Apart from, and yet linked with, the explicit proofs of the rite of
blood-covenanting throughout the primitive world, there are many
indications of the root-idea of this form of covenanting; in the
popular estimate of blood, and of all the marvelous possibilities
through blood-transference. These indications, also, are of old, and
from everywhere.
To go back again to the earlier written history of the world; it
is evident that the ancient Egyptians recognized blood as in a
peculiar sense life itself; and that they counted the heart,--as the
blood-source and the blood-centre,--the symbol and the substance of
life. In the Book of the Dead, the deceased speaks of his heart,--or
his blood-fountain,--as his life; and as giving him the right to appear
in the presence of the gods: “My heart was my mother; my heart was my
mother; my heart was my being on earth; placed within me; returned to
me by the chief gods, placing me before the gods”[190] [in the presence
of the gods]. In the process of embalming, the heart was always
preserved with jealous care;[191] and sometimes it was embalmed by
itself in a sepulchral vase.[192] It was the heart--as the life, which
is the blood--that seems to have been put into the scales of the divine
Judge for the settling of the soul’s destiny;[193] according to all the
Egyptian pictures of the judgment. Throughout the Book of the Dead, and
in all the sacred teachings and practices of the ancient Egyptians,
with reference to human life and human destiny, the heart is obviously
recognized as the analogon of blood, and blood as the analogon of life.
Moreover, the life, which is represented by the blood and by the heart,
appears to be counted peculiarly the gift and the guarded treasure of
Deity, and as being in itself a resemblance to, if not actually a part
of, the divine nature.[194]
Even of the lower animals, the heart and the heart’s blood were
counted sacred to the gods, and were not to be eaten by the Egyptians;
as if life belonged only to the Giver of life, and, when passing
out from a lower organism, must return, or be returned, only to its
original Source.
When the soul stands before the forty-two judges, in the Hall of the
Two Truths, to give answer concerning its sins, one of its protesting
avowals, as recorded in the Book of the Dead, is: “Oh Glowing Feet,
coming out of the darkness! I have not eaten the heart;”[195] In
my earthly life-course, I have not committed the sacrilege of
heart-eating. Yet, of the sacrificial offering of “a red cow,” as
prescribed in the Book of the Dead, “of the blood squeezed from the
heart, one hundred drops,”[196] make a portion for the gods. In one
of the tombs of Memphis, there is represented a scene of slaughtering
animals. As the heart of an animal is taken out, the butcher who holds
it says,--as shown by the accompanying hieroglyphics,--“Take care of
this heart;”[197] as if that were a portion to be guarded sacredly.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence [or, as the margin has it, “above
all thou guardest”]; for out of it are the issues of life.”[198] It
may, indeed, have been from the lore of Egypt that Solomon obtained
this proverb of the ages, to pass it onward to posterity with his stamp
of inspiration.
It would even seem that the blood of animals was not allowed to be
eaten by the Egyptians; although there has been a question at that
point, among Egyptologists. Wilkinson thinks that they _did_ employ
it in cooking;[199] but this is only his inference from a pictured
representation of the blood being caught in a vessel, when an animal
is slaughtered for the table. On the other hand, that same picture
shows the vessel of blood being borne away, afterwards, on uplifted
hands;[200] as it would have been if it were designed for a sacred
libation. Again, the other picture, reported by Birch, as showing the
butcher’s care of the heart, represents the blood as “collected in a
jar with a long spout”; such as was used for sacred libations.[201] It
is evident that blood was offered to the gods of Egypt in libation,
as was also wine.[202] Indeed the common Egyptian word for blood
([Illustration], _senf_) is regularly followed by the determinative of
outpouring ([Illustration]). The word _tesher_, “red,” is sometimes
used as a synonym for _senf_; in this case (and in this only) the
determinative of outpouring is added to the hieroglyphics for _tesher_.
Moreover, among the forty-two judges, before whom the dead appears,
he who is “Eater of Blood” comes next in order before the “Eater of
Hearts”;[203] as if blood-eating, like heart-eating, were a prerogative
of the gods.
If proof were still wanting that, in ancient Egypt, it was the heart
which was deemed the epitome of life, and that the _heart_ had this
pre-eminence because of its being the fountain of _blood_--which is
life--that proof would be found in “The Tale of the Two Brothers”; a
story that was prepared in its present form by a tutor of the Pharaoh
of the exodus, while the latter was yet heir presumptive to the throne.
This story has been the subject of special study by De Rougé, Chabas,
Maspero, Brugsch, Birch, Goodwin, and Le Page Renouf. It is from the
latter’s translation, that I draw my facts for this reference.[204]
Anpu and Bata were brothers. Bata’s experience with the wife of Anpu
was like that of Joseph in the house of Potiphar. He was true, like
Joseph. Like Joseph, he was falsely accused, his life was sought, and
his innocence was vindicated. Then, for his better protection, Bata
took his _heart_ out from his body, and put that in a safe place, while
he made his home near it. To his brother he had said:
“I shall take my heart, and place it in the top of the flower of the
cedar, and when the cedar is cut down it will fall to the ground. Thou
shalt come to seek it. If thou art seven years in search of it, let not
thy heart be depressed, and when thou hast found it thou shalt place it
in a cup of cold water. Oh, then I shall live (once more).”
After a time the cedar, through the treachery of Bata’s false wife,
was cut down. As it fell, with the heart of Bata, the latter dropped
dead. For more than three years Anpu sought his brother’s heart; then
he found it. “He brought a vessel of cold water, dropped the heart
into it, and sat down according to his daily wont. But when the night
was come, the heart absorbed the water. Bata [whose body seems to have
been preserved--like a mummy--all this time] trembled in all his limbs,
and continued looking at his elder brother, but his heart was faint.
Then Anpu took the vessel of cold water which his brother’s heart was
in. And when the latter [Bata] had drunk it up, his heart rose in its
place; and he became as he had been before. Each embraced the other,
and each one of them held conversation with his companion.”
The revivified Bata was transformed into a sacred bull, an Apis. That
bull, by the treachery, again, of Bata’s wife, was killed. “And as
they were killing him, and he was in the hands of his attendants, he
shook his neck, and two drops of blood fell upon the two door-posts of
His Majesty [in whose keeping was the sacred bull]; one was on the one
side of the great staircase of His Majesty, the other upon the other
side; and they grew up into two mighty persea trees, each of which
stood alone.” Thus the blood was both life and life-giving, and the
heart was as the very soul of its possessor, in the estimation of the
ancient Egyptians.
In primitive America also, as in ancient Egypt, the blood and the
heart, were held pre-eminently sacred. Among the Dakotas, in North
America, the heart of the deer and of other animals killed in
hunting, was offered to the spirits.[205] In Central America and in
South America, it was the blood and the heart of the human victims
offered in sacrifice, which were counted the peculiar portion of the
gods.[206] In description of a human sacrifice among the Nahuas of
Central America,[207] a Mexican historian says: “The high priest then
approached, and with a heavy knife of obsidian cut open the miserable
man’s breast. Then, with a dexterity acquired by long practice, the
sacrificer tore forth the yet palpitating heart, which he first offered
to the sun, and then threw at the feet of the idol. Taking it up, he
again offered it to the god, and afterwards burned it; preserving the
ashes with great care and veneration. Sometimes the heart was placed
in the mouth [of the idol] with a golden spoon. It was customary also
to anoint the lips of the image, and the cornices of the door with the
victim’s blood.”[208]
Of the method among the Maya nations,[209] south of the Gulf of Mexico,
a Spanish historian[210] says: “The bleeding and quivering heart was
held up to the sun, and then thrown into a bowl prepared for its
reception. An assistant priest sucked the blood from the gash in the
chest, through a hollow cane; the end of which he elevated towards
the sun, and then discharged its contents into a plume-bordered cup
held by the captor of the prisoner just slain. This cup was carried
around to all the idols in the temples and chapels, before whom another
blood-filled tube was held up, as if to give them a taste of the
contents. This ceremony performed, the cup was left at the palace.”
Yet another record stands: “The guardian of the temple ... opened
the left breast of the victim, tore out the heart, and handed it to
the high priest, who placed it in a small embroidered purse which he
carried. The four [assisting] priests received the blood of the victim
in four jicaras or bowls, made from the shell of a certain fruit; and
descending, one after the other, to the court yard, [they] sprinkled
the blood with their right hand in the direction of the cardinal points
[of the compass]. If any blood remained over, they returned it to the
high priest, who placed it, with the purse containing the heart, in the
body of the victim, through the wound that had been made; and the body
was interred in the temple.”[211]
Commenting on these customs in Central America, Réville--the
representative comparative-religionist of France--says: “Here you will
recognize that idea, so widely spread in the two Americas, and indeed
almost everywhere amongst uncivilized peoples [nor is it limited to
the uncivilized], that the heart is the epitome, so to speak, of the
individual--his soul in some sense--so that to appropriate his heart is
to appropriate his whole being.”[212] What else than this gave rise to
the thought of preserving the _heart_ of a hero, or of a loved one, as
a symbol of the living presence of the dead? It was by his heart, that
King Robert Bruce was to lead his army to the Holy Land; and how many
times, in history, have men bequeathed their hearts to those dear to
them, as the poet Shelley’s heart was preserved by his friends, and by
them given to Mrs. Shelley.
In the Greek and Roman sacrifices, it was the blood of the victim,
which, as the life of the victim, was poured out unto the gods, as
unto the Author of life.[213] Moreover, there is reason for supposing
that the _heart_ was always given the chief place, as representing
the very life itself, in the examination and in the _tasting_ of the
“entrails” (σπλάγχνα, _splangkhna_) in connection with the sacrifices
of those classic peoples.[214] An indication of this truth is found
in a statement by Cicero, concerning the sacrifices at the time of
the inauguration of Cæsar: “When he [Cæsar] was sacrificing on that
day in which he first sat in the golden chair, and made procession in
the purple garment, there was no _heart_ among the entrails of the
sacrificial ox. (Do you think, therefore, that any animal which has
blood can exist without a heart?) Yet he [Cæsar] was not terrified by
the phenomenal nature of the event, although Spurinna declared, that
it was to be feared that both mind [literally ‘counsel’] and life were
about to fail him [Cæsar]; for both of these [mind and life] do issue
from the heart.”[215]
Similarly it has been, and to the present day it is, with primitive
peoples everywhere. Blood libations were made a prominent feature in
the offerings in ancient Phoenicia,[216] as in Egypt. In India, the
Brahmans have a saying, in illustration of the claim that Vishnu and
Siva are of one and the same nature: “The heart of Vishnu is Sivâ,
and the heart of Sivâ is Vishnu; and those who think they differ,
err.”[217] The Hindoo legends represent the victim’s heart as being
torn out and given to the one whom in life he has wronged.[218] In
China, at the great Temple of Heaven, in Peking, where the emperors of
China are supposed to have conducted worship without material change in
its main features for now nearly three thousand years,[219] the blood
of the animal sacrifice is buried in the earth[220] while the body of
the sacrificial victim is offered as a whole burnt offering.[221]
The blood is the life; the heart as the fountain of blood is the
fountain of life; both blood and heart are sacred to the Author of
life. The possession, or the gift, of the heart or of the blood, is the
possession, or the gift, of the very nature of its primal owner. That
has been the world’s thought in all the ages.