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men.' But we have no right to assume that the sacrifice of an animal for the purpose of saving the life of a man is in every case a later modification of a previous human sacrifice. The idea that spirits which threaten the lives of men are appeased by other than human blood may in some instances be primary though in others it is derivative. The Moors invariably sacrifice an animal at the foundation of a new building; and though this is said to be 'âr upon the spirit owners of the place some idea of substitution seems also to be connected with the act, as they maintain. that if no animal were killed the inmates of the house would die or remain childless. A similar practice prevails in Syria, where the people believe that "every house must have its death, either man, woman, child, or animal." Among the Jews it is or has been the custom for the master of each house to kill a cock on the eve of the fast of atonement. Before doing so he strikes his head with the cock three times, saying at each stroke, "Let this cock be a commutation for me, let him be substituted for me ; and when he strangles his victim. by compressing the neck with his hand, he at the same time reflects that he himself deserves to be strangled.3 These customs can certainly not be regarded as survivals of an earlier practice of killing a human being. Moreover an animal is sometimes sacrificed for the purpose of saving the lives of other animals. Thus in a place in Scotland, in 1767, a young heifer was offered in the holy fire during a cattle-plague. And in Great Benin, in West Africa, on the anniversary of the death of Adolo, king Overami's father, not only twelve men, but twelve cows, twelve goats, twelve sheep, and twelve fowls were offered, and Overami, addressing his father, asked him to look after the "cows, goats, and fowls, and everything in the farms," as well as the people. Sacrifices which are

Supra, i. 469 sq.

2 Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, p. 224 sq.

3 Allen, Modern Judaism, p. 406. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ii.

608.

5 Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read and Dalton, Antiquities from the City of Benin, p. 6, and by Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 70 sq.

substitutional in character may or may not be intended to satisfy the material needs of supernatural beings. In some cases, as we have seen, their object is to appease a resentful god by the mere death of the victim.1

We have further noticed that, in the case of human sacrifice, the victim is occasionally regarded as a messenger between the worshippers and their god, even though the primary object of the rite be a different one." different one.2

The

The same is sometimes true of other offerings as well.3 Iroquois' sacrifice of the white dog was, according to Mr. Morgan, intended "to send up the spirit of the dog as a messenger to the Great Spirit, to announce their continued fidelity to his service, and, also, to convey to him their united thanks for the blessings of the year"; and in their thanksgiving addresses they were in the habit of throwing leaves of tobacco into the fire from time to time that their words might ascend to the dwelling of the Great Spirit in the smoke of their offerings. The Huichols of Mexico often use the arrows which they sacrifice to their gods as carriers of special prayers."

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Not only are sacrifices used as bearers of prayers, but they are also frequently offered for the purpose of transferring curses. In Morocco every siyid of any importance is constantly visited by persons who desire to invoke the saint to whom it is dedicated with a view to being cured of some illness, or being blessed with children, or getting a suitable husband or wife, or receiving help against an enemy, or deriving some other benefit from the saint. Το secure his assistance the visitor makes ‘ár upon him; and the Moorish 'ár, of which I have spoken above, implies the transference of a conditional curse, whether it be made upon an ordinary man or a saint, living or dead. The 'ar put upon a saint may consist in throwing stones upon a cairn connected with his sanctuary, or making a pile of

1 Supra, i. 438 sqq.

2 Supra, i. 455 sq.

3 Cf. Hubert and Mauss, Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice,' in L'année sociologique, ii. 106, n. I.

4 See supra, i. 53, 64.

5 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 216 sqq.

Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, ii. 205. 7 For the meaning of this word see supra, ii. 584.

8 Supra, i. 586 sq.; ii. 584 sq.

stones to him, or tying a piece of cloth at the siyid, or knotting the leaves of some palmetto or the stalks of white broom growing in its vicinity, or offering an animal sacrifice to the saint. This making of 'ar is accompanied by a promise to reward the saint if he grants the request; but the sacrifice offered in fulfilment of such a promise. (1-wa 'da) is totally distinct from that offered as 'âr. It is a genuine gift, whereas the 'ar-sacrifice is a means of constraining the saint. When an animal is killed as 'âr the usual phrase bismilläh, “In the name of God," is not used, and the animal may not be eaten, except by poor people.2 On the other hand, the animal which is sacrificed as wa'da is always killed" in the name of God," and is offered for the very purpose of being eaten by the saint's earthly representatives. Nothing can better show than the Moorish distinction between l-'ar and l-wa'da how futile it would be to try to explain every kind of sacrifice by one and the same principle. The distinction between them is fundamental: the former is a threat, the latter is a promised reward. But at the same time it is not improbable that the idea of transferring curses to a supernatural being by means of a sacrifice was originally suggested by the previous existence of sacrifice as a religious act, combined with the ascription of mysterious propensities to blood, and especially to sacrificial blood, which, according to primitive ideas, made it a most efficient conductor of curses.

1 Westermarck, 'L-‘år, or the Transference of Conditional Curses in Morocco,' in Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, p. 368 sqq.

2 However, if the siyid has a mkáddam, or regular attendant, he tries to induce the petitioner to give him the victim alive, so that he may himself kill it "in the name of God," and thus make it eatable. Then the descendants of the saint, if he has any, and the mķáddam himself, have no hesitation in eating the animal, even though it was intended by the visitor as 'ar on the saint, bismilláh being a holy word which removes the curse or evil energy

inherent in l-‘år.

3 When I have asked how it is that a saint, although invoked with l-'ar, does not always grant the request made to him, the answer has been that the saint does all that he can, but that he is not all-powerful and the failure is due to the fact that God does not listen to his prayer. But it also occurs that a person who has in vain made ‘år upon a saint goes to another siyid to complain of him. There is a general belief that saints do not help unless 'ar is made on them-an idea which is not very flattering to their character.

There are obvious indications that the 'ar-sacrifice of the Moors is not unique of its kind, but has its counterpart among certain other peoples. In ancient religions sacrifice is often supposed to exercise a constraining influence on the god to whom it is offered. We meet with this idea in Zoroastrianism,' in many of the Vedic hymns, and especially in Brahmanism. "Here," "Here," says Barth, "the rites of religion are the real deities, or at any rate they constitute together a sort of independent and superior power, before which the divine personalities disappear, and which almost holds the place allotted to destiny in other systems. The ancient belief, which is already prominent in the Hymns, that sacrifice conditionates the regular course of things, is met with here in the rank of a commonplace, and is at times accompanied with incredible details." Now, there can be little doubt that this ascription of a magic power to the sacrifice, by means of which it could control the actions of the gods, was due to the idea that it served as a conductor of imprecations; for it was invariably accompanied by a formula which was considered to possess irresistible force. In the invocation. lies the hidden energy which gives the efficacy to the sacrifice; without Brahmanaspati, the lord of prayer, sacrifice does not succeed.1 The Greeks actually offered anathemata, or curses, to their gods. The ancient Arabs, again, after killing the sacrificial animal, threw its hair on a holy tree as a curse. But so little has the true import of such sacrifices been understood even by eminent. scholars, that they have been represented as votive offerings or gifts to the deity."

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Considering that the idea of sacrifice being a conductor of imprecations has hitherto almost entirely escaped the notice of students of early religion, it is impossible to say

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how widely it prevails and whether it also occurs in the savage world. We know that the practice of cursing a god not only was familiar to the ancient nations of culture, including the Egyptians,' Hebrews, and other Semites,2 but is common among peoples like the South African Bechuanas and the Nagas of India. And that the shedding of blood is frequently applied as a means of transferring curses is suggested by various cases in which, however, the object of the imprecation is not a god but a man. We have previously noticed the reception sacrifices offered to visiting strangers, presumably for the purpose of transmitting to them conditional curses; and a very similar idea seems to underlie certain cases of oath-taking. Sometimes the oath is taken in connection with a sacrifice made to a god, and then the sanctity of the sacrificial animal naturally increases the efficacy of the self-imprecation. In other instances the oath is taken on the blood of an animal which is killed for the purpose, apparently without being sacrificed to a god. But in either case, I believe, the blood of the animal is thought not only to add supernatural energy to the oath, but to transfer, as it were, the self-imprecation to the very person who pronounces it. The Mrús, a Chittagong hill tribe, "will swear by one of their gods, to whom, at the same time, a sacrifice must be offered." Among the ancient Norsemen both the accused and the accuser grasped the holy ring kept for that purpose on the altar, stained with the blood of a sacrificial bull, and made oath by invoking Freyr, Niordr, and the almighty among the Asas. At Athens a person who charged another with murder made an oath with imprecations upon himself and his family and his house, standing upon the entrails of a boar, a ram, and a bull,

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