ANCIENT EGYPT THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

NOTES TO BOOK 2

[1] [Source.]

[2] [Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 442. 'In dealing with the wanderings of the fourth group of the Achilpa people reference was made to some dancing women called Unthippa who were met at a place called Yapilpa. The women were Oruncha, that is what is usually translated "devil" women, which implies that they were of an evil nature, always ready to annoy human beings, and endowed with special superhuman powers of various kinds. As explained, however, in the case of the Oruncha men the word "devil" must not be taken in the sense of their being at all the equivalents of malicious creatures whose one object was to work ill to men and women; they are more mischievous than malicious, and in this instance the term “uncanny” more nearly expresses the idea associated with them.
These women were supposed to have sprung into existence far out in the Aldorla ilunga, that is the west country, and as they journeyed they danced all the way along carrying shields and spear-throwers until they passed right through the country of the Arunta people. When they started they were half women and half men, but before they had proceeded very far on their journey their organs became modified and they were as other women.']

[3] [Ibid., as above note.]

[4] [Ibid., p. 381. 'When the old men return to their camps and the newly-made Urliara go out into the bush, one or more ordinary dancing festivals take place. A special one associated with this period is a woman's dance. At night the men and women all assemble in the main camp. A few, perhaps six or eight of the men, are painted with bands of ochre, and the dance opens with these men, one after the other, coming out of the darkness into the light of the camp fire behind which a group of men and women are seated, beating time with sticks and boomerangs on the ground and singing a corrobboree song. As each man approaches the fire he looks about him as if in search of some one, and then, after a short time, sits down amongst the audience. After the men have separately gone through this short performance a number of young women, who have been waiting out of sight of the fire, come near. Each one is decorated with a double horse-shoe-shaped band of white pipe-clay which extends across the front of each thigh and the base of the abdomen. A flexible stick is held behind the neck and one end grasped by each hand. Standing in a group the women sway slightly from side to side, quivering in a most remarkable fashion, as they do so, the muscles of the thighs and of the base of the abdomen. The object of the decoration and movement is evident, and at this period of the ceremonies a general interchange, and also a lending of, women takes place, and visiting natives are provided with temporary wives, though on this occasion in the Arunta tribe the woman allotted to any man must be one to whom he is unawa, that is, who is lawfully eligible to him as a wife. This woman's dance, which is of the most monotonous description possible goes on night after night for perhaps two or three weeks, at the end of which time another dance is commenced. By the time that this is over, or perhaps earlier still, for there is no fixed time, the final ceremonies commence in connection with the newly-made Urliara. Each of them has to bring in an offering of food to his ab-moara man. Under ordinary circumstances such a food-offering is called chaurilia, but this particular one is called ertwa-kirra, that is, man's meat. When the present has been made, the ab-moara man either performs, or else requests some one else to perform, a sacred ceremony which belongs to himself. These ceremonies are of the nature of those already described, and the description of one or two will suffice to illustrate the nature of them all. A Panunga man of the lizard totem brought in a wallaby as ertwa-kirra to his ab-moara, who was a Purula man of the emu totem.']

[5] [Ibid., as above note.]

[6] [Ellis?]

[7] [Uganda Protectorate?]

[8] [Source.]

[9] [Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, ARSBE, Second Annual Report, 1880-81, p. 116.]

[10] [Source.]

[11] [Bourke, Snake-Dance of the Moquis, p. 116. This is incorrect. M has given page no. of previous ref, note 9. Should be p. 177. See note 61 below.]

[12] [Howitt.]

[13] [A. W. Howitt on 'Some Australian Ceremonies of Initiation', in JAI, vol. 13.]

[14] [Source.]

[15] [Source.]

[16] [Napier, Folk-lore of West Scotland, p. 66.]

[17] [Papyrus of Ani, Budge, pl. 6.]

[18] [Bertram Mitford, The Triumph of Hilary Blachland, p. 28.]

[19] [Chateaubriand, Voyage en Amérique, p. 142. 'One of the most common stratagems is to counterfeit the cries of animals. Young men disperse themselves in the copses, imitating the braying of stags, the lowing of buffaloes, and the yelping of foxes. The Savages are accustomed to this trick; but such is their passion for the chase, and so perfect the imitation of the voices of the animals, that they are very frequently caught by this lure.' Travels in America and Italy, vol. 1, p. 31.]

[20] [Source.]

[21] [Source.]

[22] [Source.]

[23] [Howitt, on 'Some Australian Beliefs' in JAI.]

[24] [Source.]

[25] [JAI, May, 1883.]

[26] [J. G. Frazer, Totemism, p. 95. 'Origin of Totemism.—No satisfactory explanation of the origin of totemism has yet been given. Mr Herbert Spencer finds the origin of totemism in a "misinterpretation of nicknames": savages first named themselves after natural objects; and then, confusing these objects with their ancestors of the same names, reverenced them as they already reverenced their ancestors. The objection to this view is that it attributes to verbal misunderstandings far more influence than, in spite of the so-called comparative mythology, they ever seem to have exercised. Sir John Lubbock also thinks that totemism arose from the habit of naming persons and families after animals; but in dropping the intermediate links of ancestor-worship and verbal misunderstanding, he has stripped the theory of all that lent it even an air of plausibility.
Lastly, it may be observed that, considering the far-reaching effects produced on the fauna and flora of a district by the preservation or extinction of a single species of animals or plants, it appears probable that the tendency of totemism to preserve certain species of plants and animals must have largely influenced the organic life of the countries where it has prevailed.']

[27] [John McLennan, first published 1865. See note below.]

[28] [The Patriarchal Theory, pp. vi-vii. 'As the theory of the Origin of Exogamy took shape, and the facts connected with it reduced themselves to form in his mind, the conclusion was reached that the system conveniently called "Totemism" from which his essay on the "Worship of Animals and Plants" took its departure must have been established in rude societies prior to the origin of Exogamy. This carried back the origin of Totemism to a state of man in which no idea of incest existed. From that condition my brother hoped to be able to trace the progress of Totemism necessarily a progress upwards in connection with kinship and with Exogamy. It may here be said that he had for a time a hypothesis as to the origin of Totemism, but that he afterwards came to see that there were conclusive reasons against it. At last, as far as I know, he had none which should be easily intelligible to anyone who knows the subject and knows what, on his view, was involved in Totemism. To show its prevalence, to establish some leading points in its history, to exhibit it in connection with kinship and with Exogamy, and to make out its connection with worship appeared to him
to be the matters primarily important.
It may be said that evidence of Totemism associated with Exogamy was generally found in all rude societies acknowledging kinship through women only; that the same association was found also, and almost as generally, in rude societies which know kinship through males; while his original essay had tended to show that the worship of plants and animals in more advanced societies acknowledging kinship through males was lineally descended from Totemism.
The general conclusion from these and allied facts taken as a whole, appeared to be that it was possible to demonstrate that, Totemism preceding Exogamy, the latter must have arisen in societies acknowledging no kinship save through women; that all other facts bearing on rude society may be interpreted as evidence of a gradual progress from the condition of which Totemism and female kinship are the mark; and that thus it was possible to exhibit the history of human society as that of an evolution moving with very various rapidity among different populations, but always beginning with
a condition in which the idea of incest did not exist, and always tending upwards from that condition.']

[29] [Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, vol. 1, p. 29. '... but there is no reason for thinking that the animal worship of the Egyptians was descended from a system of totems or fetishes, as Mr. J. F. M'Lennan believed.―See the Fortnightly Review, 1869-70.']

[30] [History of the Ojebway Indians. See e.g., p. 138. 'AMUSEMENTS, ETC. OF THEIR TOODAIMS.
Their belief concerning their divisions into tribes is, that many years ago the Great Spirit gave his red children their toodaims, or tribes, in order that they might never forget that they were all related to each other, and that in time of distress or war they were bound to help each other. When an Indian, in travelling, meets with a strange band of Indians, all he has to do is to seek for those bearing the same emblem as his tribe; and having made it known that he belongs to their toodaim, he is sure to be treated as a relative.'
From Frazer, Totemism, p. 1. 'A totem is a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious respect, believing that there exists between him and every member of the class an intimate and altogether special relation. The name is derived from an Ojibway (Chippeway) word totem, the correct spelling of which is somewhat uncertain. It was first introduced into literature, so far as appears, by J. Long, an Indian interpreter of last century, who spelt it totam. (Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter, p. 86, London, 1791) The form toodaim is given by the Rev. Peter Jones, himself an Ojibway; (History of the Ojebway Indians, London, 1861, p. 138) dodaim by Warren ("History of the Ojibways," in Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, vol. v. (St Paul, Minn., 1885) p. 34) and (as an alternative pronunciation to totem) by Morgan; (Ancient Society, p. 165) and ododam by Francis Assikinack, an Ottawa Indian. (See Academy, 27th Sept. 1884, p. 203) According to the abbe Thavenet (In J. A. Cuoq's Lexique de la langue Algonquine (Montreal, 1886), p. 312. Thavenet admits that the Indians use ote in the sense, of "mark" (limited apparently to a family mark), but argues that the word must mean family or tribe.) the word is properly ote, in the sense of "family or tribe," possessive otem, and with the personal pronoun nind otem "my tribe," kit otem "thy tribe."']

[31] [See above note.]

[32] [See note 30 above.]

[33] [F. Bonney.]

[34] [Scott Nind, JRGS, vol. 1, 1832.]

[35] [Brugsch. Unable to trace.]

[36] [Johnston.]

[37] [The Native Tribes of Central Australia, London, 1899—see Bibliography.]

[38] [Ibid., pp. 8-9. 'If now we take the Arunta tribe as an example, we find that the natives are distributed in a large number of small local groups, each of which occupies, and is supposed to possess, a given area of country, the boundaries of which are well known to the natives. In speaking of themselves, the natives will refer to these local groups by the name of the locality which each of them inhabits. Thus, for example, the natives living at Idracowra, as the white men call it, will be called ertwa Iturkawura opmira, which means men of the Iturkawura camp; those living at Henbury on the Finke will be called ertwa Waingakama opmira, which means men of the Waingakama (Henbury) camp. Often also a number of separate groups occupying a larger district will be spoken of collectively by one name, as, for example, the groups living along the Finke River are often spoken of as Larapinta men, from the native name of the river. In addition to this the natives speak of different divisions of the tribe according to the direction of the country which they occupy. Thus the east side is called Iknura ambianya, the west side Aldorla ambianya, the south-west Antikera ambianya, the north side Yirira ambianya, the south-east side Urlewa ambianya. Ertwa iknura ambianya is applied to men living on the east, and so on.
Still further examination of each local group reveals the fact that it is composed largely, but not entirely, of individuals who describe themselves by the name of some one animal or plant. Thus there will be one area which belongs to a group of men who call themselves kangaroo men, another belonging to emu men, another to Hakea flower men, and so on, almost every animal and plant which is found in the country having its representative amongst the human inhabitants.']

[39] ['In his Vocabulary of the Dialects of South-Western Australia, Sir George Grey, when giving the meaning of certain of the native names for totems, says, in regard to the Ballaroke, a small opossum, “Some natives say that the Ballaroke family derived their name from having in former times subsisted principally on this little animal”; and again of the Nag-karm totem, he says, “From subsisting principally in former times on this fish, the Nagarnook family are said to have obtained their name.”' From Spencer and Gillen, op. cit., p. 209.]

[40] [JRGS, 1832.]

[41] [Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, Eng. tr., p. 523. 'The Hermopolitan princes dated at least from the time of the VIth dynasty, and they had passed safely through the troublous times which followed the death of Papi II. A branch of their family possessed the nome of the Hare, while another governed that of the Gazelle.']

[42] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch. 7.]

[43] [Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 203. 'The totem of any man is regarded, just as it is elsewhere, as the same thing as himself; as a native once said to us when we were discussing the matter with him, "that one," pointing to his photograph which we had taken, "is just the same as me; so is a kangaroo" (his totem). That they claim a special connection with, almost in certain respects a right to, their totemic animal or plant may be seen from the fact that, for example, in the witchetty grub totem, while the members of the latter do not eat it, or, at least, only sparingly themselves, the members of the local group who do not belong to the totem must not eat it out of camp like ordinary food, but must bring it into camp and cook it there, else the men of the totem would be angry and the supply of grubs would fail. We may, in fact say, that each totemic group is supposed to have a direct control over the numbers of the animal or plant the name of which it bears, and further that, in theory at least, they have the first right to the animal or plant. That this is so, and that it is well recognised, will be seen from the following facts.
The first is concerned with a curious, but suggestive use of a Churinga. In the possession of a man of the Akakia or plum tree totem, we found a stone Churinga, roughly circular in shape and about 8 cm. in diameter, wrapped up carefully in fur string, so as not to be seen by women as he carried it about with him. It was a Churinga, which had been specially made for him by a man who was Ikuntera or father-in-law to him. The man belonged to the euro totem, and the Churinga in question was marked with a design belonging to the same, a series of concentric circles in the middle of each side representing the intestines of the animal, while two groups of semi-circles indicated, one of them a male, and the other a female euro. The Churinga had been sung over or charmed by the euro man and then given by him to the plum tree man for the purpose of assisting the latter to hunt the animal.
The second is a series of equally suggestive ceremonies, which are connected with the close of the Intichiuma performance in various local totem groups.
After the performance of Intichiuma, the grub is, amongst the Witchetty grubs, tabu to the members of the totem, by whom it must, on no account, be eaten until it is abundant and fully grown; any infringement of this rule is supposed to result in an undoing of the effect of the ceremony, and the grub supply would, as a consequence, be very small. The men of the Purula and Kumara classes, and those of the Panunga and Bulthara, who are not members of the totem, and did not take part in the ceremony, may eat it at any time, but it must always be brought into camp to be cooked. It must, on no account be eaten like other food, out in the bush, or the men of the totem would be angry and the grub would vanish. When, after Intichiuma, the grub becomes plentiful and fully grown, the witchetty grub men, women and children go out daily and collect large supplies, which they bring into camp and cook, so that it becomes dry and brittle, and then they store it away in pitchis and pieces of bark. At the same time, those who do not belong to the totem, are out collecting.']

[44] [Ibid., p. 202. 'The people of the emu totem very rarely eat the eggs, unless very hungry and short of food, in which case they would eat, but not too abundantly. If an emu man found a nest of eggs, and was very hungry, he might cook one, but he would take the remainder in to camp and distribute them. If he were not very hungry all the eggs would be distributed. The flesh of the bird may be eaten sparingly, but only a very little of the fat; the eggs and fat are more ekirinja or tabu than the meat. The same principle holds good through all the totems, a carpet snake man will eat sparingly of a poor snake, but he will scarcely touch the reptile if it be fat..']

[45] [Ibid., pp. 205-7. 'In the Irriakura totem (the Irriakura is the bulb of a Cyperaceous plant) the members of the totem do not, after Intichiuma, eat the totem for some time. Those who do not belong to the totem bring a quantity in to the Ungunja, where it is handed over to the Alatunja and other men of the totem, who rub some of the tubers between their hands, thus getting rid of the husks, and then, putting the tubers in their mouths, blow them out again in all directions. After this the Irriakura people may eat sparingly.
In the Idnimita totem (the Idnimita is the grub of a large longicorn beetle) the grub must not, after Intichiuma, be eaten by the members of the totem until it becomes plentiful, after which those men who do not belong to the totem collect it and bring it into the Ungunja, where the store is placed before the Alatunja and men of the totem, who then eat some of the smaller ones and hand back the remainder to the men who do not belong to the totem. After this the men of the totem may eat sparingly of the grub.
In the Bandicoot totem the animal is not eaten, after Intichiuma, until it is plentiful. When it is, those who do not belong to the totem go out in search of one which, when caught, is brought into the Ungunja, and there they put some of the fat from the animal into the mouths of the bandicoot men, and also rub it over their own bodies. After this the bandicoot men may eat a little of the animal.
It will be seen from what has now been described that at the present day the totemic animal or plant, as the case may be, is almost, but not quite, tabu or, as the Arunta people call it, ekirinja to the members of the totem. At the same time, though a man will tell you that his totem is the same thing as himself, he does not mean to imply by that what Grey says with regard to the totems of the natives whom he studied, and who always killed with reluctance an animal belonging to their totem under the belief "that some one individual of the species is their nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime, and to be carefully avoided."
The members of each totem claim to have the power of increasing the number of the animal or plant, and in this respect the tradition connected with Undiara, the great centre of the kangaroo totem, just as the Emily gap is the great centre of the Witchetty grub totem, is of especial interest. In the Alcheringa, as we have already described, a special kangaroo was killed by kangaroo men and its body brought to Undiara and deposited in the cave close by the water hole. The rocky ledge arose to mark the spot, and into this entered its spirit part and also the spirit parts of many other kangaroo animals (not men) who came subsequently and, as the natives say, went down into the earth here. The rock is in fact the Nanja stone of the kangaroo animals, and to them this particular rock has just the same relationship as the water hole close by has to the men. The one is full of spirit kangaroo animals just as the other is full of spirit men and women. The purpose of the Intichiuma ceremony at the present day, so say the natives, is by means of pouring out the blood of kangaroo men upon the rock, to drive out in all directions the spirits of the kangaroo animals and so to increase the number of the animals. The spirit kangaroo enters the kangaroo animal in just the same way in which the spirit kangaroo man enters the kangaroo woman.']

[46] [Ibid., p. 210. 'The curious agreement between this and what we have just described as occurring in the Arunta tribe is of considerable interest. In the latter, the belief in the origin of the members of any totem from the animal or plant whose name they bear is universal and is regarded as a satisfactory reason for the totemic name. It may be that in the traditions dealing with the eating of the totem, we have nothing more than another attempt to explain the origin of the totem name. Judging, however, from the curious traditions of the Arunta tribe, taken in conjunction with the ceremonies of Intichiuma, this does not seem to be so probable as that they point back to a past time when the restrictions with regard to the eating were very different from those now in force. It is quite possible that the curious ceremony in which the members of any local group bring in to the men's camp stores of the totemic animal or plant and place them before the members of the totem, thus clearly recognising that it is these men who have the first right of eating it, as well as the remarkable custom according to which one man will actually assist another to catch and kill his—i.e., the former's—totemic animal, may be surviving relics of a custom according to which, in past times, the members of a totem not only theoretically had, but actually practised, the right of eating their totem.']

[47] [Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte, vol. 3, p. 293. S. Hearne, Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 136.]

[48] [Hieroglyphica, bk. 1. 56. 'To symbolize an unjust and ungrateful man, they depict TWO CLAWS OF AN HIPPOPOTAMUS TURNED DOWNWARDS. For this animal when arrived at its prime of life contends in fight against his father, to try which is the stronger of the two, and should the father give way he assigns him a place of residence, permitting him to live, and consorts himself with his own mother; but if his father should not permit him to hold intercourse with his mother, he kills him, being the stronger and more vigorous of the two. And they make use of the lowest parts of the hippopotamus, the two claws, that men seeing this, and understanding the story of it, may be more inclined to kindness.']

[49] [Histories, bk. 2, 64. 'The natives give the subjoined account of this festival. They say that the mother of the god Mars once dwelt in the temple. Brought up at a distance from his parent, when he grew to man's estate he conceived a wish to visit her. Accordingly he came, but the attendants, who had never seen him before, refused him entrance, and succeeded in keeping him out. So he went to another city and collected a body of men, with whose aid he handled the attendants very roughly, and forced his way in to his mother. Hence they say arose the custom of a fight with sticks in honour of Mars at this festival. The Egyptians first made it a point of religion to have no converse with women in the sacred places, and not to enter them without washing, after such converse. Almost all other nations, except the Greeks and the Egyptians, act differently, regarding man as in this matter under no other law than the brutes. Many animals, they say, and various kinds of birds, may be seen to couple in the temples and the sacred precincts, which would certainly not happen if the gods were displeased at it. Such are the arguments by which they defend their practice, but I nevertheless can by no means approve of it. In these points the Egyptians are specially careful, as they are indeed in everything which concerns their sacred edifices.' Tr. Rawlinson.
'The Egyptians were the first who made it a point of religion not to lie with women in temples, nor to enter into temples after going away from women without first bathing: for almost all other men except the Egyptians and the Hellenes lie with women in temples and enter into a temple after going away from women without bathing, since they hold that there is no difference in this respect between men and beasts: for they say that they see beasts and the various kinds of birds coupling together both in the temples and in the sacred enclosures of the gods; if then this were not pleasing to the god, the beasts would not do so.' Tr. Macauley.]

[50] [Rev. 17:4. 'And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.']

[51] [Chabas, 'Magic Papyrus,' RP, 10, 135. See p. 7.]

[52] [Source.]

[53]  [Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 407. 'An old Kumara man of the same totem lived with these women, but was out hunting at the time. His name was Arungurpa, and he was the husband of the Purula woman. The women had neither Nurtunja nor quabara undattha. Passing on, the Achilpa camped at Arapera, a big stone hill to the east of Bond Springs, where they stopped for some time making Engwura and performing Ariltha. Here they found a Purula woman of the Achilpa totem whose name was Ariltha-mariltha, and who has a descendant now living. She had a large Nurtunja which was erected and stood so high that it was seen by the Achilpa from a long way off. The woman showed her quabara undattha, and they afterwards performed Atna ariltha-kuma upon her, and then all of them had intercourse with her.']

[54] [Source.]

[55] [Source.]

[56]  [Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 389. 'The same tradition relates that, after having performed their mission, the Ungambikula transformed themselves into little lizards called Amunga-quiniaquinia, a word derived from amunga a fly and quiniaquinia to snap up quickly. There is no reason given for this, and in no other tradition do we meet with either the Ungambikula or the special kind of lizard into which they changed.']

[57] [Bent, Sacred City of the Ethiopians, p. 305.]

[58] [Plutarch, ch. 65.]

[59] [Source.]

[60] [Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, p. 308. '"It is roondah for me," he replied. And then, in answer to my question, explained that the meat of the Bos brachicheros was forbidden to his family, and was an abomination to them, for the reason that many generations ago one of their women gave birth to a calf instead of a child.
I laughed; but the king replied very soberly that he could show me a woman of another family whose grandmother had given birth to a crocodile—for which reason the crocodile was roondah to that family ... Some dare not taste crocodile, hippopotamus, some monkey, some boa, some wild pig, and all from this same belief. They will literally suffer the pangs of starvation rather than break through this prejudice; and they very firmly believe that if one of a family should eat of such forbidden food, the women of the same family would surely miscarry and give birth to monstrosities in the shape of the animal which is roondah, or else die of an awful disease.']

[61] [Bourke, Snake-dance of the Moquis, p. 177. '"The chief of those who lived there thought he would take a trip down the big river to see where it went to. He made himself a boat of a hollow cottonwood log, took some provisions and started down. The stream carried him to the seashore where he found those shells. When he arrived on the beach he saw on top of a cliff a number of houses, in which lived many men and women. They had white under their eyes, and below that a white mark. That night he took unto himself a one of the women as his wife. Shortly after his return to his home the woman gave birth to snakes, and this was the origin of the snake family (gens or clan) which manages this dance. When she gave birth to snakes they bit a number of the children of the Moquis. The Moquis then moved in a body to their present villages, and they have this dance to conciliate the snakes, so they won't bite their children."'
On the following page Bourke gives his own tentative hypothesis for this peculiar dance. 'My own suspicion is that one of the minor objects of the snake-dance has been the perpetuation in dramatic form of the legend of the origin and growth of the Moqui family. For example, the salt-water, and, seas-shells seen in the Estufas may have symbolised their emergence from the ocean (their landing upon our western coast), while their huddling together and smoking in company with the crawling reptiles in all probability conserved the tradition of a prehistoric life in caves infested with snakes.']

[62] [Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 63.]

[63] [Source.]

[64] [Source.]

[65] [Source.]

[66] [Source.]

[67] [Source.]

[68] [Charles New, Life and Wanderings, p. 122.]

[69] [Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi. 'These hippopotamus hunters form a separate people, called Akombwi, or Mapodzo, and rarely―the women it is said never―intermarry with any other tribe. The reason for their keeping aloof from certain of the natives on the Zambesi is obvious enough, some having as great an abhorrence of hippopotamus meat as Mahomedans have of swine's flesh. Our pilot, Scissors, was one of this class; he would not even cook his food in a pot which had contained hippopotamus meat, preferring to go hungry till he could find another.']

[70] [Histories, bk. 4. 9-10. 'Thus say the Scythians about themselves and about the region above them; but the Hellenes who dwell about the Pontus say as follows: Heracles driving the cattle of Geryones came to this land, then desert, which the Scythians now inhabit; and Geryones, says the tale, dwelt away from the region of the Pontus, living in the island called by the Hellenes Erytheia, near Gadeira which is outside the Pillars of Heracles by the Ocean. As to the Ocean, they say indeed that it flows round the whole earth beginning from the place of the sunrising, but they do not prove this by facts. From thence Heracles came to the land now called Scythia; and as a storm came upon him together with icy cold, he drew over him his lion's skin and went to sleep. Meanwhile the mares harnessed in his chariot disappeared by a miraculous chance, as they were feeding.
Then when Heracles woke he sought for them; and having gone over the whole land, at last he came to the region which is called Hylaia; and there he found in a cave a kind of twofold creature formed by the union of a maiden and a serpent, whose upper parts from the buttocks upwards were those of a woman, but her lower parts were those of a snake. Having seen her and marvelled at her, he asked her then whether she had seen any mares straying anywhere; and she said that she had them herself and would not give them up until he lay with her; and Heracles lay with her on condition of receiving them. She then tried to put off the giving back of the mares, desiring to have Heracles with her as long as possible, while he on the other hand desired to get the mares and depart; and at last she gave them back and said: "These mares when they came hither I saved for thee, and thou didst give me reward for saving them; for I have by thee three sons. Tell me then, what must I do with these when they shall be grown to manhood, whether I shall settle them here, for over this land I have power alone, or send them away to thee?" She thus asked of him, and he, they say, replied: "When thou seest that the boys are grown to men, do this and thou shalt not fail of doing right: whichsoever of them thou seest able to stretch this bow as I do now, and to be girded with this girdle, him cause to be the settler of this land; but whosoever of them fails in the deeds which I enjoin, send him forth out of the land: and if thou shalt do thus, thou wilt both have delight thyself and perform that which has been enjoined to thee."' Tr. Macauley.]

[71] [Source.]

[72] [A. B. Ellis, The Tshi-speaking People, p. 213.]

[73] [Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 388. 'At this time there dwelt in the Alkira aldorla, that is the western sky, two beings of whom it is said that they were Ungambikula, a word which means "out of nothing," or "self-existing." From their elevated dwelling-place they could see, far away to the east, a number of Inapertwa creatures, that is rudimentary human beings or incomplete men, whom it was their mission to make into men and women.
In those days there were no men and women, and the Inapertwa were of various shapes and dwelt in groups along by the shores of the salt water. They had no distinct limbs or organs of sight, hearing or smell, and did not eat food, and presented the appearance of human beings all doubled up into a rounded mass in which just the outline of the different parts of the body could be vaguely seen.']

[74] ['Ungambikula, transforming Inapertwa into men and women.' See above note.]

[75] [Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 388. See above note, 73.]

[76] [Ibid., p. 389. 'These Inapertwa creatures were in reality stages in the transformation of various animals and plants into human beings, and thus they were naturally, when made into human beings, intimately associated with the particular animal or plant, as the case may be, of which they were the transformations—in other words, each individual of necessity belonged to a totem the name of which was of course that of the animal or plant of which he or she was a transformation. This tradition of the Ungambikula only refers to a certain number of totems, or rather to a certain number of local groups of individuals belonging to particular totems; in the case of others such as, for example, the Udnirringita or witchetty grub totem, there is no tradition relating to the Inapertwa stage. The Ungambikula made into men Inapertwa who belonged to the following totems:—Akakia or plum tree, Inguitchika or grass seed, Echunpa or large lizard, Erliwatchera or small lizard, Atninpirichira or Alexandra parakeet, and Untania or small rat. In the case of all except the first they also performed the rite of Lartna or circumcision by means of a fire-stick.']

[77] [Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific, p. 6. 'That narrow strip of territory constituting the very bottom of Avaiki, and which is designated Te-enua-te-ki, or The-mute-land. Do what you may to the attached mother and daughter, you cannot provoke an angry reply; for the only language known in The-mute-land is that of signs such as nods, elevated eye-brows, grimaces, and smiles.']

[78] [Ibid., p. 6, native song.]

[79] [Source.]

[80] [Source.]

[81] [Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, bk. 1. 11. 'To denote a mother, or vision, or boundary, or foreknowledge, or a year, or heaven, or one that is compassionate, or Athena [Neith], or Hera [Saté], or two drachmas, they delineate it a mother, because in this race of creatures there is no male. Gignuntur autem hunc in modum. Cum amore concipiendi vultur exarserit, vulvam ad Boream aperiens, ab eo velut comprimitur per dies quinque, during which time she partakes neither of food nor drink, being intent upon procreation. There are also other kinds of birds which conceive by the wind, but their eggs are of use only for food, and not for procreation; but the eggs of the vultures that are impregnated by the wind possess a vital principle. The vulture is used also as a symbol of vision, because it sees more keenly than all other creatures; and by looking towards the west when the sun is in the east, and towards the east when the god is in the west, it procures its necessary food from afar. And it signifies a boundary [landmark?] because, when a battle is to be fought, it points out the spot on which it will take place, by betaking itself thither seven days beforehand:—and foreknowledge, both from the circumstance last mentioned, and because it looks towards that army which is about to have the greater number killed, and be defeated, reckoning on its food from their slain: and on this account the ancient kings were accustomed to send forth observers to ascertain towards which part of the battle the vultures were looking, to be thereby apprized which army was to be overcome. And it symbolizes a year, because the 365 days of the year, in which the annual period is completed, are exactly apportioned by the habits of this creature; for it remains pregnant 120 days, and during an equal number it brings up its young, and during the remaining 120 it gives its attention to itself, neither conceiving nor bringing up its young, but preparing itself for another conception; and the remaining five days of the year, as I have said before, it devotes to another impregnation by the wind. It symbolises also a compassionate person, which appears to some to be the furthest from its nature, inasmuch as it is a creature that preys upon all things; but they were induced to use it as a symbol for this, because in the 120 days, during which it brings up its offspring, it flies to no great distance, but is solely engaged about its young and their sustenance; and if during this period it should be without food to give its young, it opens its own thigh, and suffers its offspring to partake of the blood, that they may not perish from want of nourishment:—and Athena [Neith], and Hera [Saté], because among the Egyptians Athena [Neith] is regarded as presiding over the upper hemisphere, and Hera [Saté] over the lower; whence also they think it absurd to designate the heaven in the masculine, but represent it in the feminine inasmuch as the generation of the sun and moon and the rest of the stars, is perfected in it, which is the peculiar property of a female. And the race of vultures, as I said before, is a race of females alone, and on this account the Egyptians over any female hieroglyph place the vulture as a mark of royalty [maternity?]. And hence, not to prolong my discourse by mentioning each individually, when the Egyptians would designate any goddess who is a mother, they delineate a vulture, for it is the mother of a female progeny. And they denote by it heaven, (for it does not suit them to say [Greek], as I said before,) because its generation is from thence [by the wind]:—and two drachmas, because among the Egyptians the unit [of money] is the two drachmas, and the unit is the origin of every number, therefore when they would denote two drachmas, they with good reason depict a vulture, inasmuch as like unity it seems to be mother and generation.' See also BB 1:142 for other refs to this chapter.]

[82] [Source.]

[83] [P. Pierret, Pantheon Egyptien, p. 28.]

[84] [Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 74. 'It will be seen from the table that, as compared with the Urabunna tribe, marriage appears to be very much more restricted, because a man may only marry a woman who belongs to one of eight divisions into which the whole is divided. In the Arunta tribe, however, as will be described in the chapter dealing with the totems, there is, unlike most Australian tribes, no restriction whatever, so far as the totems are concerned. It may therefore be, perhaps, a matter of doubt as to how far the totems of the Arunta are the exact equivalents of those yet described as existing amongst other Australian tribes.']

[85] [Raffles, History of Java, vol. 1, p. 328. 'The Kalangs of Java are also endogamous, and when a man asks a girl in marriage he must prove his descent from their peculiar stock.' From Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 149.]

[86] [Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 28.]

[87] [Source.]

[88] [J. Forsyth, Highlands of Central India, p. 137. 'Most of them, however, whether from motives of policy or of superstition, still concede something to their semi-aboriginal descent; worshipping perhaps in secret the tribal deities, and, in cases, placing at certain festivals the flesh of cows, abhorred of Hinduism, to their lips, wrapped in a thin covering of cloth. Many of them also require to be installed on their succession to the chiefship by a ceremony which includes the touching of their foreheads with a drop of blood drawn from the body of a pure aborigine of the tribe they belong to.']

[89] [Source. See note below.]

[90] [Instance quoted in British Weekly, Sept. 1895.]

[91] [Source.]

[92] [Source.]

[93] [Source.]

[94] [James Dawson, Australian Aborigines.]

[95] [Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 211. 'Indeed, I do not remember a single instance in which a savage is recorded as having shown any symptoms of remorse; and almost the only case I can call to mind, in which a man belonging to one of the lower races has accounted for an act, by saying explicitly that it was right, was when Mr. Hunt asked a young Fijian why he had killed his mother.' Abbreviated, from Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, pp. 377-8.]

[96] [Réclus, Primitive Folk, Eng. tr., p. 249. 'The Brahmins and Mussulmans consider it a crime in the nomad Birhors that they are maneaters ; but we do not reproach them for it, as their cannibalism is inspired by filial piety. The parents, in articulo mortis, beg as a favour that their corpses may not be left upon the road or in the forest, but may find a refuge in the stomachs of their children. These cannot refuse, but they make no unseemly haste to enjoy the funeral banquet.']

[97] [Source.]

[98] [Histories, bk. 4. 26. 'The Issedonians are said to have these customs: when a man's father is dead, all the relations bring cattle to the house, and then having slain them and cut up the flesh, they cut up also the dead body of the father of their entertainer, and mixing all the flesh together they set forth a banquet. His skull however they strip of the flesh and clean it out and then gild it over, and after that they deal with it as a sacred thing and perform for the dead man great sacrifices every year. This each son does for his father, just as the Hellenes keep the day of memorial for the dead. In other respects however this race also is said to live righteously, and their women have equal rights with the men.' Tr. Macauley.]

[99] [Matt. 26:27. 'And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it.']

[100] [Savage Life and Scenes vol. 2, p.?]

[101] [Theophrastus, in Porphyry, De Abstentia, 2, 29, cited in EBR 9, vol. 21, pp. 137-9. 'Piacular Sacrifice.
Among all primitive peoples there are certain offences against piety (especially bloodshed within the kin) which are regarded as properly inexpiable; the offender must die or become an outlaw. Where the god of the kin appears as vindicator of this law he demands the life of the culprit; if the kinsmen refuse this they share the guilt. Thus the execution of a criminal assumes the character of a religious action. If now it appears in any way that the god is offended and refuses to help his people, it is concluded that a crime has been committed and not expiated. This neglect must be repaired, and, if the true culprit cannot be found or cannot be spared, the worshippers as a whole bear the guilt until they or the guilty man himself find a substitute. The idea of substitution is widespread through all early religions, and is found in honorific as well as in piacular rites ; the Romans, for example, substituted models in wax or dough for victims that could not be procured according to the ritual, or else feigned that a sheep was a stag and the like. In all such cases the idea is that the substitute shall imitate as closely as is possible or convenient the victim whose place it supplies; and so in piacular ceremonies the god may indeed accept one life for another, or certain select lives to atone for the guilt of a whole community, but these lives ought to be of the guilty kin, just as in blood-revenge the death of any kinsman of the manslayer satisfies justice. Hence such rites as the Semitic sacrifices of children by their fathers (see MOLOCH), the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and similar cases among the Greeks, or the offering up of boys to the goddess Mania at Rome profamiliarium sospitate (Macrob., i. 7, 34). In the oldest Semitic cases it is only under extreme manifestations of divine wrath that such offerings are made (comp. Porph., De Abst., ii. 56), and so it was probably among other races also; but under the pressure of long-continued calamity, or other circumstances which made men doubtful of the steady favour of the gods, piacular offerings might easily become more frequent and ultimately assume a stated character, and be made at regular intervals by way of precaution without waiting for an actual outbreak of divine anger. Thus the Carthaginians, as Theophrastus relates, annually sprinkled their altars with "a tribesman's blood" (Porph., De Abst., ii. 28). But in advanced societies the tendency is to modify the horrors of the ritual either by accepting an effusion of blood without actually slaying the victim, e.g., in the flagellation of the Spartan lads at the altar of Artemis Orthia (Paus., iii. 16, 7; comp. Eurip., Ipli. Taw., 1470 sq.; 1 Kings xviii. 28), or by a further extension of the doctrine of substitution; the Romans, for example, substituted puppets for the human sacrifices to Mania, and cast rush dolls into the Tiber at the yearly atoning sacrifice on the Sublician bridge. More usually, however, the life of an animal is accepted by the god in place of a human life. This explanation of the origin of piacular animal sacrifices has often been disputed, mainly on dogmatic grounds and in connexion with the Hebrew sin-offerings; but it is quite clearly brought out wherever we have an ancient account of the origin of such a rite (e.g., for the Hebrews, Gen. xxii. 13; the Phoenicians, Porph., De Abst., iv. 15; the Greeks and many others, ibid., ii. 54 sq.; the Romans, Ovid, Fasti, vi. 162). Among the Egyptians the victim was marked with a seal bearing the image of a man bound, and kneeling with a sword at his throat (Plut., Is. et Os., chap, xxxi.) And often we find a ceremonial laying of the sin to be expiated on the head of the victim (Herod., ii. 39; Lev. iv. 4 compared with xiv. 21).
In such piacular rites the god demands only the life of the victim, which is sometimes indicated by a special ritual with the blood (as among the Hebrews the blood of the sin-offering was applied to the horns of the altar, or to the mercy-seat within the vail), and there is no sacrificial meal. Thus among the Greeks the carcase of the victim was buried or cast into the sea, and among the Hebrews the most important sin-offerings were burnt not on the altar but outside the camp (city), as was also the case with the children sacrificed to "Moloch." Sometimes, however, the sacrifice is a holocaust on the altar (2 Kings iii. 27), or the flesh is consumed by the priests. The latter was the case with certain Roman piacula, and with those Hebrew sin-offerings in which the blood was not brought within the vail (Lev. vi. 25 sq.}. Here the sacrificial flesh is seemingly a gift accepted by the deity and assigned by him to the priests, so that the distinction between a honorific and a piacular sacrifice is partly obliterated. But this is not hard to understand; for just as a blood-rite takes the place of blood-revenge in human justice, so an offence against the gods may in certain cases be redeemed by a fine (e.g., Herod., ii., 65) or a sacrificial gift. This seems to be the original meaning of the Hebrew ashdm (trespass-offering), which was a kind of atonement made partly in money (Lev. v. 15 sq.), but accompanied (at least in later times) by a sacrifice which differed from the sin-offering, inasmuch as the ritual did not involve any exceptional use of the blood. The ordinary sin-offerings in which the priests ate the flesh may be a compound of the ashdm and the properly piacular substitution of life for life. The two kinds of atonement are mixed up also in Micah vi. 6 sq., and ultimately all bloody sacrifices, especially the whole burnt-offering (which in early times was very rare but is prominent in the ritual of the second temple), are held to have an atoning efficacy (Lev. i. 4, xvii. 11). There is, however, another and mystical sense sometimes associated with the eating of sin-offerings, as we shall see presently.
The most curious developments of piacular sacrifice take place in the worship of deities of totem type. Here the natural substitute for the death of a criminal of the tribe is an animal of the kind with which the worshippers and their god alike cyant kindred; an animal, that is, which must not be offered in a sacrificial feast, and which indeed it is impious to kill. Thus Hecate was invoked as a dog (Porph., De Abst., iii. 17), and dogs were her piacular sacrifices (Plut., Qu. Horn., iii.). And in like manner in Egypt the piacular sacrifice of the cow-goddess Isis-Hathor was a bull, and the sacrifice was accompanied by lamentations as at the funeral of a kinsman (Herod., ii. 39, 40). This lamentation at a piacular sacrifice is met with in other cases, e.g., at the Argean festival at Rome (Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverw., iii. 192), and is parallel to the marks of indignation which in various atoning rituals it is proper to display towards the priest who performs the sacrifice. At Tenedos, for example, the priest was attacked with stones who sacrificed to Bacchus a bull-calf, the affinity of which with man was indicated by the mother-cow being treated like a woman in childbed and the victim itself wearing the cothurnus. As the cothurnus was proper to Bacchus, who also was often addressed in worship and represented in images as a bull, the victim here is of the same race with the god (Ael., H. N., xii. 34; Plut., Qu. Gr., xxxv.) as well as with the worshippers. In such rites a double meaning was suggested: the victim was an animal kindred to the sacrificers, so that his death was strictly speaking a murder, for which, in the Attic Diipolia, the sacrificial axe cast away by the priest was tried and condemned (Paus., i. 24, 4), but it was also a sacred animal sharing the nature of the god, who thus in a sense died for his people. The last point comes out clearly in the annual sacrifice at Thebes, where a ram was slain and the ram-god Amen clothed in his skin. The worshippers then bewailed the ram and buried him in a sacred coffin (Herod., ii. 42). Thus the piacular sacrifice in such cases is merged in the class of offerings which may be called sacramental or mystical.

Mystical or Sacramental Sacrifices.

That the mysteries of races like the Greeks and Egyptians are sprung from the same circle of ideas with the totem mysteries of savage tribes has been suggested in MYTHOLOGY, vol. xvii. p. 151, with which the reader may compare Mr Lang's book on Custom and Myth; and examples of sacramental sacrifices have been adduced in the same article (p. 150) and in MEXICO, vol. xvi. p. 212. In Mexico the worshippers ate sacramentally paste idols of the god, or slew and feasted on a human victim who was feigned to be a representative of the deity. The Mexican gods are unquestionably developed out of totems, and these sacraments are on one line with the totem mysteries of the ruder Indian tribes in which once a year the sacred animal is eaten, body and blood. Now according to Julian (Orat., v. p. 175) the mystical sacrifices of the cities of the Roman empire were in like manner offered once or twice a year and consisted of such victims as the dog of Hecate, which might not be ordinarily eaten or used to furnish forth the tables of the gods. The general agreement with the American mysteries is therefore complete, and in many cases the resemblance extends to details which leave no doubt of the totem origin of the ritual. The mystic sacrifices seem always to have had an atoning efficacy; their special feature is that the victim is not simply slain and burned or cast away but that the worshippers partake of the body and blood of the sacred animal, and that so his life passes as it were into their lives and knits them to the deity in living communion. Thus in the orgiastic cult of the bull-Bacchus the worshippers tore the bull to pieces and devoured the raw flesh. These orgies are connected on the one hand with older practices, in which the victim was human (Orpheus legend, Dionysus), and on the other hand with the myth of the murder of the god by his kinsmen the Titans, who made a meal of his flesh (Clem. Al., Coh. ad Gentes, p. 12). Similar legends of fratricide occur in connexion with other orgies (the Corybantes; see Clement, ut supra); and all these various elements can only be reduced to unity by referring their origin to those totem habits of thought in which the god has not yet been differentiated from the plurality of sacred animals and the tribesmen are of one kin with their totem, so that the sacrifice of a fellow-tribesman and the sacrifice of the totem animal are equally fratricides, and the death of the animal is the death of the mysterious protector of the totem kin. In the Diipolia at Athens we have seen that the slaughter of the sacred bull was viewed as a murder, but "the dead was raised again in the same sacrifice," as the mystic text had it: the skin was sewed up and stuffed and all tasted the sacrificial flesh, so that the life of the victim was renewed in the lives of those who ate of it." (Theophr., in Porph., De Abst., ii. 29 sq.).
Mystic sacrifices of this sacramental type prevailed also among the heathen Semites, and are alluded to in Isa. lxv. 4 sq., lxvi. 3, 17; Zech. ix. 7; Lev. xix. 26, fcc., 2 from which passages we gather that the victim was eaten with the blood. This feature reappears elsewhere, as in the piacular swine-offerings of the Fratres Arvales at Rome, and possesses a special significance inasmuch as common blood means in antiquity a share in common life. In the Old Testament the heathen mysteries seem to appear as ceremonies of initiation by which a man was introduced into a new worship, i.e., primarily made of one blood with a new religious kinship, and they therefore come into prominence just at the time when in the 7th century B.C. political convulsions had shaken men's faith in their old gods and led them to seek on all sides for new and stronger protectors. The Greek mysteries too create a close bond between the mystic, and the chief ethical significance of the Eleusinia was that they were open to all Hellenes and so represented a brotherhood wider than the political limits of individual states. But originally the initiation must have been introduction into a particular social community; Theophrastus's legend of the origin of the Diipolia is expressly connected with the adoption of the house of Sopatrus into the position of Athenian citizens. From this point of view the sacramental rites of mystical sacrifice are a form of blood-covenant, and serve the same purpose as the mixing of blood or tasting of each other's blood by which in ancient times two men or two clans created a sacred covenant bond. In all the forms of blood-covenant, whether a sacrifice is offered or the veins of the parties opened and their own blood used, the idea is the same: the bond created is a bond of kindred, because one blood is now in the veins of all who have shared the ceremony.
The details in which this kind of symbolism may be carried out are of course very various, but where there is a covenant sacrifice we usually find that the parties eat and drink together (Gen. xxxi. 54), and that the sacrificial blood, if not actually tasted, is at least touched by both parties (Xen., Anab., ii. 2, 9), or sprinkled on both and on the altar or image of the deity who presides over the contract (Exod., xxiv. 6, 7). A peculiar form which meets us in various places is to cut the animal in twain and make those who swear pass between the parts (Gen. xiii. 9 sq.; Jer. xxxiv. 18 sq.; Pint., Qu. Rom., iii., &c.). This is generally taken as a formula of imprecation, as if the parties prayed that he who proved unfaithful might be similarly cut in twain; but, as the case cited from Plutarch shows that the victim chosen was a mystic one, it is more likely that the original sense was that the worshippers were taken within the mystic life.
Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin. But we must not forget that from the beginning this ritual expressed, however crudely, certain ideas which lie at the very root of true religion, the fellowship of the worshippers with one another in their fellowship with the deity, and the consecration of the bonds of kinship as the type of all right ethical relation between man and man. And the piacular forms, though these were particularly liable to distortions disgraceful to man and dishonouring to the godhead, yet contained from the first germs of eternal truths, not only expressing the idea of divine justice, but mingling it with a feeling of divine and human pity. The dreadful sacrifice is performed not with savage joy but with awful sorrow, and in the mystic sacrifices the deity himself suffers with and for the sins of his people and lives again in their new life. (W. K. S.).']

[102] [Euripides, Alcestis.]

[103] [Sepulchral Relief from Tarentutm, p. 21.]

[104] [Réclus, Primitive Folk, pp. 311-31. 'The goddess was warned to hold herself in readiness, the feast was preparing.
The three first days were spent in orgies, which we are told were indescribable, and in which women sometimes figured in the accoutrement of men, armed as warriors. It was necessary to thrill the torpid senses of the great spouse of the Sun-God, to stir her sleeping fecundity, to excite her desires by naively lascivious spectacles. There was an uproar of singing and shouting, a confused noise of tambourines and bagpipes, answered by the echoes from hill to hill. The young folks jigged and frolicked about, and whilst they danced, the girls scraped the ground with their heels, and pressed it with caressing fingers "Awake, awake, Earth, our friend!" Thus at the festivals of seed-time, did the Latins invoke Ops Consiva, whilst scratching the earth with their nails. Each has made himself as fine as possible, has bedaubed himself with red. The copper glitters, the iron jingles. The hunters strut about in their bear or tiger skins, or feathered like a cock of the jungle or a pheasant of the woods, whilst the zealous of both sexes shake their brooms and plumed thyrses to simulate flights of peacocks. The miserable heroine has been thoroughly washed, and has been made to fast, that she may be as pure within as without; she is dressed in new clothing. In solemn procession she is conducted from door to door, then led away into the dark forest, the abode of the Goddess. Beneath the green, leafy garlands, the priest binds her with cords to a flower-bedecked May-pole, thirty or forty feet high, surmounted by a peacock's head.
Here the peacock, king of the agricultural feast, evidently represents the Sun, as many suns as golden eyes upon the fan. The throne whereon the Great Mogul was seated was in the shape of a peacock spreading his glittering gems:
"May the happy days of Delhi return! Bless the seat which thy peacock lights up with his jewels!"
The royal seat of Burmah represents a peacock, and also a hare, a symbol betokening the two-fold solar and lunar descent; the standard of the dynasty bears a peacock flying upon a silver field. A Garro sorcerer took part in no religious rite before he had shod himself with sandals and stuck peacock feathers in his hair. The Khonds swear by the quills of this bird, also by the tiger and the termite. The elephant is another symbol of the Sun, in his character of spouse of Demeter ; and before the elephant women bow themselves, they smear his temples with vermilion, and make their children step in his foot-prints. Therefore it is not surprising that the image of the king of the forest should often adorn the sacrificial stake. It sometimes happens that a second pole is set up in honour of the Goddess, who is then represented by three stones, in middle of which a copper peacock is buried.
Let us return to the victim. She has been crowned with flowers, anointed with oil and melted butter, and painted with yellow saffron, the colour of the spirits of light and of heaven. And now the people fall down and worship her. They worship her as another Tari. For in the truly orthodox conception of sacrifice, the consecrated offering, be it man, woman, or virgin, lamb or heifer, cock or dove, represents the deity himself. It was for this that the Mexicans 'dressed it in all the pomp of the vestments and attributes of the Immortal it was to personify. The execution of wretched slaves, of detestable malefactors, was pitiful and mean; but glorious was the immolation of God or Goddess, and how marvellous the virtue of their blood outpoured!
Tari, says the Khond legend, had intended to submit each time to the sacrifice in her own person. She wished to do like the great King Vikramajit, who (more zealous than the worshipful Saint Denis or even the blessed Saint Oriel) cut off his own head every evening, and carried it as an offering to the Devas. But the worshippers of the Goddess saw some difficulty in this system, and assured her that it would suffice if she caused herself to be slain by proxy. Tari was graciously pleased to yield to the reasons given. She accepted the theory, which has since had the force of a dogma, that the gods ask nothing better than to be immolated for the benefit of mankind, but they have often other things in hand, and at the crucial moment may not be disposed to come up to the scratch. If they do not intervene in person, they will intervene by deputy, become incarnate in meriahs or mediators. The meriah will be the plenipotentiary of the god, the agent of his power, his other self.
On this principle, the Khonds and their like set up their victim as a divinity, flatter her, laud her beauty, sing her praise, dance around her. At nightfall they rush forward to touch her; the unhappy creature brings good luck! In the twinkling of an eye, she is stripped of her raiment, which is torn to pieces amongst those who contend for it. They scent their hands in her hair, scrape off her cosmetics; entreat some spittle, which they will carefully spread over their faces. Thereupon the multitude withdraws, leaving the new Goddess firmly fastened to the stake, her throne, her column of glory; they leave her alone, hungry, trembling, naked, in the chill of night, amid the terrors of the forest, to await the horrible tragedy of the morrow. What a vigil! The new daughter of the Gods is deemed to be in intimate converse with great Tari, who has become her mother and patron. The immense solitude, the frightful silence, broken only by the mewing of the tiger, the yells of wild beasts, the mysterious voices of the forest uttering words unknown, what have these to say to the poor child? What answer has she to give to the eternal constellations, gazing down upon her with their steady eyes, to the twinkling stars that sign to her: To-morrow thou shalt be one of us?
In the morning, the whole village returns to make an end. Music, uproar; fifes, gongs, little bells; deafening shrieks and screams. They intoxicate themselves with noise and tumult, like the Bacchantes of old ; as at the Mysteries of Eleusis, "they eat of the tambourine, they drink of the cymbal." For there are things to which men could never make up their minds, had they not drowned reason in drunkenness, and deadened every tender feeling in riotous excitement; did not each mean to say: "It is not my fault!" Then the crowd alone is responsible; that is, no one. The axiom, "the whole is the sum of its parts," does not apply to multitudes.
Be this as it may, the people surround the poor girl, pity her, remind one another that only yesterday she was treated as a pet, a playmate in every amusement; they recall the words, the smart replies, the touching traits of the sufferer who is struggling in her bonds: "See how she cries! Shall you have the courage to kill her  How merry she was, how she loved to sing, how fond she was of laughing! You know that she was your boy's sweetheart? She thought she should bring you a grandson." More than one honest paterfamilias, who would be in despair if the unfortunate girl should escape, weeps, is moved to pity, as much or more than the rest ; he thereby is enabled to shed some exquisitely sweet tears, and cause other kindly souls to shed them also, and, what is far more, to make the meriah sob, which is a good omen! We are not told that the victim bound to the stake was ever delivered. The dramatic instinct is in-born in us, the coarsest and most brutal feel now and again the need to pity; an unexceptionable proof that they are charitable and sensitive. And then it must not be forgotten that the luckless girl is already a Goddess. If she bursts into tears, the clouds will shed beneficent showers upon the fields; her breast, heaving with sighs, shaken with sobs, will communicate life to the seeds sown, fertility to the soil.
When the emotion is at its height, the officiating priest gives the signal; the multitude grows calm, and ranges itself around in an orderly manner. The divine spirit enters into the priest and inspires him, causes him to tell of the origin of the sacred institution:
"In the beginning was the Earth a formless mass of mud, and could not have borne the dwelling of a man, or even his weight; in this liquid and ever-moving slime neither tree nor herb took root.
"Then God said: Spill human blood before my face! And they sacrificed a child before Him. ... Falling upon the soil, the bloody drops stiffened and consolidated it."
This is a somewhat general belief. Several Indian Rajahs have been known to shed human blood upon the foundations of public edifices; but the illustrious Shah Djihan was content to slaughter animals upon the first stone of Delhi. Burmah rocked under foot, until Rani Attah solidified it by a sacrifice. A connected idea: Erin, the Isle of Saints, emerged from the waves every seventh year and then sunk again, until an angel threw a piece of iron on it to keep it steady. The two rocks which were to be the foundation of Tyr, floated hither and thither, until they had been sprinkled with blood: "Beneath the libations of sacred blood the wandering hills took root in the waves, and on these rocks, henceforth immovable, the sons of earth raised Tyr, the large-breasted city."'
The Negroes also made the like discovery for themselves. The Grand Jagga had a man beheaded upon the spot which his palace was to occupy; he walked through the gushing blood towards the points of the compass, then gave the first blow with the pick-axe.
Doubtless this belief was based upon the more or less perspicuous observation, that in zoology the formation of the skeleton generally coincides with the appearance of red blood, the agglutinous properties of which have been remarked. It was concluded that the sprinkling of blood gives consistency to mud, and also to flesh, clay of another sort. In the old days, blood cost so little! ... But let us return to our text.
"And by the virtues of the blood shed, the seeds began to sprout, the plants to grow, the animals to propagate.
"And God commanded that the earth should be watered with blood every new season, to keep her firm and solid. And this has been done by every generation that has preceded us.
"One day, Tari, seated upon a stone, was eating apples. And behold as she peeled them, the goddess cut her finger, and the blood dripped upon the soil, and moistened the arid ground. And forthwith, from every tiniest drop sprang up rice-plants, and the country began to bloom."
"Tari gazed long upon that rice, so thick, so green. She understood how great were the virtues of blood. If but a few drops had caused this plenty, what fertility would not flow from her veins wide opened! Then thought Tari to offer herself as a sacrifice. Tari came forward, and held up her brow to the knife, saying: "Behold me, I am the meriah, I come to be immolated."'
"The Gods and men answered: 'Thou sayest well, thou doest well, O Tari Pennou! But if we immolate thee once for all, the virtue of thy sacrifice will grow weaker day by day. It will be better to sacrifice thee every year, and each time that there shall be need.
"'For this cause, O Pennou, shall thou enter into the bodies of meriahs at the season of seed-time, or when evil spirits shall lay waste the earth, puffing forth the empoisoned winds of drought, the miasms of sterility and pestilence. Then shall thou be sacrificed for the good of all.'
"And the thing was agreed upon between Tari, the Gods, and men. Since, O Khonds, has it been ever thus.
"Wherefore, then, O people, do ye lament? And thou, meriah, why dost thou scream, why dost thou sob? This is no fault of thine or ours, or of the kinsfolk who sold thee. Thou hast been bought, thou hast been paid for. By our labour and the sweat of our brow have we acquired thy person, therefore have we not sinned against thee. A sacrifice is needful thou, he, she, what mailer? The lot has fallen upon thee, Fate has pronounced judgment. When fresh harvests must be borne by the weary and exhausted earth, how shall her strength be restored if not by blood? Give thine, give it as Pennou gave hers, without faltering!"
Let us introduce a parenthesis. Whether the aborigines have borrowed this portion of their worship from the Hindoos, or whether the two religions are alike in nature and origin, it is incontestable that the Khond theory of sacrifice is identical with that developed in the Bhagavat-Gita:
"Together with man, the Creator created sacrifice, saying: It is by virtue of sacrifice that you shall propagate yourselves. Men! sacrifice shall be your cow of plenty. By it ye shall make the Gods live, and the Gods shall make you live. And by thus causing one another to live, ye shall enjoy a happy existence. But whoso eats, without giving to the Immortals a share of the victuals which spring from them, is no better than a robber. Those who are honest and upright think first of the Gods, and afterwards of themselves. By caring for naught but the belly, men swallow down sin. There is no life but such as proceeds from food, and food is derived from the rains caused by sacrifice.'"
Brahma is the "imperishable sacrifice"; Indra, Soma, Hari, and the other gods, became incarnate in animals to the sole end that they might be immolated. Purusha, the Universal Being, caused himself to be slain by the Immortals, and from his substance were born the birds of the air, wild and domestic animals, the offerings of butter and curds. The world, declared the Rishis, is a series of sacrifices disclosing other sacrifices. To stop them would be to suspend the life of Nature. Siva, to whom the Tipperahs of Bengal are supposed to have sacrificed as many as a thousand human victims a year, said to the Brahmins: "It is I that am the actual offering; it is I that you butcher upon my altars."
And the Hindoo religion is in agreement with all religions that have been self-conscious. Quetzalcoatl (if space allowed, we might comment upon the multiplied and astonishing resemblances between the symbolism of Mexican sacrifices and those of the meriahs), Quetzalcoatl pricked his elbows and fingers so as to draw blood, which he offered up on his own altar. For nine days and nine nights the Scandinavian deity Odin was, in Odin's honour, hanged upon a tree shaken by the winds:
"I know I was hanged upon the tree shaken by the winds for nine long nights. I was transfixed by a spear; I was vowed to Odin, myself to myself."
Even at the present day, the prophet Elijah, invisible upon Mount Moriah, continues to send up the smoke of holocausts as a sweet savour to the Eternal: "For were it not for the perpetual sacrifice, the world could not subsist," say the Rabbis. Philo of Byblos relates the myth of Belus the Elder offering up his son Belus the Younger. Belus sacrificing Belus became the precursor of the Eternal Jehovah. But let us resume the thread of our liturgy:
"All living things suffer, and thou, wouldest thou be exempt from the common anguish? Know that blood is needful to give life to the world, and to the Gods; blood to sustain the whole creation and to perpetuate the species. Were not blood spilt, neither peoples nor nations nor kingdoms could remain in existence. Thy blood poured forth, O Meriah! will slake the thirst of the Earth; she will be animated with fresh vigour.
"In thee has Pennou been born again to suffer; but thou, Goddess in thy turn, shall be born again into her glory. Then, Meriah, remember thy Khond people, remember the village where we reared thee, where we cared for thee!
"O Tari Meriah! deliver us from the tiger, deliver us from the snake! O Pennou Meriah! grant that which our soul desireth!"
And then each begins to explain what he has most at heart Scarcely are the invocations at an end, before the djanni seizes his hatchet and approaches the meriah. She must not die in her bonds, since she dies voluntarily, of her own free will, as they say. He loosens her from the stake, stupefies her, by making her gulp down a potion of opium and datura, then breaks her elbows and knees with the back of the hatchet.
Though obviously the same at bottom, the ritual varied as to the details of execution. Most districts had their special methods. The divinity feasted bore divers names. Some invoked the Earth, others the Sun; and in this latter case, three men, at least, were immolated, placed in a line from east to
west. Victims were stoned, beaten to death with tomahawks or heavy iron rings bought on purpose ; they were strangled, they were crushed between two planks ; they were drowned in a pool in the jungle, or in a trough filled with pigs' blood. A method to suit every taste. Here a large dose of some
narcotic was administered to shorten suffering; there, on the contrary, the desire was to increase it, on the pretext that the more painful the sacrifice, the more efficacious it would be. Sometimes the victim was slowly roasted, a torment chosen as the most cruel of any; sometimes she was despatched by a blow to the heart, and the priest plunged a wooden image into the gaping wound, that the mannikin might be gorged with blood. Elsewhere the meriah was fastened to the stake by her hair, four men dragged her legs apart and extended her arms in a cross, and the djanni cut off her head; or else, seizing her by her four limbs, they held her in a horizontal position, her face towards the sun; the priest pronounced a short prayer, and severed her neck, which dripped into a hole, the blood flowing in streams into the Chthonic Goddess. Others made use of a more complicated process: to cause the victim to fall head foremost into the pit they suspended her over the opening by heels and neck. That she might not be strangled, she instinctively clutched the sides of the trench with her hands, and the priest with his carving knife set about slashing her ankles, thighs, and back; at the seventh stroke he cut off her head. When the thing was done, he thrust the red and sticky iron into the stake and left it there until the next sacrifice. After the third execution, the blade had deserved well of the people; they came in great pomp to unfasten it, and take it to retire upon its laurels in a temple. There was yet another method. The djanni forced the sufferer's head into a cleft bamboo, the two halves of which were drawn together with a cord by an assistant. The crowd had only been waiting for this moment; with drunken shouts and savage yells, they rushed upon the quarry, and each set to work with nails and knife; all tore off a Strip of palpitating flesh, all helped to mangle and dismember.
The use of a cutlass, it should be observed, is already evidence of a certain mollification in manners, for many sacrificial offerings were torn to pieces; witness the living goat mangled in the mysteries of Bacchus Zagreus. Anciently it was a man who was rent into fragments upon the altar of Dionysus Omostes, Dionysus the Raw-Eater.
Tari, worthy kinswoman of Moloch and other "gods of blood," is not the only one of her kind amongst the Khond divinities. A crowd of other genii from the air, from the earth, from under the earth, need blood, much blood. If they are not gorged with it, the soil will remain arid and unfertile; neither rain nor sun will appear in due season.
Our ancestors the Kelts also had their meriahs; they bought slaves, treated them liberally, and when the year had run its course, led them with great pomp to the sacrifice. Each twelve months the Scythian tribe of the Albanes fattened a hetaira and killed her with spear thrusts before the altar of Artemis. When the fitting moment returned, hierodules, who had been fed with dainty meats, were sacrificed to the Syrian Goddess. "The spirits of the Earth thirst for blood," said Athenagorus. At the Thargelia.the Athenians splendidly adorned a man and woman, who had been entertained at the expense of the State, and led them forth in procession to be burnt at the confines of the open country. At the festivals of Patrae in Achaia, wild beasts were thrown upon a flaming pile; amongst the Tyrians, sheep and goats; the worship of Demeter and that of Moloch are scarcely distinguishable from each other.
"Mos fait in populis, quos condidit ad vena Dido,
Poscere cxde Deos veniam, ac flagrantibus aris,
Infandum dictu, parvos imponere natos;
Urna reduce bat tniserandos annua cams!"
Let us pass over the horrors of Carthage, repeated at Upsala by the Scandinavians, at Riigen and Romova by the ancient Slavs. Until quite lately, the people of Ispahan celebrated the "Feast of the Camel," or "Of the Sacrifice of Abraham;" note the synonym. The high-priest of Mecca sent an adopted son of his own, mounted upon a consecrated camel. This animal was led in great pomp through the town; at a given moment the king let fly an arrow against its side. In a trice the poor beast was struck down, hewed in pieces, cut in slices, torn to bits, carried off and distributed far and near; every one wanted some of him, were it but the tiniest fragment, to put into a great pot of rice. The Ghiliaks, and also the Ai'nos, adopt a bear cub, pet and fondle it, treat it like a spoilt child, until a moment comes when they contend for pieces of its flesh. Contemporary negroes do not consider the puny results of their agriculture are over-dearly bought by impaling or decapitating young maidens magnificently decked out, being persuaded that blood is needed to attract the rain. The Red-skins profess the same dogma. Thus the Pawnees kill a captive from the Sioux, inflicting horrible torments upon him, and sprinkling the bean and pumpkin fields with his blood. The Wolves offer up a virgin to the Genius of Maize. In Mexico and Nicaragua the victim, before being slain, received more than royal honours, for it was desired that he should represent the divinity causing himself to be immolated for the good of all men. We are not told that his flesh was buried in the fields, but his heart, the fountain of blood, was the perquisite of chiefs and priests. These examples may suffice.
Of the meriah who has been hacked and torn to pieces, the djannis leave nothing but the entrails and the head, and the latter is generally denuded of its hair. But birds and jackals have not long to pick and gnaw, for on the morrow entrails, skull, and skeleton are burnt, together with a ram. The ashes, gathered up with care and some solemnity, are given to the winds, that they may be disseminated throughout the country; in some places they are mingled with corn and seeds which it is desired to protect from the attacks of insects. These ashes 1 possess all the properties of the living flesh, all the virtues of the blood which gives to rice, wheat, and millet the faculty to maintain and sustain life. Were it not for their action, the indigo could not acquire its beautiful blue colour, the camphor would not be deposited in the stem of the camphor-tree. Were they not smeared upon the threshold, houses and granaries would be invaded by the spirits of fever, pestilence, and famine.
The murderers contend for the remains of the victim, that they may bury them at once in their gardens, or hang them on a pole above the stream which waters their fields, for after sun-down the sacrificial flesh has lost its efficacy. The villages which have clubbed together for the sacrifice, organise relays, and perform miracles of speed. It is no matter whether a cultivator buries the whole corpse in his enclosure, or only the end of a little finger, the effect is the same. Upon this fundamental dogma djanni and Christian theology coincide. The divine flesh works by quality and not by quantity; it acts by its nature, and not by its bulk; it is not a manure to be spread by the cart-load, but a luminous point shining far and wide. Chthonism or Catholicism, the mystery is formulated in identical terms: the Supreme Being becomes incarnate, that he may communicate of his substance to the faithful who eat him. Tari transmits her fertility to the soil by the mediation of the meriah. The activity of the flesh made divine ceases at the limits of the consecrated property, and never passes those limits. The devotees of Christ are denied the ability to communicate by proxy. In the same way, when a Khond proprietor would make his furrows fruitful by means of a shred of sanctified flesh, he cannot get a friend or neighbour to supply him. The first to strike the incarnate Tari, the foremost to open those fertilising veins, to cut into the muscles which contain life, seizes upon the most delicious mouthful, the crowning slice. No cultivator but longs to be served before the others, but all dare not risk the dangerous privilege. For you must know that the first to use his knife is, as it were, magnetised by the divine contact. If he were slain immediately, his body also would communicate fertility to the fields. Consequently each village makes choice of a skilful and sturdy champion, wrapped in several folds of cloth, and thus iron-proof. Whilst he is striving to get the first bite out of the meriah, his friends keep watch that he himself receives no hurt.
It would seem as if the Khonds must be desirous to pour blood, endowed with such precious qualities, down their own throats rather than to sprinkle it over their fields. Thus the Komis of Arracan riddle a bull, tied to a stake, with arrows, and men, women, and children suck the blood flowing from the wounds. But in the Khond race feeling has conquered logic, and they are willing to content themselves with the blood of sheep or buffaloes, butchered in the name of Tari, to cure diverse sicknesses, such as madness and demoniac possession. When they make appeal to the ordeal or judgment of God, some rice is soaked in this blood, and the perjurer who tastes it falls dead, slain by the Goddess on the spot. For a long while these bloody rites were only known to the civilised inhabitants of the surrounding country by vague rumours. It was only in 1836 that Russell, a witness of these atrocities, officially informed the Directorate of the East India Company about them. But how was the monstrous custom to be abolished?
Originally the people of the plain had themselves offered up meriahs to the agricultural divinities; but civilisation, as it crept up the courses of the rivers, slowly drove this cruel practice before it At the beginning of the century, the Southern Khonds had already forsaken it, whilst the highlands remained unshaken in their orthodoxy. Each of the two camps hoisted the standard of one of the divine pair. The abolitionists held out for Boura, the Sun, the Supreme Creator. They declared him to be in a huff with his spouse, and indeed the whole feminine sex, who, it appeared, had brought evil and sin into the world. The conservatives, on the contrary, took the side of the Earth, the Universal Mother, and taught that the shedding of meriah blood was needful for the consolidation of the body politic, was the cause of their own tribal association, and even of the existence of foreign nations and all human society. The discussion grew warm, the rivalry became more pronounced, the southern kindred began to loathe the customs of their ancestors. He who had been present at one of these butcheries was looked upon as contaminated by the bloody effluvia; he would have endangered his life had he shown himself until seven days were past and gone. The Solarians, zealots for Boura, would not strike a spade into the ground during the five or six days preceding the full moon in December, this being the period at which the Demetrians were interring the meriah flesh. They even posted sentinels on the frontier, to hinder a foeman from soiling their land by bringing a fragment of the poisonous substance there. The Sun-God would not have pardoned this desecration of a country he had made his own ; he would have avenged himself by terrible plagues. And there was a contingency no less dangerous ; the demons and inferior deities might get a taste for this food, and no longer care for any other:
"At Cattingya we have a jungle well stocked with game, in consequence of the saline efflorescence there, of which all animals are fond. Lo and behold, a rival tribe, to play us a trick, bury some carrion there. ... Ever since, there has been no venison except for the hunters of Gourdapour, whilst we from Cattingya always return empty-handed. Why? Because the demons favour those who have given them a taste for human flesh!"
Here, too, would it have been well to say, "Let it alone, let it go?" Would it have been well to wait until the waxing civilisation, which had already suppressed meriahs in the south, should also suppress them in the north? That would have meant to wait patiently for centuries, or at least for two or three generations. The English Government, which directly intervened in so many less important matters, understood that they must here act a sovereign's part. Nothing could be easier in theory than to forbid human sacrifices, by a mandate for which good reasons were assigned. But it was very shortly recognised that before the Company could here have the last word, they would be obliged to break up the civil and political organisation, and possibly to destroy a portion of the people; in any case, to set out upon a succession of massacres and summary executions, the end of which it was difficult to foresee. The cure would have been worse than the disease. For some time the East India Council cautiously felt their way. The first systematic act, inspired by Macpherson, was the official recognition of these scattered tribes. They were made to understand that the Calcutta Administration had constituted itself their centre, and federated them under, its presidency, declaring that in future it would take cognisance of their principal affairs, their quarrels and differences. For once, the central authority showed itself as benevolent as resolute and prudent, and understood that a regulation stuck on the point of a bayonet would not suffice to suppress a religion. Troops were sent, commanded by intelligent officers and good men; such are to be found when they are sought for in earnest. Amongst these picked men we must give a first place to Macpherson and Campbell, Taylor, Russell, Ricketts, Mac Vicar, and Frye, who during the years 1848-1852 were at work in the most ill-famed districts.
Fulfilling their truly civilising mission with tact, the expedition avoided both bustle and brutality. They requisitioned the victims designed for future sacrifice, and set them free by fifties and hundreds. Although sufficiently numerous to crush any resistance that might have been offered, the troop was careful to avoid collisions; which did not hinder it from occasionally having to show its teeth and make its way by main force. Generally, the officer summoned the caciques, and explained to them what he required and why, not letting them go until they had sworn: "May the earth refuse me her fruits, may rice choke me, may water submerge me, may the tiger devour me and my children, if I violate the engagement I take upon myself and my people to renounce the sacrifice of human beings!"
After they had taken the oath, there was no need for further disquietude, for the Khonds are men of their word. As a precautionary measure the age, name, and number of all the children were registered, especially the poussiah progeny, serfs or slaves, who might have been substituted for the titular meriahs. The British announced that they should come in following years to make inquiries. To set the Khond consciences at rest, Campbell cheerfully agreed that the Government and all its functionaries should be declared responsible before heaven and earth for the cessation of the sacrifices; he took a solemn oath by which the wrath of all the gods and goddesses was diverted upon his own head. Only, to show himself more powerful than their Olympus, he laid hands one day upon some idols, reputed the most terrible of all, and had them trampled, as malefactors, beneath the feet of his baggage elephants.
The last act, and by no means the easiest, was to reassure the meriahs. For some few who, pale and trembling, took refuge in his camp, dragging the end of a chain, or bearing the marks of irons on their wrists and ankles, significant foretastes of the martyrdom in preparation, there were a far greater number of victims who fled their liberators and hid themselves behind the murderers. They had been led to believe that the foreigner was reserving them for more horrible torments than immolation to Tari; reserving them to be tortured, that their blood, shed drop by drop, might bring back the water to the dried-up pools of the plains; to be devoured by the sacred tigers, which the Queen of the Indies probably kept. They could not recover from their astonishment when they were declared free to go or stay. Some were placed with young chiefs or ambitious personages, with a tacit engagement that the Government would show favour to their husbands. Those put into the missionary schools were married to Protestant converts; but it was noticed that they did not come to very much good; their instructors reproached them with being capricious and insubordinate, idle and greedy. Some have been known to take to flight and return to their own villages, declaring that it was insupportable to them to dwell with strangers, and that they preferred to be butchered by their own kindred. Is it to be believed that certain ambitious girls were vexed, and regretted the glorious chance they had had of becoming goddesses? A number of meriahs were already wives and mothers. The idea that they must forsake their families drove them to despair; but it was given out that the union of each of them with her lover should be declared a valid marriage. Directly this decision was arrived at, several, who had concealed themselves, suddenly made their appearance. The prospect of being immolated, sooner or later, terrified them less than the certainty of being immediately taken away from their surroundings and their afflictions.
Poor creatures, who resigned themselves to a horrible death that they might enjoy love and maternity for a while! They had accepted their own sacrifice, being themselves convinced that their immolation would be really salutary, and that their blood would spring up again in blessings for the community.
As for the djannis and patours, they were disturbed, but not convinced; they would gladly have resisted to the end, but what reply was possible to the powerful arguments of cannon and muskets ? It was sufficiently plain that Loha, the Sun, that Boura, the Lord of Hosts, were not of a stature to strive with an English colonel. Thus it became needful to yield.
To yield or rather to come to terms. For religion, even amongst savages, never owns itself beaten. The Church shows the most pacific disposition, the most conciliatory temper, directly she encounters folks who are prepared to take a decided course ; under such circumstances, she is admirable at a compromise, ingenious in finding means of accommodation with heaven. To the violent she shows the treasures of her indulgence, lets them take heaven by storm; but to those whom she suspects of weakness, her arrogance knows no bounds; to the vanquished she has never known pity.
When they saw themselves driven back by gunners and carabineers, the Khond theologians made the opportune discovery that Tari had recommended, but by no means commanded, that human victims should be brought to her, and that other offerings, apes, monkeys, or wild pigs, would suit her almost as well At the right moment, they perceived that meriah flesh is superior to other flesh relatively but not absolutely; that a man's head is worth more than a dozen bovine heads, but less than a hundred. Thus it was possible to come to an agreement.
For a long while the immolation of a person was the supreme net of religions, the grand method of purchasing the favour of the celestial or infernal powers, so far as these two can be distinguished. But as knowledge waxed, faith waned. Pity came into play. The cultivator discovered that to obtain rain in due season, it was little matter whether he shed the blood of a child or a lamb upon the altar of the cloud-god; and henceforward he preferred to sacrifice the young of a sheep rather than his own son. He was, however, far as yet from suspecting that, blood or no blood, it would rain neither more nor less. The representatives of the deity were forced to make up their minds to the unseasonable discovery, and accept the modifications it imposed. Alas, they resigned themselves, not being able to do otherwise! Directly a priest accepted a bull, directly he allowed rams to be given in the stead of a man, fiction was substituted for reality, orthodoxy began to vanish into nothingness. Substitutions, continually growing bolder, marked the decline and measured the degeneracy of the dogma. The Gods by allowing themselves to be haggled with, found themselves diddled and tricked; their portion was pared down to a shaving. When the Hindoo Gods were still akin to Tari and Loha, meriahs, many meriahs, were sacrificed to them also; but in time the man was replaced by a horse, the horse by a bull, the bull by a ram, the ram by a kid, the kid by fowls, the fowls by flowers, many flowers. "Too many flowers!" exclaimed Calchas. Formerly a magnificent banquet was served to Porusha Medha, a hundred and twenty-five persons, not one less; men and women, boys and girls in the flower of their age. But reform supervened; and now the victims were bound as before to the stake, but afterwards, amid litanies to the immolated Narayana, the sacrificing priest brandished a knife and severed the bonds of the captives; then served the dainty-bred god with what? A meagre repast of melted butter! Thus the Persians came to present to the Genius of Fire, not the covenanted bull, but a hair, one single hair, shown from afar off. The Slavs substituted an offering of mere toys, and some scent, for butcheries of men. The Chinese, who are always ingenious, reduced paper dolls to ashes. Likewise the Romans, having engaged to furnish Tiber with a yearly feast of thirty men, supplied him with so many mannikins of osier. They had promised hinds, which they came to replace by ewes, clearly specifying that these ewes were called " hinds." Elsewhere, instead of human heads, cocoa-nuts, or heads of garlic or poppy, were stuck on spears.']

[105] [Gen. 2:7. 'And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.']

[106] [Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 416. 'Leaving here they proceeded to Poara, where they performed Ariltha and made Engwura, and where they also found a number of women of the Kakwa (hawk) totem, all of whom were Purula and some of whom were called Illapurinja. These women had a Nurtunja and sacred ceremonies which they showed to the Achilpa men. The old leader of the latter had intercourse with a great number of the women, many of the younger ones dying in consequence. The Urliara, that is the fully initiated men who had been through the Engwura, were also allowed access to them. Leaving behind several men of the Kumara and Purula classes the men, being ashamed of their excesses, started before daylight and travelled on to Irpungarthra, a water-hole on a creek running northwards. Here they camped and found a Purula woman of the Arawa totem. She had no Nurtunja but was in possession of several wooden Churinga which she hid away on the approach of the party. Here they made quabara undattha, which the woman was allowed to see, and afterwards Ariltha was performed upon some members of the party.']

[107] [Ibid., p. 315. 'The plum tree Ulpmerka men had, so says tradition, only two women amongst them, who both belonged to the bandicoot totem, and had joined the Ulmerka party after wandering alone for some time over the country. At first they were considerably alarmed at the Ulpmerka men, but the latter made a large Nurtunja, and after the women had been shown this, then, for some reason, they were no longer afraid.']

[108] [Ibid., p. 315. 'The younger woman was then gorgeously decorated with down, a small, bluntly conical Nurtunja was placed on her head, and the men then danced round her shouting, "wah! wah!" Then she was taken and laid down by the side of the large Nurtunja, which was fixed upright in the ground, and the operation of atna ariltha-kuma, the equivalent ceremony to that of pura ariltha-kuma as practised upon the men, was performed by means of a large stone knife, after which all the men had access to her.']

[109] [Ibid., p. 315. 'The two women were then taken to the camp of the Kukaitcha, who was the headman of the local Ulpmerka men, and who claimed the women as his own, but allowed the others to have access occasionally to the woman who had been operated upon as just described.']

[110] [Ibid., p. 403. 'As they journeyed on they passed Unchiperawartna, but did not see two women of the opossum totem who lived there, and then they reached a place now called Aurapuncha.']

[111] [Ibid., p. 404. 'The two parties joined forces, and when they had performed quabara undattha they left two men behind and proceeded to Urangunja, where they found two women of the Urpura totem (magpie) who had a Nurtunja and owned certain ceremonies which they showed to the men.']

[112] [Ibid., p. 436. 'Two women of the Unjiamba [Hakea] totem, named respectively Abmoara and Kuperta, sprang up at Ungwuranunga, about thirty-five miles north of Alice Springs, where they had a Nurtunja and Churinga, and dwelt alongside their Ertnatulunga.']

[113] [Ibid., p. 464. 'Near to Stuart's Hole, on the Finke River, there is a red ochre pit which has evidently been used for a long time; and tradition says that in the Alcheringa two kangaroo women came from Ilpilla, and at this spot caused blood to flow from the vulva in large quantities, and so formed the deposit of red ochre.']

[114] [Ibid., p. 149. 'Figure E. represents one side of the Churinga nanja of the elder of the two women who accompanied the Ulpmirka men of the Ukakia or plum-tree totem (Santalum sp.) in the Alcheringa, and were taken away to the north by a celebrated individual called Kukaitcha.']

[115] [Ibid., p. 122. 'The principal traditions with regard to the Unjiamba or Hakea flower totem refer to the wanderings of certain women. In one account, two women of this totem are described as coming from a place about 35 miles to the north of Alice Springs, where they had a sacred pole or Nurtunja.']

[116] [Source.]

[117] [Howitt, 'Australian Ceremonies of Initiation', JAI, vol. 13.]

[118] [Ibid.]

[119] [Ibid.]

[120] [Pierret, Pantheon, p. 28.]

[121] [Lilith, according to rabbincal interpretations and traditions, was the first wife of Adam, and was believed to be responsible for stealing his seed and creating mutations of men. The occult explanation is that she is a succubus and causes nocturnal emissions in young men whilst sleeping.]

[122] [Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 421.'The intermarrying halves stood in the relationship of Unawa to each other, this term being a reciprocal one, while the other halves were Unkulla to each other. Thus if we take the case of a Panunga man, under the old system all Purula women were eligible to him as wives, but under the new one only half of the Purula were Unawa to him, and half were Unkulla; with the former, or rather with those of them assigned to him, he might have marital relations, but the latter were strictly forbidden to him.']

[123] [Ibid., p. 55. 'The fundamental feature in the organisation of the Central Australian, as in that of other Australian tribes, is the division of the tribe into two exogamous inter-marrying groups. These two divisions may become further broken up, but even when more than two are now present we can still recognise their former existence.']

[124] [Ibid., p. 60. 'The whole tribe is divided up into two exogamous intermarrying classes, which are respectively called Matthurie and Kirarawa, and the members of each of these again are divided into a series of totemic groups, for which the native name is Thunthunnie. A Matthurie man must marry a Kirarawa woman, and not only this, but a man of one totem must marry a woman of another totem, certain totems being confined to each of the exogamous classes. Thus a dingo marries a waterhen, a cicada a crow, an emu a rat, a wild turkey a cloud, a swan a pelican, and so on.']

[125] [Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, p. 53.]

[126] [Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 93. 'When a girl arrives at marriageable age, which is usually about fourteen or fifteen, the man to whom she has been allotted speaks to his Unkulla men, and they, together with men who are Unkulla and Unawa to the girl, but not including her future husband, take her out into the bush and there perform the operation called Atna-ariltha-kuma (atna, vulva; kuma, cut). The operation is conducted with a stone knife and the operator who is, except in the southern Arunta, a man who is Ipmunna to the girl, carries with him one of the small wooden Churinga called Namatwinna with which before operating he touches the lips of the vulva, so as to prevent too great a loss of blood. When the operation has been performed, the Ipmunna, Unkulla and Unawa have access to her in the order named. This ceremony is often performed during the progress of an Altherta or ordinary corrobboree when, during the day time, the men habitually assemble at the corrobboree ground. When it is over the woman's head is decorated, by the Ipmunna man who operated, with head bands and tufts of Alpita, the neck with necklaces, the arms with bands of fur string, and her body is painted all over with a mixture of fat and red ochre. Thus decorated, she is taken to the camp of her special Unawa by the men who have taken part in the ceremony and who have meanwhile painted themselves with charcoal. On the day following the husband will most likely—though there is no obligation for him to do so—send her to the same men, and after that she becomes his special wife, to whom no one else has right of access; though at times a man will lend his wife to a stranger as an act of courtesy, always provided that he belongs to the right class, that is, to the same as himself. After wearing the decorations for a few days, the woman returns them to her Ipmunna man.']

[127]  [Ibid., p. 627. 'In a large number of the ceremonies we meet with a very important ceremonial object which has already been referred to, and is called a Nurtunja. In certain others we meet with an equally important object, which is called a Waninga. The Nurtunja is typical of the northern, and the Waninga of the southern, part of the Arunta tribe. There are various forms of the Nurtunja, the principal ones of which are represented in the figures illustrating the Engwura ceremony. The most usual form is made of from one to twenty spears; round these, first of all, long grass stalks are bound by means of the hair-girdles of the men, and then rings of down are added, and perhaps, but not always, a few Churinga will be suspended at intervals. The top is almost always decorated with a large tuft of eagle-hawk feathers. More rarely the down, instead of being in rings, will be fixed on in long lines running parallel to the length of the Nurtunja, or, as in one case, there may be rings at intervals, and between these there will be longitudinal lines of down. Occasionally from the top end of a large Nurtunja a small second one will hang pendent; at other times the Nurtunja may be in the form of a cross or it may be T-shaped. At times, again, it may have the appearance of a torpedo resting on the head, or, finally, it may be in the form of a huge helmet firmly attached to the head, and of various shapes, according to what it is supposed to represent. This form (Fig. 61) differs from all the others in the fact that one end of the Nurtunja is actually continuous with the head-dress, instead of being, as in all other cases, a structure independent of the head-dress and affixed after the completion of this.']

[128] [Source.]

[129] [Bailey, 'The Veddahs,' in TES, n.s. 2.]

[130] [Source.]

[131] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch. ?]

[132] [Howitt and Fison, 'Mother-right to Father-right,' JAS, Feb. 7, 21, 1882.]

[133] [J. F. Watson and J. W. Kaye, The People of India, vol. 1, p. 2. 'Among the Sonthals, one of the aboriginal Indian tribes, the marriages take place once a year, mostly in January. For six days all the candidates for matrimony live together; after which only are the separate couples regarded as having established their right to marry.' This work is edited by Watson and Kaye, under P. M. Taylor. From Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, notes, p. 537.]

[134] [Book of Baruch, 6:43.]

[135] [Source.]

[136] [What is Property?, p. 12. 'Property is robbery! ... What a revolution in human ideas! Proprietor and robber have been at all times expressions as contradictory as the beings whom they designate are hostile; all languages have perpetuated this opposition. On what authority, then, do you venture to attack universal consent, and give the lie to the human race? Who are you, that you should question the judgment of the nations and the ages?']

[137] [Ross, Second Voyage. 'Chastity is no Esquimaux virtue. When a certain south wind blows every woman is out on the loose. Each knows a hut where the good man is at home and the goodwife on the prowl. Thus on the spot where the human race begins does the institution of matrimony make its first appearance; adultery is a daily escapade, and on this point a husband never picks a quarrel with his better half. There is one condition however, namely, that the wife seek her pleasure with another husband, to whom the husband would willingly have lent her at the faintest hint on his part. Members of the Marital Association keep running accounts and open large credits.' Quoted in Réclus, Primitive Folk, Eng. tr., p.32.]

[138] [British Central Africa, p. 415. 'Apparently the A-nyanja are less "emancipated" than the other tribes of British Central Africa. Among the A-nyanja if a man commit adultery during the pregnancy of his wife and the wife or child should die in the delivery, the wife's people gather together and demand compensation, sometimes asking for the sister of the husband. Amongst the A-nyanja also the custom prevails that if a man be caught in adultery he is obliged to get another man as a substitute to cohabit with his wife before he can return to her, and he must pay his substitute for this service four yards of cloth or an equivalent present, or else the substitute can claim and carry away the wife.']

[139] [J. Petherick, Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa.]

[140] [Spencer, Data of Sociology, p. 298. Unable to trace.]

[141] [Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, pp. 96-101. 'In each tribe, again, we find at this particular time when a woman is being, so to speak, handed over to one particular man, that special individuals representing groups with which at ordinary times she may have no intercourse, have the right of access to her. In the majority of tribes, even tribal brothers are included amongst them. The individuals who are thus privileged vary from tribe to tribe, but in all cases the striking feature is that, for the time being, the existence of what can only be described as partial promiscuity can clearly be seen. By this we do not mean that marital rights are allowed to any man, but that for a time such rights are allowed to individuals to whom at other times the woman is ekirinja, or forbidden. The ceremonies in question are of the nature of those which Sir John Lubbock has described as indicative of "expiation for marriage," and it is at least very probable that the customs are to be regarded as pointing back to the former existence of an exercise of wider marital rights than those which now obtain in the various tribes. They may in fact be best described as rudimentary customs in just the same way in which we speak of rudimentary structures amongst animals and plants. Just also as the latter are regarded as representative of parts which were once functional in ancestral forms, so also may we regard these rudimentary customs as lingering relics of a former stage passed through in the development of the present social organisation of the various tribes in which they are found.
In addition to the ceremonies which are concerned with marriage, there is another custom of somewhat the same nature, to which reference may be made here. In the eastern and north-eastern parts of the Arunta, and in the Kaitish Iliaura, and Warramunga tribes, considerable license is allowed on certain occasions, when a large number of men and women are gathered together to perform certain corrobborees. When an important one of these is held, it occupies perhaps ten days or a fortnight; and during that time the men, and especially the elder ones, but by no means exclusively these, spend the day in camp preparing decorations to be used during the evening. Every day two or three women are told off to attend at the corrobboree ground, and, with the exception of men who stand in the relation to them of actual father, brother, or sons, they are, for the time being, common property to all the men present on the corrobboree ground. In the Arunta tribe the following is exactly what takes place: a man goes to another who is actually or tribally his son-in-law, that is, one who stands to him in the relationship of Gammona, and says to the latter: "You will take my Unawa into the bush and bring in with you some undattha altherta" (down used for decorating during ordinary corrobborees). The Gammona then goes away, followed by the woman who has been previously told what to do by her husband. This woman is actually Mura to the Gammona, that is, one to whom under ordinary circumstances he may not even speak or go near, much less have anything like marital relations with. After the two have been out in the bush they return to the camp, the man carrying undattha and the woman following with green twigs, which the men will wear during the evening dance, tied round their arms and ankles. There will be perhaps two or three of these women present on each day, and to them any man present on the ground, except those already mentioned, may have access. During the day they sit near to the men watching but taking no part in the preparation of decorations. The natives say that their presence during the preparations and the sexual indulgence, which was a practice of the Alcheringa, prevents anything from going wrong with the performance; it makes it impossible for the head decorations, for example, to become loose and disordered during the performance. At evening the women are painted with red ochre by the men, and then they return to the main camp to summon the women and children to the corrobboree.
In connection with this subject, a curious custom concerned with messengers may be noticed here. In the case of the Urabunna tribe it is usual to send as messengers, when summoning distant groups, a man and a woman, or sometimes two pairs, who are Piraungaru to each other. The men carry as evidence of their mission bunches of cockatoo feathers and nose bones. After the men have delivered their message and talked matters over with the strangers, they take the women out a short distance from the camp, where they leave them. If the members of the group which they are visiting decide to comply with their request, all men irrespective of class have access to the women; but, if it be decided not to comply with the request, then the latter are not visited. In much the same way, when a party of men intent on vengeance comes near to the strange camp of which they intend to kill some member, the use of women may be offered to them. If they be accepted, then the quarrel is at an end, as the acceptance of this favour is a sign of friendship. To accept the favour and then not to comply with the desire of the people offering it, would be a gross breach of tribal custom.
So far, then, as the marital relations of the tribes are concerned, we find that whilst there is individual marriage, there are, in actual practice, occasions on which the relations are of a much wider nature. We have, indeed, in this respect three very distinct series of relationships. The first is the normal one, when the woman is the private property of one man, and no one without his consent can have access to her, though he may lend her privately to certain individuals who stand in one given relationship to her. The second is the wider relation in regard to particular men at the time of marriage. The third is the still wider relation which obtains on certain occasions, such as the holding of important corrobborees.
The first of these is purely a private matter, and it is only to this that the term lending of wives can be properly applied, and to it we restrict the term in the following pages. The second and third are what we may call matters of public nature, by which we mean that the individuals concerned have no choice in the matter, and the women cannot be withheld by the men whose individual wives they either are to be, or already are.
In the case of the women who attend the corrobboree, it is supposed to be the duty of every man at different times to send his wife to the ground, and the most striking feature in regard to it is that the first man who has access to her is the very one to whom, under normal conditions, she is most strictly tabu, that is, her Mura. This definite way of breaking through the rules of tabu appears to show that the custom has some very definite significance more than can be explained by merely referring it to a feeling of hospitality, and the fact that every man in turn is obliged by public custom to thus relinquish, for the time being, his possession of the woman who has been allotted to him, strengthens the idea. At the same time, as young and old men alike have to do so at some time or other, it is impossible to regard it as a right which is forcibly taken by strong men from weaker ones. It is a custom of ancient date which is sanctioned by public opinion, and to the performance of which neither men nor women concerned offer any opposition.
In connection with this, it may be worth while noting that amongst the Australian natives with whom we have come in contact, the feeling of sexual jealousy is not developed to anything like the extent to which it would appear to be in many other savage tribes. For a man to have unlawful intercourse with any woman arouses a feeling which is due not so much to jealousy as to the fact that the delinquent has infringed a tribal custom. If the intercourse has been with a woman who belongs to the class from which his wife comes, then he is called atna nylkna (which, literally translated, is vulva-thief); if with one with whom it is unlawful for him to have intercourse, then he is called iturka, the most opprobrious term in the Arunta tongue. In the one case he has merely stolen property, in the other he has offended against tribal law.
Now and again sexual jealousy as between a man and woman will come into play, but as a general rule this is a feeling which is undoubtedly subservient to that of the influence of tribal custom, so far as the latter renders it obligat