qualities of the totem that the savage wishes to assimilate. It is as god, not as animal, that the totem furnishes the sacrificial meal. The savage seeks against the supernatural powers by which he is surrounded a supernatural ally; and it is in the confidence which the sacrificial rite affords him that he undertakes that forcible, physical expulsion of evil spirits which has already been mentioned.1 Hence, then, his eagerness to partake of the victim-an eagerness so great that none of the animal was left uneaten. It was the desire to fortify himself as completely as possible for the dangerous encounter for which it was the preparation. When, however, advancing civilisation made the complete consumption of the animal impossible, the remnants of the sacrificial feast were naturally treated with every precaution known to the savage, both to protect himself against his enemies, and to protect his friends against the danger of inadvertently eating food so highly taboo as was the flesh of a totem animal. Here, perhaps, the reader may feel it a difficulty that the totem animal should be tabooed food and yet should be eaten by his worshippers. The difficulty and its solution are exactly the same here as in connection with intruding on holy places. Such places are indeed forbidden> ground, yet those who would seek the god must enter them, and so may enter them for that purpose and with due precautions. On the Loango Coast, the sanctuary of a certain god may be entered by those who seek his aid, but all others become his slaves for ever if they trespass on his precincts.2 Now, what is characteristic of the sacrificial meal all over the world is precisely the fact that it is distinguished from ordinary eating by restrictions and precautions which are the same everywhere and amongst all races: the meal must be eaten in a certain place, at a certain time, by certain persons, in a certain way, for a certain purpose. As we have seen, only clansmen may eat of it, and everyone of them must partake of it. They must consume it, wholly, in the sanctuary, there and then. It is not at all times that the rite is celebrated, but once a year that the feast is held and the conflict with evil spirits undertaken-and then only after due preparation by fasting, etc.; for, as those who have come into contact with 1 Supra, p. 105, Supra, p. 63; Bastian, Loango Küste, 218, things taboo, e.g. mourners, have to fast, etc., so those who are about to enter into such contact have to observe the same rule. The "unclean" must not communicate their uncleanness to the community; much more, therefore, must those who are about to enter into relation with sacred things avoid carrying with them any uncleanness; and in both cases they are tabooed, i.e. isolated, for a time, that they may not, in the one instance, contract, or in the other, communicate, "uncleanness." From this point of view it is possible to explain another restriction, or rather precaution, namely, that which requires the sacrifice to be nocturnal. The fasting which is obligatory on mourners is only compulsory during the daylight; and the same remark applies to the fasting of those who are under a vow.2 The annual sacrifice and eating of the god could not, however, continue to be the only sacrifice: pestilence, which proved the presence of evil spirits and the necessity of expelling them; war, which involved an encounter not merely with the human foe but with his supernatural ally, came at irregular periods, and consequently the annual rite came to be supplemented by other sacrifices. Not only did the number of these supplementary sacrifices come to be increased, but the character of the rite was greatly changed in pastoral times. But, before going on to pastoral times, it will be well to ask how our argument stands exactly with regard to the pre-pastoral period, when man lived by hunting and fishing, and, in a word, was on the natural basis of subsistence. It stands thus: on the one hand, we find savages, who are still on the natural basis, treating their totem animals as gods, sometimes-not always, for we know totemism only in various stages of decay. On the other hand, we find in pastoral times, or later, animals sacrificed which once had been, and in Egypt even still were, totems. For instance, on the Gold Coast there is a god Brahfo, "antelopes are sacred to him, and no worshipper of Brahfo may molest one or eat of its flesh," yet once a year an antelope is killed and “the 3 Hence it is that war is regarded by so many savages as a religious function, for which preparation must be made by various forms of abstinence and purification and other religious rites and ceremonies, e.g. those of the fetiales, 4 Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, 64, flesh is cut up and divided between the chiefs, head-men, and priests." But we have as yet no instance of a totem animal sacrificed by a totem clan in the hunting stage. It is therefore conceivable, though improbable, that the sacrifice of totem animals dates from pastoral times, i.e. the period of domesticated animals, and does not go back to the hunter stage. This is improbable for two main reasons: first, if sacrifice originated with the slaughter of domesticated animals, we should expect only domesticated animals to be sacrificed, whereas wild animals also are sacrificed, as we have just seen; next, the sacrificial rite, altar stones, the idols which grew out of them, the partition of the victim amongst all the worshippers, are known to the Red Indians, who cannot have first learnt the rite in connection with domesticated animals and then extended it by analogy to wild animals, because they have not any domesticated animals. Indeed, the horrible human sacrifices of the semi-civilised peoples of Central America are due, I conjecture, to the fact that in their nomad period they sacrificed wild animals; and in their settled, city life they could get little game, and had no domesticated animals to provide the blood which was essential for the sacrificial rite. Still, though in North America the circle of worshippers was a totem clan, which offered animal sacrifice, and though there are traces of the annual killing, by the clan, of its totem animal,2 still, in the absence of an actual instance of the eating as well as the killing of the totem, we must regard it merely as a working hypothesis that in pre-pastoral times the animal sacrificed and eaten by the totem clan was the totem animal. The point, however, is of less importance, if we were right in contending 3 that domesticated animals were totems before they were domesticated, and owed their domestication to the fact that they were totems. For we have instances in which they are sacrificed by the clan to which they are sacred. Once a year the Todas, by whom the buffalo is held sacred, and treated "even with a degree of adoration," kill and eat a young male calf, and “this is the only occasion on which the Todas eat buffalo flesh." The Abchases once a year sacrifice an ox: any man who did not 1 Ellis, Thi-speaking Peoples, 225. 3 Supra, p. 114 ff. 2 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 90, get at least a scrap of the sacred flesh would deem himself most unfortunate. The bones are carefully collected, burned in a great hole, and the ashes buried there." 1 We have already had occasion to note that in the beginning pastoral peoples do not kill their cattle.2 In East Africa, "the nomad values his cow above all things, and weeps for its death as for that of a child." 3 He cannot afford to kill his cattle, for one thing; and, for another, they are his totem animal. Hence, in the beginning of the pastoral period, sacrifice is a rare and solemn rite. The cattle are the property of the clan, and are only slaughtered for the annual clan sacrifice. But if the clan prospers, things alter. The taste for flesh-meat develops, and with the increase of wealth in the shape of flocks and herds, the means for the more frequent gratification of the taste are afforded. Excuses for killing meat, under the pretext of sacrifice, become common; thus a Zulu said to Bishop Callaway, "Among black-men slaughtering cattle has become much more common than formerly . . . O, people are now very fond of meat, and a man says he has dreamed of the Idhlozi, and forsooth he says so because he would eat meat." Hence, sacrifice tends to become less awful and more frequent. The Madi or Moru tribe sacrifice a sheep annually, for religious purposes; but "this ceremony is observed on a small scale at other times, if a family is in any great trouble, through illness or bereavement... the same custom prevails at the grave of departed friends, and also on joyous occasions, such as the return of a son home after a very prolonged absence." 5 Thus the sacrificial feast becomes a festival of rejoicing; and private generosity manifests itself in an invitation to the whole of the community to make glad in the name of religion. Nor is the god excluded from the invitation, for he too is a member of the clan. In Samoa," the people feasted with and In a different zone, "when a Jakut is before their god." 4 about to start on a long journey to get skins, he carves an 1 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 135 (note). 2 Supra, p. 116. 3 Religion of Semites, 297, quoting Munzinger, Ostafr. Studien,2 547. 4 Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, 172. 5 Felkin, Notes on the Madi or Moru Tribe of Central Africa, quoted by Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 138. 6 Turner, Samoa, 26. idol of wood and smears it with the blood of an animal which he sacrifices in its honour. With the flesh he entertains the shaman and guests, the idol occupying the seat of honour." 1 The Tartars do not begin a meal until they have first smeared the mouth of their god Nacygai with fat.2 On the Slave Coast, every god has his festival or sacred day, when sacrifice is offered, and the blood of the sacrifice is always smeared on his image, as it is the blood which "especially belongs to or is particularly acceptable to the god," whilst the body is eaten (unless it is a human body) by the worshippers.3 The Quichés rubbed the mouths of their idols with blood,* evidently that they might drink it. The ancient Peruvians, according to a contemporary, "every month sacrifice their own children and paint the mouths of their idols with the blood of their victims," 5 or, as it is put more generally, "they anointed the huaca with the blood from ear to ear."6 Mexico, the blood of the captives offered to any god was smeared on the idol's mouth.7 When the Samoyedes offer sacrifice, at their "sacrificial piles," "the blood of the sacrifice is smeared on the slits which represent the mouths of the gods." 8 Whether the blood which was dashed on the altar stone, before it had come to be shaped into an idol, was supposed to be consumed by the god, there is nothing to show; and it would be hazardous to affirm it. In This state of things, the period when all slaughter of cattle was sacrificial, and every member of the clan was entitled to his share of the victim, has left its traces behind it in various parts of the world. Among the Zulus," when a man kills a cow— which, however, is seldom and reluctantly done, unless it happens to be stolen property-the whole population of the hamlet assemble to eat it without invitation." " Among the Damaras "another superstition [i.e. in addition to that which forbids clans from eating their totem animals] is that meat is common property. Every slaughter is looked upon as a kind of sacrifice or festal occasion. Damaras cannot conceive that 1 Bastian, Allerlei, i. 213. 3 Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples, 79. 2 Bastian, Der Mensch, iii. 154. Bastian, Der Mensch, ii. 269. Xérès, La Conquête du Pérou (Ternaux-Compans, iv. 53). 6 Markham, Rites and Laws of the Yncas, 55. 7 Sahagun, Appendix. 8 Journ. Anth. Inst. xxiv. 400. "Shaw, Memorials of South Africa, 59, quoted in Religion of Semites, 284. |
