34

INSPIRATION BY

СНАР.

and are now so familiar through books on ethnology, that it is needless to cite illustrations of the general principle. It may be well, however, to refer to two particular modes of producing temporary inspiration, because they are perhaps less known than some others, and because we shall have occasion to refer to them later on. One of these modes of producing inspiration

is by sucking the fresh blood of a sacrificed victim. In the temple of Apollo Diradiotes at Argos, a lamb was sacrificed by night once a month; a woman, who had to observe a rule of chastity, tasted the blood of the lamb, and thus being inspired by the god she prophesied or divined. At Aegira in Achaea the priestess of Earth drank the fresh blood of a bull before she descended into the cave to prophesy.' In Southern India a devil-dancer "drinks the blood of the sacrifice, putting the throat of the decapitated goat to his mouth. Then, as if he had acquired new life, he begins to brandish his staff of bells, and to dance with a quick but wild unsteady step. Suddenly the afflatus descends. There is no mistaking that glare, For those frantic leaps. He snorts, he stares, he gyrates. The demon has now taken bodily possession of him; and, though he retains the power of utterance and of motion, both are under the demon's control, and his separate consciousness is in abeyance. The devil-dancer is now worshipped as a present deity, and every bystander consults him respecting his disease, his wants, the welfare of his absent relatives, the offerings to be made for the accomplishment of his

1 See for examples E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 131 sqq. • Pausanias, ii, 24, 1. károxOS ÉK Toû bcoû ylverai is the expression.

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 147.

Pausanias (vii. 25, 13) mentions the draught of bull's blood as an ordeal to test the chastity of the priestess. Doubt. less it was thought to serve both purposes.

I

BLOOD-DRINKING

35

wishes, and, in short, respecting everything for which superhuman knowledge is supposed to be available."1 At a festival of the Minahassa in northern Celebes, after a pig has been killed, the priest rushes furiously at it, thrusts his head into the carcass and drinks of the blood. Then he is dragged away from it by force and set on a chair, whereupon he begins to prophesy how the rice crop will turn out that year. A second time he runs at the carcass and drinks of the blood; a second time he is forced into the chair and continues his predictions. It is thought there is a spirit in him which possesses the power of prophecy. At Rhetra, a great religious capital of the Western Slavs, the priest tasted the blood of the sacrificed oxen and sheep in order the better to prophesy. The true test of a Dainyal or diviner among some of the Hindoo Koosh tribes is to suck the blood from the neck of a decapitated goat. The other mode of producing temporary inspiration, to which I shall here refer, is by means of a branch or leaves of a sacred tree. Thus in the Hindoo Koosh a fire is kindled with twigs of the sacred cedar; and the Dainyal or sibyl, with a cloth over her head, inhales the thick pungent smoke till she is seized with convulsions and falls senseless to the ground. Soon she rises and raises a shrill chant, which is caught up

1 Caldwell, "On demonolatry in Southern India," Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, i. 101 sq.

2 J. G. F. Riedel, "De Minahasa in 1825," Tijdschrift v. Indische Taal Land-en Volkenkunde, xviii. 517 sq. Cp. N. Graafland, De Minahassa, i. 122; Dumont D'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de La Perouse, v. 443.

F. J. Mone, Geschichte des Heidenthums im nördlichen Europa, i. 188.

Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p. 96. For other instances of priests or representatives of the deity drinking the warm blood of the victim, cp. Tijdschrift v. Nederlandsch Indie, 1849, p. 395; Oldfield, Sketches from Nipal, ii. 296 sq.; Asiatic Researches, iv. 40, 41, 50, 52 (8vo. ed.); Paul Soleillet, L'Afrique Occidentale, p. 123 sq. To snuff up the savour of the sacrifice was similarly supposed to produce inspiration. Tertullian, Apologet. 23.

36

INSPIRED VICTIMS

CHAP.

and loudly repeated by her audience.' So Apollo's prophetess ate the sacred laurel before she prophesied. It is worth observing that many peoples expect the victim as well as the priest or prophet to give signs of inspiration by convulsive movements of the body; and if the animal remains obstinately steady, they esteem it unfit for sacrifice. Thus when the Yakuts sacrifice to an evil spirit, the beast must bellow and roll about, which is considered a token that the evil spirit has entered into it. Apollo's prophetess could give no oracles unless the victim to be sacrificed trembled in every limb when the wine was poured on its head. But for ordinary Greek sacrifices it was enough that the victim should shake its head; to make it do so, water was poured on it. Many other peoples (Tonquinese, Hindoos, Chuwash, etc.) have adopted the same test of a suitable victim; they pour water or wine on its head; if the animal shakes its head it is accepted for sacrifice; if it does not, it is rejected."

The person temporarily inspired is believed to acquire, not merely divine knowledge, but also, at least occasionally, divine power. In Cambodia, when an epidemic breaks out, the inhabitants of several villages unite and go with a band of music at their head to look for the man whom the local god is 1 Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p. 97.

Lucian, Bis accus., 1; Tzetzes, Schol. ad Lycophr., 6.

* Vambery, Das Türkenvolk, p. 158. Plutarch, De defect. oracul. 46, 49. D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, ii. 37 ; Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, xvi. 230 sq.; Panjab Notes and Queries, iii. No. 721; Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, i. 103; S. Mateer, The Land of Charity, 216; id., Native Life in Travancore, p. 941 A. C. Lyall,

Asiatic Studies, p. 14; Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p. 131; Pallus, Reisen in verschiedenen Provinzen des russischen Reiches, i. 91; Vambery, Das Türkenvolk, p. 485; Erman, Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russ land, i. 377. When the Rao of Kachh sacrifices a buffalo, water is sprinkled between its horns; if it shakes its head, it is unsuitable; if it nods its head, it is sacrificed. Panjab Notes and Queries, i. No. 911. This is probably a modern misinterpretation of the old custom.

INSPIRED men

37

believed to have chosen for his temporary incarnation. When found, the man is taken to the altar of the god, where the mystery of incarnation takes place. Then the man becomes an object of veneration to his fellows, who implore him to protect the village against the plague.' The image of Apollo at Hylæ in Phocis was believed to impart superhuman strength. Sacred men, inspired by it, leaped down precipices, tore up huge trees by the roots, and carried them on their backs along the narrowest defiles. The feats performed by inspired dervishes belong to the same class.

Thus far we have seen that the savage, failing to discern the limits of his ability to control nature, ascribes to himself and to all men certain powers which we should now call supernatural. Further, we have seen that over and above this general supernaturalism, some persons are supposed to be inspired for short periods by a divine spirit, and thus temporarily to enjoy the knowledge and power' of the indwelling deity. From beliefs like these it is an easy step to the conviction that certain men are permanently possessed by a deity, or in some other undefined way are endued with so high a degree of supernatural powers as to be ranked as gods and to receive the homage of prayer and sacrifice. Sometimes these human gods are restricted to purely supernatural or spiritual functions. Sometimes they exercise supreme political power in addition. In the latter case they are kings as well as gods, and the government is a theocracy. I shall give examples of both.

In the Marquesas Islands there was a class of men who were deified in their life-time. They were sup

1 Moura, Le Royaume du Cambodge, i. 177 sq.

Pausanias, x. 32, 6.

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HUMAN GODS

CHAP.

The

posed to wield a supernatural power over the elements; they could give abundant harvests or smite the ground with barrenness; and they could inflict disease or death. Human sacrifices were offered to them to avert their wrath. There were not many of them, at the most one or two in each island. They lived in mystic seclusion. Their powers were sometimes, but not always, hereditary. A missionary has described one of these human gods from personal observation. god was a very old man who lived in a large house within an enclosure. In the house was a kind of altar, and on the beams of the house and on the trees round it were hung human skeletons, head down. No one entered the enclosure, except the persons dedicated to the service of the god; only on days when human victims were sacrificed might ordinary people penetrate into the precinct. This human god received more sacrifices than all the other gods; often he would sit on a sort of scaffold in front of his house and call for two or three human victims at a time. They were always brought, for the terror he inspired was extreme. He was invoked all over the island, and offerings were sent to him from every side. Again, of the South Sea Islands in general we are told that each island had a man who represented or personified the divinity. Such men were called gods, and their substance was confounded with that of the deity. The man-god was sometimes the king himself; oftener he was a priest or subordinate chief. Tanatoa, King of Raiatea, was deified by a certain ceremony performed at the chief temple. "As one of the divinities of his subjects,

1 Vincendon Dumoulin et Desgraz, Iles Marquises, pp. 226, 240 sq.

Moerenhout, Voyages aux Iles du Grand Océan, i. 479; Ellis, Polynes ian Researches, iii. 94.

1

therefore, the king was worshipped, consulted as an oracle and had sacrifices and prayers offered to him."1 This was not an exceptional case. The kings of the island regularly enjoyed divine honours, being deified at the time of their accession. At his inauguration the king of Tahiti received a sacred girdle of red and yellow feathers, "which not only raised him to the highest earthly station, but identified him with their gods." The gods of Samoa generally appeared in animal form, but sometimes they were permanently incarnate in men, who gave oracles, received offerings (occasionally of human flesh), healed the sick, answered prayers, and so on. In regard to the old religion of the Fijians, and especially of the inhabitants of Somosomo, it is said that "there appears to be no certain line of demarcation between departed spirits and gods, nor between gods and living men, for many of the priests and old chiefs are considered as sacred persons, and not a few of them will also claim to themselves the right of divinity. 'I am a god,' Tuikilakila would say; and he believed it too." In the Pelew Islands it is believed that every god can take possession of a man and speak through him. The possession may be either temporary or permanent; in the latter case the chosen person is called a korong. The god is free in his choice, so the position of korong is not hereditary. After the death of a korong the god is for some time unrepresented, until he suddenly makes his appearance in a new Avatar. The person thus chosen gives signs 4 Turner, Samoa, pp. 37, 48, 57, 58, 59, 73.

1 Tyerman and Bennet, Journal of Voyages and Travels in the South Sea Islands, China, India, dc., i. 524; cp. p. 529 sq.

Tyerman and Bennet, op. cit. i. 529 sq.

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 108.

Hazlewood in Erskine's Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, p. 246 sq. Cp. Wilkes's Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 87.