HUMAN SACRIFICE
IT still remains for us to consider some particular cases in which
destruction of human life is sanctioned by custom or law.
Men are killed with a view to gratifying the desires of superhuman
beings. We meet with human sacrifice in the past history of every
so-called Aryan race.[1] It occurred, at least occasionally, in
ancient India, and several of the modern Hindu sects practised it even
in the last century.[2] There are numerous indications that it was
known among the early Greeks.[3] At certain times it prevailed in the
Hellenic cult of Zeus;[4] indeed, in the second century after Christ
men seem still to have been sacrificed to Zeus Lycæus in Arcadia.[5]
To the historic age likewise belongs the sacrifice of the three
Persian prisoners of war whom Themistocles was compelled to slay
before the battle of Salamis.[6] In Rome, also, human sacrifices,
though {435} exceptional, were not unknown in historic times.[7] Pliny
records that in the year 97 B.C. a decree forbidding such sacrifices
was passed by the Roman Senate,[8] and afterwards the Emperor Hadrian
found it necessary to renew this prohibition.[9] Porphyry asks, "Who
does not know that to this day, in the great city of Rome, at the
festival of Jupiter Latiaris, they cut the throat of a man?"[10] And
Tertullian states that in North Africa, even to the proconsulship of
Tiberius, infants were publicly sacrificed to Saturn.[11] Human
sacrifices were offered by Celts,[12] Teutons,[13] and Slavs;[14] by
the ancient Semites[15] and Egyptians;[16] by the Japanese in early
days;[17] and, in the New World, by the Mayas[18] and, to a frightful
extent, by the Aztecs. "Scarcely any author," says Prescott in his
'History of the Conquest of Mexico,' "pretends to estimate the yearly
sacrifices throughout the empire at less than twenty thousand, and
some carry the number as high as fifty thousand."[19] The same
practice is imputed by Spanish writers to the Incas of Peru, and
probably not without good reason.[20] Before their rule, at all
events, it {436} was of frequent occurrence among the Peruvian
Indians.[21] It also prevailed, or still prevails, among the
Caribs[22] and some North American tribes;[23] in various South Sea
islands, especially Tahiti and Fiji;[24] among certain tribes in the
Malay Archipelago;[25] among several of the aboriginal tribes of
India;[26] and very commonly in Africa.[27]
[Footnote 1: See Hehn, _Wanderings of Plants and Animals from their
First Home_, p. 414 _sqq._]
[Footnote 2: Weber, _Indische Streifen_, i. 54 _sqq._ Wilson, 'Human
Sacrifices in the Ancient Religion of India,' in _Works_, ii. 247
_sqq._ Oldenberg, _Religion des Veda_, p. 363 _sqq._ Barth, _Religions
of India_, p. 57 _sqq._ Monier Williams, _Br[=a]hmanism and
Hind[=u]ism_, p. 24. Hopkins, _Religions of India_, pp. 198, 363.
Rájendralála Mitra, _Indo-Aryans_, ii. 69 _sqq._ Crooke, _Popular
Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India_, ii. 167 _sqq._ Chevers,
_Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India_, p. 396 _sqq._]
[Footnote 3: See Geusius, _Victimæ Humanæ_, _passim_; von Lasaulx,
_Sühnofper der Griechen und Römer_, _passim_; Farnell, _Cults, of the
Greek States_, i. 41 _sq._; Stengel, _Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer_,
p. 114 _sqq._]
[Footnote 4: _Cf._ Farnell, _op. cit._ i. 93; Stengel, _op. cit._
p. 116.]
[Footnote 5: Pausanias, viii. 38. 7.]
[Footnote 6: Plutarch, _Themistocles_, 13.]
[Footnote 7: _Idem_, _Questiones Romanæ_, 83. See Landau, in _Am
Ur-Quell_, iii. 1892, p. 283 _sqq._]
[Footnote 8: Pliny, _Historia naturalis_, xxx. 3.]
[Footnote 9: Porphyry, _De abstinentia ab esu animalium_, ii. 56.]
[Footnote 10: _Ibid._ ii. 56.]
[Footnote 11: Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 9 (Migne, _Patrologiæ
cursus_, i. 314).]
[Footnote 12: Cæsar, _De bello gallico_, vi. 16. Tacitus, _Annales_,
xiv. 30. Diodorus Siculus, _Bibliotheca_, v. 31, p. 354. Pliny,
_Historia naturalis_, xxx. 4. Strabo, iv. 5, p. 198. Joyce, _Social
History of Ancient Ireland_, i. 281 _sqq._]
[Footnote 13: Tacitus, _Germania_, 9. Adam of Bremen, _Gesta
Hammaburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum_, iv. 27 (Migne, _op. cit._ cxlvi.
644). Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, i. 44 _sqq._ Vigfusson and Powell,
_Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, i. 409 _sq._ Freytag, 'Riesen und
Menschenopfer in unsern Sagen und Märchen,' in _Am Ur-Quell_, i. 1890,
pp. 179-183, 197 _sqq._]
[Footnote 14: Mone, _Geschichte des nordischen Heidenthums_, i. 119,
quoted by Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 52. Krauss, in _Am Ur-Quell_,
vi. 1896, p. 137 _sqq._ (Servians).]
[Footnote 15: Ghillany, _Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer_,
_passim_. Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 362 _sqq._
Wellhausen, _Reste arabischen Heidentums_, p. 115 _sq._ von Kremer,
_Studien zur vergleichenden Culturgeschichte_, i. 42 _sqq._ Chwolsohn,
_Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_, ii. 147 _sqq._]
[Footnote 16: Amélineau, _L'évolution des idées morales dans l'Égypte
Ancienne_, p. 12.]
[Footnote 17: Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 75. Lippert,
_Seelencult_, p. 79.]
[Footnote 18: Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_,
ii. 704, 725.]
[Footnote 19: Prescott, _History of the Conquest of Mexico_, p. 38.
_Cf._ Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, i. 281; Acosta, _Natural and
Moral History of the Indies_, ii. 346.]
[Footnote 20: Acosta, _op. cit._ ii. 344. de Molina, 'Fables and Rites
of the Yncas,' in _Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas_, pp.
55, 56, 59. According to Cieza de Leon (_Segunda parte de la Crónica
del Perú_, p. 100), the practice of human sacrifice has been much
exaggerated by Spanish writers, but he does not deny its existence
among the Incas; nay, he gives an account of such sacrifices (_ibid._
p. 109 _sqq._). Sir Clements Markham seems to attach undue importance
to the statement of Garcilasso de la Vega that human victims were
never sacrificed by the Incas (_First Part of the Royal Commentaries
of the Yncas_, i. 130, 131, 139 _sqq._ n. [dagger]). _Cf._ Prescott,
_History of the Conquest of Peru_, p. 50 _sq._ n. 3.]
[Footnote 21: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 50, 130.]
[Footnote 22: Müller, _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_,
p. 212 _sq._]
[Footnote 23: _Ibid._ p. 142. _sqq._ Réville, _Religions des peuples
non-civilisés_, i. 249 _sq._ Dorman, _Origin of Primitive
Superstitions_, p. 208 _sqq._]
[Footnote 24: Schneider, _Naturvölker_, i. 191 _sq._ Fornander,
_Account of the Polynesian Race_, i. 129. Ellis, _Polynesian
Researches_, i. 106, 346-348, 357 (Society Islanders). Williams,
_Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_, p. 548 _sq._
(especially the Hervey Islanders and Tahitians). von Kotzebue, _Voyage
of Discovery_, iii. 248 (Sandwich Islanders). Lisiansky, _Voyage round
the World_, pp. 81 _sq._ (Nukahivans), 120 (Sandwich Islanders). Gill,
_Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, p. 289 _sqq._ (Mangaians).
Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, pp. 188, 195; Wilkes, _Narrative of the
U.S. Exploring Expedition_, iii. 97; Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition,
Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology_, p. 57 (Fijians). Codrington,
_Melanesians_, p. 134 _sqq._]
[Footnote 25: Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak and British North
Borneo_, ii. 215 _sqq._ Bock, _Head-Hunters of Borneo_, p. 218 _sq._
(Dyaks).]
[Footnote 26: Woodthorpe, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxvi. 24 (Shans,
&c.). Colquhoun, _Amongst the Shans_, p. 152 (Steins inhabiting the
south-east of Indo-China). Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_,
p. 244 (Pankhos and Bunjogees). Godwin-Austen, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._
ii. 394 (Garo hill tribes). Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_,
pp. 147 (Bhúiyas), 176 (Bhúmij), 281 (Gonds), 285 _sqq._ (Kandhs).
Hislop, _Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Provinces_, p. 15 _sq._
(Gonds). Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 113 _sq._
Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_, _passim_ (Kandhs).]
[Footnote 27: Schneider, _Religion der afrikanischen Naturvölker_, p.
118. Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 52 (Dahomans, &c.). Ling Roth, _Great
Benin_, p. 63 _sqq._ Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of the Slave
Coast_, p. 117 _sqq._ _Idem_, _Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave
Coast_, p. 296. _Idem_, _Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_, p.
169 _sqq._ Cruickshank, _Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast_, ii. 173.
Schoen and Crowther, _Expedition up the Niger_, p. 48 _sq._ (Ibos).
Arnot _Garenganze_, p. 75 (Barotse). Arbousset and Daumas,
_Exploratory Tour to the North-East of the Colony of the Cape of Good
Hope_, p. 97 (Marimos, a Bechuana tribe). Macdonald, _Africana_, i. 96
_sq._ (Eastern Central Africans). Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i.
422; Sibree, _The Great African Island_, p. 303 (Malagasy).]
From this enumeration it appears that the practice of human sacrifice
cannot be regarded as a characteristic of savage races. On the
contrary, it is found much more {437} frequently among barbarians and
semi-civilised peoples than among genuine savages, and at the lowest
stages of culture known to us it is hardly heard of. Among some
peoples the practice has been noticed to become increasingly prevalent
in the course of time. In the Society Islands "human sacrifices, we
are informed by the natives, are comparatively of modern institution:
they were not admitted until a few generations antecedent to the
discovery of the islands**";[28] and in ancient legends there seems to
be certain indications that they were once prohibited in
Polynesia.[29] In India human sacrifices were apparently much rarer
among the Vedic people than among the Brahmanists of a later age.[30]
We are told that such sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs only in
the beginning of the fourteenth century, about two hundred years
before the conquest, and that, "rare at first, they became more
frequent with the wider extent of their empire; till, at length,
almost every festival was closed with this cruel abomination."[31] Of
the Africans Mr. Winwood Reade remarks, "The more powerful the nation
the grander the sacrifice."[32]
[Footnote 28: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 106.]
[Footnote 29: Fornander, _op. cit._ i. 129.]
[Footnote 30: Wilson, _Works_, ii. 268 _sq._]
[Footnote 31: Prescott, _History of the Conquest of Mexico_, p. 36.]
[Footnote 32: Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 52.]
Men offer up human victims to their gods because they think that the
gods are gratified by such offerings. In many cases the gods are
supposed to have an appetite for human flesh or blood.[33] The Fijian
gods are described as "delighting in human flesh."[34] Among the
Ooryahs of India the priest, when offering a human sacrifice to the
war-god Manicksoro, said to the god, "The sacrifice we now offer you
must eat."[35] Among the Iroquois, when an enemy was tortured at the
stake, the savage executioners leaped around him crying, "To thee,
Arieskoi, great spirit, we slay this victim, that thou mayest eat his
flesh and be moved thereby to give us henceforth luck and {438}
victory over our foes."[36] Among the ancient nations of Central
America the blood and heart of the human victims offered in sacrifice
were counted the peculiar portion of the gods.[37] Thus, in Mexico,
the high-priest, after cutting open the victim's breast, tore forth
the yet palpitating heart, offered it first to the sun, threw it then
at the feet of the idol, and finally burned it; sometimes the heart
was placed in the mouth of the idol with a golden spoon, and its lips
were anointed with the victim's blood.[38]
[Footnote 33: See Lippert, _Seelencult_, p. 77 _sqq._; Schneider,
_Naturvölker_, i. 190.]
[Footnote 34: Williams and Calvert, _op. cit._ p. 195.]
[Footnote 35: Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_, p. 211. _Cf._
Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 120 (Kandhs).]
[Footnote 36: Müller, _Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen_,
p. 142.]
[Footnote 37: Bancroft, _op. cit._ ii. 307, 310, 311, 707 _sqq._]
[Footnote 38: Clavigero, _op. cit._ i. 279.]
But the human victim is not always, as has been erroneously
supposed,[39] intended to serve the god as a food-offering. The
Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, as Major Ellis observes,
maintain that their gods require not only food, but attendants; "the
ghosts of the human victims sacrificed to them are believed to pass at
once into a condition of ghostly servitude to them, just as those
sacrificed at the funerals of chiefs are believed to pass into a
ghostly attendance."[40] Cieza de Leon mentions the prevalence of a
similar belief among the ancient Peruvians. At the hill of Guanacaure,
"on certain days they sacrificed men and women, to whom, before they
were put to death, the priest addressed a discourse, explaining to
them that they were going to serve that god who was being
worshipped."[41]
[Footnote 39: Réville, _Hibbert Lectures on the Native Religions of
Mexico and Peru_, p. 75 _sq._ _Idem_, _Prolegomena of the History of
Religions_, p. 132. Trumbull, _Blood Covenant_, p. 189. Steinmetz,
_Endokannibalismus_, p. 60, n. 1. Schrader, _Reallexikon der
indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, p. 603.]
[Footnote 40: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast_, p. 169.]
[Footnote 41: Cieza de Leon, _Segunda parte de Crónica del Perú_,
p. 109.]
Moreover, an angry god may be appeased simply by the death of him or
those who aroused his anger, or of some representative of the
offending community, or of somebody belonging to the kin of the
offender. Among the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, "in
the case of human victims the gods are not believed to devour the
{439} souls; and as these souls are, by the majority of the natives,
believed to proceed to Dead-land like all others, the object of human
sacrifice seems to be to gratify or satiate the malignancy of the gods
at the expense of chosen individuals, instead of leaving it to
chance--the victims are in fact slain for the benefit of the community
at large."[42] One reason why the human victims are so frequently
criminals, is no doubt the intention of appeasing the god by offering
up to him an individual who is hateful to him. The Sandwich Islanders
"sacrifice culprits to their gods, as we sacrifice them in Europe to
justice."[43] Among the Teutons the execution of a criminal was, in
many cases at least, a sacrifice to the god whose peculiar cult had
been offended by the crime.[44] Thus the Frisian law describes as an
immolation to the god the punishment of one who violates his
temple.[45] In ancient Rome the corn thief, if he was an adult, was
hanged as an offering to Ceres;[46] and Ovid tells us that a priestess
of Vesta who had been false to her vows of chastity was sacrificed by
being buried alive in the earth, Vesta and Tellus being the same
deity.[47] In consequence of the sacrilege of Menalippus and Comætho,
who had polluted a temple of Artemis by their amours, the Pythian
priestess ordained that the guilty pair should be sacrificed to the
goddess, and that, besides, the people should every year sacrifice to
her a youth and a maiden, the fairest of their sex.[48] The Hebrew
_cherem_, or ban, was originally applied to malefactors and other
enemies of Yahveh, and sometimes also to their possessions.
"_Cherem_," says Professor Kuenen, "is properly dedication to Yahveh,
which in reality amounted to destruction or annihilation. The persons
who were {440} 'dedicated,' generally by a solemn vow, to Yahveh, were
put to death, frequently by fire, whereby the resemblance to an
ordinary burnt-offering was rendered still more apparent; their
dwellings and property were also consumed by fire; their lands were
left uncultivated for ever. Such punishments were very common in the
ancient world. But in Israel, as elsewhere, they were at the same time
religious acts."[49] The sacrifice of offenders has, in fact, survived
in the Christian world, since every execution performed for the
purpose of appeasing an offended and angry god may be justly called a
sacrifice.[50]
[Footnote 42: Ellis, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_,
p. 119.]
[Footnote 43: von Kotzebue, _op. cit._ iii. 248. _Cf._ Lisiansky, _op.
cit._ 120.]
[Footnote 44: von Amira, in Paul's _Grundriss der germanischen
Philologie_, ii. pt. ii. 177. Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_,
ii. 587, 684 _sq._ Vigtusson and Powell, _op. cit._ i. 410. Gummere,
_Germanic Origins_, p. 463.]
[Footnote 45: _Lex Frisionum_, Additio sapientium, 12.]
[Footnote 46: Granger, _Worship of the Romans_, p. 260.]
[Footnote 47: Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 457 _sq._ _Cf._ Mommsen, _Römisches
Strafrecht_, p. 902.]
[Footnote 48: Pausanias, vii. 19. 4.]
[Footnote 49: Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, i. 290 _sq._]
[Footnote 50: See _supra_, p. 197 _sq._ For various instances of
expiatory human sacrifice, involving vicarious atonement, see _supra_,
p. 66 _sq._]
It is impossible to discover in every special case in what respect the
worshippers believe the offering of a fellow-creature to be gratifying
to the deity. Probably they have not always definite views on the
subject themselves. They know, or believe, that on some certain
occasion, they are in danger of losing their lives; they attribute
this to the designs of a supernatural being; and, by sacrificing a
man, they hope to gratify that being's craving for human life, and
thereby avert the danger from themselves. That this principle mainly
underlies the practice of human sacrifice appears from the
circumstances in which such sacrifices generally occur.
Human victims are often offered in war, before a battle, or during a
siege.
Cæsar wrote of the Gauls, "They who are engaged in battles and
dangers, either sacrifice men as victims, or vow that they will
sacrifice them . . . ; because they think that unless the life of a
man be offered for the life of a man, the mind of the immortal gods
cannot be rendered propitious."[51] The Lusitanians sacrificed a man
and a horse at the commencement of a military enterprise.[52] Before
going to war, or before the beginning of a battle, or during a siege,
the Greeks offered a human victim to ensure victory.[53] When
hard-pressed in battle, {441} the King of Moab sacrificed his eldest
son as a burnt offering on the wall.[54] In times of great calamities,
such as war, the Phenicians sacrificed some of their dearest friends,
who were selected by votes for this purpose.[55] During a battle with
king Gelo of Syracuse, the general Hamilcar sacrificed innumerable
human victims, from dawn to sunset;[56] and when Carthage was reduced
to the last extremities, the noble families were compelled to give up
two hundred of their sons to be offered to Baal.[57] In Hindu
scriptures and traditions success in war is promised to him who offers
a man in sacrifice.[58] In Jeypore "the blood-red god of battle" is
propitiated by human victims. "Thus, on the eve of a battle, or when a
new fort, or even an important village is to be built, or when danger
of any kind is to be averted, this sanguinary being must be
propitiated with human blood."[59] In Great Benin human blood was shed
in a case of common danger when an enemy was at the gate of the
city.[60] The Yorubas sacrifice men in times of national need.[61]
Among the E[(w]e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, such sacrifices
"are ordinarily only made in time of war, pestilence, or great
calamity."[62] The Tahitians offered human sacrifices in seasons of
war, or when war was in agitation.[63]
[Footnote 51: Cæsar, _De bello gallico_, vi. 16.]
[Footnote 52: Livy, _Epitome_, 49.]
[Footnote 53: Pausanias, iv. 9. 4 _sqq._; ix. 17. 1. Plutarch,
_Themistocles_, 13. _Idem_, _Aristides_, 9. _Idem_, _Pelopidas_, 21
_sq._ Lycurgus, _Oratio in Leocratem_, (ch. 24) 99. Apollodorus,
_Bibliotheca_, iii. 15. 4. Porphyry, _De abstinentia ab esu
animalium_, ii. 56. Geusius, _op. cit._ i. ch. 16 _sq._ Stengel, _op.
cit._ p. 115 _sq._]
[Footnote 54: _2 Kings_, iii. 27.]
[Footnote 55: Porphyry, _op. cit._ ii. 56.]
[Footnote 56: Herodotus, vii. 167.]
[Footnote 57: Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14.]
[Footnote 58: Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 399.]
[Footnote 59: Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_, p. 52.]
[Footnote 60: Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 72.]
[Footnote 61: Ellis, _Yoruba-speaking People of the Slave Coast_,
p. 296.]
[Footnote 62: _Idem_, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast_, p.
117.]
[Footnote 63: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 276 _sqq._, 346.]
After a victory, captured enemies are sacrificed to the god to
whose assistance the success is ascribed. This sacrifice has been
represented as a thank-offering;[64] but, in many cases at least, it
seems to be offered either to fulfil a vow previously made, or to
induce the god to continue his favours for the future.[65] Among the
Kayans of Borneo it is the custom that, when captives are brought to
an enemy's country, "one should suffer death, to bring prosperity and
abolish the curse of the enemy in their lands."[66]
[Footnote 64: Diodorus Siculus, xx. 65 (Carthaginians). de Molina,
_loc. cit._ p. 59 (Incas); &c.]
[Footnote 65: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 170. Cruickshank,
_op. cit._ ii. 173. Dubois, _Character, Manners, and Customs of the
People of India_, p. 488. Jordanes, _De origine actibusque Getarum_, 5
(41). _Cf._ Jephthah's vow (_Judges_, xi. 30 _sqq._).]
[Footnote 66: Brook, _Ten Years in Saráwak_, ii. 304 _sq._]
Human sacrifices are offered for the purpose of stopping or preventing
epidemics.
{442} The Phenicians sacrificed "some of their dearest friends," not
only in war, but in times of pestilence.[67] In similar circumstances
the ancient Greeks had recourse to human sacrifices.[68] In seasons of
great peril, as when a pestilence was raging, the ancient Italians
made a vow that they would sacrifice every living being that should be
born in the following spring.[69] In West Gothland, in Sweden, the
people decreed a human sacrifice to stay the _digerdöd_, or Plague,
hence two beggar children, having just then come in, were buried
alive.[70] In Fur, in Denmark, there is a tradition that, for the same
purpose, a child was interred alive in the burial ground.[71] Among
the Chukchi, in 1814, when a sudden and violent disease had broken out
and carried off both men and reindeer, the Shamans, after having had
recourse in vain to their usual conjurations, determined that one of
the most respected chiefs must be sacrificed to appease the irritated
spirits.[72] In Great Benin, "when the doctors declared a man had died
owing to Ogiwo, if they think an epidemic imminent, they can tell
Overami [the king] that Ogiwo vex. Then he can take a man and a woman,
all the town can fire guns and beat drums. The man and woman are
brought out, and the head Jujuman can make this prayer: 'Oh, Ogiwo,
you are very big man; don't let any sickness come for Ado. Make all
farm good, and every woman born man son.'"[73] In the same country
twelve men, besides various animals, were offered yearly on the
anniversary of the death of Adolo, king Overami's father. King
Overami, calling his father loudly by name, spoke as follows: "Oh,
Adolo, our father, look after all Ado [that is, Great Benin], don't
let any sickness come to us, look after me and my people, our slaves,
cows, goats, and fowls, and everything in the farms."[74]
[Footnote 67: Porphyry, _op. cit._ ii. 56.]
[Footnote 68: Geusius, _op. cit._ i. ch. 13. Stengel, _op. cit._ p.
116. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, iii. 125 _sq._]
[Footnote 69: Festus, _De verborum significatione_, 'Ver sacrum,'
Müller's edition, p. 379. Nonius Marcellus, _De proprietate sermonis_,
'Versacrum,' p. 522. Servius, _In Virgilii Æneidos_, vii. 796.]
[Footnote 70: Afzelius, _Swenska Folkets Sago-Häfder_, iv. 181.]
[Footnote 71: Nyrop, _Romanske Mosaiker_, p. 69, n. 1.]
[Footnote 72: von Wrangell, _Expedition to the Polar Sea_, p. 122 _sq._]
[Footnote 73: Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton,
_Antiquities from the City of Benin_, p. 7; also by Ling Roth, _Great
Benin_, p. 71 _sq._]
[Footnote 74: Moor and Roupell, quoted by Ling Roth, _op. cit._ p. 70
_sq._; also by Read and Dalton, _op. cit._ p. 6.]
The sacrifice of human victims is resorted to as a method of putting
an end to a devastating famine.
{443} Instances of this practice are reported to have occurred among
the ancient Greeks[75] and Phenicians.[76] In a grievous famine, after
other great sacrifices, of oxen and of men, had proved unavailing, the
Swedes offered up their own king Dómaldi.[77] Chinese annals tell us
that there was a great drought and famine for seven years after the
accession of T'ang, the noble and pious man who had overthrown the
dynasty of Shang. It was then suggested at last by some one that a
human victim should be offered in sacrifice to Heaven, and prayer be
made for rain, to which T'ang replied, "If a man must be the victim I
will be he."[78] Up to quite recent times, the priests of Lower Bengal
have, in seasons of scarcity, offered up children to Siva; in the
years 1865 and 1866, for instance, recourse was had to such sacrifices
in order to avert famine.[79]
[Footnote 75: Pausanias, vii. 19. 3 _sq._ Diodorus Siculus, iv. 61. 1
_sqq._ Geusius, _op. cit._ i. ch. 14.]
[Footnote 76: Porphyry, _op. cit._ ii. 56.]
[Footnote 77: Snorri Sturluson, 'Ynglingasaga,' 15, in _Heimskringla_,
i. 30.]
[Footnote 78: Legge, _Religions of China_, p. 54.]
[Footnote 79: Hunter, _Annals of Rural Bengal_, i. 128.]
For people subsisting on agriculture a failure of crops means
starvation and death,[80] and is, consequently, attributed to the
murderous designs of a superhuman being, such as the earth spirit, the
morning star, the sun, or the rain-god. By sacrificing to that being a
man, they hope to appease its thirst for human blood; and whilst some
resort to such a sacrifice only in case of actual famine, others try
to prevent famine by making the offering in advance. This I take to be
the true explanation of the custom of securing good crops by means of
human sacrifice, of which many instances have been produced by Dr.
Frazer.[81] There are obvious links between this custom and that of
the actual famine-sacrifice. Thus the ancient Peruvians sacrificed
children after harvest, when they prepared to make ready the land for
the next year, not every year, however, but "only when the weather was
not good, and seasonable."[82] In Great Benin, "if there is too much
{444} rain, then all the people would come from farm and beg Overami
[the king] to make juju, and sacrifice to stop the rain. Accordingly a
woman was taken, a prayer made over her, and a message saluting the
rain god put in her mouth, then she was clubbed to death and put up in
the execution tree so that the rain might see. . . . In the same way
if there is too much sun so that there is a danger of the crops
spoiling, Overami can sacrifice to the Sun God."[83] The principle of
substitution admits of a considerable latitude in regard to the stage
of danger at which the offering is made; the danger may be more
imminent, or it may be more remote. This holds good of various kinds
of human sacrifice, not only of such sacrifices as are intended to
influence the crops. I am unable to subscribe to the hypothesis
cautiously set forth by Dr. Frazer, that the human victim who is
killed for the purpose of ensuring good crops is regarded as a
representative of the corn-spirit and is slain as such. So far as I
can see, Dr. Frazer has adduced no satisfactory evidence in support of
his supposition; whereas a detailed examination of various cases
mentioned by him in connection with it indicates that they are closely
related to human sacrifices offered on other occasions, and explicable
from the same principle, that of substitution.
[Footnote 80: _Cf._ Sleeman, _Rambles and Recollections_, i. 204
_sqq._:--"In India, unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous
consequences than in Europe. . . . More than three-fourths of the
whole population are engaged in the cultivation of the land, and
depend upon its annual returns for subsistence. . . . Tens of
thousands die here of starvation, under calamities of season, which in
Europe would involve little of suffering to any class."]
[Footnote 81: Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 238 _sqq._]
[Footnote 82: Herrera, _op. cit._ ii. 111.]
[Footnote 83: Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton, _op. cit._
p. 7; also by Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 71.]
"The best known case of human sacrifices, systematically offered to
ensure good crops," says Dr. Frazer, "is supplied by the Khonds or
Kandhs." The victims, or Meriahs, are represented by our
authorities[84] as being offered to propitiate the Earth goddess, Tari
Pennu or Bera Pennu, but from their treatment both before and after
death it appears to Dr. Frazer that the custom cannot be explained as
merely a propitiatory sacrifice. The flesh and the ashes of the
Meriah, he observes, were believed to possess a magic power of
fertilising the land, quite independent of the indirect efficacy which
they might have as an offering to secure the goodwill of the deity.
For, though a part of the flesh was offered to the Earth Goddess, the
rest of it {445} was buried by each householder in his fields, and the
ashes of the other parts of the body were scattered over the fields,
laid as paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. The same
intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the Meriah, his
blood causing the redness of the turmeric and his tears producing
rain; and magic power as an attribute of the victim appears, also in
the sovereign virtue believed to reside in anything that came from his
person, as his hair or spittle. Considering further that, according to
our authorities, the Meriah was regarded as "something more than
mortal," or that "a species of reverence, which it is not easy to
distinguish from adoration, is paid to him," Dr. Frazer concludes that
he may originally have represented the Earth deity or perhaps a deity
of vegetation, and that he only in later times came to be regarded
rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself an incarnate
deity.[85]
[Footnote 84: Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_. Macpherson,
_Memorials of Service in India_.]
[Footnote 85: Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 245 _sq._]
The premise on which Dr. Frazer bases his argument appears to me
quite untenable. It is an arbitrary supposition that the ascription of
a magical power to the Meriah "indicates that he was much more than a
mere man sacrificed to propitiate a deity."[86] A sacrifice is very
commonly believed to be endowed with such a power, not as an original
quality, but in consequence of its contact or communion with the
supernatural being to which it is offered. Just as the Meriah of the
Kandhs is taken round the village, from door to door, and some pluck
hair from his head, while others beg for a drop of his spittle, so,
among the nomadic Arabs of Morocco, at the Muhammedan "Great Feast," a
man dressed in the bloody skin of the sheep which has been sacrificed
on that occasion, goes from tent to tent, and beats each tent with his
stick so as to confer blessings on its inhabitants. For he is now
endowed with _l-baraka del-[(]id_, "the benign virtue of the feast";
and the same power is ascribed to various parts of the sacrificed
sheep, which are consequently used for magical purposes. If Dr.
Frazer's way of arguing were correct we should have to conclude that
the victim was originally the god himself, or a representative of the
god, to whom it is now offered in sacrifice. But the absurdity of any
such inference becomes apparent at once when we consider that, in
Morocco, every offering to a holy person, for instance to a deceased
saint, is considered to participate in its sanctity. When the saint
has his feast, and animals and other presents are brought to his tomb,
it is customary for his descendants--who have a right to the
offerings--to distribute {446} some flesh of the slaughtered animals
among their friends, thereby conferring _l-baraka_ of the saint upon
those who eat it; and even candles which have been offered to the
saint are given away for the same purpose, being instinct with his
_baraka_. Of course, what holds good of the Arabs in Morocco does not
necessarily hold good of the Kandhs of Bengal; but it should be
remembered that Dr. Frazer's argument is founded on the notion that
the ascription of a magic power to a victim which is offered in
sacrifice to a god indicates that the victim was once regarded as a
divine being or as the god himself; and the facts I have recorded
certainly prove the arbitrariness of this supposition.
[Footnote 86: _Ibid._ ii. 246.]
This is by no means the only objection which may be raised against
Dr. Frazer's hypothesis. In his description of the rite in question he
has emphasised its connection with agriculture to a degree which is
far from being justified by the accounts given by our authorities. Mr.
Macpherson states that the human sacrifice to Tari Pennu was
celebrated as a public oblation by tribes, branches of tribes, or
villages, both at social festivals held periodically, and when special
occasions demanded exceptional propitiations. It was celebrated "upon
the occurrence of an extraordinary number of deaths by disease; or
should very many die in childbirth; or should the flocks or herds
suffer largely from disease, or from wild beasts; or should the
greater crops threaten to fail"; while the occurrence of any marked
calamity to the families of the chiefs, whose fortunes were regarded
as the principal indication of the disposition of Tari towards their
tribes, was held to be a token of wrath which could not be too
speedily averted.[87] Moreover, besides these social offerings, the
rite was performed by individuals to avert the wrath of Tari from
themselves and their families, for instance, if a child, when watching
his father's flock, was carried off by a tiger.[88] So, also, Mr.
Campbell observes that the human blood was offered to the Earth
goddess, "in the hope of thus obtaining abundant crops, averting
calamity, and insuring general prosperity";[89] or that it was
supposed "that good crops, and safety from all disease and accidents,
were ensured by this slaughter."[90] According to another authority,
Mr. Russell, the assembled multitude, when dancing round the victim,
addressed the earth in the following words, "O God, we offer this
sacrifice to you; give us good crops, seasons, and health."[91] Nor
was the magic {447} virtue of the Meriah utilised solely for the
benefit of the crops. According to one account, part of the flesh was
buried near the village idol as an offering to the earth, and part on
the boundaries of the village;[92] whilst in the invocation made by
the priest, the goddess was represented as saying, "Let each man place
a shred of the flesh in his fields, in his grain-store, and in his
yard."[93] The ashes, again, were scattered over the fields, or "laid
as paste over the houses and granaries."[94] It is also worth noticing
that, among the Kandhs of Maji Deso, the offering was not at all made
for the special purpose of obtaining cereal produce, "but for general
prosperity, and blessings for themselves and families";[95] and that
in the neighbouring principality, Chinna Kimedy, inhabited for the
most part by Ooryahs, the sacrifice was not offered to the earth
alone, "but to a number of deities, whose power is essential to life
and happiness," especially to the god of war, the great god, and the
sun god.[96] Now, whilst all these facts are in perfect agreement with
the theory of substitution, they certainly do not justify the
supposition that the Meriah was the representative of a deity of
vegetation.
[Footnote 87: Macpherson, _op. cit._ p. 113 _sq._ See, also, _ibid._
pp. 120, 128 _sqq._]
[Footnote 88: _Ibid._ p. 113 _sq._]
[Footnote 89: Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 51.]
[Footnote 90: _Ibid._ p. 56. _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 73.]
[Footnote 91: Russell, quoted _ibid._ p. 54.]
[Footnote 92: Russell, quoted _ibid._ p. 55.]
[Footnote 93: Macpherson, _op. cit._ p. 122 _sq._]
[Footnote 94: _Ibid._ p. 128.]
[Footnote 95: Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 181.]
[Footnote 96: _Ibid._ p. 120. _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 197:--Among the Ooryahs
human sacrifice is "performed on important occasions, such as going to
battle, building a fort in an important village, and to avert any
threatened danger."]
The same may be said about other cases mentioned by Dr. Frazer,
when more closely examined. "The Indians of Guayaquil, in Ecuador," he
says, "used to sacrifice human blood and the hearts of men when they
sowed their fields."[97] But our authority, Cieza de Leon, adds that
those Indians also offered human victims when their chiefs were sick
"to appease the wrath of their gods."[98] "The Pawnees," Dr. Frazer
writes, "annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when they sowed
their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been enjoined on them
by the Morning Star, or by a certain bird which the Morning Star had
sent to them as its messenger . . . . They thought that an omission of
this sacrifice would be followed by the total failure of the crops of
maize, beans, and pumpkins.[99] James, to whom Dr. Frazer refers, and
other authorities say that the human sacrifice was a propitiatory
offering made _to_ that star,[100] a planet which especially with the
Skidi--the only section {448} of the Pawnees who offered human
sacrifices--was an object of superstitious veneration.[101] Sickness,
misfortune, and personal mishaps of various kinds were often spoken of
as attributable to the incurred ill-will of the heavenly bodies;[102]
and the object of the sacrifice to the morning star is expressly said
to have been "to avert the evil influences exerted by that
planet."[103] According to Mr. Dunbar, whose important[104] article
dealing with the subject has escaped Dr. Frazer's notice, "the design
of the bloody ordeal was to conciliate that being and secure a good
crop. Hence," he continues, "it has been supposed that the morning
star was regarded by them as presiding over agriculture, but this was
a mistake. They sacrificed to that star because they feared it,
imagining that it exerted malign influence if not well disposed. It
has also been stated that the sacrifice was made annually. This, too,
was an error. It was made only when special occurrences were
interpreted as calling for it."[105] At the present day the Indians
speak of the sacrifice as having been made to Ti-ra'-wa, the Supreme
Being or the deity "who is in and of everything."[106] In the detailed
account of the rite, which was given to Mr. Grinnell by an old chief
who had himself witnessed it several times, it is said:--"While the
smoke of the blood and the buffalo meat, and of the burning body,
ascended to the sky, all the people prayed to Ti-ra'-wa, and walked by
the fire and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and passed it over their
bodies and over those of their children, and prayed Ti-ra'-wa to take
pity on them, and to give them health, and success in war, and
plenteous crops . . . . This sacrifice always seemed acceptable to
Ti-ra'-wa, and when the Skidi made it they always seemed to have good
fortune in war, and good crops, and they were always well."[107]
According to this description, then, the human sacrifice of the
Pawnees, like that of the Kandhs, was not an exclusively agricultural
rite, but was performed for the purpose of averting dangers of various
kinds. And this is also suggested by Mr. Dunbar's relation of the last
instance of this sacrifice, which occurred in April, 1838. In the
previous winter the Skidi, soon after starting on their hunt, had a
successful fight with a band of Oglala Dacotahs, and fearing that the
Dacotahs would retaliate by coming upon them in overwhelming force,
{449} they returned for safety to their village before taking a
sufficient number of buffaloes. "With little to eat, they lived
miserably, lost many of their ponies from scarcity of forage, and,
worst of all, one of the captives proved to have the small-pox, which
rapidly spread through the band, and in the spring was communicated to
the rest of the tribe. All these accumulated misfortunes the Ski'-di
attributed to the anger of the morning star; and accordingly they
resolved to propitiate its favour by a repetition of the sacrifice,
though in direct violation of a stipulation made two years before that
the sacrifice should not occur again."[108]
[Footnote 97: Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 238.]
[Footnote 98: Cieza de Leon, _La Crónica del Perú_ [parte primera],
ch. 55 (_Biblioteca de autores españoles_, xxvi. 409).]
[Footnote 99: Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 238.]
[Footnote 100: James, _Expedition from Pittsburg to the Rocky
Mountains_, i. 357. Grinnell, _Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales_, p.
357. Dunbar, 'Pawnee Indians,' in _Magazine of American History_,
viii. 738.]
[Footnote 101: Dunbar, _loc. cit._ p. 738.]
[Footnote 102: _Ibid._ p. 736.]
[Footnote 103: Grinnell, _op. cit._ p. 357.]
[Footnote 104: Mr. Dunbar is "born and reared among the Pawnees,
familiar with them until early manhood, a frequent visitor to the
tribe in later years" (Grinnell, _op. cit._ p. 213).]
[Footnote 105: Dunbar, _loc. cit._ p. 738 _sq._]
[Footnote 106: Grinnell, _op. cit._ pp. 357, 358, xvii.]
[Footnote 107: _Ibid._ p. 367.]
[Footnote 108: Dunbar, _loc. cit._ p. 740.]
Nor is there any reason whatever to suppose that the Brahman boys
whom the Gonds of India used to kidnap and keep as victims to be
sacrificed on various occasions,[109] were regarded as representatives
of a spirit or god. They were offered up to Bhímsen, the chief object
of worship among the Gonds, represented by a piece of iron fixed in a
stone or in a tree,[110] now "to sanctify a marriage, now to be wedded
to the soil, and again to be given away to the evil spirit of the
epidemic raging," or "on the eve of a struggle."[111]
[Footnote 109: Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 241.]
[Footnote 110: _Panjab Notes and Queries_, § 550, vol. ii. 90.]
[Footnote 111: _Ibid._ § 721, vol. ii. 127 _sq._]
Dr. Frazer writes:--"At Lagos In Guinea it was the custom annually
to impale a young girl alive soon after the spring equinox in order to
secure good crops . . . . A similar sacrifice used to be annually
offered at Benin."[112] But Dr. Frazer omits an important fact
mentioned or alluded to by the two authorities he quotes which gives
us the key to the custom, without suggesting that it has anything to
do with the corn-spirit. Adams states that the young woman was impaled
"to propitiate the favour of the goddess presiding over the rainy
season, that she may fill the horn of plenty."[113] And M. Bouche
observes, "Au Bénin, on a conservé jusqu'à présent un usage qui
régnait jadis à Lagos et ailleurs: celui d'empaler une jeune fille, au
commencement de la saison des pluies, afin de rendre les orichas
propices aux récoltes."[114] From these statements it appears that the
sacrifice was intended to influence the rain, on which the crops
essentially depend. That its immediate object was to produce rain is
expressly affirmed by Sir R. Burton. At Benin he saw "a young woman
lashed to a scaffolding upon the summit of a tall blasted tree and
being devoured by the turkey-buzzards. The people declared it to be a
'fetish,' or {450} charm for bringing rain."[115] We have previously
noticed that the people of Benin also have recourse to a human
sacrifice if there is too much rain, or too much sun, so that the
crops are in danger of being spoiled.[116] The theory of substitution
accounts for all these cases.
[Footnote 112: Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 239.]
[Footnote 113: Adams, _Sketches taken during Ten Voyages to Africa_,
p. 25.]
[Footnote 114: Bouche, _Sept ans en Afrique occidentale_, p. 132.]
[Footnote 115: Burton, _Abeokuta_, i. 19 n.*]
[Footnote 116: _Supra_, p. 443 _sq._]
The practice of offering human victims for the purpose of
preventing drought and famine by producing rain is apparently not
restricted to West Africa. In the beginning of their year, the ancient
Mexicans sacrificed many prisoners of war and children who had been
purchased for that purpose, to the gods of water, so as to induce them
to give the rain necessary for the crops.[117] The Pipiles of
Guatemala celebrated every year two festivals which were accompanied
by human sacrifices, the one in the beginning of the rainy season, the
other in the beginning of the dry season.[118] In India, among the
aboriginal tribes to the south-west of Beerbhoom, Sir W. W. Hunter
"heard vague reports of human sacrifices in the forests, with a view
to procuring the early arrival of the rains."[119] Without venturing
to express any definite opinion on a very obscure subject which has
already led to so many guesses,[120] I may perhaps be justified in
here calling attention to the fact that Zeus Lycæus, in whose cult
human sacrifices played a prominent part, was conceived of as a god
who sent the rain.[121] It appears from ancient traditions or legends
that the idea of procuring rainfall by means of such sacrifices was
not unfamiliar to the Greeks. A certain Molpis offered himself to Zeus
Ombrios, the rain-god, in time of drought.[122] Pausanias tells us
that once, when a drought had for some time afflicted Greece,
messengers were sent to Delphi to inquire the cause, and to beg for a
riddance of the evil. The Pythian priestess told them to propitiate
Zeus, and that Aeacus should be the intercessor; and then Aeacus, by
sacrifices and prayers to Panhellenian Zeus, procured rain for
Greece.[123] But Diodorus adds that the drought and famine, whilst
ceasing in all other parts of the country, still continued in Attica,
so that the {451} Athenians once more resorted to the Oracle. The
answer was now given them that they had to expiate the murder of
Androgeus, and that this should be done in any way his father, Minos,
required. The satisfaction demanded by the latter was, that they every
nine years should send seven boys and as many girls to be devoured by
the Minotaur, and that this should be done as long as the monster
lived. So the **Athenians did, and the calamity ceased.[124]
[Footnote 117: Sahagun, _Historia general de las cosas de Nueva
España_, i. 50. Torquemada, _Monarchia Indiana_, ii. 251. Clavigero,
_op. cit._ i. 297.]
[Footnote 118: Stoll, _Ethnologie der Indianerstämme von Guatemala_,
p. 46.]
[Footnote 119: Hunter, _Annals of Rural Bengal_, i. 128.]
[Footnote 120: See Immerwahr, _Die Kulte und Mythen Arkadiens_, i. 16
_sqq._ Professor Robertson Smith suggests ('Sacrifice,' in
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, xxi. 136) that the human sacrifices offered
to Zeus Lycæus were originally cannibal feasts of a wolf tribe.]
[Footnote 121: Pausanias, viii. 38. 4. Farnell, _op. cit._ i. 41.]
[Footnote 122: Farnell, _op. cit._ i. 42.]
[Footnote 123: Pausanias, ii. 29. 7 _sq._]
[Footnote 124: Diodorus Siculus, _op. cit._ iv. 61. 1 _sqq._]
As an instance of the close relationship which exists between human
sacrifices offered for agricultural purposes and other human
sacrifices, the following case may also be mentioned. According to
Strachey, the Indians in some part of Virginia had a yearly sacrifice
of children. These sacrifices they held so necessary that if they
should omit them, they supposed their gods "would let them no deare,
turkies, corne, nor fish," and, besides, "would make a great slaughter
amongst them."[125]
[Footnote 125: Strachey, _History of Travaile into Virginia
Britannia_, p. 95 _sq._]
Men require for their subsistence not only food, but drink. Hence when
the earth fails to supply them with water, they are liable to regard
it as an attempt against their lives, which can be averted only by the
sacrifice of a human substitute.
In India, in former times, human victims were offered to several
minor gods "whenever a newly excavated tank failed to produce
sufficient water."[126] In Kâthiâwâr, for instance, if a pond had been
dug and would not hold water, a man was sacrificed; and the Vadala
lake in Bombay "refused to hold water till the local spirit was
appeased by the sacrifice of the daughter of the village
headman."[127] There is a legend that, when the bed of the Saugor lake
remained dry, the builder "was told, in a dream, or by a priest, that
it would continue so till he should consent to sacrifice his own
daughter, then a girl, and the young lad to whom she had been
affianced, to the tutelary god of the place. He accordingly built a
little shrine in the centre of the valley, which was to become the bed
of the lake, put the two children in, and built up the doorway. He had
no sooner done so than the whole of the valley became filled with
water."[128] When Colonel Campbell was rescuing Meriahs among the
{452} Kandhs, it was believed by some that he was collecting victims
for the purpose of sacrificing them on the plains to the water deity,
because the water had disappeared from a large tank which he had
constructed.[129] According to a story related by Pausanias, the
district of Haliartus was originally parched and waterless, hence one
of the rulers went to Delphi and inquired how the people should find
water in the land. "The Pythian priestess commanded him to slay the
first person he should meet on his return to Haliartus. On his arrival
he was met by his son Lophis, and, without hesitation, he struck the
young man with his sword. The youth had life enough left to run about,
and where the blood flowed water gushed from the ground. Therefore the
river is called Lophis."[130]
[Footnote 126: Rájendralála Mitra, _op. cit._ ii. 111.]
[Footnote 127: Crooke, _Popular Religion of Northern India_, ii. 174.]
[Footnote 128: Sleeman, _Rambles_, i. 129 _sq._]
[Footnote 129: Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_, p. 129.]
[Footnote 130: Pausanias, ix. 33. 4.]
Human sacrifices are offered with a view to averting perils arising
from the sea or from rivers.
When the Greeks were afflicted by stress of weather at Aulis, they
were bidden to sacrifice Iphigenia, in order to lull the winds.[131]
Menelaus was persecuted by the Egyptians for sacrificing two children
when he was desirous of sailing away and contrary winds detained
him.[132] According to an Athenian writer, the colonists who first
went to Lesbos were directed by an oracle to throw a virgin into the
sea, as an offering to Poseidon.[133] Sextus Pompeius cast men into
the sea as an offering to Neptune.[134] Hamilcar, also, following a
custom of his country, threw a company of priests into the sea, as a
sacrifice to the sea god.[135] The Saxons, when they were about to
leave the coast of Gaul and sail home, sacrificed the tenth part of
their captives.[136] The Vikings of Scandinavia, when launching a new
ship, seemed to have bound a victim to the rollers on which the vessel
slipped into the sea, thus reddening the keel with sacrificial
blood.[137] In 1784, at the launching of one of the Bey of Tripoli's
cruisers, a black slave was led forward and fastened at the prow of
the vessel.[138] The Fijians launched their canoes over the living
bodies of slaves as rollers,[139] or, according to {453} another
account, when a large canoe was launched, they laid hold of the first
person, man or woman, whom they encountered, and carried the victim
home for a feast.[140] On the deck of a new boat belonging to the most
powerful chief in the group, ten or more men were slaughtered, in
order that it might be washed with human blood.[141]
[Footnote 131: Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_, 215 _sq._]
[Footnote 132: Herodotus, ii. 119.]
[Footnote 133: Athenæus, _Deipnosophistæ_, xi. 15.]
[Footnote 134: Dio Cassius, _Historia Romana_, xlviii. 48.]
[Footnote 135: Diodorus Siculus, xiii. 86.]
[Footnote 136: Sidonius Apollinaris, _Epistulæ_, viii. 6. 15.]
[Footnote 137: Vigfusson and Powell, _op. cit._ i. 410; ii. 349.]
[Footnote 138: Simpson, quoted by Grant Allen, _Evolution of the Idea
of God_, p. 263.]
[Footnote 139: Erskine, _Cruise among the Islands of the Western
Pacific_, p. 249.]
[Footnote 140: Wilkes, _U.S. Exploring Expedition_, iii. 97. _Cf._
Williams and Calvert, _op. cit._ p. 175.]
[Footnote 141: Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 97.]
The Zuñi Indians have a tradition that the waters of their valley
once rose in a flood and compelled the inhabitants to flee to a
table-land several hundred feet high for safety; and when the waters
still rose, threatening to submerge the table-land itself, the priest
determined to sacrifice a youth and a maiden to propitiate them.[142]
When Seleucus Nicator founded Antioch on the Orontes, the high priest
sacrificed a virgin at a place between the town and the river,[143]
presumably in order to prevent the town from being flooded by the
river. When the converted Franks marched to Italy under their king,
Theodebert, to fight against the Goths under Vitigis, and were on the
point of crossing the Po, they sacrificed what children and wives of
Goths they found, and threw their corpses into the river, according to
Procopius, "as the first fruits of the war."[144] At Rome, every year
on the Ides of May, the Vestal Virgins threw from the Sublician bridge
into the Tiber thirty human effigies formed of rushes; the Romans
themselves were of opinion that at an earlier period living men had
been hurled into the river, and that it was Hercules who first
substituted images of straw.[145] In West Africa human sacrifices are
often offered to rivers. Major Ellis states that at each town or
considerable village upon the banks of the river Prah sacrifice is
held on a day about the middle of October, to Prah. "As loss of life
frequently occurs in this river, from persons attempting to cross it
when flooded, from a sudden rise, or from those hundred minor
accidents which must always occur in the neighbourhood of a deep and
strong stream, the gods of the Prah are considered very malignant. The
sacrifice is, in consequence, proportionate. The usual sacrifice in
former times was two human adults, one male and one female. They. . . .
were decapitated on the bank of the river, and the stool and image
of the god washed with their {454} blood. The bodies were then cut
into a number of pieces, which were distributed amongst the mangroves,
or the sedge bordering the river, for the crocodiles to eat;
crocodiles being sacred in Prah."[146] According to M. le Comte de
Cardi, all the river-side tribes of the Niger Delta used to propitiate
the river deity by the sacrifice of a copper-coloured girl, procured
from a tribe of Ibos inhabiting a country away in the hinterland of
New Calabar, or in some places an Albino; and it seems that this
custom is still practised in the British Protectorate.[147] The Ibos
themselves were in the habit of throwing human beings into the river
to be eaten by alligators or fishes, or to fasten them to trees or
branches, close to the river, where they were left to perish by
hunger.[148] In Eastern Central Africa, also, human sacrifices are
offered to rivers.[149] And in the East Indies there are various
traditions of such sacrifices being made to the divine crocodiles of
the sea.[150]
[Footnote 142: Stevenson, 'A Chapter of Zuñi Mythology,' in _Memoirs
of the International Congress of Anthropology_, Chicago, p. 316.]
[Footnote 143: Malala, _Chronographia_, viii. 255 (200).]
[Footnote 144: Procopius, _Bellum Gothicum_, ii. 25.]
[Footnote 145: Ovid, _Fasti_, 621 _sq._ Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
_Antiquitates Romanæ_, i. 38. Hartland, _Legend of Perseus_, iii.
78.]
[Footnote 146: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 64 _sq._ _Cf._
_Idem_, _Land of Fetish_, p. 122.]
[Footnote 147: Comte de Cardi, 'Ju-ju Laws and Customs in the Niger
Delta,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxix. 54. _Cf._ Mockler-Ferryman,
_British Nigeria_, p. 235.]
[Footnote 148: Schoen and Crowther, _op. cit._ p. 49.]
[Footnote 149: Macdonald, _Africana_, i. 96.]
[Footnote 150: Tylor, 'Anniversary Address,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._
xxi. 408. Hartland, _op. cit._ iii. 70 _sq._]
In the cases which we have hitherto considered the offering of human
sacrifices is mostly a matter of public concern, a method of ensuring
the lives of many by the death of one or a few. But human life is also
sacrificed, by way of substitution, for the purpose of preventing the
death of some particular individual, especially a chief or a king,
from sickness, old age, or other circumstances.
In Guatemala, in the case of a dangerous illness, human sacrifice
was resorted to when all other attempts to cure the patient failed. Of
the Indians of Guayaquil, Cieza de Leon states:--"When the chiefs were
sick, to appease the wrath of their gods, and pray for health, they
made . . . . sacrifices of a superstitious nature, killing men (as I
was told), and believing that human blood was a grateful
offering."[151] Acosta writes:--"They vsed in Peru to sacrifice yong
children of foure or six yeares old vnto tenne; and the greatest parte
of these sacrifices were for the affaires that did import the Ynca, as
in sickness for his health, and when he went to the {455} warres for
victory, or when they gave the wreathe to their new Ynca, which is the
marke of a King, as heere the Scepter and the Crowne be. In this
solemnitie they sacrificed the number of two hundred children, from
foure to ten yeares of age . . . . If any Indian qualified or of the
common sorte were sicke, and that the Divine told him confidently that
he should die, they did then sacrifice his owne sonne to the Sunne or
to Virachoca, desiring them to be satisfied with him, and that they
would not deprive the father of life."[152] According to Molina, "the
Lord Ynca offered sacrifices [of children] when he began to reign,
that the _huacas_ [or idols] might give him health, and preserve his
dominions in peace."[153] Herrera tells us that the ancient Peruvians,
when any person of note was sick, and the priest predicted his death,
sacrificed the patient's son, "desiring the idol to be satisfie'd with
him, and not to take away his father's life."[154] Garcilasso de la
Vega, again, denies the existence of any such custom in the kingdom of
the Incas,[155] but asserts that, before their reign, the Indians of
Peru offered up their own children on certain occasions.[156]
According to Jerez, some of the Peruvian Indians sacrificed their own
children each month, and anointed with the blood the faces of their
idols and the doors of their temples.[157] The Tonga Islanders had a
ceremony called _nawgia_, or the ceremony of strangling children as
sacrifices to the gods, for the recovery of a sick relative. Our
informant says:--"All the bystanders behold the innocent victim with
feelings of the greatest pity; but it is proper, they think, to
sacrifice a child who is at present of no use to society, and perhaps
may not otherwise live to be, with the hope of recovering a sick
chief, whom all esteem and whom all think it a most important duty to
respect, defend, and preserve, that his life may be of advantage to
the country."[158] The Tahitians offered human sacrifices during the
illnesses of their rulers.[159] In the Philippines, if a prince was
dangerously ill or dying, slaves were slaughtered in order to satisfy
the malignant ancestral soul who was supposed to have caused the
disease.[160] Among the Dyaks, when a raja "falls sick, or goes on a
journey, it is {456} common for him to vow a head to his tribe in case
of recovery or of safe return. Should he die, one or two heads are
usually offered by the tribe as a kind of sacrifice."[161] Among the
Banjârîlu of Southern India, who are great travelling traders, it was
formerly the custom "before starting out on a journey to procure a
little child, and bury it in the ground up to its shoulders, and then
drive their loaded bullocks over the unfortunate victim, and in
proportion to the bullocks thoroughly trampling the child to death, so
their belief in a successful journey increased."[162] In India human
sacrifices were also offered to the goddess Chandiká to save the life
of a king.[163] It is probable that the idea of substitution likewise
accounts for the sacrifice of a young girl which a certain raja is
reported to have offered in 1861, at the shrine of the goddess Durga,
in the town of Jaipúr, when he installed himself at his father's
decease,[164] and for the sacrifice of a Brahmin which a raja of
Ratanpúr had offered up to Deví every year.[165] In Great Benin, once
a year, at the end of the rainy season, all the king's beads were
brought out by the boys in whose care they were kept. They were put in
a heap, and a slave was compelled to kneel down over them. The king
cut or struck the head of the slave with a spear so that the blood ran
over the beads, and said to them, "Oh, beads, when I put you on, give
me wisdom and don't let any juju or bad thing come near me." Then the
slave was told, "So you shall tell the head juju when you see him."
The slave was led out and beheaded, but his head was brought in again,
and the beads were touched with it.[166] Among the ancient Gauls
persons who were troubled with unusually severe diseases either
sacrificed men or promised that they would make such sacrifices.[167]
In the Ynglingasaga we are told that King Aun sacrificed nine sons,
one after the other, to Odin for the purpose of obtaining a
prolongation of his life.[168] According to Macrobius, the ancient
Romans immolated children to the goddess Mania, the mother of the
Lares, "to promote the health of the families."[169] Suetonius states
that Nero, frightened by the sight of a comet, sacrificed a number of
Roman noblemen {457} in order to avert the disaster from himself.[170]
Antinous, according to one account, sacrificed himself to prolong the
life of Hadrian.[171] The notion that the death of one person may
serve as a substitute for the death of another still prevails in the
Vatican. When, during Leo XIII.'s last illness, one of the Cardinals
died, it was said that his death had saved the life of the Pope,
Heaven being satisfied with one victim. In Morocco, if a son or a
daughter dies, it is customary to say to the afflicted parents, "Why
are you sorry? Your child took away your misfortune (_bas_)." A
similar custom prevails in Syria and Palestine.[172]
[Footnote 151: Cieza de Leon, _La Crónica del Perú_ [parte primera],
ch. 55 (_Biblioteca de autores españoles_, xxvi. 409).]
[Footnote 152: Acosta, _op. cit._ ii. 344.]
[Footnote 153: de Molina, _loc. cit._ p. 55.]
[Footnote 154: Herrera, _General History of the West Indies_, iv. 347.]
[Footnote 155: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 131.]
[Footnote 156: _Ibid._ i. 50.]
[Footnote 157: Jerez, 'Conquista del Perú,' in _Biblioteca de autores
españoles_, xxvi. 327.]
[Footnote 158: Mariner, _Natives of the Tonga Islands_, ii. 220.]
[Footnote 159: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 346.]
[Footnote 160: Blumentritt, quoted by Wilken, 'Ueber das Haaropfer,'
in _Revue coloniale internationale_, 1887, i. 364 _sq._]
[Footnote 161: Pfeiffer, _A Lady's Second Journey round the World_,
i. 86.]
[Footnote 162: Cain, 'Bhadrachellam and Rekapalli Taluqas,' in _Indian
Antiquary_, viii. 219.]
[Footnote 163: Crooke, _Popular Religion in Northern India_, ii. 168.]
[Footnote 164: _North Indian Notes and Queries_, § 310, vol. i. 40.]
[Footnote 165: _Panjab Notes and Queries_, § 869, vol. ii. 162.]
[Footnote 166: Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton, _op. cit._
p. 7; also by Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 71.]
[Footnote 167: Cæsar, _De bello gallico_, vi. 16.]
[Footnote 168: Snorri Sturluson, 'Ynglingasaga,' 25, in
_Heimskringla_, i. 45 _sqq._]
[Footnote 169: Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i. 7.]
[Footnote 170: Suetonius, _Nero_, 36.]
[Footnote 171: Spartian, _Vita Hadriani_, 14. Aurelius Victor, _De
Cæsaribus_, 14. Dio Cassius, _Historia Romana_, lxix. 11.]
[Footnote 172: Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, p. 208.]
Men are sacrificed not only to preserve the lives of other men, but to
help other men into existence. Barrenness is attributed to some god
keeping back the children which would otherwise be born in the due
course of nature. And in order to remove this obstacle a human being,
generally a child, is sacrificed to serve, as it were, as a
substitute. This I take to be the explanation of the practice of
offering a human sacrifice with a view to promoting fecundity, a
practice which has been particularly common in India.
In the history of ancient Mexico we read of Nezahualcoyotl, prince
of the Tezcucans, who had been married some years without being blest
with issue. "The priests represented that it was owing to his neglect
of the gods of his country, and that his only remedy was to propitiate
them by human sacrifice."[173] In Hindu traditions and books a
numerous offspring is promised to him who offers a man in
sacrifice.[174] In Jainteapore, east of Sylhet, human sacrifices were
made to the goddess Kali, in hopes of procuring progeny.[175] Speaking
of the Mahadeo sandstone hills which, in the Sathpore range, overlook
the Nerbudda to the south, Sir W. H. Sleeman states:--"When a woman is
without children she makes votive offerings to all the gods who can,
she thinks, assist her; and promises of still greater in case they
should grant what she wants. Smaller promises being found of no avail,
she at last promises her first-born, if a {458} male, to the god of
destruction, Mahadeo. If she gets a son she conceals from him her vows
till he has attained the age of puberty; she then communicates it to
him, and enjoins him to fulfil it." From that moment he regards
himself as devoted to the god, and, at the annual fair on the Mahadeo
hills, throws himself from a perpendicular height of four or five
hundred feet, and is dashed to pieces upon the rocks below.[176] In
one of the tales of Somadeva an ascetic tells a woman that, if she
killed her young son and offered him to the divinity, another son
would certainly be born to her.[177] We meet with a similar idea in
the story of king Somaka. For some time he did not succeed in getting
a single son from any of his one hundred wives. Finally he got a
single son; but he wanted more, and asked the family priest whether
there was not a ceremony which could help him to a hundred sons. The
family priest answered:--"O king! let me set on foot a sacrifice, and
thou must sacrifice thy son, Jantu, in it. Then on no distant date, a
century of handsome sons will be born to thee. When Jantu's fat will
be put into the fire as an offering to the gods, the mothers will take
a smell of that smoke, and bring forth a number of sons, valorous and
strong. And Jantu also will once more be born as a self-begotten son
of thine, in that very mother; and on his back there will appear a
mark of gold." The son was sacrificed; the wives smelt the smell of
the burnt-offering; all of them became with child; and when ten months
had passed one hundred sons were born to Somaka, of whom Jantu was the
eldest, being born of his former mother. But the family priest
departed this life, and was grilled for a certain period in a terrible
hell as a punishment for what he had done.[178]
[Footnote 173: Prescott, _History of the Conquest of Mexico_, p. 91.]
[Footnote 174: Chevers, _op. cit._ p. 399.]
[Footnote 175: Macnaghten, quoted _ibid._ p. 397.]
[Footnote 176: Sleeman, _op. cit._ i. 132 _sq._]
[Footnote 177: Crooke, _Popular Religion of Northern India_, ii. 173.]
[Footnote 178: _Mahabharata_, Vana Parva, 127 _sq._ (pt. vi.
p. 188 _sq._).]
Among certain peoples it is a regular custom to kill the firstborn
child, or the firstborn son.
Among some natives of Australia a mother used to kill and eat her
first child, as this was believed to strengthen her for later
births.[179] In New South Wales the firstborn of every lubra used to
be eaten by the tribe "as part of a religious ceremony."[180] In the
realm of Khai-muh, in China, according to {459} a native account, it
was customary to kill and devour the eldest son alive.[181] Among
certain tribes in British Columbia the first child is often sacrificed
to the sun.[182] The Indians of Florida, according to Le Moyne de
Morgues, sacrificed the firstborn son to the chief.[183] We are told
that, among the people of Senjero in Eastern Africa, many families
"must offer up their firstborn sons as sacrifices, because once upon a
time, when summer and winter were jumbled together in a bad season,
and the fruits of the field would not ripen, the sooth-sayers enjoined
it."[184] The heathen Russians often sacrificed their firstborn to the
god Perun.[185] The rule laid down in Exodus[186] and Numbers,[187]
that all the firstborn of men and of beasts belonged to the Lord, but
that the former were to be redeemed, seems to indicate the existence
of an earlier custom among the Hebrews of offering up as a sacrifice,
not only the firstling of an animal, but the firstborn child. As
traces of such a custom may probably be regarded the story of
Abraham's surrender of his firstborn son to God and the tradition of
the origin of the Passover.[188] Among the Hindus, until the beginning
of the last century, many parents sacrificed their firstborn to the
river Ganges.[189]
[Footnote 179: Brinton, _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, p. 17 n.*
_Cf._ von Scherzer, _Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um
die Erde_, iii. 32.]
[Footnote 180: Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. 311.]
[Footnote 181: de Groot, _Religious System of China_ (vol. ii. book)
i. 679.]
[Footnote 182: Boas, in _Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of
Canada_, pp. 46, 52.]
[Footnote 183: Bry, _Narrative of Le Moyne_, Descriptions of the
Illustrations, 34, p. 13. _Cf._ Lafitau, _M[oe]urs des sauvages
ameriquains_, i. 181; Strachey, _op. cit._ p. 84.]
[Footnote 184: Krapf, _Travels_, p. 69 _sq._]
[Footnote 185: Mone, quoted by Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 52.]
[Footnote 186: _Exodus_, xiii. 2, 15.]
[Footnote 187: _Numbers_, xviii. 15.]
[Footnote 188: See Ghillany, _op. cit._ p. 494 _sqq._; Kuenen,
_Religion of Israel_, ii. 92; Frazer, _op. cit._ ii. 47 _sqq._]
[Footnote 189: Rájendralála Mitra, _op. cit._ ii. 70, 76.]
In some instances the firstborn seems to be killed, not in sacrifice
to a god, but for the purpose of being eaten as a kind of
medicine.[190] In other cases the act is a sacrifice in the true sense
of the word and, apparently, substitutional in character. Considering
that children are occasionally sacrificed to save the lives of their
parents, or for the health of the families, or to promote fecundity,
it seems probable that the regular sacrifice of the firstborn has
similar objects in view. This supposition, indeed, is strongly
supported by some statements in which the motive of the act is
expressly mentioned.[191] Among the {460} Coast Salish of British
Columbia the first child is sacrificed to the sun "to secure health
and happiness to the whole family."[192] The same is reported of a
neighbouring people, the Kutonaqa. The mother prays to the sun:--"I am
with child. When it is born I shall offer it to you. Have pity upon
us."[193] Among some tribes of South-Eastern Africa it is a rule that,
when a woman's husband has been killed in battle and she marries
again, the first child to which she gives birth after her second
marriage must be put to death, whether she has it by her first or her
second husband. Such a child is called "the child of the assegai," and
if it were not killed, death or accident would be sure to befall the
second spouse, and the woman herself would be barren.[194] Among some
peoples, including the ancient Hindus, we find the belief that the son
is in some sense identical with his father, that he is a new birth, a
new manifestation of the same person.[195] The new birth might be
supposed to endanger the life of the father, just as, according to a
notion prevalent among the ancient Teutons[196] and in some parts of
Italy,[197] a person would soon die if his name were given to his son
or grandson whilst he was still alive. Among the Brazilian Tupis the
father was accustomed to take a new name after the birth of each new
son;[198] whilst, on killing an enemy, a person used to take the
enemy's name so as to annihilate not only his body but also his
soul.[199] Among the Kafirs, "if a mother gives birth to twins, one is
frequently killed by the father, for the natives think that unless the
father places a lump of earth in the mouth of one of the babies he
will lose his strength."[200] In some {461} cases the practice of
killing the firstborn son might possibly be traced back to a similar
belief. But I can quote no fact directly supporting this suggestion.
[Footnote 190: _Cf._ _supra_, p. 401.]
[Footnote 191: _Cf._ _Micah_, vi. 7: "Shall I give my firstborn for my
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"]
[Footnote 192: Boas, _op. cit._ p. 46.]
[Footnote 193: _Ibid._ p. 52.]
[Footnote 194: Macdonald, _Light in Africa_, p. 156. Frazer, _op.
cit._ ii. 51 _sq._]
[Footnote 195: Hartland, _op. cit._ i. 217 _sq._ von den Steinen,
_Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, p. 336 _sq._ Leist,
_Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 98 _sqq._ _Idem_, _Alt-arisches Jus
Civile_, i. 189 _sqq._ _Laws of Manu_, ix. 8: "The husband, after
conception by his wife, becomes an embryo and is born again of her."]
[Footnote 196: Storm, quoted by Noreen, _Spridda Studier_, Anara
Samlingen, p. 4.]
[Footnote 197: Placucci, _Usi e pregiudizj dei contadini della
Romagna_, p. 23.]
[Footnote 198: von den Steinen, _op. cit._ p. 337.]
[Footnote 199: Staden, quoted by Andree, _Anthropophagie_, p. 103.]
[Footnote 200: Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, p. 202. I am indebted to
Mr. N. W. Thomas for drawing my attention to this statement.]
Human sacrifices are offered in connection with the foundation of
buildings. This is a wide-spread custom, which not only occurs among
various uncivilised and semi-civilised peoples of the present day, but
which is proved to have existed among the so-called Aryan races.[201]
In India we find traces of it in traditions and popular beliefs.[202]
The Hindu rajas, we are told, used to lay the foundation of public
buildings in human blood.[203] When Mr. Grierson wanted to photograph
a Bih[=a]r peasant house, the grandmother of the family refused to
allow any of the children to appear in the picture, her reason being
that the Government was building the bridge across the Gandak and
wanted children to bury under the foundations.[204] Among the ancient
Romans the old custom survived in the practice of placing statues or
images under the foundations of their buildings.[205] In the island of
Zacynthus the peasants to this day believe that in order to secure the
durability of important buildings, such as bridges and fortresses, it
is desirable to kill a man, especially a Muhammedan or a Jew, and bury
him on the spot.[206] South Slavonian folk-tales speak of the
immuration of a woman or a child as a foundation sacrifice.[207] In
Servia no city was thought to be secure unless a human being, or at
least the shadow of one, was built into its walls;[208] and the
Bulgarians, when {462} going to build, are still said to take a thread
and measure the shadow of some casual passer-by, and then bury the
measure under the foundation-stone, expecting that the man whose
shadow has been thus treated will soon die.[209] A similar custom
prevails in Roumania.[210] According to Nennius, when Dinas Emris in
Wales was founded by Gortigern, all the materials collected for the
fortress were carried away in one night; and materials were thus
gathered thrice, and were thrice carried away. When he then asked of
his Druids, "Whence this evil?" the Druids told him that it was
necessary to find a child whose father was unknown, put him to death,
and sprinkle with his blood the ground on which the citadel was to be
built.[211] A Scotch legend tells that, when St. Columba first
attempted to build a cathedral on Iona, the walls fell down as they
were erected; he then received supernatural information that they
would never stand unless a human victim was buried alive, and, in
consequence, his companion, Oran, was interred at the foundation of
the structure.[212] It is reported that, when not long ago the Bridge
Gate of Bremen city walls was demolished, the skeleton of a child was
found embedded in the groundwork;[213] and when the new bridge at
Halle, finished in 1843, was building, "the common people fancied a
child was wanted to be walled into the foundations."[214]
[Footnote 201: Sartori, 'Ueber das Bauopfer,' in _Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, xxx. 5 _sqq._ Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 104 _sqq._
Baring-Gould, _Strange Survivals_, p. 4 _sqq._ Trumbull, _Threshold
Covenant_, p. 46 _sqq._ Grant Allen, _Evolution of the Idea of God_,
p. 249 _sqq._ Liebrecht, _Zur Volkskunde_, p. 284 _sqq._ Andree,
_Ethnographische Parallelen_, p. 18 _sqq._ Nyrop, _Romanske Mosaiker_,
p. 63 _sqq._ Krause, 'Das Bauopfer bei den Südslaven,' in
_Mittheilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien_, xvii. 18
_sqq._ Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_, § 440,
p. 300 _sq._]
[Footnote 202: Winternitz, 'Bemerkungen über das Bauopfer bei den
Indern,' in _Mittheil. Anthr. Gesellsch. in Wien_, xvii. [37] _sqq._]
[Footnote 203: Wheeler, _History of India_, iv. 278.]
[Footnote 204: Grierson, _Bih[=a]r Peasant Life_, p. 4.]
[Footnote 205: Coote, 'A Building Superstition,' in _Folk-Lore
Journal_, i. 23.]
[Footnote 206: Schmidt, _Volksleben der Neu-Griechen_, p. 197.]
[Footnote 207: Krauss, _loc. cit._ p. 19 _sqq._]
[Footnote 208: Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 127.]
[Footnote 209: _Ibid._ p. 127. Krauss, _loc. cit._ p. 21.]
[Footnote 210: _Folk-Lore Record_, iii. 283.]
[Footnote 211: Nennius, _Historia Britonum_, Irish Version, ch. 18,
p. 93.]
[Footnote 212: Gomme, 'Some Traditions and Superstitions connected
with Buildings,' in _The Antiquary_, iii. 11. Carmichael, _Carmina
Gadelica_, ii. 316.]
[Footnote 213: Baring-Gould, _Strange Survivals_, p. 5.]
[Footnote 214: Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, iii. 1142.]
It seems highly probable that the building-sacrifice, like other kinds
of human sacrifice, is based on the idea of substitution. A new house
or dwelling-place is commonly regarded as dangerous, a wall or a tower
is liable to fall down and cause destruction of life, a bridge may
break, or the person who crosses it may tumble into the water and be
drowned. In the Babar Islands, before entering a new house, offerings
are thrown inside, that the spirit, Orloo, may not make the {463}
inmates ill.[215] Before the Sandwich Islanders could occupy their
houses "offerings were made to the gods, and presents to the priest,
who entered the house, uttered prayers, went through other ceremonies,
and slept in it before the owner took possession, in order to prevent
evil spirits from resorting to it, and to secure its inmates from the
effects of incantation."[216] Among the Kayans of Borneo, on the
occasion of the king or principal chief taking possession of a
newly-built house, a human victim was killed, and the blood was
sprinkled on the pillars and under the house.[217] The Russian peasant
believes that the building of a new house "is apt to be followed by
the death of the head of the family for which the new dwelling is
constructed, or that the member of the family who is the first to
enter it will soon die"; and, in accordance with a custom of great
antiquity, the oldest member of a migrating household enters the new
house first.[218] In German folk-tales "the first to cross the bridge,
the first to enter the new building or the country, pays with his
life."[219] Even nowadays, in the North of Europe, there is a
wide-spread fear of being the first to enter a new building or of
going over a newly-built bridge; "if to do this is not everywhere and
in all cases thought to entail death, it is considered supremely
unlucky."[220] This superstition has been interpreted as a survival of
a previous sacrifice;[221] but there can be no doubt, I think, that
the foundation sacrifice itself owes its origin to similar notions and
fears of supernatural dangers. Uncultured people are commonly afraid
of anything new, or of doing an act for the first time;[222] and,
apart from this, the erecting of a new building is an intrusion upon
{464} the land of the local spirit, and therefore likely to arouse its
anger. There are houses which remain haunted by spirits all their
time.[223] It is natural, then, that attempts should be made to avert
the danger. And, human life being at stake, no preventive could be
more effective than the offering up of a human victim.
[Footnote 215: Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen
Selebes en Papua_, p. 343.]
[Footnote 216: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 322.]
[Footnote 217: Burns, 'Kayans of the North-West of Borneo,' in
_Journal of the Indian Archipelago_, iii. 145.]
[Footnote 218: Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 126. _Cf._
Krauss, _loc. cit._ p. 21 _sq._ (Southern Slavs).]
[Footnote 219: Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, i. 45, n. 2.]
[Footnote 220: Baring-Gould, _Strange Survivals_, p. 2. For various
instances of similar beliefs, see Sartori, in _Zeitschr. f. Ethnol._
xxx. 14 _sqq._; Crawley, _Mystic Rose_, p. 25.]
[Footnote 221: Baring-Gould, _op. cit._ p. 4.]
[Footnote 222: Crawley, _op. cit._ p. 25.]
[Footnote 223: Westermarck, 'Nature of the Arab _[vG]inn_, illustrated
by the Present Beliefs of the People of Morocco,' in _Jour. Anthr.
Inst._ xxix. 253, 260.]
On the other hand it is maintained that the foundation-sacrifice is
partly, if not exclusively, performed for the purpose of converting
the soul of the victim into a protecting demon.[224] This opinion, no
doubt, has the support of beliefs actually held by some of the peoples
who practise the rite. When the gate of the new city of Tavoy, in
Tenasserim, was built, Mason was told by an eye-witness that a
criminal was put in each post-hole to become a guardian spirit.[225]
The Burmese kings used to have victims buried alive at the gates of
their capitals, "so that their spirits might watch over the
city."[226] Formerly, in Siam, "when a new city gate was being
erected, it was customary for a number of officers to lie in wait near
the spot, and seize the first four or eight persons who happened to
pass by, and who were then buried alive under the gate-posts, to serve
as guardian angels."[227] But whatever be the present notions of
certain peoples concerning the object of the building-sacrifice, I do
not believe that its primary object could have been to procure a
spirit-guardian. According to early ideas, the ghost of a murdered man
is not a friendly being, and least of all is he kindly disposed
towards those who killed him. Several instances are known in which
later generations have put upon human sacrifices an interpretation
obviously foreign to their original purpose.[228] Thus, according to a
North {465} German tradition, a master-builder was immured by a
certain knight in the tower which he had built, as a punishment for
boasting that he could have built a still finer tower if he had liked
to do so.[229] An Indian raja, we are told, was once building a bridge
over the river Jargoat Chunâr, and when it fell down several times he
was advised to sacrifice a Brahman girl to the local deity; however,
"she has now become the Marî or ghost of the place, and is regularly
worshipped in time of trouble."[230] Considering that the
foundation-sacrifice was offered for the purpose of protecting the
living against the attacks of the spirit of the place, it is quite
intelligible that the ghost of the victim came in time to be looked
upon as a guardian spirit; and it was all the more natural to
attribute to the dead the function of a guard in cases where he was
buried at the gate. But he was buried there, I presume, simply because
that spot was thought to be the most dangerous. The gate of a town
corresponds to the entrance of a house, and the threshold has almost
universally been regarded as the proper haunt of what the Moors call
"the owners of the place."[231]
[Footnote 224: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 106. Grant Allen, _op.
cit._ p. 248 _sqq._ Lippert, _Christenthum, Volksglaube und
Volksbrauch_, p. 456 _sq._ _Idem_, _Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit_,
ii. 270. Gaidoz, in _Mélusine_, iv. 14 _sqq._ Sartori, in _Zeitsthr.
f. Ethnol._ xxx. 32 _sqq._]
[Footnote 225: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 107.]
[Footnote 226: Woodthorpe, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxvi. 24. See also
Shway Yoe, _The Burman_, i. 286.]
[Footnote 227: Alabaster, _Wheel of the Law_, p. 212 _sq._ _Cf._
Gaidoz, _loc. cit._ p. 14 _sq._]
[Footnote 228: See Nyrop, _Romanske Mosaiker_, p. 73 _sqq._; also
_infra_, p. 465 _sq._]
[Footnote 229: Nyrop, _op. cit._ p. 73.]
[Footnote 230: Crooke, _Popular Religion of Northern India_, ii. 174.]
[Footnote 231: See Trumbull, _Threshold Covenant_, _passim_.]
Whilst the man who is sacrificed is in some cases described as a
guardian, he is in other cases regarded as a messenger. The Mayas of
Yucatan maintained that the human victims whom they offered in times
of distress were sent as messengers to the spirit-world to make known
the wants of the people.[232] The same idea prevailed in Great Benin.
When the head jujuman had said the prayer in which he asked Ogiwo to
let no sickness come for Benin, he thus addressed the slaves who were
going to be clubbed to death and tied in the sacrifice-trees:--"So you
shall tell Ogiwo. Salute him proper."[233] A message was likewise sent
to the head juju with the slave who was sacrificed to it;[234] and a
message saluting the rain-god was put in the {466} mouth of the woman
who was sacrificed when there was too much rain.[235] Mr. Ling Roth
suggests that the main object of the human sacrifices which were
offered in Benin "was the sending of prayers, by means of the special
messengers, for the welfare of the community, to the spirits of the
departed, or to other spirits, such as the spirits of the beads, the
Rain-God, Sun-God, the God-Ogiwo"; and he thinks that this explains "a
cult of world-wide prevalence."[236] But considering that in Yucatan
and Benin, as elsewhere, the human victim was sacrificed for the
avowed purpose of averting some mortal danger from the community or
the king, I conclude that there, also, the primary object of the rite
was to offer a substitute, though this substitute came to be used as a
messenger.
[Footnote 232: Dorman, _op. cit._ p. 213.]
[Footnote 233: Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton, _op. cit._
p. 7; also by Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 72.]
[Footnote 234: _Supra_, p. 456.]
[Footnote 235: _Supra_, p. 444.]
[Footnote 236: Ling Roth, _op. cit._ p. 72.]
I do not affirm that the practice of human sacrifice is in every case
based on the idea of substitution; the notion that a certain god has a
desire for such sacrifices may no doubt induce his worshippers to
gratify this desire for a variety of purposes. But I think there is
sufficient evidence to prove that, when men offer the lives of their
fellow-men in sacrifice to their gods, they do so as a rule in the
hopes of thereby saving their own. Human sacrifice is essentially a
method of life-insurance--absurd, no doubt, according to our ideas,
but not an act of wanton cruelty. When practised for the benefit of
the community or in a case of national distress, it is hardly more
cruel than to advocate the infliction of capital punishment on the
ground of social expediency, or to compel thousands of men to suffer
death on the battle-field on behalf of their country. The custom of
human sacrifice admits that the life of one is taken to save the lives
of many, or that an inferior individual is put to death for the
purpose of preventing the death of somebody who has a higher right to
live. Sometimes the king or chief is sacrificed in times of scarcity
or pestilence, but then he is probably held personally responsible for
the calamity.[237] Very frequently {467} the victims are prisoners of
war or other aliens, or slaves, or criminals, that is, persons whose
lives are held in little regard. And in many cases these are the only
victims allowed by custom.
[Footnote 237: Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 15 _sq._]
This was generally the case among the ancient Teutons,[238] though
they sometimes deemed a human sacrifice the more efficacious the more
distinguished the victim, and the nearer his relationship to him who
offered the sacrifice.[239] The Gauls, says Cæsar, "consider that the
oblation of such as have been taken in theft, or robbery, or any other
offence, is more acceptable to the immortal gods; but when a supply of
that class is wanting, they have recourse to the oblation of even the
innocent."[240] Diodorus Siculus states that the Carthaginians in
former times used to sacrifice to Saturn the sons of the most eminent
persons, but that, of later times, they secretly bought and bred up
children for that purpose.[241] The chief aim of the wars of the
ancient Mexicans was to make prisoners for sacrificial purposes; other
victims were slaves who were purchased for this object, and many
criminals "who were condemned to expiate their crimes by the sacrifice
of their lives."[242] The Yucatans sacrificed captives taken in war,
and only if such victims were wanting they dedicated their children to
the altar "rather than let the gods be deprived of their due."[243] In
Guatemala the victims were slaves or captives or, among the Pipiles,
illegitimate children from six to twelve years old who belonged to the
tribe.[244] In Florida the human victim who was offered up at harvest
time was chosen from among the Spaniards wrecked on the coast.[245] Of
the Peruvian Indians before the time of the Incas, Garcilasso de la
Vega states that, "besides ordinary things such as animals and maize,
they sacrificed men and women of all ages, being captives taken in
wars which they made against each other."[246] Among the Tshi-speaking
peoples of the Gold Coast, "the persons ordinarily sacrificed to the
gods are prisoners of war or slaves. When the latter, they are usually
aliens, as a protecting god is not so well satisfied with the
sacrifice of his own people."[247] In Great Benin, according to
Captain Roupell, the people who were kept for sacrifice were bad men,
or men with bad sickness, {468} and they were all slaves.[248] In Fiji
the victims were generally prisoners of war, but sometimes they were
slaves procured by purchase from other tribes.[249] In Nukahiva "the
custom of the country requires that the men destined for sacrifice
should belong to some neighbouring nation, and accordingly they are
generally stolen."[250] In Tahiti "the unhappy wretches selected were
either captives taken in war, or individuals who had rendered
themselves obnoxious to the chiefs or the priests.**"[251] The Muruts
of Borneo "never sacrifice one of their own people, but either capture
an individual of a hostile tribe, or send to a friendly tribe to
purchase a slave for the purpose."[252] It is said to be contrary to
the Káyán custom to sell or sacrifice one of their own nation.[253]
The G[=a]ro hill tribes "generally select their victims out of the
Bengali villages in the plains."[254] The Kandhs considered that the
victim must be a stranger. "If we spill our own blood," they said, "we
shall have no descendants";[255] and even the children of Meriahs, who
were reared for sacrificial purposes, were never offered up in the
village of their birth.[256]
[Footnote 238: Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, i. 45.]
[Footnote 239: Holtzmann, _Deutsche Mythologie_, p. 232.]
[Footnote 240: Cæsar, _De bello gallico_, vi. 16.]
[Footnote 241: Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14.]
[Footnote 242: Clavigero, _op. cit._ i. 282.]
[Footnote 243: Bancroft, _op. cit._ ii. 704.]
[Footnote 244: Stoll, _op. cit._ p. 40.]
[Footnote 245: Bry, _op. cit._ p. 11.]
[Footnote 246: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 50.]
[Footnote 247: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 170.]
[Footnote 248: Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 70.]
[Footnote 249: Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography
and Philology_, p. 57. _Cf._ Wilkes, _op. cit._ iii. 97.]
[Footnote 250: Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 81 _sq._]
[Footnote 251: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 346.]
[Footnote 252: Denison, quoted by Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak_,
ii. 216.]
[Footnote 253: Burns, in _Jour. of Indian Archipelago_, iii. 145.]
[Footnote 254: Godwin-Austen, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ ii. 394.]
[Footnote 255: Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_, p. 121.]
[Footnote 256: Campbell, _Wild Tribes of Khondistan_, p. 53.]
We find that various peoples who at a certain period have been
addicted to the practice of human sacrifice, have afterwards, at a
more advanced stage of civilisation, voluntarily given it up. The
cause of this is partly an increase, or expansion, of the sympathetic
sentiment, partly a change of ideas. With the growth of enlightenment
men would lose faith in this childish method of substitution, and
consequently find it not only useless, but objectionable; and any
sentimental disinclination to the practice would by itself, in the
course of time, lead to the belief that the deity no longer cares for
it, or is averse to it. Brahmanism gradually abolished the immolation
of human victims, incompatible as it was with the precept of _ahimsâ_,
or respect for everything that has life; "the liberation of the
victim, or the substitution in its stead and place of a {469} figure
made of flour paste, both of which were at first matter of sufferance,
became at length matter of requirement."[257] According to the
Mahabharata, the priest who performs a human sacrifice is cast into
hell.[258] In Greece, in the historic age, the practice was held in
horror at least by all the better minds, though it was regarded as
necessary on certain occasions.[259] It was strongly condemned by
enlightened Romans. Cicero speaks of it as a "monstrous and barbarous
practice" still disgracing Gaul in his day;[260] and Pliny, referring
to the steps taken by Tiberius to stop it, declares it impossible to
estimate the debt of the world to the Romans for their efforts to put
it down.[261]
[Footnote 257: Barth, _Religions of India_, p. 97.]
[Footnote 258: _Supra_, p. 458.]
[Footnote 259: Stengel, _op. cit._ p. 117. _Cf._ Donaldson, _loc.
cit._ p. 464.]
[Footnote 260: Cicero, _Pro Fonteio_, 10 (21).]
[Footnote 261: Pliny, _Historia naturalis_, xxx. 4 (1).]
The growing reluctance to offer human sacrifice led to various
practices intended to replace it.[262] Speaking of the Italian custom
of dedicating as a sacrifice to the gods every creature that should be
born in the following spring, Festus adds that, since it seemed cruel
to kill innocent boys and girls, they were kept till they had grown
up, then veiled and driven beyond the boundaries.[263] Among various
peoples human effigies or animals were offered instead of
men.
[Footnote 262: _Cf._ Krause, 'Die Ablösung der Menschenopfer,' in
_Kosmos_, 1878, iii. 76 _sqq._]
[Footnote 263: Festus, _op. cit._ 'Ver sacrum,' p. 379.]
Among the Malays of the Malay Peninsula dough models of human
beings, actually called "the substitutes," are offered up to the
spirits on the sacrificial trays; and in the same sense are the
directions of magicians, that "if the spirit craves a human victim a
cock may be substituted."[264] We are told that, in Egypt, King Amosis
ordered three waxen images to be burned in the temple of Heliopolis in
lieu of the three men who in earlier times used to be sacrificed
there.[265] The Romans offered dolls;[266] and in old Hindu families
belonging to the sect of the Vámácháris a practice still obtains of
sacrificing an effigy {470} instead of a living man.[267] In India,
Greece, and Rome, animals, also, were substituted for human
victims.[268] Of a similar substitution there is probably a trace in
the Biblical story of Isaac being exchanged for a ram, and in the
paschal sacrifice.[269] On the Gold Coast the human victim who was
formerly sacrificed to the god of the Prah is nowadays replaced by a
bullock which is specially reserved and fattened for the
purpose.[270]
[Footnote 264: Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 72.]
[Footnote 265: Porphyry, _op. cit._ ii. 55.]
[Footnote 266: Leist, _Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 272 _sqq._]
[Footnote 267: Rájendralála Mitra, _op. cit._ ii. 109 _sq._]
[Footnote 268: Leist, _Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 267
_sqq._ Frazer, _Golden Bough_, ii. 38, n. 2. Pausanias, ix. 8. 2. For
various modifications of human sacrifice in India, see Wilson,
_Works_, ii. 267 _sq._; Crooke, _Popular Religion of Northern India_,
ii. 175 _sq._]
[Footnote 269: See _supra_, p. 458.]
[Footnote 270: Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 66.]
In other cases human sacrifices have been succeeded by practices
involving the effusion of human blood without loss of life. We are
told that, in Laconia, Lycurgus established the scourging of lads at
the altar of Artemis Orthia, in place of the sacrifice of men, which
had previously been offered to her;[271] and Euripides represents
Athena as ordaining that, when the people celebrate the festival of
Artemis the Taurian goddess, the priest, to compensate her for the
sacrifice of Orestes, "must hold his knife to a human throat, and
blood must flow to satisfy the sacred claims of the goddess, that she
may have her honours."[272] There are also many instances of bleeding
or mutilation practised for the same purpose as human sacrifice,
probably according to the principle of _pars pro toto_, though it is
impossible to decide whether they really are survivals of an earlier
sacrifice.
[Footnote 271: Pausanias, ix. 16. 10.]
[Footnote 272: Euripides, _Iphigenia in Tauris_, 1458 _sqq._]
Besides the ceremony of _nawgia_, already described,[273] the Tonga
Islanders had another ceremony called _tootoo-nima_, or cutting off a
portion of the little finger, as a sacrifice to the gods, for the
recovery of a superior relation who was ill; and so commonly was this
done that, in Mariner's days, there was scarcely a person living in
the Tonga Islands who had not lost one or both little fingers, or at
least a considerable portion of them.[274] In Chinese literature there
are frequently mentioned instances of persons cutting off flesh from
their bodies to cure parents or paternal grandparents dangerously ill.
In most cases {471} it remains unmentioned how the flesh was prepared;
but it is sometimes stated that porridge or broth was made of it, or
that it was mixed with medicine. Dr. de Groot maintains that it was in
the first place the ascription of therapeutic virtues to parts of the
human body that prompted such filial self-mutilation. But he adds that
"often also we read of thigh-cutters invoking Heaven beforehand,
solemnly asking this highest power to accept their own bodies as a
substitute for the patients' lives they wanted to save; their
mutilation thus assuming the character of self-immolation."[275]
According to the testimony of a native writer, there is scarcely a
respectable house in all Bengal, the mistress of which has not at one
time or other shed her blood, under the notion of satisfying the
goddess Chandiká by the operation. "Whenever her husband or a son is
dangerously ill, a vow is made that on the recovery of the patient,
the goddess would be regaled with human blood. . . . The lady performs
certain ceremonies, and then bares her breast in the presence of the
goddess, and with a nail-cutter (_naruna_) draws a few drops of blood
from between her breasts and offers them to the divinity."[276]
Garcilasso de la Vega states that, whilst some of the Peruvian Indians
before the time of the Incas sacrificed men, there were others who,
though they mixed human blood in their sacrifices, did not obtain it
by killing anyone, but by bleeding the arms and legs, according to the
importance of the sacrifice, and, in the most solemn cases, by
bleeding the root of the nose where it is joined by the
eyebrows.[277]
[Footnote 273: _Supra_, p. 455.]
[Footnote 274: Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 222.]
[Footnote 275: de Groot, _Religious System of China_, (vol, iv. book)
ii. 386 _sq._]
[Footnote 276: Rájendralála Mitra, _op. cit._ i. 111 _sq._]
[Footnote 277: Garcilasso de la Vega, _op. cit._ i. 52.]
There is one form of human sacrifice which has outlived all others,
namely, the penal sacrifice of offenders. There can be no moral
scruples in regard to a rite which involves a punishment regarded as
just. Indeed, this kind of human sacrifice is even found where the
offering of animals or lifeless things has fallen out of use or become
a mere symbol. For this is the only sacrifice which is intended to
propitiate the deity by the mere death of the victim; and gods are
believed to be capable of feeling anger and revenge long after they
have ceased to have material needs. The last trace of human sacrifice
has {472} disappeared only when men no longer punish offenders
capitally with a view to appeasing resentful gods.
* * * * *
Human beings are sacrificed not only to gods, but to dead men, in
order to serve them as companions or servants, or to vivify their
spirits, or to gratify their craving for revenge.
From various quarters of the world we hear of the immolation of men
for the service of the dead, the victims generally being slaves,
wives, or captives of war, or, sometimes, friends.[278] This rite
occurs or has occurred, more or less extensively, in Borneo[279] and
the Philippine Islands,[280] in Melanesia and Polynesia,[281] in many
different parts of Africa,[282] and among some American tribes.[283]
In America, however, it was carried to its height by the more
civilised nations of Central America and Mexico, Bogota and Peru.[284]
There is evidence to show that the funeral ceremonies {473} of the
ancient Egyptians occasionally included human sacrifice at the gate of
the tomb, although the practice would seem to have been exceptional,
at any rate after Egypt had entered upon her period of greatness.[285]
It has been suggested that in China the burial of living persons with
the dead dates from the darkest mist of ages, and that the cases on
record in the native books are of relatively modern date only because
in high antiquity the custom was so common, that it did not occur to
the annalists and chroniclers to set down such everyday matters as
anything remarkable.[286] In the fourteenth century of our era, the
funeral sacrifice of men was abolished, even for emperors and members
of the imperial family,[287] but it has assumed a modified shape under
which it still maintains itself in China. "Daughters, daughters-in-law,
and widows especially imbued with the doctrine that they are the
property of their dead parents, parents-in-law, and husbands, and
accordingly owe them the highest degree of submissive devotion, often
take their lives, in order to follow them into the next world." And
though it has been enacted that no official distinctions shall be
awarded to such suttees, whereas honours are granted to widowed wives,
concubines, and brides who, instead of destroying themselves, simply
abjure matrimonial life for good, sutteeism of widows and brides still
meets with the same applause as ever, and many a woman is no doubt
prevailed upon, or even compelled, by her own relations, to become a
suttee.[288] Professor Schrader observes that "it is no longer
possible to doubt that ancient Indo-Germanic custom ordained that the
wife should die with her husband."[289] It has been argued, it is
true, that the burning of widows begins rather late in India;[290]
yet, though the modern ordinance of suttee-burning be a corrupt
departure {474} from the early Brahmanic ritual, the practice seems to
be, not a new invention by the later Hindu priesthood, but the revival
of an ancient rite belonging originally to a period even earlier than
the Veda.[291] In the Vedic ritual there are ceremonies which
obviously indicate the previous existence of such a rite.[292] From
Greece we have the instances of Evadne throwing herself into the
funeral pile of her husband,[293] and of the suicide of the three
Messenian widows mentioned by Pausanias.[294] Sacrifice of widows
occurred, as it seems as a regular custom, among the Scandinavians,[295]
Heruli,[296] and Slavonians.[297] "The fact," says Mr. Ralston, "that,
in Slavonic lands, a thousand years ago, widows used to destroy
themselves in order to accompany their dead husbands to the world of
spirits, seems to rest on incontestable evidence"; and if the dead was
a man of means and distinction, he was also solaced by the sacrifice
of his slaves.[298] Funeral offerings of slaves occurred among the
Teutons[299] and the Gauls of Cæsar's time;[300] and in the Iliad we
read of twelve captives being laid on the funeral pile of
Patroclus.[301]
[Footnote 278: See Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 458 _sqq._; Spencer,
_Principles of Sociology_, i. 203 _sqq._; Liebrecht, _Zur Volkskunde_,
p. 380 _sq._; Schneider, _Naturvölker_, i. 202 _sqq._; Hehn, _op.
cit._ p. 416 _sqq._; Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 125
_sq._; Frazer, _Pausanias_, iii. 199 _sq._]
[Footnote 279: Brooke, _Ten Years in Saráwak_, i. 74. Hose and
McDougall, 'Relations between Men and Animals in Sarawak,' in _Jour.
Anthr. Inst._ xxxi. 207 _sq._ Bock, _Head-Hunters of Borneo_, pp. 210
n., 219 _sq._]
[Footnote 280: Blumentritt, 'Der Ahnencultus und die religiösen
Anschauungen der Malaien des Philippinen Archipels,' in _Mittheilungen
d. Geograph. Gesellsch. in Wien_, xxv. 152 _sq._]
[Footnote 281: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 125 _sq._ Brenchley, _op.
cit._ p. 208 (natives of Tana). Williams and Calvert, _op. cit._ p.
161 _sq._ (Fijians). Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 81 (Nukahivans).
Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 220 _sq._ (Tonga Islanders). Taylor, _Te Ika a
Maui_, p. 218 (Maoris). von Kotzebue, _op. cit._ iii. 247 (Sandwich
Islanders).]
[Footnote 282: Rowley, _Africa Unveiled_, p. 127. _Idem_, _Religion of
the Africans_, p. 102 _sq._ Schneider, _Religion der afrikanischen
Naturvölker_, p. 118 _sqq._ Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 125. Ramseyer
and Kühne, _Four Years in Ashantee_, p. 50. Mockler-Ferryman, _British
Nigeria_, pp. 235, 259 _sqq._ Burton, _Mission to Gelele_, ii. 19
_sqq._ (Dahomans). _Idem_, _Abeokuta_, i. 220 _sq._ _Idem_, _Lake
Regions of Central Africa_, i. 124 (Wadoe); ii. 25 _sq._ (Wanyamwezi).
Wilson, _Western Africa_, pp. 203, 219. Ellis, _Tshi-speaking Peoples
of the Gold Coast_, p. 159 _sqq._ _Idem_, _E[(w]e-speaking Peoples of
the Slave Coast_, pp. 117, 118, 121 _sqq._ Nachtigal, _Sahara und
Sudan_, ii. 687 (Somraï and Njillem). Baker, _Ismaïlia_, p. 317 _sq._
(Wanyoro). Casati, _Ten Years in Equatoria_, i. 170 (Mambettu).
Callaway, _Religious System of the Amazulu_, p. 212 _sq._]
[Footnote 283: Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 204. Dorman,
_op. cit._ p. 210 _sqq._ Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 125. Macfie,
_Vancouver Island and British Columbia_, p. 448. Charlevoix, _Voyage
to North America_, ii. 196 _sq._ (Natchez). Rochefort, _Histoire
naturelle et morale des Iles Antilles_, p. 568 _sq._ (Caribs).]
[Footnote 284: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 461. Spencer,
_Principles of Sociology_, i. 205. Dorman, _op. cit._ p. 212 _sqq._
Acosta, _op. cit._ ii. 313, 314, 344 (Peruvians).]
[Footnote 285: Wiedemann, _Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the
Immortality of the Soul_, p. 62 n.]
[Footnote 286: de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. ii. book) i. 721.]
[Footnote 287: _Ibid._ (vol. ii. book) i. 724.]
[Footnote 288: _Ibid._ (vol. ii. book) i. 735, 754, 748.]
[Footnote 289: Schrader, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan
Peoples_, p. 391.]
[Footnote 290: Hopkins, _op. cit._ p. 274.]
[Footnote 291: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 465 _sqq._ Zimmer,
_Altindisches Leben_, p. 331.]
[Footnote 292: _Rig-Veda_, x. 18. 8 _sq._ Macdonell, _Vedic
Mythology_, p. 165. Hillebrandt, 'Eine Miscelle aus dem Vedaritual,'
in _Zeitschr. d. Deutschen Morgenländ. Gesellsch._ xl. 711. Oldenberg,
_Religion des Veda_, p. 587.]
[Footnote 293: Euripides, _Supplices_, 1000 _sqq._]
[Footnote 294: Pausanias, iv. 2. 7.]
[Footnote 295: Grimm, _Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer_, p. 451.]
[Footnote 296: Procopius, _op. cit._ ii. 14.]
[Footnote 297: Dithmar of Merseburg, _Chronicon_, viii. 2 (Pertz,
_Monumenta Germaniæ historica_, v. 861). Zimmer, _op. cit._ p. 330.]
[Footnote 298: Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 327 _sq._]
[Footnote 299: Grimm, _op. cit._ p. 344.]
[Footnote 300: Cæsar, _De bello gallico_, vi. 19. In the ancient
annals of the Irish there is one trace of human sacrifice being
offered as a funeral rite (Cusack, _History of the Irish Nation_,
p. 115 n.*).]
[Footnote 301: _Iliad_, xxiii. 175.]
According to early notions, men require wives and servants not only
during their life-time, but after their death. The surviving relatives
want to satisfy their needs, out of affection or from fear of
withholding from the dead what belongs to them--their wives and their
slaves. The destruction of innocent life seems justified by the low
social standing of the victims and their subjection to their husbands
or masters. However, with advancing civilisation this sacrifice has a
tendency to {475} disappear, partly, perhaps, on account of a change
of ideas as regards the state after death, but chiefly, I presume,
because it becomes revolting to public feelings. It then dwindles into
a survival. As a probable instance of this may be mentioned a custom
prevalent among the Tacullies of North America: the widow is compelled
by the kinsfolk of the deceased to lie on the funeral pile where the
body of her husband is placed, whilst the fire is lighting, until the
heat becomes intolerable.[302] In ancient Egypt little images of clay,
or wood, or stone, or bronze, made in human likeness and inscribed
with a certain formula, were placed within the tomb, presumably in the
hopes that they would there attain to life and become the useful
servants of the dead.[303] So also the Japanese[304] and Chinese,
already in early times, placed images in, or at, the tombs of their
dead as substitutes for human victims; and these images have always
been considered to have no less virtual existence in the next world
than living servitors, wives, or concubines. In China the original
immolations were, moreover, replaced by the custom of allowing the
nearest relatives and slaves of the deceased simply to settle on the
tomb, instead of entering it, there to sacrifice to the manes, and by
prohibiting widows from remarrying.[305]
[Footnote 302: Wilkes, _U.S. Exploring Expedition_, iv. 453.]
[Footnote 303: Wiedemann, _Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the
Immortality of the Soul_, p. 63.]
[Footnote 304: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 463.]
[Footnote 305: de Groot, _op. cit._ (vol. ii. book) i. 794 _sqq._]
The practice of sacrificing human beings to the dead is not
exclusively based on the idea that they require servants and
companions. It is extremely probable that the funeral sacrifice of men
and animals in many cases involves an intention to vivify the spirits
of the deceased with the warm, red sap of life.[306] This seems to be
the meaning of the Dahoman custom of pouring blood over the graves of
the ancestors of the king.[307] So, also, in Ashanti "human sacrifices
are frequent and ordinary, to {476} water the graves of the
Kings."[308] In the German folk-tale known under the name of 'Faithful
John,' the statue said to the King, "If you, with your own hand, cut
off the heads of both your children, and sprinkle me with their blood,
I shall be brought to life again."[309] According to primitive ideas,
blood is life; to receive blood is to receive life; the soul of the
dead wants to live, and consequently loves blood. The shades in Hades
are eager to drink the blood of Odysseus' sacrifice, that their life
may be renewed for a time.[310] And it is all the more important that
the soul should get what it desires as it otherwise may come and
attack the living. The belief that the bloodless shades leave their
graves at night and seek renewed life by drawing the blood of the
living, is prevalent in many parts of the world.[311] As late as the
eighteenth century this belief caused an epidemic of fear in Hungary,
resulting in a general disinterment, and the burning or staking of the
suspected bodies.[312] It is also possible that the mutilations and
self-bleedings which accompany funerals are partly practised for the
purpose of refreshing the departed soul.[313] The Samoans called it
"an offering of blood" for the dead when the mourners beat their heads
with stones till the blood ran.[314]
[Footnote 306: _Cf._ Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 288 _sq._;
Rockholz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, i. 55; Sepp, _Völkerbrauch
bei Hochzeit, Geburt und Tod_, p. 154; Trumbull, _Blood Covenant_,
p. 110 _sqq._]
[Footnote 307: Reade, _Savage Africa_, p. 51 _sq._]
[Footnote 308: Bowdich, _Mission from Cape Castle to Ashantee_, p. 289.]
[Footnote 309: Grimm, _Kinder- und Hausmärchen_, p. 29 _sq._]
[Footnote 310: _Odyssey_, xi. 153.]
[Footnote 311: Trumbull, _Blood Covenant_, p. 114 _sq._]
[Footnote 312: Farrer, _Primitive Manners and Customs_, p. 23 _sq._]
[Footnote 313: _Cf._ Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 181 _sq._]
[Footnote 314: Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_, p. 227.]
Finally, as offenders are sacrificed to gods in order to appease their
wrath, so manslayers are in many cases killed in order to satisfy
their victims' craving for revenge. In the next chapter we shall see
that the execution of blood-revenge largely falls under the heading of
"human sacrifice for the dead."