THE COURAGE OF AN OX. 135 either has been counted potent in re-vivifying and in improving the receiving organism. Thus, for example, Stanley, in the interior of Africa, having received "a fine, fat ox as a peace-offering," from "the great magic doctor of Vinyata," when making a covenant of blood with him,' was requested to return the heart of the ox to the donor; and he acceded to this request. After this, Stanley's party was several times assailed by the Wanyaturu, from the neighborhood of Vinyata. Thereupon his ally Mgongo Tembo explained, says Stanley, "that we ought not to have bestowed the heart of the presented ox upon the magic doctor of Vinyata; as by the loss of that diffuser of blood, the Wanyaturu believed we had left our own bodies weakened, and would be an easy prey to them."2 Another modern traveler in Equatorial Africa finds fresh bullock's blood counted a means of manhood. While the young Masâi man is passing his novitiate into warrior life, he seeks new strength by taking in new blood. Having employed medical means to rid his system of the remains of all other diet, says Thompson, the novice went to a lonely place with a single attendant; they taking with them a living bullock. There" they killed the bullock, either with a blow from a rungu, or by stabbing it in the back of 2 Thro. Dark Cont., I., 123-131. 1 See page 20, supra. the neck. They then opened a vein and drank the blood fresh from the animal.". After this, the young man gorged himself with the bullock's flesh.1 And whenever the Masai warriors "go off on war-raids they also contrive to eat a bullock [after this fashion], by way of getting up their courage." 2 Again, it is said that Arab women in North Africa give their male children a piece of the lion's heart to eat, to make them courageous.3 And an English traveler in South Africa,* describing the death of a lion shot by his party, says: "Scarcely was the breath out of his body than the Caffres rushed up, and each took a mouthful of the blood that was trickling from the numerous wounds; as they believe that it is a specific which imparts strength and courage to those who partake of it." That the transference of life, with all that life carries, can be made by the simplest blood-anointing, as surely as by blood absorption, is strikingly illustrated by a custom still observed among the Hill Tribes of India. The Bheels are a brave and warlike race of mountaineers of Hindostan. They claim to have been, formerly, the rulers of all their region; but, whether by defeat in war, or by voluntary concession, to have 2 Ibid., p. 452. 1 Thompson's Thro. Masâi Land, p. 430. THE ROYAL BLOOD. 137 yielded their power to other peoples-whom they now authorize to rule in their old domain. "The extraordinary custom, common to almost all the countries [of India] that have been mentioned," says Sir J. Malcolm,' "of the tika, or mark that is put upon the forehead of the Rajput prince, or chief, when he succeeds to power, being moistened with blood taken from the toe or thumb of a Bhill, may be received as one among many proofs of their having been formerly in possession of the principalities, where this usage prevails. The right of giving the blood for this ceremony, is claimed by particular families; and the belief, that the individual, from whose veins it is supplied, never lives beyond a twelvemonth, in no degree operates to repress the zeal of the Bhills to perpetuate an usage, which the Rajput princes are, without exception, desirous should cease." The Bheels claim that the right to rule is vested in their race; but they transfer that right to the Rajpoot by a transfer of blood— which is a transfer of life and of nature. Thus the Bheels continue to rule-in the person of those who have been vivified by their blood. So, again, among the ancient Caribs, of South America, "as soon as a male child was brought into the world, he was sprinkled with some drops of his 1 See Trans. Royal Asiat. Soc., I., 69; cited in Spencer's Des. Soc., V., 26 f. father's blood'; the father 'fondly believing, that the same degree of courage which he had himself displayed, was by these means transmitted to his son.' Here it is evident that the voluntary transfusion of blood is deemed more potent to the strengthening of personal character, than is the transmission of blood by natural descent. "2 In South Africa, among the Amampondo, one of the Kaffir tribes, it is customary for the chief, on his accession to authority, "to be washed in the blood of a near relative, generally a brother, who is put to death on the occasion, and his skull used as a receptacle for his blood." In order to give more life and more character than the ordinary possession to the newly elevated chieftain, the family blood is withdrawn from the veins of one having less need of it, that it may be absorbed by him who can use it more imposingly. In the Yoruba country, in Central Africa, "when a beast is sacrificed for a sick man, the blood is sprinkled on the wall, and smeared on the patient's forehead, with the idea, it is said, of thus transferring to him the [divinely] accepted victim's life." Life is life, and whether that life be in the blood of one organism or 1 Edwards's Hist. of Brit. West Ind., I., 47; cited in Spencer's Des. Soc., VI., 36. 2 Shooter's Kafirs of Natal, p. 216. THE SOUL OF POETRY. 139 of another, of man or of an inferior animal, its transference carries with it all that life includes. That seems to be the thought in Yoruba; and, as all life is of supernatural origin and preservation, its transference can be by a touch as easily as by any other method.' 5. INSPIRATION THROUGH BLOOD. Because blood, as life, belongs to, and, in a peculiar sense, represents, the Author of life, blood has been counted a means of inspiration. The blood of the gods, in myth and legend, and again the blood of divinely accepted sacrifices, human and animal, in ancient and modern religious rituals, has been relied on as the agency whereby the Author of life speaks in and through the possessor of that blood. The inspiring power of blood is a thought that runs all through the early Norseland legends. Thus, Kvaser, according to the Scandinavian mythology, was a being created by the gods with preternatural intelligence. Kvaser traversed the world, teaching men wisdom; but he was treacherously murdered by the dwarfs Fjalar and Gala. The dwarfs let Kvaser's blood run into two cups and a kettle. "The name of the kettle is Odrærer, and the names of the cups are Son and Bodn. By mixing up his blood with honey, they 1 See Tylor's Prim. Cult., II., 382, referring to Bastian's Psychologie. |