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THE HEART AS AN OFFERING.

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two door-posts of His Majesty [in whose keeping was the sacred bull]; one was on the one side of the great staircase of His Majesty, the other upon the other side; and they grew up into two mighty persea trees, each of which stood alone." Thus the blood was both life and life-giving, and the heart was as the very soul of its possessor, in the estimation of the ancient Egyptians.

In primitive America also, as in ancient Egypt, the blood and the heart were held pre-eminently sacred. Among the Dakotas, in North America, the heart of the deer, and of other animals killed in hunting, was offered to the spirits. In Central America and in South America, it was the blood and the heart of the human victims offered in sacrifice which were counted the peculiar portion of the gods. In description of a human sacrifice among the Nahuas of Central America,3 a Mexican historian says: "The high priest then approached, and with a heavy knife of obsidian cut opened the miserable man's breast. Then, with a dexterity acquired by long practice, the sacrificer tore forth the yet palpitating heart, which he first offered

1 See Lynd's Hist. of Dakotas, p. 73.

2 See citations from various original sources, in Bancroft's Native Races of Pacific Coast, II., 306–310, 707-709.

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3 The Nahuas were 'skilled ones," or "experts," who had emigrated Northward from the Maya land (Réville's Native Religions, p. 20).

to the sun, and then threw at the feet of the idol. Taking it up, he again offered it to the god, and afterwards burned it; preserving the ashes with great care and veneration. Sometimes the heart was placed in the mouth [of the idol] with a golden spoon. It was customary also to anoint the lips of the image and the cornices of the door with the victim's blood."1

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Of the method among the Maya nations, south of the Gulf of Mexico, a Spanish historian says: "The bleeding and quivering heart was held up to the sun, and then thrown into a bowl prepared for its reception. An assistant priest sucked the blood from the gash in the chest, through a hollow cane; the end of which he elevated towards the sun, and then discharged its contents into a plume-bordered cup held by the captor of the prisoner just slain. This cup was carried around to all the idols in the temples and chapels, before whom another blood-filled tube was held up, as if to give them a taste of the contents.

This ceremony performed, the cup was left at the palace." Yet another record stands: "The guardian of the temple opened the left breast of the victim,

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1 Clavigero's Anc. Hist. of Mex., II., 45-49, cited in Bancroft's Native Races, II., 307.

2 The proper centre of the Maya nations lay in Yucatan (Réville's Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 18).

3 Gomara, cited in Bancroft's Native Races, II., 310 f.

THE HEART OF BRUCE.

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tore out the heart, and handed it to the high 'priest, who placed it in a small embroidered purse which he carried. The four [assisting] priests received the blood of the victim in four jicaras or bowls, made from the shell of a certain fruit; and descending, one after the other, to the court yard, [they] sprinkled the blood with their right hand in the direction of the cardinal points [of the compass]. If any blood remained over, they returned it to the high priest, who placed it, with the purse containing the heart, in the body of the victim, through the wound that had been made; and the body was interred in the temple."1

Commenting on these customs in Central America, Réville-the representative comparative-religionist of France says: "Here you will recognize that idea, so widely spread in the two Americas, and indeed almost everywhere amongst uncivilized peoples [nor is it limited to the uncivilized], that the heart is the epitome, so to speak, of the individual-his soul in some sense-so that to appropriate his heart is to appropriate his whole being." What else than this gave rise to the thought of preserving the heart of a hero, or of a loved one, as a symbol of the living presence of the dead? It was by his heart, that King Robert

1 Herrera, cited in Bancroft's Native Races, II., 706 f.

2 Native Religions of Mexico and Peru (Hibbert Lectures, 1884), p. 43 f. See, also, pp. 45, 46, 82, 99.

Bruce was to lead his army to the Holy Land; and how many times, in history, have men bequeathed their hearts to those dear to them, as the poet Shelley's heart was preserved by his friends, and by them given to Mrs. Shelley.

In the Greek and Roman sacrifices, it was the blood of the victim, which, as the life of the victim, was poured out unto the gods, as unto the Author of life.1 Moreover, there is reason for supposing that the heart was always given the chief place, as representing the very life itself, in the examination and in the tasting of the “entrails" (λázva, splangchna) in connection with the sacrifices of those classic peoples. An indication of this truth is found in a statement by Cicero, concerning the sacrifices at the time of the inauguration of Cæsar: "When he [Cæsar] was sacrificing on that day in which he first sat in the golden chair, and made procession in the purple garment, there was no heart among the entrails of the sacrificial ox. (Do you think, therefore, that any animal which has blood can exist without a heart?) Yet he [Cæsar] was not terrified by the phenomenal nature of the event, although Spurinna declared, that

1 See Pindar's Olympian Odes, Ode 1, line 146; Sophocles's Trachiniæ, line 766; Virgil's Eneid, Bk. XI., line 81 f.

2 Homer's Odyssey, Bk. III., lines II, 12, 461-463; Iliad, Bk. II., lines 427, 428.

BLOOD LIBATIONS.

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it was to be feared that both mind [literally 'counsel'] and life were about to fail him [Cæsar]; for both of these [mind and life] do issue from the heart.”1

"3

Similarly it has been, and to the present day it is, with primitive peoples everywhere. Blood libations were made a prominent feature in the offerings in ancient Phoenicia,2 as in Egypt. In India, the Brahmans have a saying, in illustration of the claim that Vishnu and Siva are of one and the same nature: "The heart of Vishnu is Sivâ, and the heart of Sivâ is Vishnu; and those who think they differ, err." 3 The Hindoo legends represent the victim's heart as being torn out and given to the one whom in life he has wronged. In China, at the great Temple of Heaven, in Peking, where the emperors of China are supposed to have conducted worship without material change in its main features for now nearly three thousand years, the blood of the animal sacrifice is buried in the earth while the body of the sacrificial victim is offered as a whole burnt offering.?

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1 Cicero's De Divinatione, Bk. I., chap. 52, % 119.

2 See Sanchoniathon's references to blood libations, in Cory's Ancient Fragments, pp. 7, 11, 16.

3 See "The Hindu Pantheon," in Birdwood's Indian Arts, p. 96. Frere's Old Deccan Days, p. 266.

5 Williams's Middle Kingdom, I., 194.
Edkins's Religion in China, p. 22.
7 Williams's Mid. King., I., 76–78.

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