disappeared only when men no longer punish offenders Human beings are sacrificed not only to gods, but to From various quarters of the world we hear of the 1 See Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 2 Brooke, Ten Years in Sarawak, 3 Blumentritt, Der Ahnencultus und 4 Westermarck, op. cit. p. 125 sq. von Rowley, Africa Unveiled, p. 127. nischen Naturvölker, p. 118 sqq. Wester- Spencer, Principles of Sociology, 7 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 461. monies of the ancient Egyptians occasionally included human sacrifice at the gate of the tomb, although the practice would seem to have been exceptional, at any rate after Egypt had entered upon her period of greatness.1 It has been suggested that in China the burial of living persons with the dead dates from the darkest mist of ages, 3 and that the cases on record in the native books are of relatively modern date only because in high antiquity the custom was so common, that it did not occur to the annalists and chroniclers to set down such everyday matters as anything remarkable. In the fourteenth century of our era, the funeral sacrifice of men was abolished, even for emperors and members of the imperial family, but it has assumed a modified shape under which it still maintains itself in China. 66 Daughters, daughters-in-law, and widows especially imbued with the doctrine that they are the property of their dead parents, parents-in-law, and -husbands, and accordingly owe them the highest degree of submissive devotion, often take their lives, in order to follow them into the next world." And though it has been enacted that no official distinctions shall be awarded to such suttees, whereas honours are granted to widowed wives, concubines, and brides who, instead of destroying themselves, simply abjure matrimonial life for good, sutteeism of widows and brides still meets with the same applause as ever, and many a woman is no doubt prevailed upon, or even compelled, by her own relations, to become a suttee.1 Professor Schrader observes that "it is no longer possible to doubt that ancient Indo-Germanic custom ordained that the wife should die with her husband." It has been argued, it is true, that the burning of widows begins rather late in India; yet, though the modern ordinance of suttee- burning be a corrupt depar 1 Wiedemann, Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, p. 62 n. 2 de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 721. 3 Ibid. (vol. ii. book) i. 724. 4 Ibid. (vol. ii. book) i. 735, 754, 748. 5 Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, p. 391. 6 Hopkins, op. cit. p. 274. 3 ture from the early Brahmanic ritual, the practice seems to be, not a new invention by the later Hindu priesthood, but the revival of an ancient rite belonging originally to a period even earlier than the Veda. In the Vedic ritual there are ceremonies which obviously indicate the previous existence of such a rite. From Greece we have the instances of Evadne throwing herself into the funeral pile of her husband, and of the suicide of the three Messenian widows mentioned by Pausanias.1 Sacrifice of widows occurred, as it seems as a regular custom, among the Scandinavians, Heruli, and Slavonians." "The fact," says Mr. Ralston, "that, in Slavonic lands, a thousand years ago, widows used to destroy themselves in order to accompany their dead husbands to the world of spirits, seems to rest on incontestable evidence"; and if the dead was a man of means and distinction, he was also solaced by the sacrifice of his slaves. Funeral offerings of slaves occurred among the Teutons and the Gauls of Cæsar's time; 10 and in the Iliad we read of twelve captives being laid on the funeral pile of Patroclus.11 5 6 8 According to early notions, men require wives and servants not only during their life-time, but after their death. The surviving relatives want to satisfy their needs, out of affection or from fear of withholding from the dead what belongs to them-their wives and their slaves. The destruction of innocent life seems justified by the low social standing of the victims and their subjection to their husbands or masters. However, with advancing civilisation this sacrifice has a tendency to 7 Dithmar of Merseburg, Chronicon, viii. 2 (Pertz, Monumenta Germania historica, v. 861). Zimmer, op. cit. p. 330. 8 Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 327 sq. 9 Grimm, op. cit. p. 344. 10 Cæsar, De bello gallico, vi. 19. In the ancient annals of the Irish there is one trace of human sacrifice being offered as a funeral rite (Cusack, History of the Irish Nation, p. 115 n.*). 11 Iliad, xxiii. 175. disappear, partly, perhaps, on account of a change of ideas as regards the state after death, but chiefly, I presume, because it becomes revolting to public feelings. It then dwindles into a survival. As a probable instance of this may be mentioned a custom prevalent among the Tacullies of North America: the widow is compelled by the kinsfolk of the deceased to lie on the funeral pile where the body of her husband is placed, whilst the fire is lighting, until the heat becomes intolerable.1 In ancient Egypt little images of clay, or wood, or stone, or bronze, made in human likeness and inscribed with a certain formula, were placed within the tomb, presumably in the hopes that they would there attain to life and become the useful servants of the dead. So also the Japanese 3 and Chinese, already in early times, placed images in, or at, the tombs of their dead as substitutes for human victims; and these images have always been considered to have no less virtual existence in the next world than living servitors, wives, or concubines. In China the original immolations were, moreover, replaced by the custom of allowing the nearest relatives and slaves of the deceased simply to settle on the tomb, instead of entering it, there to sacrifice to the manes, and by prohibiting widows from remarrying.* The practice of sacrificing human beings to the dead is not exclusively based on the idea that they require servants and companions. It is extremely probable that the funeral sacrifice of men and animals in many cases involves an intention to vivify the spirits of the deceased with the warm, red sap of life. This seems to be the meaning of the Dahoman custom of pouring blood over the graves of the ancestors of the king. So, also, in Ashanti "human sacrifices are frequent and ordinary, to 1 Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedition, iv. 453 2 Wiedemann, Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, p. 63. 3 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 463. 4 de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 794 sqq. 5 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 288 sq.; Rockholz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, i. 55; Sepp, Volkerbrauch bei Hochzeit, Geburt und Tod, p. 154; Trumbull, Blood Covenant, p. ΠΟ sqq. Reade, Savage Africa, p. 51 sq. 2 water the graves of the Kings." In the German folk-tale known under the name of Faithful John,' the statue said to the King, "If you, with your own hand, cut off the heads of both your children, and sprinkle me with their blood, I shall be brought to life again." According to primitive ideas, blood is life; to receive blood is to receive life; the soul of the dead wants to live, and consequently loves blood. The shades in Hades are eager to drink the blood of Odysseus' sacrifice, that their life may be renewed for a time. And it is all the more important that the soul should get what it desires as it otherwise may come and attack the living. The belief that the bloodless shades leave their graves at night and seek renewed life by drawing the blood of the living, is prevalent in many parts of the world. As late as the eighteenth century this belief caused an epidemic of fear in Hungary, resulting in a general disinterment, and the burning or staking of the suspected bodies. It is also possible that the mutilations and self-bleedings which accompany funerals are partly practised for the purpose of refreshing the departed soul. The Samoans called it "an offering of blood" for the dead when the mourners beat their heads with stones till the blood ran.7 5 Finally, as offenders are sacrificed to gods in order to appease their wrath, so manslayers are in many cases killed in order to satisfy their victims' craving for revenge. In the next chapter we shall see that the execution of bloodrevenge largely falls under the heading of "human sacrifice for the dead.". 1 Bowdich, Mission from Cape Castle to Ashantee, p. 289. 2 Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, p. 29 sq.. sq. 3 Odyssey, xi. 153. Trumbull, Blood Covenant, p. 114 5 Farrer, Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 23 sq. Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 181 sq. 7 Turner, Nineteen Years in Poly nesia, p. 227. |