Among the usages which point to this conclusion are the custom of

employing either new or specially reserved vessels to hold the new

fruits, and the practice of purifying the persons of the

communicants before it is lawful to engage in the solemn act of

communion with the divinity. Of all the modes of purification

adopted on these occasions none perhaps brings out the sacramental

virtue of the rite so clearly as the Creek and Seminole practice of

taking a purgative before swallowing the new corn. The intention is

thereby to prevent the sacred food from being polluted by contact

with common food in the stomach of the eater. For the same reason

Catholics partake of the Eucharist fasting; and among the pastoral

Masai of Eastern Africa the young warriors, who live on meat and

milk exclusively, are obliged to eat nothing but milk for so many

days and then nothing but meat for so many more, and before they

pass from the one food to the other they must make sure that none of

the old food remains in their stomachs; this they do by swallowing a

very powerful purgative and emetic.

In some of the festivals which we have examined, the sacrament of

first-fruits is combined with a sacrifice or presentation of them to

gods or spirits, and in course of time the sacrifice of first-fruits

tends to throw the sacrament into the shade, if not to supersede it.

The mere fact of offering the first-fruits to the gods or spirits

comes now to be thought a sufficient preparation for eating the new

corn; the higher powers having received their share, man is free to

enjoy the rest. This mode of viewing the new fruits implies that

they are regarded no longer as themselves instinct with divine life,

but merely as a gift bestowed by the gods upon man, who is bound to

express his gratitude and homage to his divine benefactors by

returning to them a portion of their bounty.

2. Eating the God among the Aztecs

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

bauldrick-wise 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. . . . 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, the 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, where-with they were grieved. Such as had

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

reverence and veneration."

From this interesting passage we learn that the ancient Mexicans,

even before the arrival of Christian missionaries, were fully

acquainted with the 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."

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 bodies by a strong

purgative before they dared to partake of the sacrament of

first-fruits.

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, receive

one to eat. But no woman might taste a morsel. The ceremony was

called _teoqualo,_ that is, "god is eaten."

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."

3. Many Manii at Aricia

WE are now able to suggest an explanation of the proverb "There are

many Manii at Aricia." 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. Now, Mania, the name of one of these

loaves, was also the name of the Mother or Grandmother of Ghosts, 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. 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, and were eaten sacramentally by his worshippers. 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.

For example, 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 to 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.

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. 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. Cure or prevention of this

sort seems to find especial favour with the natives 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. 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. 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."

Batak 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. 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. 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. 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.

With these examples before us we may surmise 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, 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. 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."

LI. Homeopathic Magic of a Flesh Diet

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. 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.

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." 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." 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 ability and be unable

to escape from their enemies. 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. 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.

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?

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. 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. When a Wagogo man of 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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.

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. Men of the Buru and Aru Islands, East Indies, eat

the flesh of dogs in order to be bold and nimble in war. 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. 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. 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." 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. 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.

In Morocco lethargic patients are given ants to swallow, and to eat

lion's flesh will make a coward brave; but people abstain from

eating the hearts of fowls, lest thereby they should be rendered

timid. When a child is late in learning to speak, the Turks of

Central Asia will give it the tongues of certain birds to eat. 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." 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. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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. The Sioux

Indians used to reduce to powder the heart of a valiant enemy and

swallow the powder, hoping thus to appropriate the dead man's

valour.

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 warriors of the Theddora and Ngarigo

tribes of 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. The Kamilaroi of New South

Wales ate the liver as well as the heart of a brave man to get his

courage. In Tonquin also there is a popular superstition that the

liver of a brave man makes brave any who partake of it. With a like

intent the Chinese swallow the bile of notorious bandits who have

been executed. 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. The Tolalaki,

notorious head-hunters of Central Celebes, drink the blood and eat

the brains of their victims that they may become brave. 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. In like

manner the Kai of German New Guinea eat the brains of the enemies

they kill in order to acquire their strength. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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."

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. 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?"

LII. Killing the Divine Animal

1. Killing the Sacred Buzzard

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 show 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 under a serene and temperate sky,

nevertheless rank near the bottom of the savage scale. The

Acagchemem tribe adored the great buzzard, and 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."

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. 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."

2. Killing the Sacred Ram

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. 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. But

this only shows 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 shown 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. 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.

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. 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, 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. 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

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. 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; 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.

4. Killing the Sacred Turtles

IN THE CALIFORNIAN, Egyptian, and Fernando Po customs 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

Zuni Indians of New Mexico, who practise it, 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 Ka-ka and the home of

our others.'

"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 forefeet 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.'

"'I tell you it _cannot_ die; it will only change houses to-morrow,

and go back to the home of its brothers. Ah, well! How should _you_

know?' he mused. Turning to the blinded turtle again: 'Ah! my poor

dear lost child or parent, my sister or brother to have been! Who

knows which? Maybe my own great-grandfather or mother!' And with

this he fell to weeping most pathetically, and, tremulous with sobs,

which were echoed by the women and children, he buried his face in

his hands. Filled with sympathy for his grief, however mistaken, I

raised the turtle to my lips and kissed its cold shell; then

depositing it on the floor, hastily left the grief-stricken family

to their sorrows. Next day, with prayers and tender beseechings,

plumes, and offerings, the poor turtle was killed, and its flesh and

bones were removed and deposited in the little river, that it might

'return once more to eternal life among its comrades in the dark

waters of the lake of the dead.' The shell, carefully scraped and

dried, was made into a dance-rattle, and, covered by a piece of

buckskin, it still hangs from the smoke-stained rafters of my

brother's house. Once a Navajo tried to buy it for a ladle; loaded

with indignant reproaches, he was turned out of the house. Were any

one to venture the suggestion that the turtle no longer lived, his

remark would cause a flood of tears, and he would be reminded that

it had only 'changed houses and gone to live for ever in the home of

"our lost others."'"

In this custom we find expressed in the clearest way a belief in the

transmigration of human souls into the bodies of turtles. The theory

of transmigration is held by the Moqui Indians, who belong to the

same race as the Zunis. The Moquis are divided into totem clans--the

Bear clan, Deer clan, Wolf clan, Hare clan, and so on; they believe

that the ancestors of the clans were bears, deer, wolves, hares, and

so forth; and that at death the members of each clan become bears,

deer, and so on according to the particular clan to which they

belonged. The Zuni are also divided into clans, the totems of which

agree closely with those of the Moquis, and one of their totems is

the turtle. Thus their belief in transmigration into the turtle is

probably one of the regular articles of their totem faith. What then

is the meaning of killing a turtle in which the soul of a kinsman is

believed to be present? Apparently the object is to keep up a

communication with the other world in which the souls of the

departed are believed to be assembled in the form of turtles. It is

a common belief that the spirits of the dead return occasionally to

their old homes; and accordingly the unseen visitors are welcomed

and feasted by the living, and then sent upon their way. In the Zuni

ceremony the dead are fetched home in the form of turtles, and the

killing of the turtles is the way of sending back the souls to the

spirit-land. Thus the general explanation given above of the custom

of killing a god seems inapplicable to the Zuni custom, the true

meaning of which is somewhat obscure. Nor is the obscurity which

hangs over the subject entirely dissipated by a later and fuller

account which we possess of the ceremony. From it we learn that the

ceremony forms part of the elaborate ritual which these Indians

observe at the midsummer solstice for the purpose of ensuring an

abundant supply of rain for the crops. Envoys are despatched to

bring "their otherselves, the tortoises," from the sacred lake

Kothluwalawa, to which the souls of the dead are believed to repair.

When the creatures have thus been solemnly brought to Zuni, they are

placed in a bowl of water and dances are performed beside them by

men in costume, who personate gods and goddesses. "After the

ceremonial the tortoises are taken home by those who caught them and

are hung by their necks to the rafters till morning, when they are

thrown into pots of boiling water. The eggs are considered a great

delicacy. The meat is seldom touched except as a medicine, which is

curative for cutaneous diseases. Part of the meat is deposited in

the river with _kóhakwa_ (white shell beads) and turquoise beads as

offerings to Council of the Gods." This account at all events

confirms the inference that the tortoises are supposed to be

reincarnations of the human dead, for they are called the

"otherselves" of the Zuni; indeed, what else should they be than the

souls of the dead in the bodies of tortoises seeing that they come

from the haunted lake? As the principal object of the prayers

uttered and of the dances performed at these midsummer ceremonies

appears to be to procure rain for the crops, it may be that the

intention of bringing the tortoises to Zuni and dancing before them

is to intercede with the ancestral spirit, incarnate in the animals,

that they may be pleased to exert their power over the waters of

heaven for the benefit of their living descendants.

5. Killing the Sacred Bear

DOUBT also hangs at first sight over the meaning of the

bear-sacrifice offered by the Aino or Ainu, a primitive people who

are found in the Japanese island of Yezo or Yesso, as well as in

Saghalien and the southern of the Kurile Islands. It is not quite

easy to define the attitude of the Aino towards the bear. On the one

hand they give it the name of _kamui_ or "god"; but as they apply

the same word to strangers, it may mean no more than a being

supposed to be endowed with superhuman, or at all events

extraordinary, powers. Again, it is said that "the bear is their

chief divinity"; "in the religion of the Aino the bear plays a chief

part"; "amongst the animals it is especially the bear which receives

an idolatrous veneration"; "they worship it after their fashion";

"there is no doubt that this wild beast inspires more of the feeling

which prompts worship than the inanimate forces of nature, and the

Aino may be distinguished as bear-worshippers." Yet, on the other

hand, they kill the bear whenever they can; "in bygone years the

Ainu considered bear-hunting the most manly and useful way in which

a person could possibly spend his time"; "the men spend the autumn,

winter, and spring in hunting deer and bears. Part of their tribute

or taxes is paid in skins, and they subsist on the dried meat";

bear's flesh is indeed one of their staple foods; they eat it both

fresh and salted; and the skins of bears furnish them with clothing.

In fact, the worship of which writers on this subject speak appears

to be paid chiefly to the dead animal. Thus, although they kill a

bear whenever they can, "in the process of dissecting the carcass

they endeavor to conciliate the deity, whose representative they

have slain, by making elaborate obeisances and deprecatory

salutations"; "when a bear has been killed the Ainu sit down and

admire it, make their salaams to it, worship it, and offer presents

of _inao_"; "when a bear is trapped or wounded by an arrow, the

hunters go through an apologetic or propitiatory ceremony." The

skulls of slain bears receive a place of honour in their huts, or

are set up on sacred posts outside the huts, and are treated with

much respect: libations of millet beer, and of _sake,_ an

intoxicating liquor, are offered to them; and they are addressed as

"divine preservers" or "precious divinities." The skulls of foxes

are also fastened to the sacred posts outside the huts; they are

regarded as charms against evil spirits, and are consulted as

oracles. Yet it is expressly said, "The live fox is revered just as

little as the bear; rather they avoid it as much as possible,

considering it a wily animal." The bear can hardly, therefore, be

described as a sacred animal of the Aino, nor yet as a totem; for

they do not call themselves bears, and they kill and eat the animal

freely. However, they have a legend of a woman who had a son by a

bear; and many of them who dwell in the mountains pride themselves

on being descended from a bear. Such people are called "Descendants

of the bear" (_Kimun Kamui sanikiri_), and in the pride of their

heart they will say, "As for me, I am a child of the god of the

mountains; I am descended from the divine one who rules in the

mountains," meaning by "the god of the mountains" no other than the

bear. It is therefore possible that, as our principal authority, the

Rev. J. Batchelor, believes, the bear may have been the totem of an

Aino clan; but even if that were so it would not explain the respect

shown for the animal by the whole Aino people.

But it is the bear-festival of the Aino which concerns us here.

Towards the end of winter a bear cub is caught and brought into the

village. If it is very small, it is suckled by an Aino woman, but

should there be no woman able to suckle it, the little animal is fed

from the hand or the mouth. During the day it plays about in the hut

with the children and is treated with great affection. But when the

cub grows big enough to pain people by hugging or scratching them,

he is shut up in a strong wooden cage, where he stays generally for

two or three years, fed on fish and millet porridge, till it is time

for him to be killed and eaten. But "it is a peculiarly striking

fact that the young bear is not kept merely to furnish a good meal;

rather he is regarded and honoured as a fetish, or even as a sort of

higher being." In Yezo the festival is generally celebrated in

September or October. Before it takes place the Aino apologise to

their gods, alleging that they have treated the bear kindly as long

as they could, now they can feed him no longer, and are obliged to

kill him. A man who gives a bear-feast invites his relations and

friends; in a small village nearly the whole community takes part in

the feast; indeed, guests from distant villages are invited and

generally come, allured by the prospect of getting drunk for

nothing. The form of invitation runs somewhat as follows: "I, so and

so, am about to sacrifice the dear little divine thing who resides

among the mountains. My friends and masters, come ye to the feast;

we will then unite in the great pleasure of sending the god away.

Come." When all the people are assembled in front of the cage, an

orator chosen for the purpose addresses the bear and tells it that

they are about to send it forth to its ancestors. He craves pardon

for what they are about to do to it, hopes it will not be angry, and

comforts it by assuring the animal that many of the sacred whittled

sticks (_inao_) and plenty of cakes and wine will be sent with it on

the long journey. One speech of this sort which Mr. Batchelor heard

ran as follows: "O thou divine one, thou wast sent into the world

for us to hunt. O thou precious little divinity, we worship thee;

pray hear our prayer. We have nourished thee and brought thee up

with a deal of pains and trouble, all because we love thee so. Now,

as thou hast grown big, we are about to send thee to thy father and

mother. When thou comest to them please speak well of us, and tell

them how kind we have been; please come to us again and we will

sacrifice thee." Having been secured with ropes, the bear is then

let out of the cage and assailed with a shower of blunt arrows in

order to arouse it to fury. When it has spent itself in vain

struggles, it is tied up to a stake, gagged and strangled, its neck

being placed between two poles, which are then violently compressed,

all the people eagerly helping to squeeze the animal to death. An

arrow is also discharged into the beast's heart by a good marksman,

but so as not to shed blood, for they think that it would be very

unlucky if any of the blood were to drip on the ground. However, the

men sometimes drink the warm blood of the bear "that the courage and

other virtues it possesses may pass into them"; and sometimes they

besmear themselves and their clothes with the blood in order to

ensure success in hunting. When the animal has been strangled to

death, it is skinned and its head is cut off and set in the east

window of the house, where a piece of its own flesh is placed under

its snout, together with a cup of its own meat boiled, some millet

dumplings, and dried fish. Prayers are then addressed to the dead

animal; amongst other things it is sometimes invited, after going

away to its father and mother, to return into the world in order

that it may again be reared for sacrifice. When the bear is supposed

to have finished eating its own flesh, the man who presides at the

feast takes the cup containing the boiled meat, salutes it, and

divides the contents between all the company present: every person,

young and old alike, must taste a little. The cup is called "the cup

of offering" because it has just been offered to the dead bear. When

the rest of the flesh has been cooked, it is shared out in like

manner among all the people, everybody partaking of at least a

morsel; not to partake of the feast would be equivalent to

excommunication, it would be to place the recreant outside the pale

of Aino fellowship. Formerly every particle of the bear, except the

bones, had to be eaten up at the banquet, but this rule is now

relaxed. The head, on being detached from the skin, is set up on a

long pole beside the sacred wands (_inao_) outside of the house,

where it remains till nothing but the bare white skull is left.

Skulls so set up are worshipped not only at the time of the

festival, but very often as long as they last. The Aino assured Mr.

Batchelor that they really do believe the spirits of the worshipful

animals to reside in the skulls; that is why they address them as

"divine preservers" and "precious divinities."

The ceremony of killing the bear was witnessed by Dr. B. Scheube on

the tenth of August at Kunnui, which is a village on Volcano Bay in

the island of Yezo or Yesso. As his description of the rite contains

some interesting particulars not mentioned in the foregoing account,

it may be worth while to summarize it.

On entering the hut he found about thirty Aino present, men, women,

and children, all dressed in their best. The master of the house

first offered a libation on the fireplace to the god of the fire,

and the guests followed his example. Then a libation was offered to

the house-god in his sacred corner of the hut. Meanwhile the

housewife, who had nursed the bear, sat by herself, silent and sad,

bursting now and then into tears. Her grief was obviously

unaffected, and it deepened as the festival went on. Next, the

master of the house and some of the guests went out of the hut and

offered libations before the bear's cage. A few drops were presented

to the bear in a saucer, which he at once upset. Then the women and

girls danced round the cage, their faces turned towards it, their

knees slightly bent, rising and hopping on their toes. As they

danced they clapped their hands and sang a monotonous song. The

housewife and a few old women, who might have nursed many bears,

danced tearfully, stretching out their arms to the bear, and

addressing it in terms of endearment. The young folks were less

affected; they laughed as well as sang. Disturbed by the noise, the

bear began to rush about his cage and howl lamentably. Next

libations were offered at the _inao_ (_inabos_) or sacred wands

which stand outside of an Aino hut. These wands are about a couple

of feet high, and are whittled at the top into spiral shavings. Five

new wands with bamboo leaves attached to them had been set up for

the festival. This is regularly done when a bear is killed; the

leaves mean that the animal may come to life again. Then the bear

was let out of his cage, a rope was thrown round his neck, and he

was led about in the neighbourhood of the hut. While this was being

done the men, headed by a chief, shot at the beast with arrows

tipped with wooden buttons. Dr. Scheube had to do so also. Then the

bear was taken before the sacred wands, a stick was put in his

mouth, nine men knelt on him and pressed his neck against a beam. In

five minutes the animal had expired without uttering a sound.

Meantime the women and girls had taken post behind the men, where

they danced, lamenting, and beating the men who were killing the

bear. The bear's carcase was next placed on the mat before the

sacred wands; and a sword and quiver, taken from the wands, were

hung round the beast's neck. Being a she-bear, it was also adorned

with a necklace and ear-rings. Then food and drink were offered to

it, in the shape of millet-broth, millet-cakes, and a pot of _sake._

The men now sat down on mats before the dead bear, offered libations

to it, and drank deep. Meanwhile the women and girls had laid aside

all marks of sorrow, and danced merrily, none more merrily than the

old women. When the mirth was at its height two young Aino, who had

let the bear out of his cage, mounted the roof of the hut and threw

cakes of millet among the company, who all scrambled for them

without distinction of age or sex. The bear was next skinned and

disembowelled, and the trunk severed from the head, to which the

skin was left hanging. The blood, caught in cups, was eagerly

swallowed by the men. None of the women or children appeared to

drink the blood, though custom did not forbid them to do so. The

liver was cut in small pieces and eaten raw, with salt, the women

and children getting their share. The flesh and the rest of the

vitals were taken into the house to be kept till the next day but

one, and then to be divided among the persons who had been present

at the feast. Blood and liver were offered to Dr. Scheube. While the

bear was being disembowelled, the women and girls danced the same

dance which they had danced at the beginning--not, however, round

the cage, but in front of the sacred wands. At this dance the old

women, who had been merry a moment before, again shed tears freely.

After the brain had been extracted from the bear's head and

swallowed with salt, the skull, detached from the skin, was hung on

a pole beside the sacred wands. The stick with which the bear had

been gagged was also fastened to the pole, and so were the sword and

quiver which had been hung on the carcase. The latter were removed

in about an hour, but the rest remained standing. The whole company,

men and women, danced noisily before the pole; and another

drinking-bout, in which the women joined, closed the festival.

Perhaps the first published account of the bear-feast of the Aino is

one which was given to the world by a Japanese writer in 1652. It

has been translated into French and runs thus: "When they find a

young bear, they bring it home, and the wife suckles it. When it is

grown they feed it with fish and fowl and kill it in winter for the

sake of the liver, which they esteem an antidote to poison, the

worms, colic, and disorders of the stomach. It is of a very bitter

taste, and is good for nothing if the bear has been killed in

summer. This butchery begins in the first Japanese month. For this

purpose they put the animal's head between two long poles, which are

squeezed together by fifty or sixty people, both men and women. When

the bear is dead they eat his flesh, keep the liver as a medicine,

and sell the skin, which is black and commonly six feet long, but

the longest measure twelve feet. As soon as he is skinned, the

persons who nourished the beast begin to bewail him; afterwards they

make little cakes to regale those who helped them."

The Aino of Saghalien rear bear cubs and kill them with similar

ceremonies. We are told that they do not look upon the bear as a god

but only as a messenger whom they despatch with various commissions

to the god of the forest. The animal is kept for about two years in

a cage, and then killed at a festival, which always takes place in

winter and at night. The day before the sacrifice is devoted to

lamentation, old women relieving each other in the duty of weeping

and groaning in front of the bear's cage. Then about the middle of

the night or very early in the morning an orator makes a long speech

to the beast, reminding him how they have taken care of him, and fed

him well, and bathed him in the river, and made him warm and

comfortable. "Now," he proceeds, "we are holding a great festival in

your honour. Be not afraid. We will not hurt you. We will only kill

you and send you to the god of the forest who loves you. We are

about to offer you a good dinner, the best you have ever eaten among

us, and we will all weep for you together. The Aino who will kill

you is the best shot among us. There he is, he weeps and asks your

forgiveness; you will feel almost nothing, it will be done so

quickly. We cannot feed you always, as you will understand. We have

done enough for you; it is now your turn to sacrifice yourself for

us. You will ask God to send us, for the winter, plenty of otters

and sables, and for the summer, seals and fish in abundance. Do not

forget our messages, we love you much, and our children will never

forget you." When the bear has partaken of his last meal amid the

general emotion of the spectators, the old women weeping afresh and

the men uttering stifled cries, he is strapped, not without

difficulty and danger, and being let out of the cage is led on leash

or dragged, according to the state of his temper, thrice round his

cage, then round his master's house, and lastly round the house of

the orator. Thereupon he is tied up to a tree, which is decked with

sacred whittled sticks (_inao_) of the usual sort; and the orator

again addresses him in a long harangue, which sometimes lasts till

the day is beginning to break. "Remember," he cries, "remember! I

remind you of your whole life and of the services we have rendered

you. It is now for you to do your duty. Do not forget what I have

asked of you. You will tell the gods to give us riches, that our

hunters may return from the forest laden with rare furs and animals

good to eat; that our fishers may find troops of seals on the shore

and in the sea, and that their nets may crack under the weight of

the fish. We have no hope but in you. The evil spirits laugh at us,

and too often they are unfavourable and malignant to us, but they

will bow before you. We have given you food and joy and health; now

we kill you in order that you may in return send riches to us and to

our children." To this discourse the bear, more and more surly and

agitated, listens without conviction; round and round the tree he

paces and howls lamentably, till, just as the first beams of the

rising sun light up the scene, an archer speeds an arrow to his

heart. No sooner has he done so, than the marksman throws away his

bow and flings himself on the ground, and the old men and women do

the same, weeping and sobbing. Then they offer the dead beast a

repast of rice and wild potatoes, and having spoken to him in terms

of pity and thanked him for what he has done and suffered, they cut

off his head and paws and keep them as sacred things. A banquet on

the flesh and blood of the bear follows. Women were formerly

excluded from it, but now they share with the men. The blood is

drunk warm by all present; the flesh is boiled, custom forbids it to

be roasted. And as the relics of the bear may not enter the house by

the door, and Aino houses in Saghalien have no windows, a man gets

up on the roof and lets the flesh, the head, and the skin down

through the smoke-hole. Rice and wild potatoes are then offered to

the head, and a pipe, tobacco, and matches are considerately placed

beside it. Custom requires that the guests should eat up the whole

animal before they depart; the use of salt and pepper at the meal is

forbidden; and no morsel of the flesh may be given to the dogs. When

the banquet is over, the head is carried away into the depth of the

forest and deposited on a heap of bears' skulls, the bleached and

mouldering relics of similar festivals in the past.

The Gilyaks, a Tunguzian people of Eastern Siberia, hold a

bear-festival of the same sort once a year in January. "The bear is

the object of the most refined solicitude of an entire village and

plays the chief part in their religious ceremonies." An old she-bear

is shot and her cub is reared, but not suckled, in the village. When

the bear is big enough he is taken from his cage and dragged through

the village. But first they lead him to the bank of the river, for

this is believed to ensure abundance of fish to each family. He is

then taken into every house in the village, where fish, brandy, and

so forth are offered to him. Some people prostrate themselves before

the beast. His entrance into a house is supposed to bring a

blessing; and if he snuffs at the food offered to him, this also is

a blessing. Nevertheless they tease and worry, poke and tickle the

animal continually, so that he is surly and snappish. After being

thus taken to every house, he is tied to a peg and shot dead with

arrows. His head is then cut off, decked with shavings, and placed

on the table where the feast is set out. Here they beg pardon of the

beast and worship him. Then his flesh is roasted and eaten in

special vessels of wood finely carved. They do not eat the flesh raw

nor drink the blood, as the Aino do. The brain and entrails are

eaten last; and the skull, still decked with shavings, is placed on

a tree near the house. Then the people sing and both sexes dance in

ranks, as bears.

One of these bear-festivals was witnessed by the Russian traveller

L. von Schrenck and his companions at the Gilyak village of Tebach

in January 1856. From his detailed report of the ceremony we may

gather some particulars which are not noticed in the briefer

accounts which I have just summarised. The bear, he tells us, plays

a great part in the life of all the peoples inhabiting the region of

the Amoor and Siberia as far as Kamtchatka, but among none of them

is his importance greater than among the Gilyaks. The immense size

which the animal attains in the valley of the Amoor, his ferocity

whetted by hunger, and the frequency of his appearance, all combine

to make him the most dreaded beast of prey in the country. No

wonder, therefore, that the fancy of the Gilyaks is busied with him

and surrounds him, both in life and in death, with a sort of halo of

superstitious fear. Thus, for example, it is thought that if a

Gilyak falls in combat with a bear, his soul transmigrates into the

body of the beast. Nevertheless his flesh has an irresistible

attraction for the Gilyak palate, especially when the animal has

been kept in captivity for some time and fattened on fish, which

gives the flesh, in the opinion of the Gilyaks, a peculiarly

delicious flavour. But in order to enjoy this dainty with impunity

they deem it needful to perform a long series of ceremonies, of

which the intention is to delude the living bear by a show of

respect, and to appease the anger of the dead animal by the homage

paid to his departed spirit. The marks of respect begin as soon as

the beast is captured. He is brought home in triumph and kept in a

cage, where all the villagers take it in turns to feed him. For

although he may have been captured or purchased by one man, he

belongs in a manner to the whole village. His flesh will furnish a

common feast, and hence all must contribute to support him in his

life. The length of time he is kept in captivity depends on his age.

Old bears are kept only a few months; cubs are kept till they are

full-grown. A thick layer of fat on the captive bear gives the

signal for the festival, which is always held in winter, generally

in December but sometimes in January or February. At the festival

witnessed by the Russian travellers, which lasted a good many days,

three bears were killed and eaten. More than once the animals were

led about in procession and compelled to enter every house in the

village, where they were fed as a mark of honour, and to show that

they were welcome guests. But before the beasts set out on this

round of visits, the Gilyaks played at skipping-rope in presence,

and perhaps, as L. von Schrenck inclined to believe, in honour of

the animals. The night before they were killed, the three bears were

led by moonlight a long way on the ice of the frozen river. That

night no one in the village might sleep. Next day, after the animals

had been again led down the steep bank to the river, and conducted

thrice round the hole in the ice from which the women of the village

drew their water, they were taken to an appointed place not far from

the village, and shot to death with arrows. The place of sacrifice

or execution was marked as holy by being surrounded with whittled

sticks, from the tops of which shavings hung in curls. Such sticks

are with the Gilyaks, as with the Aino, the regular symbols that

accompany all religious ceremonies.

When the house has been arranged and decorated for their reception,

the skins of the bears, with their heads attached to them, are

brought into it, not, however, by the door, but through a window,

and then hung on a sort of scaffold opposite the hearth on which the

flesh is to be cooked. The boiling of the bears' flesh among the

Gilyaks is done only by the oldest men, whose high privilege it is;

women and children, young men and boys have no part in it. The task

is performed slowly and deliberately, with a certain solemnity. On

the occasion described by the Russian travellers the kettle was

first of all surrounded with a thick wreath of shavings, and then

filled with snow, for the use of water to cook bear's flesh is

forbidden. Meanwhile a large wooden trough, richly adorned with

arabesques and carvings of all sorts, was hung immediately under the

snouts of the bears; on one side of the trough was carved in relief

a bear, on the other side a toad. When the carcases were being cut

up, each leg was laid on the ground in front of the bears, as if to

ask their leave, before being placed in the kettle; and the boiled

flesh was fished out of the kettle with an iron hook, and set in the

trough before the bears, in order that they might be the first to

taste of their own flesh. As fast, too, as the fat was cut in strips

it was hung up in front of the bears, and afterwards laid in a small

wooden trough on the ground before them. Last of all the inner

organs of the beasts were cut up and placed in small vessels. At the

same time the women made bandages out of parti-coloured rags, and

after sunset these bandages were tied round the bears' snouts just

below the eyes "in order to dry the tears that flowed from them."

As soon as the ceremony of wiping away poor bruin's tears had been

performed, the assembled Gilyaks set to work in earnest to devour

his flesh. The broth obtained by boiling the meat had already been

partaken of. The wooden bowls, platters, and spoons out of which the

Gilyaks eat the broth and flesh of the bears on these occasions are

always made specially for the purpose at the festival and only then;

they are elaborately ornamented with carved figures of bears and

other devices that refer to the animal or the festival, and the

people have a strong superstitious scruple against parting with

them. After the bones had been picked clean they were put back in

the kettle in which the flesh had been boiled. And when the festal

meal was over, an old man took his stand at the door of the house

with a branch of fir in his hand, with which, as the people passed

out, he gave a light blow to every one who had eaten of the bear's

flesh or fat, perhaps as a punishment for their treatment of the

worshipful animal. In the afternoon the women performed a strange

dance. Only one woman danced at a time, throwing the upper part of

her body into the oddest postures, while she held in her hands a

branch of fir or a kind of wooden castanets. The other women

meanwhile played an accompaniment by drumming on the beams of the

house with clubs. Von Schrenk believed that after the flesh of the

bear has been eaten the bones and the skull are solemnly carried out

by the oldest people to a place in the forest not far from the

village. There all the bones except the skull are buried. After that

a young tree is felled a few inches above the ground, its stump

cleft, and the skull wedged into the cleft. When the grass grows

over the spot, the skull disappears from view, and that is the end

of the bear.

Another description of the bear-festivals of the Gilyaks has been

given us by Mr. Leo Sternberg. It agrees substantially with the

foregoing accounts, but a few particulars in it may be noted.

According to Mr. Sternberg, the festival is usually held in honour

of a deceased relation: the next of kin either buys or catches a

bear cub and nurtures it for two or three years till it is ready for

the sacrifice. Only certain distinguished guests (_Narch-en_) are

privileged to partake of the bear's flesh, but the host and members

of his clan eat a broth made from the flesh; great quantities of

this broth are prepared and consumed on the occasion. The guests of

honour (_Narch-en_) must belong to the clan into which the host's

daughters and the other women of his clan are married: one of these

guests, usually the host's son-in-law, is entrusted with the duty of

shooting the bear dead with an arrow. The skin, head, and flesh of

the slain bear are brought into the house not through the door but

through the smoke-hole; a quiver full of arrows is laid under the

head and beside it are deposited tobacco, sugar, and other food. The

soul of the bear is supposed to carry off the souls of these things

with it on the far journey. A special vessel is used for cooking the

bear's flesh, and the fire must be kindled by a sacred apparatus of

flint and steel, which belongs to the clan and is handed down from

generation to generation, but which is never used to light fires

except on these solemn occasions. Of all the many viands cooked for

the consumption of the assembled people a portion is placed in a

special vessel and set before the bear's head: this is called

"feeding the head." After the bear has been killed, dogs are

sacrificed in couples of male and female. Before being throttled,

they are fed and invited to go to their lord on the highest

mountain, to change their skins, and to return next year in the form

of bears. The soul of the dead bear departs to the same lord, who is

also lord of the primaeval forest; it goes away laden with the

offerings that have been made to it, and attended by the souls of

the dogs and also by the souls of the sacred whittled sticks, which

figure prominently at the festival.

The Goldi, neighbours of the Gilyaks, treat the bear in much the

same way. They hunt and kill it; but sometimes they capture a live

bear and keep him in a cage, feeding him well and calling him their

son and brother. Then at a great festival he is taken from his cage,

paraded about with marked consideration, and afterwards killed and

eaten. "The skull, jaw-bones, and ears are then suspended on a tree,

as an antidote against evil spirits; but the flesh is eaten and much

relished, for they believe that all who partake of it acquire a zest

for the chase, and become courageous."

The Orotchis, another Tunguzian people of the region of the Amoor,

hold bear-festivals of the same general character. Any one who

catches a bear cub considers it his bounden duty to rear it in a

cage for about three years, in order at the end of that time to kill

it publicly and eat the flesh with his friends. The feasts being

public, though organised by individuals, the people try to have one

in each Orotchi village every year in turn. When the bear is taken

out of his cage, he is led about by means of ropes to all the huts,

accompanied by people armed with lances, bows, and arrows. At each

hut the bear and bear-leaders are treated to something good to eat

and drink. This goes on for several days until all the huts, not

only in that village but also in the next, have been visited. The

days are given up to sport and noisy jollity. Then the bear is tied

to a tree or wooden pillar and shot to death by the arrows of the

crowd, after which its flesh is roasted and eaten. Among the

Orotchis of the Tundja River women take part in the bear-feasts,

while among the Orotchis of the River Vi the women will not even

touch bear's flesh.

In the treatment of the captive bear by these tribes there are

features which can hardly be distinguished from worship. Such, for

example, are the prayers offered to it both alive and dead; the

offerings of food, including portions of its own flesh, laid before

the animal's skull; and the Gilyak custom of leading the living

beast to the river in order to ensure a supply of fish, and of

conducting him from house to house in order that every family may

receive his blessing, just as in Europe a May-tree or a personal

representative of the tree-spirit used to be taken from door to door

in spring for the sake of diffusing among all and sundry the fresh

energies of reviving nature. Again, the solemn participation in his

flesh and blood, and particularly the Aino custom of sharing the

contents of the cup which had been consecrated by being set before

the dead beast, are strongly suggestive of a sacrament, and the

suggestion is confirmed by the Gilyak practice of reserving special

vessels to hold the flesh and cooking it on a fire kindled by a

sacred apparatus which is never employed except on these religious

occasions. Indeed our principal authority on Aino religion, the Rev.

John Batchelor, frankly describes as worship the ceremonious respect

which the Aino pay to the bear, and he affirms that the animal is

undoubtedly one of their gods. Certainly the Aino appear to apply

their name for god (_kamui_) freely to the bear; but, as Mr.

Batchelor himself points out, that word is used with many different

shades of meaning and is applied to a great variety of objects, so

that from its application to the bear we cannot safely argue that

the animal is actually regarded as a deity. Indeed we are expressly

told that the Aino of Saghalien do not consider the bear to be a god

but only a messenger to the gods, and the message with which they

charge the animal at its death bears out the statement. Apparently

the Gilyaks also look on the bear in the light of an envoy

despatched with presents to the Lord of the Mountain, on whom the

welfare of the people depends. At the same time they treat the

animal as a being of a higher order than man, in fact as a minor

deity, whose presence in the village, so long as he is kept and fed,

diffuses blessings, especially by keeping at bay the swarms of evil

spirits who are constantly lying in wait for people, stealing their

goods and destroying their bodies by sickness and disease. Moreover,

by partaking of the flesh, blood, or broth of the bear, the Gilyaks,

the Aino, and the Goldi are all of opinion that they acquire some

portion of the animal's mighty powers, particularly his courage and

strength. No wonder, therefore, that they should treat so great a

benefactor with marks of the highest respect and affection.

Some light may be thrown on the ambiguous attitude of the Aino to

bears by comparing the similar treatment which they accord to other

creatures. For example, they regard the eagle-owl as a good deity

who by his hooting warns men of threatened evil and defends them

against it; hence he is loved, trusted, and devoutly worshipped as a

divine mediator between men and the Creator. The various names

applied to him are significant both of his divinity and of his

mediatorship. Whenever an opportunity offers, one of these divine

birds is captured and kept in a cage, where he is greeted with the

endearing titles of "Beloved god" and "Dear little divinity."

Nevertheless the time comes when the dear little divinity is

throttled and sent away in his capacity of mediator to take a

message to the superior gods or to the Creator himself. The

following is the form of prayer addressed to the eagle-owl when it

is about to be sacrificed: "Beloved deity, we have brought you up

because we loved you, and now we are about to send you to your

father. We herewith offer you food, _inao,_ wine, and cakes; take

them to your parent, and he will be very pleased. When you come to

him say, 'I have lived a long time among the Ainu, where an Ainu

father and an Ainu mother reared me. I now come to thee. I have

brought a variety of good things. I saw while living in Ainuland a

great deal of distress. I observed that some of the people were

possessed by demons, some were wounded by wild animals, some were

hurt by landslides, others suffered shipwreck, and many were

attacked by disease. The people are in great straits. My father,

hear me, and hasten to look upon the Ainu and help them.' If you do

this, your father will help us."

Again, the Aino keep eagles in cages, worship them as divinities,

and ask them to defend the people from evil. Yet they offer the bird

in sacrifice, and when they are about to do so they pray to him,

saying: "O precious divinity, O thou divine bird, pray listen to my

words. Thou dost not belong to this world, for thy home is with the

Creator and his golden eagles. This being so, I present thee with

these _inao_ and cakes and other precious things. Do thou ride upon

the _inao_ and ascend to thy home in the glorious heavens. When thou

arrivest, assemble the deities of thy own kind together and thank

them for us for having governed the world. Do thou come again, I

beseech thee, and rule over us. O my precious one, go thou quietly."

Once more, the Aino revere hawks, keep them in cages, and offer them

in sacrifice. At the time of killing one of them the following

prayer should be addressed to the bird: "O divine hawk, thou art an

expert hunter, please cause thy cleverness to descend on me." If a

hawk is well treated in captivity and prayed to after this fashion

when he is about to be killed, he will surely send help to the

hunter.

Thus the Aino hopes to profit in various ways by slaughtering the

creatures, which, nevertheless, he treats as divine. He expects them

to carry messages for him to their kindred or to the gods in the

upper world; he hopes to partake of their virtues by swallowing

parts of their bodies or in other ways; and apparently he looks

forward to their bodily resurrection in this world, which will

enable him again to catch and kill them, and again to reap all the

benefits which he has already derived from their slaughter. For in

the prayers addressed to the worshipful bear and the worshipful

eagle before they are knocked on the head the creatures are invited

to come again, which seems clearly to point to a faith in their

future resurrection. If any doubt could exist on this head, it would

be dispelled by the evidence of Mr. Batchelor, who tells us that the

Aino "are firmly convinced that the spirits of birds and animals

killed in hunting or offered in sacrifice come and live again upon

the earth clothed with a body; and they believe, further, that they

appear here for the special benefit of men, particularly Ainu

hunters." The Aino, Mr. Batchelor tells us, "confessedly slays and

eats the beast that another may come in its place and be treated in

like manner"; and at the time of sacrificing the creatures "prayers

are said to them which form a request that they will come again and

furnish viands for another feast, as if it were an honour to them to

be thus killed and eaten, and a pleasure as well. Indeed such is the

people's idea." These last observations, as the context shows, refer

especially to the sacrifice of bears.

Thus among the benefits which the Aino anticipates from the

slaughter of the worshipful animals not the least substantial is

that of gorging himself on their flesh and blood, both on the

present and on many a similar occasion hereafter; and that pleasing

prospect again is derived from his firm faith in the spiritual

immortality and bodily resurrection of the dead animals. A like

faith is shared by many savage hunters in many parts of the world

and has given rise to a variety of quaint customs, some of which

will be described presently. Meantime it is not unimportant to

observe that the solemn festivals at which the Aino, the Gilyaks,

and other tribes slaughter the tame caged bears with demonstrations

of respect and sorrow, are probably nothing but an extension or

glorification of similar rites which the hunter performs over any

wild bear which he chances to kill in the forest. Indeed with regard

to the Gilyaks we are expressly informed that this is the case. If

we would understand the meaning of the Gilyak ritual, says Mr.

Sternberg, "we must above all remember that the bear-festivals are

not, as is usually but falsely assumed, celebrated only at the

killing of a house-bear but are held on every occasion when a Gilyak

succeeds in slaughtering a bear in the chase. It is true that in

such cases the festival assumes less imposing dimensions, but in its

essence it remains the same. When the head and skin of a bear killed

in the forest are brought into the village, they are accorded a

triumphal reception with music and solemn ceremonial. The head is

laid on a consecrated scaffold, fed, and treated with offerings,

just as at the killing of a house-bear; and the guests of honour

(_Narch-en_) are also assembled. So, too, dogs are sacrificed, and

the bones of the bear are preserved in the same place and with the

same marks of respect as the bones of a house-bear. Hence the great

winter festival is only an extension of the rite which is observed

at the slaughter of every bear."

Thus the apparent contradiction in the practice of these tribes, who

venerate and almost deify the animals which they habitually hunt,

kill, and eat, is not so flagrant as at first sight it appears to

us: the people have reasons, and some very practical reasons, for

acting as they do. For the savage is by no means so illogical and

unpractical as to superficial observers he is apt to seem; he has

thought deeply on the questions which immediately concern him, he

reasons about them, and though his conclusions often diverge very

widely from ours, we ought not to deny him the credit of patient and

prolonged meditation on some fundamental problems of human

existence. In the present case, if he treats bears in general as

creatures wholly subservient to human needs and yet singles out

certain individuals of the species for homage which almost amounts

to deification, we must not hastily set him down as irrational and

inconsistent, but must endeavour to place ourselves at his point of

view, to see things as he sees them, and to divest ourselves of the

prepossessions which tinge so deeply our own views of the world. If

we do so, we shall probably discover that, however absurd his

conduct may appear to us, the savage nevertheless generally acts on

a train of reasoning which seems to him in harmony with the facts of

his limited experience. This I propose to illustrate in the

following chapter, where I shall attempt to show that the solemn

ceremonial of the bear-festival among the Ainos and other tribes of

North-eastern Asia is only a particularly striking example of the

respect which on the principles of his rude philosophy the savage

habitually pays to the animals which he kills and eats.

LIII. The Propitiation of Wild Animals By Hunters

THE EXPLANATION of life by the theory of an indwelling and

practically immortal soul is one which the savage does not confine

to human beings but extends to the animate creation in general. In

so doing he is more liberal and perhaps more logical than the

civilised man, who commonly denies to animals that privilege of

immortality which he claims for himself. The savage is not so proud;

he commonly believes that animals are endowed with feelings and

intelligence like those of men, and that, like men, they possess

souls which survive the death of their bodies either to wander about

as disembodied spirits or to be born again in animal form.

Thus to the savage, who regards all living creatures as practically

on a footing of equality with man, the act of killing and eating an

animal must wear a very different aspect from that which the same

act presents to us, who regard the intelligence of animals as far

inferior to our own and deny them the possession of immortal souls.

Hence on the principles of his rude philosophy the primitive hunter

who slays an animal believes himself exposed to the vengeance either

of its disembodied spirit or of all the other animals of the same

species, whom he considers as knit together, like men, by the ties

of kin and the obligations of the blood feud, and therefore as bound

to resent the injury done to one of their number. Accordingly the

savage makes it a rule to spare the life of those animals which he

has no pressing motive for killing, at least such fierce and

dangerous animals as are likely to exact a bloody vengeance for the

slaughter of one of their kind. Crocodiles are animals of this sort.

They are only found in hot countries, where, as a rule, food is

abundant and primitive man has therefore little reason to kill them

for the sake of their tough and unpalatable flesh. Hence it is a

custom with some savages to spare crocodiles, or rather only to kill

them in obedience to the law of blood feud, that is, as a

retaliation for the slaughter of men by crocodiles. For example, the

Dyaks of Borneo will not kill a crocodile unless a crocodile has

first killed a man. "For why, say they, should they commit an act of

aggression, when he and his kindred can so easily repay them? But

should the alligator take a human life, revenge becomes a sacred

duty of the living relatives, who will trap the man-eater in the

spirit of an officer of justice pursuing a criminal. Others, even

then, hang back, reluctant to embroil themselves in a quarrel which

does not concern them. The man-eating alligator is supposed to be

pursued by a righteous Nemesis; and whenever one is caught they have

a profound conviction that it must be the guilty one, or his

accomplice."

Like the Dyaks, the natives of Madagascar never kill a crocodile

"except in retaliation for one of their friends who has been

destroyed by a crocodile. They believe that the wanton destruction

of one of these reptiles will be followed by the loss of human life,

in accordance with the principle of _lex talionis._" The people who

live near the lake Itasy in Madagascar make a yearly proclamation to

the crocodiles, announcing that they will revenge the death of some

of their friends by killing as many crocodiles in return, and

warning all well-disposed crocodiles to keep out of the way, as they

have no quarrel with them, but only with their evil-minded relations

who have taken human life. Various tribes of Madagascar believe

themselves to be descended from crocodiles, and accordingly they

view the scaly reptile as, to all intents and purposes, a man and a

brother. If one of the animals should so far forget himself as to

devour one of his human kinsfolk, the chief of the tribe, or in his

absence an old man familiar with the tribal customs, repairs at the

head of the people to the edge of the water, and summons the family

of the culprit to deliver him up to the arm of justice. A hook is

then baited and cast into the river or lake. Next day the guilty

brother, or one of his family, is dragged ashore, and after his

crime has been clearly brought home to him by a strict

interrogation, he is sentenced to death and executed. The claims of

justice being thus satisfied and the majesty of the law fully

vindicated, the deceased crocodile is lamented and buried like a

kinsman; a mound is raised over his relics and a stone marks the

place of his head.

Again, the tiger is another of those dangerous beasts whom the

savage prefers to leave alone, lest by killing one of the species he

should excite the hostility of the rest. No consideration will

induce a Sumatran to catch or wound a tiger except in self-defence

or immediately after a tiger has destroyed a friend or relation.

When a European has set traps for tigers, the people of the

neighbourhood have been known to go by night to the place and

explain to the animals that the traps are not set by them nor with

their consent. The inhabitants of the hills near Rajamahall, in

Bengal, are very averse to killing a tiger, unless one of their

kinsfolk has been carried off by one of the beasts. In that case

they go out for the purpose of hunting and slaying a tiger; and when

they have succeeded they lay their bows and arrows on the carcase

and invoke God, declaring that they slew the animal in retaliation

for the loss of a kinsman. Vengeance having been thus taken, they

swear not to attack another tiger except under similar provocation.

The Indians of Carolina would not molest snakes when they came upon

them, but would pass by on the other side of the path, believing

that if they were to kill a serpent, the reptile's kindred would

destroy some of their brethren, friends, or relations in return. So

the Seminole Indians spared the rattlesnake, because they feared

that the soul of the dead rattlesnake would incite its kinsfolk to

take vengeance. The Cherokee regard the rattlesnake as the chief of

the snake tribe and fear and respect him accordingly. Few Cherokee

will venture to kill a rattlesnake, unless they cannot help it, and

even then they must atone for the crime by craving pardon of the

snake's ghost either in their own person or through the mediation of

a priest, according to a set formula. If these precautions are

neglected, the kinsfolk of the dead snake will send one of their

number as an avenger of blood, who will track down the murderer and

sting him to death. No ordinary Cherokee dares to kill a wolf, if he

can possibly help it; for he believes that the kindred of the slain

beast would surely avenge its death, and that the weapon with which

the deed had been done would be quite useless for the future, unless

it were cleaned and exorcised by a medicine-man. However, certain

persons who know the proper rites of atonement for such a crime can

kill wolves with impunity, and they are sometimes hired to do so by

people who have suffered from the raids of the wolves on their

cattle or fish-traps. In Jebel-Nuba, a district of the Eastern

Sudan, it is forbidden to touch the nests or remove the young of a

species of black birds, resembling our blackbirds, because the

people believe that the parent birds would avenge the wrong by

causing a stormy wind to blow, which would destroy the harvest.

But the savage clearly cannot afford to spare all animals. He must

either eat some of them or starve, and when the question thus comes

to be whether he or the animal must perish, he is forced to overcome

his superstitious scruples and take the life of the beast. At the

same time he does all he can to appease his victims and their

kinsfolk. Even in the act of killing them he testifies his respect

for them, endeavours to excuse or even conceal his share in

procuring their death, and promises that their remains will be

honourably treated. By thus robbing death of its terrors, he hopes

to reconcile his victims to their fate and to induce their fellows

to come and be killed also. For example, it was a principle with the

Kamtchatkans never to kill a land or sea animal without first making

excuses to it and begging that the animal would not take it ill.

Also they offered it cedarnuts and so forth, to make it think that

it was not a victim but a guest at a feast. They believed that this

hindered other animals of the same species from growing shy. For

instance, after they had killed a bear and feasted on its flesh, the

host would bring the bear's head before the company, wrap it in

grass, and present it with a variety of trifles. Then he would lay

the blame of the bear's death on the Russians, and bid the beast

wreak his wrath upon them. Also he would ask the bear to inform the

other bears how well he had been treated, that they too might come

without fear. Seals, sea-lions, and other animals were treated by

the Kamtchatkans with the same ceremonious respect. Moreover, they

used to insert sprigs of a plant resembling bear's wort in the

mouths of the animals they killed; after which they would exhort the

grinning skulls to have no fear but to go and tell it to their

fellows, that they also might come and be caught and so partake of

this splendid hospitality. When the Ostiaks have hunted and killed a

bear, they cut off its head and hang it on a tree. Then they gather

round in a circle and pay it divine honours. Next they run towards

the carcase uttering lamentations and saying, "Who killed you? It

was the Russians. Who cut off your head? It was a Russian axe. Who

skinned you? It was a knife made by a Russian." They explain, too,

that the feathers which sped the arrow on its flight came from the

wing of a strange bird, and that they did nothing but let the arrow

go. They do all this because they believe that the wandering ghost

of the slain bear would attack them on the first opportunity, if

they did not thus appease it. Or they stuff the skin of the slain

bear with hay; and after celebrating their victory with songs of

mockery and insult, after spitting on and kicking it, they set it up

on its hind legs, "and then, for a considerable time, they bestow on

it all the veneration due to a guardian god." When a party of Koryak

have killed a bear or a wolf, they skin the beast and dress one of

themselves in the skin. Then they dance round the skin-clad man,

saying that it was not they who killed the animal, but some one

else, generally a Russian. When they kill a fox they skin it, wrap

the body in grass, and bid him go tell his companions how hospitably

he has been received, and how he has received a new cloak instead of

his old one. A fuller account of the Koryak ceremonies is given by a

more recent writer. He tells us that when a dead bear is brought to

the house, the women come out to meet it, dancing with firebrands.

The bear-skin is taken off along with the head; and one of the women

puts on the skin, dances in it, and entreats the bear not to be

angry, but to be kind to the people. At the same time they offer

meat on a wooden platter to the dead beast, saying, "Eat, friend."

Afterwards a ceremony is performed for the purpose of sending the

dead bear, or rather his spirit, away back to his home. He is

provided with provisions for the journey in the shape of puddings or

reindeer-flesh packed in a grass bag. His skin is stuffed with grass

and carried round the house, after which he is supposed to depart

towards the rising sun. The intention of the ceremonies is to

protect the people from the wrath of the slain bear and his

kinsfolk, and so to ensure success in future bear-hunts. The Finns

used to try to persuade a slain bear that he had not been killed by

them, but had fallen from a tree, or met his death in some other

way; moreover, they held a funeral festival in his honour, at the

close of which bards expatiated on the homage that had been paid to

him, urging him to report to the other bears the high consideration

with which he had been treated, in order that they also, following

his example, might come and be slain. When the Lapps had succeeded

in killing a bear with impunity, they thanked him for not hurting

them and for not breaking the clubs and spears which had given him

his death wounds; and they prayed that he would not visit his death

upon them by sending storms or in any other way. His flesh then

furnished a feast.

The reverence of hunters for the bear whom they regularly kill and

eat may thus be traced all along the northern region of the Old

World from Bering's Straits to Lappland. It reappears in similar

forms in North America. With the American Indians a bear hunt was an

important event for which they prepared by long fasts and

purgations. Before setting out they offered expiatory sacrifices to

the souls of bears slain in previous hunts, and besought them to be

favourable to the hunters. When a bear was killed the hunter lit his

pipe, and putting the mouth of it between the bear's lips, blew into

the bowl, filling the beast's mouth with smoke. Then he begged the

bear not to be angry at having been killed, and not to thwart him

afterwards in the chase. The carcase was roasted whole and eaten;

not a morsel of the flesh might be left over. The head, painted red

and blue, was hung on a post and addressed by orators, who heaped

praise on the dead beast. When men of the Bear clan in the Ottawa

tribe killed a bear, they made him a feast of his own flesh, and

addressed him thus: "Cherish us no grudge because we have killed

you. You have sense; you see that our children are hungry. They love

you and wish to take you into their bodies. Is it not glorious to be

eaten by the children of a chief?" Amongst the Nootka Indians of

British Columbia, when a bear had been killed, it was brought in and

seated before the head chief in an upright posture, with a chief's

bonnet, wrought in figures, on its head, and its fur powdered over

with white down. A tray of provisions was then set before it, and it

was invited by words and gestures to eat. After that the animal was

skinned, boiled, and eaten.

A like respect is testified for other dangerous creatures by the

hunters who regularly trap and kill them. When Caffre hunters are in

the act of showering spears on an elephant, they call out, "Don't

kill us, great captain; don't strike or tread upon us, mighty

chief." When he is dead they make their excuses to him, pretending

that his death was a pure accident. As a mark of respect they bury

his trunk with much solemn ceremony; for they say that "the elephant

is a great lord; his trunk is his hand." Before the Amaxosa Caffres

attack an elephant they shout to the animal and beg him to pardon

them for the slaughter they are about to perpetrate, professing

great submission to his person and explaining clearly the need they

have of his tusks to enable them to procure beads and supply their

wants. When they have killed him they bury in the ground, along with

the end of his trunk, a few of the articles they have obtained for

the ivory, thus hoping to avert some mishap that would otherwise

befall them. Amongst some tribes of Eastern Africa, when a lion is

killed, the carcase is brought before the king, who does homage to

it by prostrating himself on the ground and rubbing his face on the

muzzle of the beast. In some parts of Western Africa if a negro

kills a leopard he is bound fast and brought before the chiefs for

having killed one of their peers. The man defends himself on the

plea that the leopard is chief of the forest and therefore a

stranger. He is then set at liberty and rewarded. But the dead

leopard, adorned with a chief's bonnet, is set up in the village,

where nightly dances are held in its honour. The Baganda greatly

fear the ghosts of buffaloes which they have killed, and they always

appease these dangerous spirits. On no account will they bring the

head of a slain buffalo into a village or into a garden of

plantains: they always eat the flesh of the head in the open

country. Afterwards they place the skull in a small hut built for

the purpose, where they pour out beer as an offering and pray to the

ghost to stay where he is and not to harm them.

Another formidable beast whose life the savage hunter takes with

joy, yet with fear and trembling, is the whale. After the slaughter

of a whale the maritime Koryak of North-eastern Siberia hold a

communal festival, the essential part of which "is based on the

conception that the whale killed has come on a visit to the village;

that it is staying for some time, during which it is treated with

great respect; that it then returns to the sea to repeat its visit

the following year; that it will induce its relatives to come along,

telling them of the hospitable reception that has been accorded to

it. According to the Koryak ideas, the whales, like all other

animals, constitute one tribe, or rather family, of related

individuals, who live in villages like the Koryak. They avenge the

murder of one of their number, and are grateful for kindnesses that

they may have received." When the inhabitants of the Isle of St.

Mary, to the north of Madagascar, go a-whaling, they single out the

young whales for attack and "humbly beg the mother's pardon, stating

the necessity that drives them to kill her progeny, and requesting

that she will be pleased to go below while the deed is doing, that

her maternal feelings may not be outraged by witnessing what must

cause her so much uneasiness." An Ajumba hunter having killed a

female hippopotamus on Lake Azyingo in West Africa, the animal was

decapitated and its quarters and bowels removed. Then the hunter,

naked, stepped into the hollow of the ribs, and kneeling down in the

bloody pool washed his whole body with the blood and excretions of

the animal, while he prayed to the soul of the hippopotamus not to

bear him a grudge for having killed her and so blighted her hopes of

future maternity; and he further entreated the ghost not to stir up

other hippopotamuses to avenge her death by butting at and capsizing

his canoe.

The ounce, a leopard-like creature, is dreaded for its depredations

by the Indians of Brazil. When they have caught one of these animals

in a snare, they kill it and carry the body home to the village.

There the women deck the carcase with feathers of many colours, put

bracelets on its legs, and weep over it, saying, "I pray thee not to

take vengeance on our little ones for having been caught and killed

through thine own ignorance. For it was not we who deceived thee, it

was thyself. Our husbands only set the trap to catch animals that

are good to eat; they never thought to take thee in it. Therefore,

let not thy soul counsel thy fellows to avenge thy death on our

little ones!" When a Blackfoot Indian has caught eagles in a trap

and killed them, he takes them home to a special lodge, called the

eagles' lodge, which has been prepared for their reception outside

of the camp. Here he sets the birds in a row on the ground, and

propping up their heads on a stick, puts a piece of dried meat in

each of their mouths in order that the spirits of the dead eagles

may go and tell the other eagles how well they are being treated by

the Indians. So when Indian hunters of the Orinoco region have

killed an animal, they open its mouth and pour into it a few drops

of the liquor they generally carry with them, in order that the soul

of the dead beast may inform its fellows of the welcome it has met

with, and that they too, cheered by the prospect of the same kind

reception, may come with alacrity to be killed. When a Teton Indian

is on a journey, and he meets a grey spider or a spider with yellow

legs, he kills it, because some evil would befall him if he did not.

But he is very careful not to let the spider know that he kills it,

for if the spider knew, his soul would go and tell the other

spiders, and one of them would be sure to avenge the death of his

relation. So in crushing the insect, the Indian says, "O Grandfather

Spider, the Thunder-beings kill you." And the spider is crushed at

once and believes what is told him. His soul probably runs and tells

the other spiders that the Thunder-beings have killed him; but no

harm comes of that. For what can grey or yellow-legged spiders do to

the Thunder-beings?

But it is not merely dangerous creatures with whom the savage

desires to keep on good terms. It is true that the respect which he

pays to wild beasts is in some measure proportioned to their

strength and ferocity. Thus the savage Stiens of Cambodia, believing

that all animals have souls which roam about after their death, beg

an animal's pardon when they kill it, lest its soul should come and

torment them. Also they offer it sacrifices, but these sacrifices

are proportioned to the size and strength of the animal. The

ceremonies which they observe at the death of an elephant are

conducted with much pomp and last seven days. Similar distinctions

are drawn by North American Indians. "The bear, the buffalo, and the

beaver are manidos [divinities] which furnish food. The bear is

formidable, and good to eat. They render ceremonies to him, begging

him to allow himself to be eaten, although they know he has no fancy

for it. We kill you, but you are not annihilated. His head and paws

are objects of homage. . . . Other animals are treated similarly

from similar reasons. . . . Many of the animal manidos, not being

dangerous, are often treated with contempt--the terrapin, the

weasel, polecat, etc." The distinction is instructive. Animals which

are feared, or are good to eat, or both, are treated with

ceremonious respect; those which are neither formidable nor good to

eat are despised. We have had examples of reverence paid to animals

which are both feared and eaten. It remains to prove that similar

respect is shown to animals which, without being feared, are either

eaten or valued for their skins.

When Siberian sable-hunters have caught a sable, no one is allowed

to see it, and they think that if good or evil be spoken of the

captured sable no more sables will be caught. A hunter has been

known to express his belief that the sables could hear what was said

of them as far off as Moscow. He said that the chief reason why the

sable hunt was now so unproductive was that some live sables had

been sent to Moscow. There they had been viewed with astonishment as

strange animals, and the sables cannot abide that. Another, though

minor, cause of the diminished take of sables was, he alleged, that

the world is now much worse than it used to be, so that nowadays a

hunter will sometimes hide the sable which he has got instead of

putting it into the common stock. This also, said he, the sables

cannot abide. Alaskan hunters preserve the bones of sables and

beavers out of reach of the dogs for a year and then bury them

carefully, "lest the spirits who look after the beavers and sables

should consider that they are regarded with contempt, and hence no

more should be killed or trapped." The Canadian Indians were equally

particular not to let their dogs gnaw the bones, or at least certain

of the bones, of beavers. They took the greatest pains to collect

and preserve these bones, and, when the beaver had been caught in a

net, they threw them into the river. To a Jesuit who argued that the

beavers could not possibly know what became of their bones, the

Indians replied, "You know nothing about catching beavers and yet

you will be prating about it. Before the beaver is stone dead, his

soul takes a turn in the hut of the man who is killing him and makes

a careful note of what is done with his bones. If the bones are

given to the dogs, the other beavers would get word of it and would

not let themselves be caught. Whereas, if their bones are thrown

into the fire or a river, they are quite satisfied; and it is

particularly gratifying to the net which caught them." Before

hunting the beaver they offered a solemn prayer to the Great Beaver,

and presented him with tobacco; and when the chase was over, an

orator pronounced a funeral oration over the dead beavers. He

praised their spirit and wisdom. "You will hear no more," said he,

"the voice of the chieftains who commanded you and whom you chose

from among all the warrior beavers to give you laws. Your language,

which the medicine-men understand perfectly, will be heard no more

at the bottom of the lake. You will fight no more battles with the

otters, your cruel foes. No, beavers! But your skins shall serve to

buy arms; we will carry your smoked hams to our children; we will

keep the dogs from eating your bones, which are so hard."