Note 241.1 — Chapter XII · TOTEMISM—THE BLOOD COVENANT—CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH SALIVA.

by no means stood alone. The priest in Guatemala drew blood from his tongue and other members, and anointed with it the feet and hands of the image. And a similar custom is described by Spanish writers as followed in both North and South America.241.1 When Rome was at the height of her civilisation Tibullus described the high priestess of Bellona as lacerating her own arm with the sacrificial axe and bespattering the goddess with her blood, and then as she stood there inspired by the goddess with her oracle.241.2 This doubtless is the meaning of the passage relating the antics of the priests of Baal in the contest with Elijah, when they leaped about the altar, crying aloud, and cut themselves with knives and lances until the blood gushed out upon them. Their object was not to maim or torture themselves, but to renew their union with the god, by shedding their blood upon him. In course of time the rite would cease to be understood, its practice would change, and then the mere torture, or the outpouring of the blood without any care to bring it into contact with the god, would be regarded as its object. This was perhaps the stage at which Baal-worship had arrived in the time of Ahab. In the Hebrew ritual it was the blood of the sacrifice and not of the worshipper which was sprinkled, and so also in many other instances. But then the victim was identified with the worshipper, or the latter also partook of it by being himself sprinkled with the blood or eating its flesh. The Scandinavian custom, for example, as delineated in the Heimskringla required that the blood should be drained into bowls, and then with a rod or sprinkler “should the stall of the gods be reddened, and the walls of the temple within and without, and the men-folk also besprinkled; but the flesh was to be sodden for the feasting of men.”242.1 In either case the worshipper was brought into union with the god. Elsewhere the same object is effected by the substitution of some other substance for blood. Among the ceremonies of purification imposed by certain of the non-Aryan tribes of Bengal upon women after childbirth, is that of smearing with vermilion the edge of the village well.242.2 Vermilion is a very obvious symbol of blood; and we shall hereafter see that, by these tribes and others, it is its recognised substitute. Originally the well must have been smeared with blood, and that blood drawn from the offerer’s veins. By the ceremonial union thus effected with the deity who dwells in, or is identified with, the well, the woman would be purified.