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."1

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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 Germanie 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 Expedi tion, iv. 453.

2 Wiedemann, Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, p. 63.

3 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 463. de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. book) i. 794 sqq.

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.

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

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."

CHAPTER XX

BLOOD-REVENGE AND COMPENSATION-THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH

ACCORDING to early custom, a person who takes the life of another may himself be killed by the relatives of his victim, or some other member of his family, clan, or tribe may be killed in his stead.' The custom of bloodrevenge is found among a host of existing savages and barbarians, and has long survived among many peoples who have reached a higher degree of culture.

We meet with blood-revenge in the midst of Japanese civilisation, not as a mere fact, but as a legally permitted custom. The avenger had only to observe certain prescribed formalities and regulations: there was a regular official to whom he must announce his resolve, and he must fix the time within which he would carry it out. The way in which the enemy was killed was of no importance, except that, even in ancient times, the man who had recourse to assassination was reprehensible.2 Among the Hebrews blood-revenge continued to exist during the periods of the Judges and Kings, and even later; under the Old Kingdom, says Wellhausen, "the administration of justice was at best but a scanty supplement to the practice of self-help.' It is a rule among

1 The collective responsibility usually involved in the blood-feud has been discussed supra, p. 30 sqq.

Rein, Japan, p. 326. Dautremer, The Vendetta or Legal Revenge in

"3

Japan,' in Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan, xiii. 84 sq.

3 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, p. 467.

all the Arabs that whoever sheds the blood of a man owes blood on that account to the family of the slain person.1 Says the Koran :-"O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you for the slain." In ancient Eran blood-revenge survived the establishment of tribunals.3 There is evidence left of its prevalence in early times among the Aryan population of India, though no mention. is made in the Sutras of blood-revenge as an existing custom. Among the Greeks it was only in the postHomeric age that it was given up as a fundamental principle, the avenger being transformed into an accuser.5 In Gaul and Ireland, though justice was administered by Druids or Brehons, their judgments seem to have been merely awards founded upon a submission to arbitration, the injured person being at liberty to take the law into his own hands and redress himself. In the preface to the Senchus Mór we read that retaliation prevailed in Erin before Patrick, and that Patrick brought forgiveness with him. Among the clans of Scotland, as is well known, the blood-feud has existed up to quite modern times; in the Catholic period even the Church recognised its power by leaving the right hand of male children unchristened, that it might deal the more unhallowed and deadly a blow to the enemy. In England it was at least theoretically possible down to the middle of the tenth century for a manslayer to elect to bear the feud of the kindred of the slain, instead of paying the wer; and long after the Conquest we still meet with a law against the system of

1 Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins

and Wahábys, p. 85.

2 Koran, ii. 173. Cf. ibid. xvii. 35. 3 Geiger, Civilization of the Eastern Iranians, ii. 31 sqq.

4 Leist, Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, P. 422.

5 Idem, Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte, $50 sq., especially pp. 375, 381. In Rome blood-revenge appears to have been very early suppressed. There is an echo of it in certain legends, but even in them it is re

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