with God by the proffer of one's blood. In the Russian province of Esthonia, he who would observe this rite, "had to draw drops of blood from his fore finger," and at the same time to pledge himself in solemn covenant with God. "I name thee [I invoke thee] with my blood, and [I] betroth thee [I entrust myself to thee] with my blood,"-was the form of his covenanting. Then he who had given of his blood in self-surrendering devotedness, made his confident supplications to God with whom he had thus covenanted; and his prayer in behalf of all his possessions was: "Let them be blessed through my blood and thy might."1 Thus, in ancient Egypt, in ancient Canaan, in ancient Mexico, in modern Turkey, in modern Russia, in modern India, and in modern Otaheite; in Africa, in Asia, in America, in Europe, and in Oceanica: Blood-giving was life-giving. Life-giving was loveshowing. Love-showing was a heart-yearning after union in love and in life and in blood and in very being. That was the primitive thought in the primitive religions of all the world. 1 See Tylor's Primitive Culture, II., 402; citing Boecler's Ehsten Aberglaubische Gebrauche, 4. II. SUGGESTIONS AND PERVERSIONS OF THE RITE. I. SACREDNESS OF BLOOD AND OF THE HEART. APART from, and yet linked with, the explicit proofs of the rite of blood-covenanting throughout the primitive world, there are many indications of the rootidea of this form of covenanting; in the popular estimate of blood, and of all the marvelous possibilities through blood-transference. These indications, also, are of old, and from everywhere. To go back again to the earlier written history of the world; it is evident that the ancient Egyptians recognized blood as in a peculiar sense life itself; and that they counted the heart,-as the blood-source and the blood-centre, the symbol and the substance of life. In the Book of the Dead, the deceased speaks of his heart,-or his blood-fountain,-as his life; and as giving him the right to appear in the presence of the gods: "My heart was my mother; my heart was my mother; my heart was my being on earth; placed 99 within me; returned to me by the chief gods, placing me before the gods "1 [in the presence of the gods]. In the process of embalming, the heart was always preserved with jealous care; and sometimes it was embalmed by itself in a sepulchral vase. It was the heart as the life, which is the blood-that seems to have been put into the scales of the divine Judge for the settling of the soul's destiny; according to all the Egyptian pictures of the judgment. Throughout the Book of the Dead, and in all the sacred teachings and practices of the ancient Egyptians, with reference to human life and human destiny, the heart is obviously recognized as the analogon of blood, and blood as the analogon of life. Moreover, the life, which is represented by the blood and by the heart, appears to be counted peculiarly the gift and the guarded treasure of Deity, and as being in itself a resemblance to, if not actually a part of, the divine nature." 1Egypt's Place, V. 188. This is illustrated by Ebers, in his romance of "Uarda;" where the surgeon, Nebsecht, finds such difficulty in obtaining a human heart, in order to its anatomical study. See, also, Birch's statement, in Egypt's Place, V., 135, and Pierret's Dict. d'Arch. Égypt., s.v. "Cœur." 3 Anc. Egypt., III., 472, note 6. Ibid., III., 466, note 3. 5 In the Book of the Dead, Chapter xxxvi. tells "How a Person has his Heart made (or given) to him in the Hades.” And in preparing the mummy, a scarabaeus,—a symbol of the creative or life-giving god -was put in the place of the heart. (See Rubric, chapter xxx., Book of the Dead; Anc. Egypt., III., 346, 486; also, note in Uarda, I., 305 f.). |