THE HEART OF BRUCE. 107 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” (λáɣyva, 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 Æneid, Bk. XI., line 81 f. 2 Homer's Odyssey, Bk. III., lines 11, 12, 461-463; Iliad, Bk. II., lines 427, 428. BLOOD LIBATIONS. 109 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 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, 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." 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 い the earth while the body of the sacrificial victim is offered as a whole burnt offering." 6 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. 5 Williams's Middle Kingdom, I., 194. ΙΟ The blood is the life; the heart as the fountain of blood is the fountain of life; both blood and heart are sacred to the Author of life. The possession, or the gift, of the heart or of the blood, is the possession, or the gift, of the very nature of its primal owner. That has been the world's thought in all the ages. 2. VIVIFYING POWER OF BLOOD. The belief seems to have been universal, not only that the blood is the life of the organism in which it originally flows, but that in its transfer from one organism to another the blood retains its life, and so carries with it a vivifying power. There are traces of this belief in the earliest legends of the Old World, and of the New; in classic story; and in medical practices as well, all the world over, from time immemorial until the present day. For example, in an inscription from the Egyptian monuments, the original of which dates back to the early days of Moses, there is a reference to a then ancient legend of the rebellion of mankind against the gods; of an edict of destruction against the human race; and of a divine interposition for the rescue of the doomed peoples.1 In that legend, a prominent 1 The inscription was first found, in 1875, in the tomb of Setee I., the father of Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the oppression. A transla tion of it appeared in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Arch MAN'S RE-CREATION. III part is given to human blood, mingled with the juice of mandrakes1-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 æology, 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? 1Mandrakes, 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. |