Note 339.1 — Chapter XIV · MARRIAGE RITES.

Beyond the limits of Bengal, blood is not often a prominent feature in marriage rites. Yet some significant instances may be cited. We cannot reckon that of the ancient Aztecs among these. When, after the marriage feast, the Aztec bridal pair retired to their chamber, it was only to fast and pray during four days, and to draw blood from various parts of their bodies. The object of this bleeding, however, is said to have been the propitiation of their cruel gods. In fact, the idea of propitiation seems to have entered into the rite, and to have ousted what probably was the original intention—that, namely, of sacramental communion with the divinities. Such communion with the divinities may, of course, have been indirect communion with one another; though there is not sufficient evidence to warrant our asserting that this was meant, and still less that direct communion of the same kind was effected. But we are not left without examples elsewhere. The ceremonies of the Wukas, a tribe inhabiting the mountains of New Guinea, are exactly in point. Their weddings begin with an elopement, followed by pursuit and capture of both fugitives. The next step is to bargain for the price of the bride. When this is settled the marriage is performed by mutual cuts made by husband and wife in one another’s foreheads, so that the blood flows. The other members of both families then do likewise—a proceeding, we are told, “which binds together all the relations on both sides in the closest fraternal alliance.”339.1 The writer I am quoting does not, indeed, mention any daubing or exchange of blood; but it is clear that this must be understood. On the island of Banguey, off the northernmost point of Borneo, is a tribe of Dusuns. Mr. Creagh, the governor of British North Borneo, visiting them a year or two ago, found that their marriage-rite consisted in transferring a drop of blood from a small incision made with a wooden knife in the calf of the man’s leg to a similar cut in the woman’s leg.339.2 An Annamite story points to a ceremony in which the blood was drunk. A husband and wife swore that when one of them died the other would preserve the body until it came to life again, and would not marry a second time. The wife died, and the husband kept her corpse for seven months. At length the village elders remonstrated, fearing that the dead woman would become a demon and haunt the village. Rather than bury his wife, the husband arranged that they should help him to make a raft, and he would put the body upon it and float with it whithersoever the winds and the waves would take him. The raft was borne to the eastern paradise; and there Buddha, touched by the man’s story, raised his wife from the dead, and asked her if she loved her husband truly and constantly. She vowed she did. Whereupon Buddha directed him to draw a cupful of blood from his finger, and give it to her to drink: which was done. It is sad to relate that after all this she proved unfaithful, and, when she died, was changed by Buddha into a mosquito, which is always sucking blood, but never can get enough to restore to her husband, in accordance with Buddha’s command, the entire cupful of blood she had taken from him.340.1 A tale from Mota, one of the Banks’ Islands, relates that certain women, who desire to become the hero’s wives, make him give them some of his liver to eat.340.2