MAN'S RE-CREATION. III part is given to human blood, mingled with the juice of mandrakes-instead of wine-prepared as a drink of the gods, and afterwards poured out again to overflow and to revivify all the earth. And the ancient text which records this legend, affirms that it was in conjunction with these events, that there was the beginning of sacrifices in the world. An early American legend has points of remarkable correspondence with this one from ancient Egypt. It relates, as does that, to a pre-historic destruction of the race, and to its re-creation, or its re-vivifying, by means of transferred blood. Every Mexican province aology, Vol. 4, Part I. Again it has been found, in the tomb of Rameses III. Its earliest and its latest translations were made by M. Edouard Naville, the eminent Swiss Egyptologist. Meantime, Brugsch, De Bergmann, Lauth, Lefébure, and others, have aided in its elucidation (See Proceed. of Soc. of Bib. Arch., for March 3, 1885). Is there not a reference to this legend in the Book of the Dead, chapter xviii., sixth section? 1 Mandrakes, or "love-apples," among the ancient Egyptians, as also among the Orientals generally, from the days of Jacob (Gen. 30: 14–17) until to-day, carried the idea of promoting a loving union; and the Egyptian name for mandrakes-tetmut-combined the root-word tet already referred to as meaning "arm," or "bracelet," and mut-with the signification of "attesting," or "confirming." Thus the blood and the mandrake juice would be a true assiratum. (See Pierret's Vocabulaire Hieroglyphique, p. 723.) "Belief in this plant [the mandrake] is as old as history." (Napier's Folk-Lore, p. 90.) See, also, Lang's Custom and Myth, pp. 143-155. told this story in its own way, says a historian; but the main features of it are alike in all its versions. When there were no more men remaining on the earth, some of the gods desired the re-creation of mankind; and they asked help from the supreme deities accordingly. They were then told, that if they were to obtain the bones, or the ashes of the former race, they could revivify those remains by their own blood. Thereupon Xolotl, one of the gods, descended to the place of the dead, and obtained a bone (whether a rib, or not, does not appear). Upon that vestige of humanity, the gods dropped blood drawn from their own bodies; and the result was a new vivifying of mankind.' An ancient Chaldean legend, as recorded by Berosus, ascribes a new creation of mankind to the mixture by the gods of the dust of the earth with the blood that flowed from the severed head of the god Belus. “On this account it is that men are rational, and partake of divine knowledge," says Berosus. The blood of the god gives them the life and the nature of a god. Yet, again, the early Phoenician, and the early Greek, theogonies, as recorded by Sanchoniathon3 and by Hesiod, ascribe the vivifying of mankind to the outpoured 1 Mendieta's Hist. Eccl. Ind., 77 ff.; cited in Spencer's Des. Soc., II., 38; also Brinton's Myths of the New World, p. 258. 2 See Cory's Anc. Frag., p. 59 f. Comp. Fabri's Evagatorium, III., 218. 3 Ibid., p. 15. LIFE TO THE DEAD. 113 blood of the gods. It was from the blood of Ouranos, or of Saturn, dripping into the sea and mingling with its foam, that Venus was formed, to become the mother of her heroic posterity. "The Orphics, which have borrowed so largely from the East," says Lenormant," said that the immaterial part of man, his soul [his life], sprang from the blood of Dionysus Zagreus, whom Titans had torn to pieces, partly devouring his members." the Homer explicitly recognizes this universal belief in power of blood to convey life, and to be a means of revivifying the dead. When Circé sent Odysseus, "To consult The Theban seer, Tiresias, in the abode Of Pluto and the dreaded Proserpine." she directed him, in preparation, to "Pour to all the dead Libations,-milk and honey first, and next Rich wine, and lastly water;" and after that to slay the sacrificial sheep. But Circé's caution was: "Draw then the sword upon thy thigh, and sit, And suffer none of all those airy forms To touch the blood, until thou first bespeak Odysseus did as he was directed. The bloodless shades flocked about him, as he sat there guarding the life-renewing blood; but even those dearest to him, he forbade to touch that consecrated draught. "And then the soul of Anticleia came,— My own dead mother, daughter of the king Alive, what time I sailed for Troy, and now I wept to see her there, and pitied her, And yet forbade her, though with grief, to come Near to the blood till I should first accost Tiresias. He too came, the Theban seer, Tiresias, bearing in his hand a wand Of gold; he knew me and bespake me thus :— Why, O unhappy mortal, hast thou left The light of day to come among the dead, And turn thy sword away, that I may drink And, after drinking of the dark red blood, The blameless prophet turned to me and said "1 Then, came the prophecy, from the blood-revivified seer. The wide-spread popular superstition of the vampire and of the ghoul, seems to be an outgrowth of this universal belief, that transfused blood is re-vivification. The bloodless shades, leaving their graves at night, seek renewed life, by drawing out the blood of 1Bryant's Odyssey, Bks. x. and xi. BLOOD TRANSFUSION. 115 those who sleep; taking of the life of the living, to supply temporary life to the dead. This idea was prevalent in ancient Babylon and Assyria. It has shown itself in the Old World and in the New,2 in all the ages; and even within a little more than a century, it has caused an epidemic of fear in Hungary, "resulting in a general disinterment, and the burning or staking of the suspected bodies."3 An added force is given to all these illustrations of the universal belief that transferred blood has a vivifying power, by the conclusions of modern medical science, concerning the possible benefits of bloodtransfusion. On this point, one of the foremost living authorities in this department of practice, Dr. Roussel, of Geneva, says: "The great vitality of the blood of a vigorous and healthy man has the power of improving the quality of the patient's blood, and can restore activity to the centres of nervous force, and the organs of digestion. It would seem that health itself can be 1 See Sayce's Anc. Emp. of East, p. 146. 2 Among the ancient Peruvians, there was said to be a class of devilworshipers, known as canchus, or rumapmicuc, the members of which sucked the blood from sleeping youth, to their own nourishing and to the speedy dying away of the persons thus depleted. (See Arriaga's Extirpacion de la Idolatria del Piru, p. 21 f.; cited in Spencer's Des. Soc., II., 48.). See, also, Ralston's Russian Folk Tales, pp. 311-328. 4 3 Farrer's Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 23 f. ♦ The primitive belief seems to have had a sound basis in scientific fact. |