to her home in the

mountains. Moreover they thought that “as often as the bird was killed, it

became multiplied; because every year all the different Capitanes

celebrated the same feast of _Panes_, and were firm in the opinion that

the birds sacrificed were but one and the same female.”(527)

(M131) The unity in multiplicity thus postulated by the Californians is

very noticeable and helps to explain their motive for killing the divine

bird. The notion of the life of a species as distinct from that of an

individual, easy and obvious as it seems to us, appears to be one which

the Californian savage cannot grasp. He is unable to conceive the life of

the species otherwise than as an individual life, and therefore as exposed

to the same dangers and calamities which menace and finally destroy the

life of the individual. Apparently he imagines that a species left to

itself will grow old and die like an individual, and that therefore some

step must be taken to save from extinction the particular species which he

regards as divine. The only means he can think of to avert the catastrophe

is to kill a member of the species in whose veins the tide of life is

still running strong, and has not yet stagnated among the fens of old age.

The life thus diverted from one channel will flow, he fancies, more

freshly and freely in a new one; in other words, the slain animal will

revive and enter on a new term of life with all the spring and energy of

youth. To us this reasoning is transparently absurd, but so too is the

custom. If a better explanation, that is, one more consonant with the

facts and with the principles of savage thought, can be given of the

custom, I will willingly withdraw the one here proposed. A similar

confusion, it may be noted, between the individual life and the life of

the species was made by the Samoans. Each family had for its god a

particular species of animal; yet the death of one of these animals, for

example an owl, was not the death of the god, “he was supposed to be yet

alive, and incarnate in all the owls in existence.”(528)

§ 2. Killing the Sacred Ram.

(M132) The rude Californian rite which we have just considered has a close

parallel in the religion of ancient Egypt. The Thebans and all other

Egyptians who worshipped the Theban god Ammon held rams to be sacred, and

would not sacrifice them. But once a year at the festival of Ammon they

killed a ram, skinned it, and clothed the image of the god in the skin.

Then they mourned over the ram and buried it in a sacred tomb. The custom

was explained by a story that Zeus had once exhibited himself to Hercules

clad in the fleece and wearing the head of a ram.(529) Of course the ram

in this case was simply the beast-god of Thebes, as the wolf was the

beast-god of Lycopolis, and the goat was the beast-god of Mendes. In other

words, the ram was Ammon himself. On the monuments, it is true, Ammon

appears in semi-human form with the body of a man and the head of a

ram.(530) But this only shews that he was in the usual chrysalis state

through which beast-gods regularly pass before they emerge as full-blown

anthropomorphic gods. The ram, therefore, was killed, not as a sacrifice

to Ammon, but as the god himself, whose identity with the beast is plainly

shewn by the custom of clothing his image in the skin of the slain ram.

The reason for thus killing the ram-god annually may have been that which

I have assigned for the general custom of killing a god and for the

special Californian custom of killing the divine buzzard. As applied to

Egypt, this explanation is supported by the analogy of the bull-god Apis,

who was not suffered to outlive a certain term of years.(531) The

intention of thus putting a limit to the life of the human god was, as I

have argued, to secure him from the weakness and frailty of age. The same

reasoning would explain the custom—probably an older one—of putting the

beast-god to death annually, as was done with the ram of Thebes.

(M133) One point in the Theban ritual—the application of the skin to the

image of the god—deserves particular attention. If the god was at first

the living ram, his representation by an image must have originated later.

But how did it originate? One answer to this question is perhaps furnished

by the practice of preserving the skin of the animal which is slain as

divine. The Californians, as we have seen, preserved the skin of the

buzzard; and the skin of the goat, which is killed on the harvest-field as

a representative of the corn-spirit, is kept for various superstitious

purposes.(532) The skin in fact was kept as a token or memorial of the

god, or rather as containing in it a part of the divine life, and it had

only to be stuffed or stretched upon a frame to become a regular image of

him. At first an image of this kind would be renewed annually,(533) the

new image being provided by the skin of the slain animal. But from annual

images to permanent images the transition is easy. We have seen that the

older custom of cutting a new May-tree every year was superseded by the

practice of maintaining a permanent May-pole, which was, however, annually

decked with fresh leaves and flowers, and even surmounted each year by a

fresh young tree.(534) Similarly when the stuffed skin, as a

representative of the god, was replaced by a permanent image of him in

wood, stone, or metal, the permanent image was annually clad in the fresh

skin of the slain animal. When this stage had been reached, the custom of

killing the ram came naturally to be interpreted as a sacrifice offered to

the image, and was explained by a story like that of Ammon and Hercules.

§ 3. Killing the Sacred Serpent.

(M134) West Africa appears to furnish another example of the annual

killing of a sacred animal and the preservation of its skin. The negroes

of Issapoo, in the island of Fernando Po, regard the cobra-capella as

their guardian deity, who can do them good or ill, bestow riches or

inflict disease and death. The skin of one of these reptiles is hung tail

downwards from a branch of the highest tree in the public square, and the

placing of it on the tree is an annual ceremony. As soon as the ceremony

is over, all children born within the past year are carried out and their

hands made to touch the tail of the serpent’s skin.(535) The latter custom

is clearly a way of placing the infants under the protection of the tribal

god. Similarly in Senegambia a python is expected to visit every child of

the Python clan within eight days after birth;(536) and the Psylli, a

Snake clan of ancient Africa, used to expose their infants to snakes in

the belief that the snakes would not harm true-born children of the

clan.(537)

§ 4. Killing the Sacred Turtles.

(M135) In the Californian, Egyptian, and Fernando Po customs the animal

slain may perhaps have been at some time or other a totem, but this is

very doubtful.(538) At all events, in all three cases the worship of the

animal seems to have no relation to agriculture, and may therefore be

presumed to date from the hunting or pastoral stage of society. The same

may be said of the following custom, though the people who practise it—the

Zuni Indians of New Mexico—are now settled in walled villages or towns of

a peculiar type, and practise agriculture and the arts of pottery and

weaving. But the Zuni custom is marked by certain features which appear to

place it in a somewhat different class from the preceding cases. It may be

well therefore to describe it at full length in the words of an

eye-witness.

“With midsummer the heat became intense. My brother [_i.e._ adopted Indian

brother] and I sat, day after day, in the cool under-rooms of our

house,—the latter [_sic_] busy with his quaint forge and crude appliances,

working Mexican coins over into bangles, girdles, ear-rings, buttons, and

what not, for savage ornament. Though his tools were wonderfully rude, the

work he turned out by dint of combined patience and ingenuity was

remarkably beautiful. One day as I sat watching him, a procession of fifty

men went hastily down the hill, and off westward over the plain. They were

solemnly led by a painted and shell-bedecked priest, and followed by the

torch-bearing Shu-lu-wit-si, or God of Fire. After they had vanished, I

asked old brother what it all meant.

“ ‘They are going,’ said he, ‘to the city of the Ka-ka and the home of our

others.’

(M136) “Four days after, towards sunset, costumed and masked in the

beautiful paraphernalia of the Ka-k’ok-shi, or ‘Good Dance,’ they returned

in file up the same pathway, each bearing in his arms a basket filled with

living, squirming turtles, which he regarded and carried as tenderly as a

mother would her infant. Some of the wretched reptiles were carefully

wrapped in soft blankets, their heads and fore-feet protruding,—and,

mounted on the backs of the plume-bedecked pilgrims, made ludicrous but

solemn caricatures of little children in the same position. While I was at

supper upstairs that evening, the governor’s brother-in-law came in. He

was welcomed by the family as if a messenger from heaven. He bore in his

tremulous fingers one of the much abused and rebellious turtles. Paint

still adhered to his hands and bare feet, which led me to infer that he

had formed one of the sacred embassy.

“ ‘So you went to Ka-thlu-el-lon, did you?’ I asked.

“ ‘E’e,’ replied the weary man, in a voice husky with long chanting, as he

sank, almost exhausted, on a roll of skins which had been placed for him,

and tenderly laid the turtle on the floor. No sooner did the creature find

itself at liberty than it made off as fast as its lame legs would take it.

Of one accord, the family forsook dish, spoon, and drinking-cup, and

grabbing from a sacred meal-bowl whole handfuls of the contents, hurriedly

followed the turtle about the room, into dark corners, around water-jars,

behind the grinding-troughs, and out into the middle of the floor again,

praying and scattering meal on its back as they went. At last, strange to

say, it approached the foot-sore man who had brought it.

“ ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed with emotion; ‘see it comes to me again; ah, what

great favours the fathers of all grant me this day,’ and, passing his hand

gently over the sprawling animal, he inhaled from his palm deeply and

long, at the same time invoking the favour of the gods. Then he leaned his

chin upon his hand, and with large, wistful eyes regarded his ugly captive

as it sprawled about, blinking its meal-bedimmed eyes, and clawing the

smooth floor in memory of its native element. At this juncture I ventured

a question:

“ ‘Why do you not let him go, or give him some water?’

“Slowly the man turned his eyes toward me, an odd mixture of pain,

indignation, and pity on his face, while the worshipful family stared at

me with holy horror.

“ ‘Poor younger brother!’ he said at last, ‘know you not how precious it

is? It die? It will _not_ die; I tell you, it cannot die.’

“ ‘But it will die if you don’t feed it and give it water.’