which had been sacrificed by special persons on the appointed days.' Tyndareus "sacrificed a horse and swore the suitors of Helen, making them stand on the pieces of the horse," the oath being to defend Helen and him who might be chosen to marry her if ever they should be wronged. One of the three binding forms of oath prevalent among the Sânsiya in India is to "kill a cock and pouring its blood on the ground swear over it." 3 When the Annamese swear by heaven and earth, they often kill a buffalo or he-goat and drink its blood.* Among the ancient Arabs comrades in arms swore fidelity to each other by dipping their hands in the blood of camel killed for the purpose.

6

The last mentioned case, which implies shedding of blood as a means of sealing a compact, leads us to a special class of sacrifices offered to gods, namely, the covenant sacrifice, known to us from Semitic antiquity. The Hebrews, as Professor Robertson Smith observes, thought of the national religion as constituted by a formal covenant sacrifice at Mount Sinai, where half of the blood of the sacrificed oxen was sprinkled on the altar and the other half on the people, or even by a still earlier covenant rite in which the parties were Yahve and Abraham; and the idea of sacrifice establishing a covenant between God and man is also apparent in the Psalms. In various cases recorded in the Old Testament sacrifice is accompanied by a sacrificial meal;10 "the god and his worshippers are wont to eat and drink together, and by this token their fellowship is declared

8

1 Demosthenes, Oratio(xxiii.) contra Aristocratem, 67 sq., p. 642.

2 Pausanias, iii. 20. 9. For Homeric oath sacrifices see Iliad, iii. 260 sqq. ; xix. 250 sqq.; Keller, Homeric Society, p. 176 sqq.

3 Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces, iv. 281. 4 Kohler, Rechtsvergleichende Studien, p. 208.

5 Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums, p. 128.

6 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 318 sq.

7 Exodus, xxiv. 4 sqq.
8 Genesis, xv. 8 sqq.
9 Psalms, 1. 5.

10 Genesis, xxxi. 54. Exodus, xxiv. II. 1 Samuel, xi. 15. Wellhausen says (Prolegomena to the History of Israel, p. 71) that, according to the practice of the older period, a meal was nearly always connected with a sacrifice.

and sealed." 1 Robertson Smith and his followers have represented this as an act of communion, as a sacrament in which the whole kin-the god with his clansmenunite, and in partaking of which each member renews his union with the god and with the rest of the clan. At first, we are told, the god—that is, the totem god-himself was eaten, whilst at a later stage the practice of eating the god was superseded by the practice of eating with the god. Communion still remains the core of sacrifice; and it is said that only subsequently the practice of offering gifts to the deity develops out of the sacrificial union between the worshippers and their god." But I venture to think that the whole of this theory is based upon a misunderstanding of the Semitic evidence, and that existing beliefs in Morocco throw new light upon

the covenant sacrifice.

The Moorish covenant (ahed) is closely connected with the Moorish år. Whilst l-ar is one-sided, l-'âhed is mutual, both parties transferring conditional curses to one another. And here again the transference requires a material conductor. Among the Arabs of the plains and the Berbers of Central Morocco chiefs, in times of rebellion, exchange their cloaks or turbans, and it is believed that if any of them should break the covenant he would be punished with some grave misfortune. Among the Ulád Bu ‘Azîz, in the province of Dukkâla, it is a common custom for persons who wish to be reconciled after a quarrel to go to a holy man and in his presence join their right hands so that the fingers of the one go between the fingers of the other, after which the saint throws his cloak over the united hands, saying, "This is ahed between you." Or they may in a similar manner join their hands at a saint's tomb over the head of the box under which the saint is buried, or they may perform. the same ceremony simply in the presence of some friends. In either case the joining of hands is usually

1 Robertson Smith, op. cit. p. 271.
2 Ibid. lec. ix. sqq. Hartland, Legend

of Perseus, ii. 236. Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 225.

accompanied by a common meal, and frequently the hands are joined over the dish after eating. If a person who has thus made a compact with another is afterwards guilty of a breach of faith, it is said that "God and the food will repay him "; in other words, the conditional curse embodied in the food which he ate will be realised. All over Morocco the usual method of sealing a compact of friendship is by eating together, especially at the tomb of some saint. As we have noticed above,' the sacredness of the place adds to the efficacy of the imprecation, but its vehicle, the real punisher, is the eaten food, because it contains a conditional curse.

The 'âhed of the Moors helps us to understand the covenant sacrifice of the ancient Semites. The only difference between them is that the former is a method of establishing a compact between men and men, whilst the latter established a compact between men and their god. The idea of a mutual transference of conditional curses undoubtedly underlies both. It should be noticed that in the Old Testament also, as among the Moors, we meet with human covenants made by the parties eating together.2 Thus the Israelites entered into alliance with Gibeonites by taking of their victuals, without consulting Yahve, and the meal was expressly followed by an oath.3 In other instances, again, the common dish consisted of sacrificial food, either because the sacredness of such food was supposed to make the conditional curse embodied in it more efficacious, or because the deity was included as a third party to the covenant.

the.

Whilst in some cases the object of a sacrifice is to transfer conditional curses either to the god to whom it is made, or to both the god and the worshipper, the victim or article offered may in other instances be used as a vehicle for transferring benign virtue to him who offered it or to other persons. As we have noticed

above, a sacrifice is very frequently believed to be endowed with beneficial magic energy in consequence of its contact or communion with the supernatural being to which it is offered, and this energy is then supposed to have a salutary effect upon the person who comes in touch with it. I have said before that in Morocco magic virtue is ascribed to various parts of the sheep which is sacrificed at the "Great Feast," and that every offering to a holy person, especially a dead saint, is considered to participate to some extent in his sanctity. The Vedic people regarded sacrificial food as a kind of medicine." The Siberian Kachinzes blessed their huts with sacrificial milk. The Lapps strewed the ashes of their burntofferings upon their heads. It is quite possible that in some instances a desire to receive the benefit of the supernatural energy with which the sacrifice is endowed is by itself a sufficient motive for offering it to a god.

As is the case with other rites, sacrifices also have a strong tendency to survive the ideas from which they sprang. Thus when the materialistic conception of the nature of gods faded away, offerings continued to be made to them, though their meaning was changed. As Professor Tylor observes, "the idea of practical acceptableness of the food or valuables presented to the deity, begins early to shade into the sentiment of divine gratification or propitiation by a reverent offering, though in itself of not much account to so mighty a divine personage. Sacrifice then becomes mainly, or exclusively, a symbol of humility and reverence. Even in the Rig-Veda, in spite of its crude materialism, we meet with indications of the idea that the value of a sacrifice lies in the feelings of the worshipper; if unable to offer an ox or cow, the singer hopes that a small gift from the heart, a fagot, a libation, a bundle of grass, offered with reverence,

996

will be more acceptable to the god than butter or honey.' In Greece, though the sacrificial ritual remained unchanged till the end of paganism, we frequently come upon the advanced reflection that righteousness is the best sacrifice, that the poor man's slight offering avails more with the deity than hecatombs of oxen. According to Porphyry, the gods have no need of banquets and magnificent sacrifices, but we should with the greatest alacrity make a moderate oblation to them of our own property, as "the honours which we pay to the gods should be accompanied by the same promptitude as that with which we give the first seat to worthy men.' It is said in the Talmud that "he who offers humility unto God and man, shall be rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sacrifices in the world."4

3

I have here spoken of the practice of sacrifice and the ideas on which it is based. But sacrifice has also a moral value attached to it. Though no doubt in many cases optional, it is under various circumstances regarded as a stringent duty. This is particularly the case with the offerings regularly made by the community at large on special occasions fixed by custom.

As supernatural beings have material needs like men, they also possess property like men, and this must not be interfered with. The Fjort of West Africa believe that the spirits of the rivers kill those who drink their waters and sometimes punish those who fish in them for greediness, by making them deaf and dumb. When their chief god "played" by thundering, the Amazulu said to him who was frightened, "Why do you start, because the lord plays? What have you taken which

belongs to him?" 6" The Fijians speak of a deluge

1 Rig- Veda, viii. 19. 5. Kaegi, op. cit. p. 30.

2 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. IOI. Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 43. Westcott, Essays in the History of Religious Thought, p. 116.

3 Porphyry, De abstinentia ab esu animalium. ii. 60.

4 Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 55. 5 Dennett, Folklore of the Fjort, p. 5 sq.

6

Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 57.