all possible treachery. These references to the measure of fidelity
among different peoples or tribes are an indication of the relative
degree of faithfulness prevailing among them severally. Those who are
faithless to salt cannot be depended on for anything. If a man would
not be true to one who is of his own blood, of his own life, and to
whom he is bound in a sacred covenant of which his God is a party, he
could not be depended on in any emergency. The covenant of salt is all
this in the thought of the primitive mind.
Don Raphel says, of the estimate of faithlessness to salt entertained
by Arabs generally: "When they have eaten bread and salt with any one,
it would be a horrid crime not only to rob him, but even to touch the
smallest part of his baggage, or of the goods which he takes with him
through the desert. The smallest injury done to his person would be
considered as an equal wickedness. An Arab who should be guilty of such
a crime would be looked upon as a wretch who might expect reproof and
detestation from everybody. He would appear despicable to himself, and
never be able to wash away his shame. It is almost unheard of for an
Arab to bring such disgrace upon himself."[202]
[202] _The Bedouins or Arabs of the Desert_, Part II., p. 59; quoted in
Burder's _Oriental Customs_, 2d ed., p. 72.
It was said by the ancient Jews that Sodom was destroyed because its
inhabitants had been faithless to salt, in maltreating guests who
had partaken of salt in their city. In a Talmudic comment on Lot's
wife, the record is: "Rabbi Isaac asked, 'Why did she become a pillar
of salt?' 'Because she had sinned through salt. For in the night in
which the men came to Lot she went to her neighbors, and said to them,
Give me salt, for we have guests. But her purpose was to make (the
evil-minded) people of the city acquainted with the guests. Therefore
was she turned into a pillar of salt.'"[203]
[203] Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow refers to this in an article on "The
Symbolical Meaning of Salt," in _The Sunday School Times_ for April 28,
1894.
This idea of foul treachery as equivalent to faithlessness in the
matter of salt, seems to be perpetuated in Da Vinci's famous painting
of the Last Supper, where Judas Iscariot is represented as having
overturned the salt-cellar.[204] And even among English-speaking
peoples the spilling of salt between two persons is said to threaten a
quarrel; as though they had already broken friendship.
[204] It has indeed been questioned whether the overturned salt-cellar
in Da Vinci's picture, as shown in many an engraving of it, was in the
original painting, as it is not to be seen there now. But it would
seem clear that the copy of this painting by Da Vinci's pupil, Marco
d'Oggoni, in the Brera, shows the overturned salt-cellar, while the
original painting has had several retouchings and renovations. (See
_Notes and Queries_, 6th Series, Vol. X., p. 92 f.)
Gayton, describing two friends (who were proof even against this ill
sign), says:
"I have two friends of either sex, which do
Eat little salt, or none, yet are friends too;
Of both which persons I can truly tell,
They are of patience most invincible,--
When out of temper no mischance at all
Can put,--no, not if towards them the salt should fall."[205]
[205] Thistleton Dyer's _Domestic Folk-Lore_, p. 104.
In both the Old Testament and the New faithlessness to a formal
covenant is reckoned a crime of peculiar enormity as distinct from any
ordinary transgression of a specific law. Transgressing a covenant with
the Lord is counted on the part of Israel much the same as worshiping
the gods of the heathen. This is shown in repeated instances in the Old
Testament.[206] In the New Testament, Paul includes among the grossest
evil-doers of paganism those who are "filled with all unrighteousness,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God," and so down
to "covenant-breakers," and those "without natural affection," as among
the lowest and worst of all.[207] This idea shows itself continually in
records and traditions, sacred and secular.
[206] Gen. 17 : 14; Deut. 17 : 2-7; Josh. 7 : 11-15; Judg. 2 : 20-23; 2
Kings 18 : 11, 12; Psa. 55 : 19-21; Isa. 24 : 5, 6; Jer. 11 : 9-11; 34 :
17-20; Hosea 6 : 4-7; 8 : 1.
[207] Rom. 1 : 31.
XII
SUBSTITUTE TOGETHER WITH REALITY
Primarily it is the blood, as the life, of two persons entering into
a covenant with each other and with the Author of life, that is the
nexus of the enduring covenant.[208] Secondarily, it is the blood, or
life, of a substitute victim offered as a sacrifice to God, or to the
gods, that is accepted as such a nexus,--the blood being shared by the
contracting parties, or being poured out as an oblation to God, and the
flesh being eaten conjointly by the parties covenanting.[209]
[208] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 5-86; _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 193-202.
[209] Gen. 4 : 2-5; _Blood Covenant_, pp. 134-136.
Yet, again, wine is accepted as representing blood. This is not only
because wine resembles blood in appearance, and is called in the Bible
record the "blood of the grape,"[210] but because wine is actually
deemed, by many primitive peoples, real blood, and is supposed to
affect its users as it does because it represents the spirit, or life,
of the divinity whose blood it is.[211] On this point Frazer calls
attention to the primitive views of Egyptians, Arabians, Aztecs, and
others, citing authorities from Plutarch to Robertson Smith.[212]
[210] Gen. 49 : 11; Deut. 32 : 14; Eccles. 39 : 26; 50 : 15;
1 Macc. 6 : 34; _Blood Covenant_, p. 191.
[211] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 139-142.
[212] Frazer's _Golden Bough_, II., 184 f.
He says, for example: "We are informed by Plutarch that of old the
Egyptian kings neither drank wine nor offered it in libations to the
gods, because they held it to be the blood of beings who had once
fought against the gods, the vine having sprung from their rotting
bodies; and the frenzy of intoxication was explained by the supposition
that the drunken man was filled with the blood of the enemies of the
gods. The Aztecs regarded _pulque_, or the wine of the country, as bad,
on the account of the wild deeds which men did under its influence. But
these wild deeds were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man,
but of the wine god by whom he was possessed and inspired.... Thus it
appears that, on the primitive view, intoxication, or the inspiration
produced by wine, is exactly parallel to the inspiration produced by
drinking the blood of animals.[213] The soul or life is in the blood,
and wine is the blood of the vine.... Whoever drinks wine drinks the
blood, and so receives into himself the soul or spirit of the god of
the vine."
[213] Comp. _Blood Covenant_, pp. 114, 139-147.
Naturally, a substitute or representative of the original, or real,
nexus of a covenant, came to stand for the primary article with such
prominence in the popular mind that it would be deemed an essential,
not only when the real was lacking, but while the real was actually
present. Therefore we find libations of wine accompanying actual blood,
in sacrifices,[214] as well as used in substitution for it; so also of
other substitutes, such as saffron water, milk, and coffee, at other
times.[215]
[214] Exod. 29 : 40; Lev. 23 : 12, 13; Num. 15 : 5, 10; 28 : 14, etc.;
_Blood Covenant_, pp. 63-65.
[215] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 77, 346-350.
As salt represents blood and life, quite naturally salt is employed in
sacrifices, not only where there is no blood or life, but also where
there is. And this accounts for the prominence of salt in sacrifices,
and elsewhere, where blood or life is essential as a fitting offering,
and as a bond of union.[216] Both wine and salt as substitutes for
blood are frequently used together, as though one alone were not
sufficient.[217]
[216] Herodotus, Plutarch, and Pliny, cited in Becker's _Charicles_, p.
330.
[217] See pp. 83 f., 92, _supra_; also Frazer's _Golden Bough_, II.,
67-70.
Similarly, bread is a recognized representative of flesh. It is so
understood in sacred and secular records and traditions. When Jesus
spoke of bread as his flesh, and as his body,[218] and of the fruit of
the vine as his blood, he used terms that in his day, and earlier,
were known in popular thought as representing the truth at the basis
of the covenant by which two became one in a merged common life.[219]
Yet while bread was an accepted substitute for flesh, it was much used
as an accompaniment of flesh[220] in sacrificial feasts. Thus bread
and salt as recognized substitutes for flesh and blood came to be
commonly used even where real flesh and blood were the main factors in
the sacrifice. Substitutes for bread, such as honey and flour or meal,
were, as already shown, also used in connection with bread. Hence it is
not unnatural to find salt as blood accompanying blood itself. This is
entirely in accord with primitive thought and customs generally.
[218] Comp. Matt. 26 : 26-28; Mark 14 : 22-24; Luke 22 : 19, 20; 1 Cor.
11 : 23-25.
[219] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 171-184.
[220] _Ibid._; Gen. 18 : 1-8; 31 : 54; Lev. 7 : 11-14; 23 : 15-20, etc.
XIII
ADDED TRACES OF THE RITE
On the occasion of a sacred alliance between clans, or in a treaty
of peace at the close of a war, among the Kookies of India, there is
a formal appeal to the gods, in which salt has an important part.
A _dhar_, or short sword, is placed on the ground between the two
parties. On it, as on an altar, "are arranged rice, salt, earth, fire,
and a tiger's tooth. The party swearing takes the _dhar_ and puts the
blade between his teeth, and, biting it, says, 'May I be cut with the
_dhar_ in war and in the field; may rice and salt fail me, my crops
wither, and I die of hunger; may fire burn all my worldly possessions,
and the tiger devour me, if I am not faithful!'"[221]
[221] Stewart, in _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, XXIV.,
641, cited in Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_, V., 39.
Among the Battas, in Sumatra, the more solemn form of their oath is,
"May my harvest fail, my cattle die, and may I never taste salt again,
if I do not speak the truth."[222]
[222] Wooldridge's trans. of Bunge's _Physiological and Pathological
Chemistry_, p. 126.
Among the Dyaks of Borneo, when a question arises between disputants
for which there is no ordinary mode of settlement, each litigant is
given a lump of salt, which the two drop into water simultaneously, and
he whose lump dissolves soonest is adjudged the loser.[223]
[223] Köningswarter, _op. cit._, p. 202, cited in Henry C. Lea's
_Superstition and Force_, p. 257.
In the Kenyah tribe in Borneo, the ceremony of naming a child is made
much of. Guests assemble on the occasion. After the more private
ceremony, participated in by a favored few, every guest present is
given a package of salt and some ginger root, as wedding-cake is given
in many lands, for a souvenir of the occasion.[224]
[224] On the testimony of Dr. W. H. Furness, 3d.
A custom among Slavic peoples of presenting bread and salt to a ruler
at the threshold of his domain, as he comes on a visit, would seem to
combine the two ideas of hospitality and of worship. When the Emperor
of Russia visits one of his provinces, or subject cities, he is met
at its threshold by its representative rulers, as his loyal subjects,
with bread and salt served on a golden or a silver-gilt placque. In the
Winter Palace of St. Petersburg there are hundreds of these suspended
over the doorways and on the walls, which placques were thus presented
to different emperors on the occasion of such visits.
When the Grand Duke Alexis visited America in 1872, he was received
in this way by the wife of the Russian Minister at Washington. "As
the Grand Duke entered the Legation, Madame de Catacazy carried a
silver salver on which was placed a round loaf of plain black bread,
on the top of which was imbedded a golden salt-cellar."[225] This was
obviously more than a symbol of welcome to the home of the embassy. The
Grand Duke came as a ruler and lord to his own, and his own received
him loyally, with symbols of reverent submission. It was more like
the threshold covenant of the East, when blood is poured out from an
offered body at the doorway of a house, as one who would be honored as
well as welcomed comes in.
[225] Parley's _Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National
Metropolis_, II., 277.
Some years later there was an account in the London Court Journal of
the making in Paris of an ornate golden dish for a similar use in
Roumania. The burghers of Bucharest were arranging to present on this
dish bread and salt to Princess Marie of Edinburgh, when she should
make her first entrance into their city as their future queen. The dish
was of gold worked in a purely Renaissance design, its edge being an
openwork pattern of interlaced ears of corn and branches of laurel. In
the center was the salt-cellar, shaped like an open tulip, and resting
upon four graceful stalks.
In the days of Queen Elizabeth of England it was a custom of officials
of the palace to rub bread and salt on the plates of the dining-table
before each royal meal.[226]
[226] Agnes Strickland, _Queens of England_ (Students' Edition), p. 403.
Among the Kookies of the Hill Tribes in India, "whenever they send
any message of consequence to each other, they always put in the hand
of the bearer of it a small quantity of salt, to be delivered with
the message as expressive of its importance."[227] This would seem to
indicate a life-and-death matter in the message.
[227] Macrae, in _Asiatic Researches_, VII., 188; cited in Spencer's
_Descriptive Sociology_, V. 25.
An old English custom of having a salt-cellar at a certain point on the
family table, and of seating those present above or below it, gave rise
to the phrase "sitting below the salt" as indicative of an inferior
position at the household table. As salt was a symbol of hospitality
and of covenanted union, he who was within the scope of salt-sharing at
a table was in a very different position from one who was outside of
it.
A reference to this custom by Sir Walter Scott, in his "Tales of My
Landlord," in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, provoked
much discussion, and doubt was expressed as to the existence of the
custom in olden time. But abundant evidence was produced as to its
veritableness.[228] An old English ballad was cited, in which one said
sneeringly to his inferior:
"Thou art a carle mean of degree,
Ye salte doth stand twain me and thee;
But an thou hadst been of ane gentyl strayne,
I wold have bitten my gant[229] aganie."
[228] See _Blackwood's Magazine_, Vol. I., No. 1, pp. 33-35; 132-134;
349-352; 579-582.
[229] Gant; that is, glove.
And one of Bishop Hall's Satires, in 1597, was instanced as saying:
"A gentle squire would gladly entertaine
Into his house some trencher chaplaine;
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stande to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
Whiles his young maister lieth o'er his head.
Second, that he do, on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt."
It was a custom in Oxford University to give salt to a student who had
concluded his course as a "freshman," and was finding admission into
the company of maturer, or salter, students or sophisters. Drinking
salt and water, or salt and beer, was a part of this ceremony. It was
called "salting a freshman," or "college salting."[230]
[230] See _Notes and Queries_, First Series, I., 261.
A series of plates, illustrative of certain student ceremonies at
Strassburg University was published in 1666. "The last [of these]
represents _the giving of the salt_,--which a person is holding on a
plate in his left hand, and with his right hand is about to put a pinch
of it upon the tongue of each _becanus_, or freshman. A glass, probably
holding wine, is standing near him. Underneath is the following couplet:
"_Sal Sophiæ gustate, bibatis vinaque læta,
Augeat immensus vos in utrisque Deus!_"[231]
[231] _Ibid._, I., 492.
In Hungary, at a wedding, there are customs that give solemn emphasis
to the truth that two lives are newly made one in a sacred covenant.
The ceremony is presided over by the Vajda, or chief ruler, rather than
by any Christian ecclesiastic. He stands with his back to a blazing
fire as the primitive altar.[232] When his address is concluded, an
earthen vessel is dashed to pieces as a symbol of their former life
now ended. Then the bridal couple are sprinkled with salt and brandy,
doubly standing for blood on the threshold of their married life.[233]
[232] _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 22 f., 39 ff., etc.
[233] _Martyrdom of an Empress_, p. 138 f.
Bread and salt seem to have a peculiar sacredness among the Hungarian
gypsies. This incident, from a gypsy camp, is given in a Hungarian
newspaper: A gypsy who had lost his cash informed his leader of the
fact, and at once an order was issued for its restoration. The money
not appearing, the gypsy chief bound two poles into the form of a
cross, and fixed one end in the ground. On the top of the cross he
fastened a piece of bread, and sprinkled it with salt. Each member of
the band was then called to swear upon this symbol that he had not
committed the theft. All stood the test, until the last one, an old
woman, came forward. As she was about to take the oath, she turned
pale, put her hand in her pocket, and brought out the stolen money. She
was then soundly beaten, and kicked out of camp.[234]
[234] See quotation from the Pester Lloyd, in _Journal of the Gypsy
Folk-lore Society_, copied in "The Journal of American Folk-lore," Vol.
II., No. 5, p. 140.
The primitive idea that the sovereign properly controls salt as a
source or means of life, and that a gift of salt from the sovereign
lays a new obligation on the recipient, as illustrated in the days
of Cyrus and Darius,[235] shows itself down to our own day. In the
days of Arabi Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt desired to raise a sum of
money, at a time when the people were exceptionally poor in consequence
of excessive taxation and the rigors of a recent famine. Instead of
relying on the ordinary and obnoxious tax collectors, the Khedive
resorted to the pressure of the "fidelity to salt idea."
[235] See p. 20, _supra_.
Salt, as a gift, or as an appeal, from the government supply, was
sent to every native house. Four pecks of salt to every two males in
the house was the average amount. The salt was laid, by a government
official, upon the threshold of the house, early in the morning, before
the inmates arose. Of course, any person stepping over that salted
threshold was brought anew into a covenant with the giver.[236] Later
in the day Egyptian soldiers called at every house to receive what the
inmates would give in return. The appeal was irresistible. It was not
like an ordinary tax, to be evaded or resisted if possible. All would
do what they could. The least that any could think of returning was the
usual price of the salt. Those who could afford more were glad to show
their fidelity and loyalty in a corresponding liberality.[237]
[236] See _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 3-25.
[237] This was told to the author by an Oriental who was residing in
Egypt at the time.
XIV
A SAVOR OF LIFE OR OF DEATH
That which is a means of life in one instance may be a means of death
in another. A breath that might kindle a tiny spark into a living blaze
might also extinguish a quivering flame. The breeze that gives life
to fire in one case gives death to fire in the other. And fire itself
proves death to that which is perishable, while it gives added value
to that which is purified in the furnace flames. Salt, like fire, is
a symbol both of life and of death. In different connections it is a
preserver and a destroyer. "To the one a savor from death unto death;
to the other a savor from life unto life."[238]
[238] 2 Cor. 2 : 16.
Salt is spoken of in the Bible as destructive of vegetable life, and a
barrier against new animal life. A piece of ground sown or strewed with
salt is deemed dead land: "It is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass
groweth therein."[239] When Abimelech captured Shechem, "he beat down
the city and sowed it with salt."[240] The Psalmist, speaking of the
power and ways of God, declares:
"He turneth rivers into a wilderness,
And watersprings into a thirsty ground;
A fruitful land into a salt desert,
For the wickedness of them that dwell therein."[241]
[239] Deut. 29 : 23.
[240] Judg. 9 : 45.
[241] Psa. 107 : 33, 34.
The prophet Jeremiah says of one who departs from God's service that
he "shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land
and not inhabited."[242] Ezekiel, foretelling a curse on the land
of the Jews, says: "The marshes thereof shall not be healed; they
shall be given up to salt."[243] And Zephaniah declares that Moab
shall become "a possession of nettles, and salt-pits, and a perpetual
desolation."[244] Because there can be no fertility for new vegetable
life, there is no room or hope for new animal life for land thus sown
with salt and thus permanently sterile.
[242] Jer. 17 : 6.
[243] Ezek. 47 : 11.
[244] Zeph. 2 : 9.
The one great body of water that is called the Dead Sea is the saltest
sea in the world. Five times the proportion of salt in the ocean is
found in this inland sea of salt. "No fish can exist in the waters,
nor is it proved that any low forms of life have been discovered
there."[245] An ancient legend declared that birds could not even
fly over its waters, because of the curse from heaven on its briny
depths.[246] Yet this doomed and dead sea of salt is a source of life
to man in its exhaustless supply of salt for his use. Preeminently is
this salt of the Dead Sea a savor of life and of death.
[245] George Adam Smith's _Historical Geography of the Holy Land_, p.
502.
[246] Tacitus, _Hist._, v. 6, cited as above.
The salt of the ocean is the world's treasure. Without it the greater
portion of the earth's inhabitants would perish for lack of what
vivifies and preserves animal life. Yet because of the salt in the
ocean the very water, which man and beast must have or perish of
thirst, is useless to both man and beast. The cry in the "Ancient
Mariner" is the cry of the human, always, on the ocean's surface:
"Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink:
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."
Water, which is the gift of God to the thirsty soul, mocks the thirsty
soul when it brings with it salt, which is the representative of life.
Salt in water is a savor of death unto death, while salt and water are
also a savor of life unto life.
While salt as the equivalent of life is a symbol of permanency, it
becomes, as the equivalent of death, a symbol of doom and destruction.
Thus the prophet Isaiah, speaking of his salvation as sure and
permanent, says: "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the
earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away [literally, shall be
salted] like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and
they that dwell therein shall die in like manner [or, like gnats]:
but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be
abolished."[247]
[247] Isa. 51 : 6.
Life is in itself the destroyer of death, as light is the destroyer of
darkness. Hence that which makes anew does away with that which was of
old. When, therefore, salt or fire is spoken of as the destroyer of
that which is not worthy of preservation, it is not to be wondered at
that this power is possessed by an element that purifies and revivifies
through the process of destruction. The ground of a destroyed and
condemned city is guarded against a continuance of its old life of
evil by being sown with salt, which is a savor from life unto life and
from death unto death. The old heavens and the old earth which vanish
away as by fire and salt,[248] are replaced by a new heaven and a new
earth[249] which shall be enduring as gold tried in the fire, and as a
covenant of salt forever.
[248] Isa. 34 : 4; 2 Peter 3 : 10-12.
[249] Isa. 51 : 16; 65 : 17; 66 : 22; 2 Peter 3 : 13.
There is a sense in which that which is devoted to God is thereby
forbidden to the use of man. Thus land sown with salt may be counted
as devoted and as destroyed, _devoted_ to God and _destroyed_ for
man.[250] The Hebrew word _korban_ was applied to what had thus been
dedicated and doomed.[251]
[250] See Num. 21 : 2, 3.
[251] Mark 7 : 11. See the Rev. Dr. Jastrow, in _The Sunday School
Times_ for April 28, 1894; also W. Robertson Smith's _Religion of the
Semites_, p. 435; also Nowack, _Lehrbuch der Hebræischen Archæologie_,
II., 267.