Note 245 — Chapter III · THE EXODUS OUT OF EGYPT (continued 2)
Reading edition
Similar cities of refuge, called puhonua, existed in Hawaii. ‘A thief or a murderer might be pursued to the very gateway of one of those cities; but as soon as he crossed the threshold of that gate, even though the gate were open and no barrier hindered pursuit, he was safe as at the city altar. When once within the sacred city, the fugitive’s first duty was to present himself before the idol and return thanks for his protection’ (Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, p. 151, quoting Ellis, Through Hawaii, pp. 155 sq., and Bird, Six Months in the Sandwich Islands, pp. 135 sq.). For the asyla of Asia Minor see Barth, De Asylis Græcis (1888); Daremberg et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités, Grecques et Romaines, i. pp. 505 sqq.; Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie (ed. Wissowa), iv. pp. 1884-5.