It would seem that, in primitive practice, the hand of the covenanter
dipped in the sacrificial blood on the threshold, and stamped on the
door-posts and lintel, was the sign-manual of the covenant between the
contracting party or parties, and God, or the gods, invoked in the
sacrifice. Illustrations of this custom, as still surviving in the East,
have been given, from Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Morocco.[210]
Naturally, therefore, the sign-manual by itself came to stand for, or to
symbolize, the covenant of the threshold altar; and the stamp of the red
hand became a token of trust in God or the gods covenanted with in
sacrifice, and of power or might resulting from this covenant relation.
Wherever the red hand was shown, or found, it was a symbol of covenant
favor with Deity, and it came to be known, accordingly, as the “hand of
might.”
In the region of ancient Babylonia, also, the red-hand stamp is still to
be seen on houses and on animals, apparently as the symbol of their
covenant consecration by their owner. Dr. Hilprecht says: “Over all the
doors of the rooms in the large khan of Hillah, on the Euphrates, partly
built upon the ruins of ancient Babylon, I noticed the red impression of
an outspread hand, when I was there in January, 1889. Several white
horses in our caravan from Bagdâd to Nippur had the stamp of a red hand
on their haunches.”
This symbol is much used in Jerusalem. Referring to its frequency, Major
Conder says: “The ‘hand of might’ is another Jewish belief which may be
supposed to have an Aryan origin. This hand is drawn on the lintel or
above the arch of the door. Sometimes it is carved in relief, and before
one house in the Jews’ quarter, in Jerusalem, there is an elaborate
specimen, carefully sculptured and colored with vermilion. Small glass
charms, in the form of the hand, are also worn, and the symbol is
supposed to bring good luck. The Jewish and Arab masons paint the same
mark on houses in course of construction; and, next to the
seven-branched candlestick, it is probably the commonest house-mark in
Jerusalem.”[211]
A Jerusalem Jew thus tells of its use among a portion of his
co-religionists in that city: “Our brethren the Sephardeem [the Spanish
Jews], like all the remnant of the sons of the East, consider the
semblance of a hand as good against the power of the evil eye in a man.
And they draw this shape upon the doors of their houses with a red
finger. So, too, they place upon the heads of their children a hand
wrought in silver, saying that this hand–or this picture of the five
fingers–is noxious to the man who delights to bring the evil upon the
child, or upon those dwelling in the house. So, again, when men quarrel,
the one sets his five fingers before the other’s evil eye, saying that
this sign neutralizes the evil.”[212]
This sign of the hand is “found on the houses of Jews, Muslims, and
Christians, in various parts of Palestine.” It is generally painted on
or above the door, often in blue; but frequently, especially when a Jew
or a Muhammadan enters a new house, a lamb is sacrificed at the door,
and the stamp of the hand in the fresh blood is affixed to the post or
to the walls.[213] No one claims to know the origin of this symbol, but
all recognize its importance.
In its ruder form the figure of the hand is much like a five-branched
candlestick. Indeed, it has sometimes been mistaken for that symbol.
This was the case when such a figure was noticed, not long ago, by Dr.
Noetling, on Jewish houses in Safed, and reported to a European journal.
This symbol is sometimes called the “Hand of Moses.” A similar figure on
Muslim houses is said to represent the “Hand of the Prophet;” while in
Syria, among Christians, it is called the _Kef Miryam_, the “Virgin
Mary’s Hand.”[214] Obviously these terms suggest the idea of power
through divinely derived strength.
One of the sights in the Mosk of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, is the
stamp of a red hand. It is said that when Sultan Muhammad II. entered
this sanctuary as a conqueror, he dipped his right hand in the blood of
the slaughtered Christians, and stamped it on the wall, as if to seal
his victory, and to pledge his covenant devotion to his God.[215]
Whether this story be fact or legend, it is a witness to the idea of
such a custom in the minds of Oriental peoples.
An open hand is, or was, a common symbol on a banner, as also on a
prayer-rug, in both Turkey[216] and Persia. At the annual festival in
Persia in commemoration of the death of Hossein, son of Alee, two large
banners, each surmounted with an open hand, are borne in front of the
representation of the tomb of Hossein; and the same symbol appears in
various ways during the celebration.[217]
“In the East Indies, to this day, the figure of a hand is the emblem of
power and governmental sway. When the Nabob of Arcot was the viceroy of
five provinces, if he appeared in public there were carried before him
certain little banners, each with a hand painted on it, and a larger
banner with five hands.”[218]
Siva, the destroyer, in the Hindoo triad, is also the re-creator; since
death is only the entrance into a new life. One of Siva’s well-known
symbols is a hand, which is a token of might and life.
The uplifted open hand was prominent on or above the doors in ancient
Carthage.[219] And a traveler in Northern Africa, writing of the Jews in
Tunis, near the site of Carthage, says: “What struck me most in all the
houses was the impression of an open bleeding hand on every wall of each
floor. However white the walls, this repulsive sign was to be seen
everywhere. A Jewess never goes out here without taking with her a hand
carved in coral or ivory–she thinks it a talisman against the ‘evil
eye,’ or ‘_mal occhio_.’... When his children’s pictures or horses are
praised, the Tunisian Jew extends his five fingers, or pronounces the
number ‘five;’ he tries by this means to prevent the praise doing
damage.”[220]
This symbol of the open hand is frequently found above the graves in the
vicinity of Tunis. It is also seen in old Jewish cemeteries in Europe,
as, for instance, in Prague.[221]
An open hand, in stone, or metal, or enamel, or bone, used as a talisman
or an amulet, to guard the wearer against evil, was in common use in
ancient Egypt. Specimens of these can be seen in museums in Europe and
America to-day.
It is a noteworthy fact that the uplifted hand is prominent in the
representation of the deities of Babylonia, Assyria, Phenicia, and
Egypt, especially of the gods of life, or of fertility, who have
covenant relations with men. And the same is true of the representations
of sovereigns, in the ancient East, who are supposed to be in peculiar
covenant relations with the gods.
Thus, on the seal of Ur-Gur, the earliest ruler of “Ur of the
Chaldees,”[222] the ruler and his attendants appear with uplifted hands
before the moon-god Sin, who in turn is represented with his hand
uplifted, as if he were making covenant with them.[223] It is the same
with the sun-god Shamash and his worshipers.[224]
When a king of ancient Babylon was recognized as having a right to the
throne, he must lift up his hand and clasp the hand of the image of
Bel-Merodach, in order to show that he had “become the adopted son of
the true ruler of the city.” This giving and taking of the hand was a
symbol of covenanting in Babylonia. In this way a child was adopted into
a family, and a husband and a wife covenanted to become one.[225]
The god Asshur, and his worshipers, kings or princes, are similarly
represented in Assyria with the hand uplifted. And it is the same there
with other deities and their worshipers.[226] In Phenicia, and its
colonies, the same idea has prominence.[227]
Deities of ancient Egypt are frequently represented with the uplifted
hand, and their accepted worshipers appear before them with the right
hand uplifted.[228] As showing that this is not the attitude of
supplication or of adoration, like the bowed form, the crossed arms, or
the upturned palms, it is to be noted that in the representation of
Amenophis IV., or Khuen-aten, with his family, before the aten-ra or the
solar disk, the worshipers stand with their right hands uplifted, while
the sun-god reaches down a series of open hands, as if in covenant
proffer to the uplifted hands below.[229]
In the county of Roscommon, in Ireland, there is a stone known as “a
druidical altar,” which the common people say was thrown there by the
giant Fin-mac-Coole, “the print of whose five fingers, they say, is to
be seen on it.” The hand-print is pointed to confidently as the proof of
authenticity, as if it were the veritable signature of the giant.[230]
Among the ruins in Central America, there were found at the doorways and
on the walls of many of the ruined buildings of Yucatan the stamp of a
red hand on the plaster or on the stone. “They were the prints of a red
hand, with the thumb and fingers extended, not drawn or painted, but
stamped by the living hand, the pressure of the palm upon the stone. He
who made it had stood before it alive, ... and pressed his hand,
moistened with red paint, hard against the stone. The seams and creases
of the palm were clear and distinct in the impression.” As showing the
idea prevalent among the natives of that region with reference to the
source and meaning of these signs-manual, the Indians of Yucatan said
that the stamp was of “the hand of the owner of the building,” as if he
had affixed it to his dwelling in token of his covenant with its
guardian deity; and, again, it was thought that “these impressions were
placed there in a formal act of consecration to the gods.”[231]
There is a clear recognition of this idea in many Bible references to
the lifting up of the hands unto God, as if in covenant relations with
him. Thus, Abraham says to the king of Sodom, “I have lift up my hand
unto the Lord;”[232] as if he would say, I have pledged myself to him. I
have given him my hand. And the Psalmist says: “I will lift up my hands
in thy name.”[233] God himself says, by his prophet: “I will lift up
mine hand to the nations;”[234] that is, I will covenant with them.[235]
And so in many another case. Indeed, the Assyrian word for swearing
(_nish_) is literally “lifting up the hand;”[236] and the Hebrew word
_nasa_ means to lift up the hand or to swear.[237] The uplifted hand in
a judicial oath seems to be a survival of the same thought, that an
appeal is thus made to God, as one’s covenant God.
Again, there may be a reference to the “hand of might” in a covenant
relation, in those passages where God is spoken of as bringing his
people out of Egypt by “a strong hand,” or “a mighty hand,” and as
dealing with them afterwards in the same way.[238]
An uplifted hand is a symbol found also on the stepped pyramid temples
of Polynesia.[239]
This sign of the red hand is still a familiar one among the aborigines
of America. It is stamped on robes and skins, and on Indian tents.[240]
Schoolcraft says of it: “The figure of the human hand is used by the
North American Indians to denote supplication to the Deity or Great
Spirit, and it stands in the system of picture-writing as the symbol for
strength, power, or mastery, thus derived [through a covenant relation].
In a great number of instances which I have met with of its being
employed, both in the ceremonial of their dances and in their pictorial
records, I do not recollect a single one in which this sacred character
is not assigned to it.”[241]
A frequent use of the hand-print among the American Indians is as “a
symbol applied to the naked body after its preparation and decoration
for sacred and festive dances.” These preparations are “generally made
in the arcanum of the medicine, or secret lodge, or some private place,
and with all the skill of the priest’s, the medicine-man’s, or the
juggler’s art. The mode of applying it in these cases is by smearing the
hand of the operator with white or colored clay, and impressing it on
the breast, the shoulder, or other part of the body. The idea is thus
conveyed that a secret influence, a charm, a mystic power, is given to
the dancer, arising from his sanctity, or his proficiency in the occult
arts.” Schoolcraft, speaking of this custom, says: “The use of the hand
is not confined to a single tribe or people. I have noticed it alike
among the Dacotah, the Winnebagoes, and other Western tribes, as among
the numerous branches of the red race still located east of the
Mississippi River, above the latitude of 42°, who speak dialects of the
Algonquin language.”[242]
Is there possibly any connection with this idea in the custom of “the
laying on of hands,” as a symbol of imparting virtue or power to one
newly in covenant relations with those who are God’s representatives, so
frequently referred to in the Bible?[243] This would seem to be
indicated by the power imparted to an Egyptian king by the touch of the
uplifted hand of the deity, as shown in the representations on the
monuments of Egypt. It was known as “the imposition of the Sa,” or
increased vitality.[244]
A remarkable illustration of the use of the red-hand print among
American Indians is given in the story of a famous Omaha chief, who,
when dying, enjoined it upon his followers to carry his body to a
prominent look-out bluff above the Missouri River, and bury him there,
full armed, on the back of his favorite war-horse, who was to be buried
alive, that he might watch from that place the passing of the whites up
and down the river. It would seem as if he wanted to be known as dying
in the faith of his covenant relations with the Great Spirit, for
himself and for his people.
Because of this request, in the presence of his assembled tribe “he was
placed astride his horse’s back, with his bow in his hand, and his
shield and quiver slung; with his pipe and his medicine bag; with his
supply of dried meat, and his tobacco pouch replenished; ... with his
flint and steel, and his tinder, to light his pipe by the way. The
scalps that he had taken ... were hung to the bridle of his horse. He
was in full dress and equipped; and on his head waved ... his beautiful
head-dress of the war-eagle’s plumes.” As he stood thus on the threshold
of the life beyond, when the last funeral honors were performed by the
medicine-men, “every warrior of his band painted the palm and fingers of
his right hand with vermilion, which was stamped and perfectly impressed
on the milk-white sides of his devoted horse,”–as if in covenant pledge
of fidelity to their chief in the sight of the Great Spirit.[245]
There is another phase of the red-hand symbolism among the American
Indians, which has been noted by Frank H. Cushing, who is so experienced
and careful an observer of their customs and ceremonies. This phase
connects the symbol directly with the idea of life and its transmission.
Mr. Cushing says:[246]
“By reference to the paintings (and writings, to some extent) of such
men as Catlin and Stanley, and to the works of Schoolcraft, Matthews,
Bourke, and others, you will find that the red-hand symbol was painted
on the lodges, sometimes on the clothing and person, and sometimes on
the shields of various of the hunter tribes of the plains,–as, for
example, of the Ioways, Sauks and Foxes, Sioux, Arickarees, Cheyennes,
Arapahos, and Comanches. Precisely what the significance of the symbol
was, with these peoples and others like them, I am not able to say, save
that in some cases it was connected with war, in others with treaties,
and in yet others as expressive of power. There were yet other meanings
attached to the sign; but neither the former significances nor these
latter were, I take it, as definite or fixed [with the hunter tribes] as
with the more advanced and settled tribes of the farther south.
“Of these tribes, the typical Pueblos and the peoples more or less
directly influenced by them–such as the Jicarillas on the north and
east, and the Apaches to the south and west[247]–made frequent use of
not only the red-hand symbol, but also of the black-hand symbol. I have
seen both, not only in the modern but also in the very ancient
pueblos–as those of the Pecos, and those of the great cliff-dweller
towns in the Chelly and other canyons. In the Pecos ruins, to give a
special example, I copied beautiful hand-paintings and prints from the
rafters, as well as from the walls of ordinary dwelling-rooms. Sometimes
these paintings were in red, but more often in black. They invariably
represented the hands of women, as could be seen by their delicacy and
smallness of outline and by their shapeliness. There was, I think, a
reason for this, which the following facts will explain.
“It was my good fortune to witness, early in the eighties, a ceremonial
celebrating the attainment to puberty, or womanhood, of a young girl of
the Jicarilla Apaches. The latter people are not to be confounded with
the Apaches proper. They are a mixed people, descended not only from the
Apaches, but also the Comanches, and in large part also from the Pueblos
of the north, the so-called Tañoans of whom the Pecos people were a
branch. It was clear from the character of the masks and other
paraphernalia used in the ceremonials I witnessed, that the latter were
almost, if not quite, wholly derived from the pueblo, rather than from
the wilder, ancestry of the Jicarillas who performed them.
“The ceremonial in question was performed by four medicine-men, or
priests, as one might call them, within and around a rectangular
enclosure of evergreen boughs set in the plain near to the village.
Inside of this enclosure, which was designed to screen from view the
more secret operations of the priest dancers in question, stood a little
conical skin lodge, the snow-white top of which appeared above the
screen of evergreen, and within which the young girl, over whom these
rites were being enacted, was ensconced, together with one or two old
women of the tribe. As I have said before, each of the priests, on
appearing (and this they did successively; that is, the first on the
first day, the second on the second day, and so on), wore a conical mask
or helmet, which entirely concealed, not only the face, but also the
head. This mask was painted black or red, and upon the face of it
appeared one of these hand symbols. Unfortunately, I did not see the
mask as worn by the first priest, but, as worn by the second priest on
the morning of the second day, it bore upon its face the symbol of the
red hand; and as worn upon the third day, this symbol recurred, but, if
I remember aright, was surrounded by an outline of another color, either
black or yellow, whilst the hand painted on the mask as worn on the
fourth day was black surrounded by white, that it might stand out more
conspicuously; and in turn, below it, were two or more dots alternating
with dotted circles.
“My means of communicating with these people were but limited, but on
learning that the ceremonials they were performing were designed to
celebrate the attainment to maturity, or womanhood, of a virgin, I had
little difficulty in understanding the significance of the succession of
these various hand symbols. I recognized in the ceremonial as a whole
the dramatic epitomization, to state it briefly, of the four ages of a
woman’s life. Thus the white hand (which I was told had been painted on
the mask of the first day) symbolized her infancy and girlhood, the
consummation of which was effected by the first day’s ceremonial
performed by the medicine-man of the white hand.
“The red hand was obviously significant of this girl’s attainment to
young womanhood, the color in this case symbolizing the blood of her
perfected life. I imagine that the black hand painted on the mask as
worn during the third day’s ceremonial was significant of not only the
betrothal of the girl, which was said to have taken place during that
day of the ceremonial, but also of her prospective maternity; the change
of color, in the hand, from red to black, being naturally a symbolic
representation of the change from red to black in blood that has been
exposed to the sunlight and dried, and has thus become black, and is no
longer virgin. Likewise the hand painted on the mask as worn during the
fourth day’s ceremonial, which was wholly black, doubtless represented
the fuller life of not only a matron but a grandmother. From this I
would infer that the signs of the red and black hands found in the
ruined pueblos like those of Pecos, and on the cliffs at the mouths of
caves, or in the houses of the cliff villages, symbolized respectively
virginity, and maternity or betrothal.
“What would seem to indicate the correctness of this conclusion is the
fact that, as I have mentioned before, there were below the signs of the
black hand of the last day’s ceremonial of the Jicarillas dots and
dotted circles. It is well known that these dots and dotted circles
represent, primarily, grains of corn, male and female; and, secondarily,
children, male and female. Their occurrence, then, below the painted
black hand or symbol of maternity, would indicate that in this case they
represented the children and perhaps grandchildren, male and female, of
the matron it was hoped this young girl might become.
“The hand symbol as occurring amongst the Zuñi, with whom, of course, I
am much more familiar, has not only some such significances as these,
but also many others,–the significance of a given symbol depending upon
the ceremonial with which it is associated, and particularly upon the
coloring which is given to it, the colors being as various as are the
well-known seven sacramental colors employed to symbolize the seven
regions of the world by the priesthood of these people.
“I will only add, that the hand symbol painted upon the walls of the
estufas, or Kiva temples, or upon the little sacred sand mounds, which
are made to symbolize mythic mountains of the six regions during the
ceremonials of initiation performed once every four years over the new
children of the pueblo, are designed to signify the various ritualistic
precepts which are taught to the children according as they are held to
pertain to one or another of these little sand mounds or so-called
mountains of generation.
“In the case above described I was told, although I did not myself see
it, that the symbol of the red hand was painted by the side of the
entrance to the little tent in which the girl sat through the
ceremonials, and that later the same symbol in black was added to the
other side of the entrance to this tent. In the case of the Pueblos the
position of the hand symbols depends, as, no doubt, you have already
inferred, upon the sort of ceremonial which is being performed in
connection with them.
“It would seem, however, that the placing of these symbols at the
_entrance_ of the cave villages would correspond to such usages as I
have above described as pertaining to the Jicarilla ceremonial, and that
the painting of them on the rafters of rooms in ancient pueblos had a
like connection; for it must be remembered that in the older pueblos
there were no doorways proper [hence no thresholds]. The rooms were
entered by means of ladders through scuttles in the roof.”[248]
A hand-print is a signature. A hand-print in blood is a pledge of life
in a sacred covenant. A hand-print in the blood of life is symbolic of a
covenant of life with a view to the transmission of life. When a woman
of Korea is married, she affixes her sign manual to the covenanting
contract by placing her hand on the paper and having “the outline drawn
round the fingers and wrist with a fine brush dipped in Chinese ink,” or
again she employs “the simpler process of smearing her hand with black
paint, and hitting the document with it.[249]
Formal documents have often been signed by a hand stamp, or a finger
stamp, in blood or in ink. The monks of the convent of St. Catharine at
Mt. Sinai, for instance, show a copy of the certificate of protection
given to them by the Prophet of Islam, the signature to which is an
impression of Muhammad’s open hand. A letter to Muhammad Issoof, from
the king of Mysore, in 1754, was sealed with the king’s seal, “and on
the back was stamped the print of a hand, a form equivalent, with the
Mysoreans, to an oath.”[250]
The very term “sign manual,” employed for a veritable signature, may
point to an origin in this custom. Indeed, may it not be that the large
red seal attached to important documents, at the present time, is a
survival of the signature and seal of the bloody hand?