One of these primitive rites, which is deserving of more attention
than it has yet received, as throwing light on many important phases
of Bible teaching, is the rite of blood-covenanting: a form of mutual
covenanting, by which two persons enter into the closest, the most
enduring, and the most sacred of compacts, as friends and brothers, or
as more than brothers, through the inter-commingling of their blood, by
means of its mutual tasting, or of its inter-transfusion. This rite is
still observed in the unchanging East; and there are historic traces
of it, from time immemorial, in every quarter of the globe; yet it has
been strangely overlooked by biblical critics and biblical commentators
generally, in these later centuries.
In bringing this rite of the covenant of blood into new prominence,
it may be well for me to tell of it as it was described to me by an
intelligent native Syrian, who saw it consummated in a village at the
base of the mountains of Lebanon; and then to add evidences of its
wide-spread existence in the East and elsewhere, in earlier and in
later times.
It was two young men, who were to enter into this covenant. They had
known each other, and had been intimate, for years; but now they were
to become brother-friends, in the covenant of blood. Their relatives
and neighbors were called together, in the open place before the
village fountain, to witness the sealing compact. The young men
publicly announced their purpose, and their reasons for it. Their
declarations were written down, in duplicate,--one paper for each
friend,--and signed by themselves and by several witnesses. One of the
friends took a sharp lancet, and opened a vein in the other’s arm. Into
the opening thus made, he inserted a quill, through which he sucked
the living blood. The lancet-blade was carefully wiped on one of the
duplicate covenant-papers, and then it was taken by the other friend,
who made a like incision in its first user’s arm, and drank his blood
through the quill, wiping the blade on the duplicate covenant-record.
The two friends declared together: “We are brothers in a covenant
made before God: who deceiveth the other, him will God deceive.” Each
blood-marked covenant-record, was then folded carefully, to be sewed
up in a small leathern case, or amulet, about an inch square; to be
worn thenceforward by one of the covenant-brothers, suspended about the
neck, or bound upon the arm, in token of the indissoluble relation.
The compact thus made, is called, _M’âhadat ed-Dam_ (الدم معاهدة),
the “Covenant of Blood.” The two persons thus conjoined, are, _Akhwat
el-M’âhadah_ (المعاهدة اخوة), “Brothers of the Covenant.” The rite
itself is recognized, in Syria, as one of the very old customs of
the land, as _’âdah qadeemeh_ (قديمة عادة) “a primitive rite.” There
are many forms of covenanting in Syria, but this is the extremest
and most sacred of them all. As it is the inter-commingling of very
lives, nothing can transcend it. It forms a tie, or a union, which
cannot be dissolved. In marriage, divorce is a possibility: not so in
the covenant of blood. Although now comparatively rare, in view of
its responsibilities and of its indissolubleness, this covenant is
sometimes entered into by confidential partners in business, or by
fellow-travelers; again, by robbers on the road--who would themselves
rest fearlessly on its obligations, and who could be rested on within
its limits, however untrustworthy they or their fellows might be to any
other compact. Yet, again, it is the chosen compact of loving friends;
of those who are drawn to it only by mutual love and trust.
This covenant is commonly between two persons of the same
religion--Muhammadans, Druzes, or Nazarenes; yet it has been known
between two persons of different religions;[1] and in such a case it
would be held as a closer tie than that of birth[2] or sect. He who has
entered into this compact with another, counts himself the possessor of
a double life; for his friend, whose blood he has shared, is ready to
lay down his life with him, or for him.[3] Hence the leathern case, or
_Bayt hejâb_ (حجاب بيت) “House of the amulet,”[4] containing the record
of the covenant (_’uhdah_, عهدة), is counted a proud badge of honor, by
one who possesses it; and he has an added sense of security, because he
will not be alone when he falleth.[5]
I have received personal testimony from native Syrians, concerning the
observance of this rite in Damascus, in Aleppo, in Hâsbayya, in Abayh,
along the road between Tyre and Sidon, and among the Koords resident
in Salehayyah. All the Syrians who have been my informants, are at one
concerning the traditional extreme antiquity of this rite, and its
exceptional force and sacredness.
In view of the Oriental method of evidencing the closest possible
affection and confidence, by the sucking of the loved one’s blood,
there would seem to be more than a coincidence in the fact, that the
Arabic words for friendship, for affection, for blood, and for leech,
or blood-sucker, are but variations from a common root.[6] _’Alaqa_
(علق) means “to love,” “to adhere,” “to feed.” _’Alaq_ (علق), in the
singular, means “love,” “friendship,” “attachment,” “blood.” As the
plural of _’alaqa_ (علقة), _’alaq_ means “leeches,” or “blood-suckers.”
The truest friend clings like a leech, and draws blood in order to the
sharing thereby of his friend’s life and nature.
A native Syrian, who had traveled extensively in the East, and who
was familiar with the covenant of blood in its more common form, as
already described, told me of a practice somewhat akin to it, whereby
a bandit-chieftain would pledge his men to implicit and unqualified,
life-surrendering fidelity to himself; or, whereby a conspirator
against the government would bind, in advance, to his plans, his fellow
conspirators,--by a ceremony known as _Sharb el-’ahd_ (العهد شرب)
“Drinking the covenant.” The methods of such covenanting are various;
but they are all of the nature of tests of obedience and of endurance.
They sometimes include licking a heated iron with the tongue, or
gashing the tongue, or swallowing pounded glass or other dangerous
potions; but, in all cases, the idea seems to be, that the life of
the one covenanting is, by this covenant, devoted--surrendered as it
were--to the one with whom he covenants; and the rite is uniformly
accompanied with a solemn and an imprecatory appeal to God, as
witnessing and guarding the compact.
Dr. J. G. Wetzstein, a German scholar, diplomat, and traveler, who has
given much study to the peoples east of the Jordan, makes reference
to the binding force and the profound obligation of the covenants
of brotherhood, in that portion of the East; although he gives no
description of the methods of the covenant-rite. Speaking of two
Bed´ween--Habbâs and Hosayn--who had been “brothered” (_verbrüdert_),
he explains by saying: “We must by this [term] understand the Covenant
of Brotherhood[7] (_Chuwwat el-Ahĕd_ [العهد خوة]), which is in use
to-day not only among the Hadari [the Villagers], but also among the
Bed´ween; and is indeed of pre-Muhammadan origin. The brother [in such
a covenant] must guard the [other] brother from treachery, and [must]
succor him in peril. So far as may be necessary, the one must provide
for the wants of the other; and the survivor has weighty obligations
in behalf of the family of the one deceased.” Then, as showing how
completely the idea of a common life in the lives of two friends
thus covenanted--if, indeed, they have become sharers of the same
blood--sways the Oriental mind, Wetzstein adds: “The marriage of a man
and woman between whom this covenant exists, is held to be _incest_.”[8]
There are, indeed, various evidences that the tie of blood-covenanting
is reckoned, in the East, even a closer tie than that of natural
descent; that a “friend” by this tie is nearer and is dearer,
“sticketh closer,” than a “brother” by birth. We, in the West, are
accustomed to say, that “blood is thicker than water”; but the Arabs
have the idea that blood is thicker than milk, than a mother’s milk.
With them, any two children nourished at the same breast are called
“milk-brothers,”[9] or “sucking brothers”;[10] and the tie between
such is very strong. A boy and a girl in this relation cannot marry,
even though by birth they had no family relationship. Among even the
more bigoted of the Druzes, a Druze girl who is a “sucking sister” of
a Nazarene boy is allowed a sister’s privileges with him. He can see
her uncovered face, even to the time of her marriage. But, the Arabs
hold that brothers in the covenant of blood are closer than brothers
at a common breast; that those who have tasted each other’s blood are
in a surer covenant than those who have tasted the same milk together;
that “blood-lickers,”[11] as the blood-brothers are sometimes called,
are more truly one, than “milk-brothers,” or “sucking brothers”; that,
indeed, blood is thicker than milk, as well as thicker than water.
This distinction it is which seems to be referred to in a citation from
the Arabic poet El-A’asha, by the Arabic lexicographer Qamus, which has
been a puzzle to Lane, and Freytag, and others.[12] Lane’s translation
of the passage is: “Two foster-brothers by the sucking of the breast of
one mother, swore together by dark blood, into which they dipped their
hands, that they should not ever become separated.” In other words, two
milk-brothers became blood-brothers, by interlocking their hands under
their own blood, in the covenant of blood-friendship. They had been
closely inter-linked before; now they were as one; for blood is thicker
than milk. The oneness of nature which comes of sharing the same blood,
by its inter-transfusion, is rightly deemed, by the Arabs, completer
than the oneness of nature which comes of sharing the same milk; or
even than that which comes through having blood from a common source,
by natural descent.