Religion and Myth: Chapter IV. Sacrifice

---

CHAPTER IV

SACRIFICE

We have already seen that the earliest form of human sacrifice was associated in the minds of men with killing the god himself. The divine King of Congo was put to death by his successor. In the Fiji Islands old people are hurried alive. When a king of Kabonga is near his end the magicians quietly strangle him. Certain tribes of East Africa put their kings to death as soon as wrinkles or grey hairs appear. * A modification of the custom of king- killing was introduced when the expedient of temporary kings was reached. These could be put to death at stated intervals. We have met with examples of this in Sofala and Calicut. Ancient Babylonia affords another illustration. There, when the time drew near that the king should be put to death, he abdicated for a few days, during which a temporary monarch reigned and suffered in his stead. "A prisoner condemned to death was dressed in the king's robes, seated on the king's throne, allowed to issue whatever commands he pleased, to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, and to lie with the king's concubines. But at the end of the

* This same custom, softened down, is observed in Cambodia, where the king abdicates annually for a few days. The substitute performs all functions of State, and receives the revenues for the time he reigns. At the close of his brief term of office he goes and does homage to the king, and then, as his last act, orders the elephants to trample the "mountain of rice." This is a large scaffold hung round with rice-sheaves. When they are trampled down the people gather up the rice, each man taking home a portion to mix with his seed-corn and so secure a good harvest. †

Once the idea of substitution was reached, sacrifice as an institution would develop rapidly, and the curious thing is, that a trace of the original system of killing the god has remained to tell the world of an older and ruder conception of divinity. To the ancient man-god it was so convenient to have another take his place, that we can fancy the innovation being hailed with joy by the ruling castes, who by it were freed from the uncertainties of popular discontent and the accidental advent of signs of decay. But the doctrine of substitution had its disadvantages, and these in course of time would be felt and have far-reaching effects. Under the old order men were accustomed to offer homage to the living king; and their supreme and final act of worship was when he was put to death that his spirit might enter his successor as the creative, fructifying and preserving power of the world.

Let us now proceed to illustrate these general statements by an examination of the sacrificial system common throughout the continent, and in doing so it will be well to select a few places, widely apart, as typical illustrations. The natives of South Africa discontinued human sacrifices before they had much contact with Europeans, and, being of mixed origin, we study their religious institutions at a disadvantage. But an examination of their system of thought leads us up to a time when their rites and sacrifices differed in no essential from what is common to the vast majority of the tribes inhabiting the continent, from 10° of north latitude to the farthest promontory of the south.

When the course of nature is not to a Kaffir's mind, as during drought, floods, sickness among men or cattle, misfortune in war, failure in hunting or a visitation of locusts, he offers propitiatory sacrifices to the offended deities. Each man sacrifices to his own ancestors; each clan, through the magician, to the heads of the clan; the tribe to the ancestors

It may at first sight be difficult to connect this doctrine of propitiatory sacrifice with that of substitution, as we have seen that in the case of the killing of the temporary king. And if this propitiatory system of sacrifice were our only guide, it would be impossible to do so. But there is another system, complete in all its parts and distinct from the idea of propitiation, observed by the same people alongside of this doctrine. It is that of thank-offering and sacrificial thanksgiving. For every supposed benefit a man makes a thank-offering. It may be but a single grain of corn, or even an article of no value, as a tuft of grass, but it is never omitted. When a father offers a sheep as a thank-offering for the birth of a child, his idea is not only to recompense the soul of his father for good offices by so much burning fat, but to "give to those who were before" the keeping of the child's soul; giving the soul to them in homage and thankfulness. This is undoubtedly the dedicatory offering of the soul by the sacrifice of a sheep as a substitute for the firstborn, a custom with which we are only too familiar elsewhere. Besides, the first child of a widow who re-marries, should her husband have fallen in war, is put to death: offered to the gods

* In making thank-offerings for good offices a man adds to the portion of the sacrifice that is burned something from his own person, and men have been known to cut off a finger or toe for this purpose, to enhance the value of the offering. The Israelitish practice of shaving, as a sign of having made a vow or formed a resolve, is not unknown. † Adopting peculiar garments as a head-dress, in token of anything remarkable having happened to a man, is common.

When a tribe is at war, or preferably before entering upon hostilities, if an enemy can be caught he is put to death. The warriors eat his heart raw. ‡ Various parts of his body, supposed to be the seat of particular virtues, are used in the preparation of the compound known as war medicine, while shreds of fat from his kidneys are burned in the fire. Much the same is done in the case of a slain enemy who has distinguished himself for bravery and feats of strength. § This, though the people do not say so, is undoubtedly an offering made to the gods. The explanation given is, "Our people always did so," and that war medicine, without the fat burning in the fire while it is being prepared, would not act. ** For the true significance of such acts we must seek an explanation, not from the people, who can give none, but from analogy,. and their resemblance to other acts performed by the same people, or by others having customs in common with them. The fat burned in the fire.

* the odour of which they inhale; † and when we find the burning of human fat in almost identical circumstances—i.e., war—and the preparation of a magic decoction into which calcined human flesh largely enters, and on which depends its efficacy, the conclusion is forced upon us that here we have the last lingering traces of human sacrifice. Nor is this the only use made of portions of the human body in connection with the religious ritual of the people. The dried fingers of a man's hand is an essential portion of a magician's outfit when he goes to curse his chief's enemies. ‡ Wizards deal largely in human flesh. §

The multiplication of sacrifices is acceptable to all the gods ** of heathendom, and one case is on record in which tribes killed every hoof of cattle and destroyed every peck of corn to secure the favour of their ancestors. True, the priest who ordered this to be done promised that there should be a general resurrection of both ancestors and cattle on a given day, that of full moon; but this only adds to the completeness of the faith reposed in his predictions as the oracles of God. On the appointed day thousands of men and women gathered for a moon dance; folds had been erected for the cattle that were to rise; stores for the corn which men were to gather; houses for the ancestors who were to come clad in armour. In honour of the great event

* The ox is sacrificed, not killed, as a criminal substitute for the wizard, who is set at liberty. This seems to point to the victims of witchcraft, whom we generally regard as criminals under native law, being in reality a sacrifice to the

* Should the murderer escape, one of his relatives is caught and treated as if he were the murderer. The object here is not so much the punishment of crime as an offering to the deceased, whose spirit would naturally be enraged at his own relatives were they not to pay due honour to it by sending, either the murderer to be his slave, or such of his relatives or slaves as may make amends for his absence. Of departed spirits some have considerable influence among the gods. Matanga of the Wayao has many powerful servants, and arranges most of the details of the spirit world in that region. † He is capricious and easily offended, but can be coaxed by judicious flattery. Men having ghostly relations with him, or with lesser divinities through him, can compound for personal service by substitution. So, instead of betaking themselves to the land of shades, as in duty bound, when a relative to whom they owe allegiance dies, they send a number of slaves as their representatives to do duty by proxy.

* These he lays on the lintel or threshold, where they are touched by the king, and so offered to the gods. Of these gods the principal is Makusa, who, as we have seen, claims a right higher than the king over the Lake, as the embodiment of the powers of nature. He it is that is personified by the Lubare, who is the real object of worship. Makusa as a sort of Neptune is but a chief Lubare. † He enters

*

Associated with, or subordinate to the Lubare are Nende, Kajangeyewe, and Kubuka, who are a kind of national guardian spirits. These appear in persons who are god-possessed, and such persons are always accompanied by magicians, priests, and executioners; † that is to say, those who slay victims for the sacrifices. The god-possessed person has but to demand a victim, when a wayfarer is caught, bound, beheaded, and offered in sacrifice. Every person holding the sacred office of priest or magician claims to have the spirit of the king dwelling in him, or at least visiting him at intervals. ‡ The head wife of every great man's harem is called "Kuda Lubare " §—i.e., slave of the spirit, meaning one in whom the god dwells. The same terms are applied to the child of a woman long barren, and who offered sacrifice and prayed to the Lubare for offspring. This is a true dedication of issue at the shrine when the offering is made. Of this we have an illustration, in widely different circumstances, when Hannah said: "O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, **

*

To them Katonga, or Creator, and Lubare mean the same, for every phenomenon is subject to Lubare. Crops, famine, food, rain, thunder, storms on the lake, day, night; everything in nature has its Lubare, and still Lubare is one and not many. It is the spirit of Makusa, who is all and is everywhere—a kind of universal deification of nature as animate. When sacrifices are offered to the Lubare,

Turning to West Africa, where all religious institutions are modified by Fetish, the systems at first seem distinct, not only in details, but in original conception of what is due to divinity. A closer examination shows that the conceptions of Central and West Africa regarding the unseen world are substantially the same, and that the intention in sacrifice is the same. From killing the god they passed to substitution, thence to propitiatory sacrifice and thank-offerings. Each kingdom has its own particular customs and yearly festivals, presenting an infinite variety of detail, but in their general features the same; marking the steady advance of thought from the rude conceptions of

* and is himself for the time regarded as the personification of the gods. His actions are not so much that of their delegate, which he claims at all times to be, but their actions, their words, and their very movements. If the king rises, the gods stand; if he reclines, they sleep; should he dance, they too caper about with the movements of his arms and legs. For the festival

* At this and the palm-wine festival the honours of adoration are all done to the king, and the progress of the festival is consecrated by any stray person about the palace doors being seized and slain as an act of reverence to his majesty. † The treatment of such victims after execution is thus described by Kühne, who frequently witnessed such scenes.

"One took a finger, another an arm or foot, and whoever obtained the head danced in crazy ecstasy, painted its forehead red and white, kissed it on the mouth, laughing, or with mocking words of pity, and finally hung it round his neck or seized it with his teeth. Another took out the heart and washed it, carried it in one hand and a loaf of maize bread in the other, and walked about as if he were eating his breakfast.

"In the evening they brought the skulls of their most important enemies from the mausoleum at Bantama, and placed them, in the stillness of the night, in front of the Fetish. Among them was the skull of Sir Charles Macarthy, kept in a brass basin and covered with a white cloth. . . . . On the next day all laws were abrogated, and every one drinking freely was permitted to do what was good in his own eyes. Even funerals were celebrated for those who had suffered capital punishment."

Here we have, in the extreme west, the common Pondo custom of the abrogation of all law at the feast of firstfruits. From the last sentence, which Kühne does not explain, it is to be inferred that

* the coffins containing these, as well as the skeletons themselves, being connected together with gold wires. Each cell contains such articles as the tenant loved best during his life. At the festival of Bantama the skeletons are placed on chairs in the audience hall to receive the royal visitor. This they do in the order of seniority. The king on entering offers each skeleton food, and as he does so, passing from one to another, the victim selected for each is decapitated in the approved manner by the executioners. During the succeeding night, and after the monarchs are returned to their cells and coffins,

*

But it is not necessary to go so far afield as Ashantee to find illustration of messages being sent to the spirit world. My father, who over seventy years ago resided for some years in the Highlands of Perthshire, used to tell how at that time the people of Glenlyon and Glendochart charged their dying relatives with messages beyond the grave, and that people came long distances to ask, as an extreme favour, that their wishes should be made known "beyond" about certain particulars, one of the most common requests being to explain away shady transactions: "If you meet such an one, tell him how we are, and all that is going on. I gave every penny he left to his daughter. Mind you tell him the dun horse, which I kept to get a better price for, died." Such were the commissions entrusted to the dying by pious Calvinists as late as the second decade of the present century;

* For example, a man falls ill and believes that he is being warned by some ancestral spirit that his presence is required beyond the bourne. He consults the priest, who on receipt of a suitable fee agrees to descend and make reconciliation on his behalf, so that he may continue to enjoy the upper air for a further period. When this is done the patient recovers; if not, he is killed by evil persons; the spirits never called at all, for the intervention of the priest is, within limits, effectual in all cases when the matter is in the hands of the gods. But this leads us to the verge of the doctrine of devils, which is an advanced form of savage religious thought; the worship of devils being a late development as compared with that of the beneficent gods. After spirits were multiplied, men, in seasons of drought and times of disaster and stress of circumstances, would endeavour to conciliate the demon that

Footnotes

61:* Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in East Africa.

62:* J. G. Frazer, quoting Athenæus.

62:† Aymonier.

68:* J. Sutton, MS. notes.

68:† Ibid.

68:‡ G. M. Theal, Boers and Bantu.

68:§ Ibid.

68:** J. Sutton, MS. notes.

69:* Chalmers, J: Sutton, Hon. C. Brownlee.

69:† Chalmers.

69:‡ Hon. C. Brownlee, Christian Express.

69:§ Dr. Elmslie, MS. notes.

69:** J. Sutton, MS. notes.

70:* Hon. C. Brownlee, MS. notes.

71:* Rev. Duff MacDonald.

71:† Ibid.

72:* Mackay, of Uganda.

72:† Felkin.

73:* Felkin.

73:† Mackay, of Uganda.

73:‡ Ibid.

73:§ Ibid.

73:** 1 Samuel.

74:* Mackay, Uganda.

76:* Ramseyer and Kühne.

78:* Ramseyer and Kühne.

78:† Ibid.

79:* Kühne.

80:* Kühne.

81:* Winterbotham, Rowley.