Note 117.5 — PSYCHE’S TASK

The matricide Orestes is said to have recovered his wits by biting off one of his own fingers. There was a curious story that after Orestes had gone mad through murdering his mother he recovered his wits by biting off one of his own fingers; the Furies of his murdered mother, which had appeared black to him before, appeared white as soon as he had mutilated himself in this way: it was as if the taste of his own blood sufficed to avert or disarm the wrathful ghost.117.5 A hint of the way in which the blood may have been supposed to produce this result is furnished by the practice of some savages. Manslayers commonly taste their victims’ blood in order not to be haunted by their ghosts. The Indians of Guiana believe that an avenger of blood who has slain his man must go mad unless he tastes the blood of his victim; the notion apparently is that the ghost drives him crazy, just as the ghost of Clytemnestra did to Orestes, who was also, be it remembered, an avenger of blood. In order to avert this consequence the Indian manslayer resorts on the third night to the grave of his victim, pierces the corpse with a sharp-pointed stick, and withdrawing it sucks the blood of the murdered man. After that he goes home with an easy mind, satisfied that he has done his duty and that he has nothing more to fear from the ghost.118.1 A similar custom was observed by the Maoris in battle. When a warrior had slain his foe in combat, he tasted his blood, believing that this preserved him from the avenging spirit (atua) of his victim; for they imagined that “the moment a slayer had tasted the blood of the slain, the dead man became a part of his being and placed him under the protection of the atua or guardian-spirit of the deceased.”118.2 Thus in the opinion of these savages, by swallowing a portion of their victim they made him a part of themselves and thereby converted him from an enemy into an ally; they established, in the strictest sense of the words, a blood-covenant with him. The Aricara Indians also drank the blood of their slain foes and proclaimed the deed by the mark of a red hand on their faces.118.3 The motive for this practice may have been, as with the Maoris, a desire to appropriate and so disarm the ghost of an enemy. In antiquity some of the Scythians used to drink the blood of the first foes they killed; and they also tasted the blood of the friends with whom they made a covenant, for “they take that to be the surest pledge of good faith.”118.4 Homicides supposed to go mad unless they taste the blood of their victim. The motive of the two customs was probably the same. “To the present day, when a person of another tribe has been slain by a Nandi, the blood must be carefully washed off the spear or sword into a cup made of grass, and drunk by the slayer. If this is not done it is thought that the man will become frenzied.”118.5 So among some tribes of the Lower Niger “it is customary and necessary for the executioner to lick the blood that is on the blade”; moreover “the custom of licking the blood off the blade of a sword by which a man has been killed in war is common to all these tribes, and the explanation given me by the Ibo, which is generally accepted, is, that if this was not done, the act of killing would so affect the strikers as to cause them to run amok among their own people; because the sight and smell of blood render them absolutely senseless as well as regardless of all consequences. And this licking the blood is the only sure remedy, and the only way in which they can recover themselves.”119.1 So, too, among the Shans of Burma “it was the curious custom of executioners to taste the blood of their victims, as they believed if this were not done illness and death would follow in a short time. In remote times Shan soldiers always bit the bodies of men killed by them in battle.”119.2 Strange as it may seem, this truly savage superstition exists apparently in Italy to this day. There is a widespread opinion in Calabria that if a murderer is to escape he must suck his victim’s blood from the reeking blade of the dagger with which he did the deed.119.3 We can now perhaps understand why the matricide Orestes was thought to have recovered his wandering wits as soon as he had bitten off one of his fingers. By tasting his own blood, which was also that of his victim, since she was his mother, he might be supposed to form a blood-covenant with the ghost and so to convert it from a foe into a friend. Various precautions taken by manslayers against the ghosts of their victims. The Kabyles of North Africa think that if a murderer leaps seven times over his victim’s grave within three or seven days of the murder, he will be quite safe. Hence the fresh grave of a murdered man is carefully guarded.119.4 The Lushai of North-Eastern India believe that if a man kills an enemy the ghost of his victim will haunt him and he will go mad, unless he performs a certain ceremony which will make him master of the dead man’s soul in the other world. The ceremony includes the sacrifice of an animal, whether a pig, a goat, or a mithan.120.1 Among the Awemba of Northern Rhodesia, “according to a superstition common among Central African tribes, unless the slayers were purified from blood-guiltiness they would become mad. On the night of return no warrior might sleep in his own hut, but lay in the open nsaka in the village. The next day, after bathing in the stream and being anointed with lustral medicine by the doctor, he could return to his own hearth, and resume intercourse with his wife.”120.2 In all such cases the madness of the slayer is probably attributed to the ghost of the slain, which has taken possession of him.