The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume III Part 37

"At a later period the conception is found current that any food which two men partake of together, so that the same substance enters into their flesh and blood, is enough to establish some sacred unity of life between them; but in ancient times this significance seems to be always attached to partic.i.p.ation in the flesh of a sacrosanct victim, and the solemn mystery of its death is justified by the consideration that only in this way can the sacred cement be procured which creates or keeps alive a living bond of union between the worshippers and their G.o.d. This cement is nothing less than the actual life of the sacred and kindred animal, which is conceived as residing in its flesh, but especially in its blood, and so, in the sacred meal, is actually distributed among all the partic.i.p.ants, each of whom incorporated a particle of it with his own individual life." [362]

11. The blood-feud.

It thus appears that the sacrifice of the divine animal which was the G.o.d of the tribe or clan, and the eating of its flesh and drinking of its blood together, was the only tangible bond or obligation on which such law and morality as existed in primitive society was based. Those who partic.i.p.ated in this sacrifice were brothers and forbidden to shed each other's blood, because in so doing they would have spilt the blood of the G.o.d impiously and unlawfully; the only lawful occasion on which it could be shed being by partic.i.p.ation of all the clan or kinsmen in the sacrificial meal. All other persons outside the clan were strangers or enemies, and no rights or obligations existed in connection with them; the only restraint on killing them being the fear that their kinsmen would take blood-revenge, not solely on the murderer, but on any member of his clan. A man's life was protected only by this readiness of his clansmen to avenge him; if he slew a fellow-kinsman, thus shedding the blood of the G.o.d which flowed in the veins of every member, or committed any other great impiety against the G.o.d, he was outlawed, and henceforth there was no protection for his life except such as he could afford himself by his own strength. This reflection puts the importance of the blood-feud in primitive society in a clear light. It was at that time really a beneficent inst.i.tution, being the only protection for human life; and its survival among such backward races as the Pathans and Corsicans, long after the State has undertaken the protection and avenging of life and the blood-feud has become almost wholly useless and evil, is more easily understood.

12. Taking food together and hospitality.

The original idea of the sacrificial meal was that the kinsmen in concert partook of the body of the G.o.d, thereby renewing their kinship with him and with each other. By a.n.a.logy, however, the tie thus formed was extended to the whole practice of eating together. It has been seen how a stranger who partook of food with an Arab became sacred and as a kinsman to his host and all the latter's clan for such time as any part of the food might remain in his system, a period which was conventionally taken as about three days. "The Old Testament records many cases where a covenant was sealed by the parties eating and drinking together. In most of these the meal is sacrificial, and the deity is taken in as a third party to the covenant. But in Joshua i. 14 the Israelites enter into alliance with the Gibeonites by taking of their victuals without consulting Jehovah. A formal league confirmed by an oath follows, but by accepting the proffered food the Israelites are already committed to the alliance." [363] From the belief in the strength and sanct.i.ty of the tie formed by eating together the obligation of hospitality appears to be derived. And this is one of the few moral ideas which are more binding in primitive than in civilised society.

13. The Roman sacra.

"A good example of the clan sacrifice, in which a whole kinship periodically joins, is afforded by the Roman sacra gentilicia. As in primitive society no man can belong to more than one kindred, so among the Romans no one could share in the sacra of two gentes--to do so was to confound the ritual and contaminate the purity of the gens. The sacra consisted in common anniversary sacrifices, in which the clansmen honoured the G.o.ds of the clan, and after them the whole kin, living and dead, were brought together in the service." [364]

14. The Hindu caste-feasts.

The intense importance thus attached to eating in common on ceremonial occasions has a very familiar ring to any one possessing some acquaintance with the Indian caste-system. The resemblance of the gotra or clan and the subcaste to the Greek phratry and phule and the Roman gens and curia or tribe has been pointed out by M. Emile Senart in Les Castes dans l'Inde. The origin of the subcaste or group, whose members eat together and intermarry, cannot be discussed here. But it seems probable that the real bond which unites it is the capacity of its members to join in the ceremonial feasts at marriages, funerals, and the readmission of members temporarily excluded, which are of a type closely resembling and seemingly derived from the sacrificial meal. Before a wedding the ancestors of the family are formally invited, and when the wedding-cakes are made they are offered to the ancestors and then partaken of by all relatives of the family as in the Roman sacra. In this case grain would take the place of flesh as the sacrificial food among a people who no longer eat the flesh of animals. Thus Sir J. G. Frazer states: "At the close of the rice harvest in the East Indian island of Buro each clan (fenna) meets at a common sacramental meal, to which every member of the clan is bound to contribute a little of the new rice. This meal is called 'eating the soul of the rice,' a name which clearly indicates the sacramental character of the repast. Some of the rice is also set apart and offered to the spirits." [365] Grain cooked with water is sacred food among the Hindus. The bride and bridegroom worship Gauri, perhaps a corn-G.o.ddess, and her son Ganesh, the G.o.d of prosperity and full granaries. It has been suggested that yellow is the propitious Hindu colour for weddings, because it is the colour of the corn. [366]

At the wedding feast all the guests sit knee to knee touching each other as a sign of their brotherhood. Sometimes the bride eats with the men in token of her inclusion in the brotherhood. In most castes the feast cannot begin until all the guests have come, and every member of the subcaste who is not under the ban of exclusion must be invited. If any considerable number of the guests wilfully abstain from attending it is an insult to the host and an implication that his own position is doubtful. Other points of resemblance between the caste feast and the sacrificial meal will be discussed elsewhere.

15. Sacrifice of the camel.

The sacrifice of the camel in Arabia, about the period of the fourth century, is thus described: "The camel chosen as the victim is bound upon a rude altar of stones piled together, and when the leader of the band has thrice led the worshippers round the altar in a solemn procession accompanied with chants, he inflicts the first wound while the last words of the hymn are still upon the lips of the congregation, and in all haste drinks of the blood that gushes forth. Forthwith the whole company fall on the victim with their swords, hacking off pieces of the quivering flesh and devouring them raw, with such wild haste that in the short interval between the rise of the day-star, which marked the hour for the service to begin, and the disappearance of its rays before the rising sun, the entire camel, body and bones, skin, blood and entrails, is wholly devoured." [367]

In this case the camel was offered as a sacrifice to Venus or the Morning Star, and it had to be devoured while the star was visible. But it is clear that the camel itself had been originally revered, because except for the sacrifice it was unlawful for the Arabs to kill the camel otherwise than as a last resort to save themselves from starvation. "The ordinary sustenance of the Saracens was derived from pillage or from hunting and from the milk of their herds. Only when these supplies failed they fell back on the flesh of their camels, one of which was slain for each clan or for each group which habitually pitched their tents together--always a fraction of a clan--and the flesh was hastily devoured by the kinsmen in dog-like fashion, half raw and merely softened over the fire." [368] In Bhopal it is stated that a camel is still sacrificed annually in perpetuation of the ancient rite. Hindus who keep camels revere them like other domestic animals. When one of my tent-camels had broken its leg by a fall and had to be killed, I asked the camelman, to whom the animal belonged, to shoot it; but he positively refused, saying, 'How shall I kill him who gives me my bread'; and a Muhammadan orderly finally shot it.

16. The joint sacrifice.

The camel was devoured raw almost before the life had left the body, so that its divine life and blood might be absorbed by the worshippers. The obligation to devour the whole body perhaps rested on the belief that its slaughter otherwise than as a sacrifice was impious, and if any part of the body was left unconsumed the clan would incur the guilt of murder. Afterwards, when more civilised stomachs revolted against the practice of devouring the whole body, the bones were buried or burnt, and it is suggested that our word bonfire comes from bone-fire. [369] Primitive usage required the presence of every clansman, so that each might partic.i.p.ate in shedding the sacred blood. Neither the blood of the G.o.d nor of any of the kinsmen might be spilt by private violence, but only by consent of the kindred and the kindred G.o.d. Similarly in shedding the blood of a member of the kin all the others were required to share the responsibility, and this was the ancient Hebrew form of execution where the culprit was stoned by the whole congregation. [370]

17. Animal sacrifices in Greece.

M. Salomon Reinach gives the following explanation of Greek myths in connection with the sacrificial meal: "The primitive sacrifice of the G.o.d, usually accompanied by the eating of the G.o.d in fellowship, was preserved in their religious rites, and when its meaning had been forgotten numerous legends were invented to account for it. In order to understand their origin it is necessary to remember that the primitive worshippers masqueraded as the G.o.d and took his name. As the object of the totem sacrifice is to make the partic.i.p.ants like the G.o.d and confer his divinity on them, the faithful endeavoured to increase the resemblance by taking the name of the G.o.d and covering themselves with the skins of animals of his species. Thus the Athenian damsels celebrating the worship of the bear Artemis dressed themselves in bear-skins and called themselves bears; the Maenads who sacrificed the doe Penthea were clad in doe-skins. Even in the later rites the devotees of Bacchus called themselves Bacchantes. A whole series of legends can be interpreted as semi-rationalistic explanations of the sacrificial meal. Actaeon was really a great stag sacrificed by women devotees who called themselves the great hind and the little hinds; he became the rash hunter who surprised Artemis at her bath, and was transformed into a stag and devoured by his own dogs. The dogs are a euphemism; in the early legend they were the human devotees of the sacred stag who tore him to pieces and devoured him with their bare teeth. These feasts of raw flesh survived in the secret religious cults of Greece long after uncooked meat had ceased to be consumed in ordinary life. Orpheus (ophreus, the haughty), who appears in art with the skin of a fox on his head, was originally a sacred fox devoured by the women of the fox totem-clan; these women call themselves Ba.s.sarides in the legend, and ba.s.sareus is one of the old names of the fox. Zagreus is a son of Zeus and Persephone who transformed himself into a bull to escape from the t.i.tans, excited against him by Hera; the t.i.tans, worshippers of the divine bull, killed and ate him; Zagreus was invoked in his worship as the 'good bull,' and when Zagreus by the grace of Zeus was reborn as Dionysus, the young G.o.d carried on his forehead the horns which bore witness to his animal nature. Hippolytus in the fable is the son of Theseus who repels the advances of Phaedra, his stepmother, and was killed by his runaway horses because Theseus, deceived by Phaedra, invoked the anger of a G.o.d upon him. But Hippolytus in Greek means 'One torn to pieces by horses.' Hippolytus is himself a horse whom the worshippers of the horse, calling themselves horses and disguised as such, tore to pieces and devoured. Phaethon (The Shining One) is a son of Apollo, who demands leave to drive the chariot of the sun, drives it badly, nearly burns up the world, and finally falls and perishes in the sea. This legend is the product of an old rite at Rhodes, the island of the sun, where every year a white horse and a burning chariot were thrown into the sea to help the sun, fatigued by his labours." [371]

18. The Pa.s.sover.

M. Reinach points out that the Pa.s.sover of the Israelites was in its origin a similar sacrifice. A lamb or kid, the first-fruit of the flocks, was eaten entire without the bones being broken, the blood smeared on the doorway being an offering to the G.o.d. The story connecting this sacrifice with the death of the first-born in Egypt was of later origin, devised to account for it when the real meaning had been forgotten. [372] The name Rachel [373] means a ewe, and it would appear that the children of Israel in the pastoral stage had the sheep for their totem deity and supposed themselves to be descended from it, as the Jats consider themselves to be descended from Siva, probably in his form of Mahadeo, the deified bull. As held in Canaan, the festival may have been a relic of the former migratory life of the Israelites when they tended flocks and regarded the sheep, or goat, as their most important domestic animal. It may have been in memory of this wandering life that the festival was accompanied by the eating of unleavened bread, and the sacrifice was consumed with loins girded up and staffs in their hands, as if in readiness for a journey. The Banjaras retain in their marriage and other customs various reminiscences of their former migratory life, as shown in the article on that caste. The Gadarias of the Central Provinces worship a G.o.ddess called Dishai Devi, who is represented by a stone platform just outside the sheep-pen. She has thus probably developed from the deified sheep or goat, which itself was formerly worshipped. On the eighth day of the fasts in Chait and Kunwar the Gadarias offer the G.o.ddess a virgin she-goat. They wash the goat's feet in water and rub turmeric on its feet and head. It is given rice to eat and brought before the G.o.ddess, and water is poured over its body; when the goat begins to shiver they think that the G.o.ddess has accepted the offering, and cut its throat with a sickle or knife. Then the animal is roasted whole and eaten in the veranda of the house, nothing being thrown away but the bones. Only men may join in this sacrifice, and not women.

19. Sanct.i.ty of domestic animals.

Thus it was a more or less general rule among several races that the domestic animals were deified and held sacred, and were slain only at a sacrifice. It followed that it was sinful to kill these animals on any other occasion. It has already been seen that the Arabs forbore to kill their worn-out camels for food except when driven to it by hunger as a last resort. "That it was once a capital offence to kill an ox, both in Attica and the Peloponnesus, is attested by Varro. So far as Athens is concerned, this statement seems to be drawn from the legend that was told in connection with the annual sacrifice at the Diipolia, where the victim was a bull and its death was followed by a solemn inquiry as to who was responsible for the act. In this trial everyone who had anything to do with the slaughter was called as a party; the maidens who drew water to sharpen the axe and knife threw the blame on the sharpeners, they put it on the man who handed the axe, he on the man who struck down the victim, and he again on the one who cut its throat, who finally fixed the responsibility on the knife, which was accordingly found guilty of murder and cast into the sea." [374] "At Tenedos the priest who offered a bull-calf to Dionysus anthroporraistes was attacked with stones and had to flee for his life; and at Corinth, in the annual sacrifice of a goat to Hera Acraea, care was taken to shift the responsibility of the death off the shoulders of the community by employing hirelings as ministers. Even they did no more than hide the knife in such a way that the goat, sc.r.a.ping with its feet, procured its own death." [375]

"Agatharchides, describing the Troglodytes of East Africa, a primitive pastoral people in the polyandrous state of society, tells us that their whole sustenance was derived from their flocks and herds. When pasture abounded, after the rainy season, they lived on milk mingled with blood (drawn apparently, as in Arabia, from the living animal), and in the dry season they had recourse to the flesh of aged or weakly beasts. Further, 'they gave the name of parent to no human being, but only to the ox and cow, the ram and ewe, from whom they had their nourishment.' Among the Caffres the cattle kraal is sacred; women may not enter it, and to defile it is a capital offence." [376]

Among the Egyptians also cows were never killed. [377]

20. Sacrificial slaughter for food.

Gradually, however, as the reverence for animals declined and the true level of their intelligence compared to that of man came to be better appreciated, the sanct.i.ty attaching to their lives no doubt grew weaker. Then it would become permissible to kill a domestic animal privately and otherwise than by a joint sacrifice of the clan; but the old custom of justifying the slaughter by offering it to the G.o.d would still remain. "At this stage, [378] at least among the Hebrews, the original sanct.i.ty of the life of domestic animals is still recognised in a modified form, inasmuch as it is held unlawful to use their flesh for food except in a sacrificial meal. But this rule is not strict enough to prevent flesh from becoming a familiar luxury. Sacrifices are multiplied on trivial occasions of religious gladness or social festivity, and the rite of eating at the sanctuary loses the character of an exceptional sacrament, and means no more than that men are invited to feast and be merry at the table of their G.o.d, or that no feast is complete in which the G.o.d has not his share." [379] This is the stage reached by the Hebrews in the time of Samuel, as described by Professor Robertson Smith, and it bears much resemblance to that of the lower Hindu castes and the Gonds at the present time. They too, when they can afford to kill a goat or a pig, cows being prohibited in deference to Hindu susceptibility, take it to the shrine of some village deity and offer it there prior to feasting on it with their friends. At intervals of a year or more many of the lower castes sacrifice a goat to Dulha Deo, the bridegroom-G.o.d, and Thakur Deo, the corn-G.o.d, and eat the body as a sacrificial meal within the house, burying the bones and other remnants beneath the floor of the house. [380] Among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush, when a man wishes to become a Jast, apparently a revered elder or senator, he must give a series of feasts to the whole community, so expensive that many men utterly ruin themselves in becoming Jast. The initiatory proceedings are sacrifices of bulls and male goats to Gish, the war-G.o.d, at the village shrine. The animals are examined with jealous eyes by the spectators, to see that they come up to the prescribed standard of excellence. After the sacrifice the meat is divided among the people, who carry it to their homes. These special sacrifices at the shrine recur at intervals; but the great slaughterings are at the feast-giver's own house, where he entertains sometimes the Jast exclusively and sometimes the whole tribe, as already mentioned. [381]

Even in the latter case, however, after a big distribution at the giver's house one or two goats are offered to the war-G.o.d at his shrine; and while the animals are being killed at the house offerings are made on a sacrificial fire, and as each goat is slain a handful of its blood is taken and thrown on the fire. [382] The Kafirs would therefore appear to be in the stage when it is still usual to kill domestic animals as a sacrifice to the G.o.d, but no longer obligatory.

21. Animal fights.

Finally animals are recognised for what they are, all sanct.i.ty ceases to attach to them, and they are killed for food in an ordinary manner. Possibly, however, such customs as roasting an ox whole, and the sports of bull-baiting and bull-fighting, may be relics of the ancient sacrifice. Formerly the buffaloes sacrificed at the shrine of the G.o.ddess Rankini or Kali in Dalbhum zamindari of Chota Nagpur were made to fight. "Two male buffaloes are driven into a small enclosure and on a raised stage adjoining and overlooking it the Raja and his suite take up their position. After some ceremonies the Raja and his family priest discharge arrows at the buffaloes, others follow their example, and the tormented and enraged beasts fall to and gore each other whilst arrow after arrow is discharged. When the animals are past doing very much mischief, the people rush in and hack at them with battle-axes till they are dead." [383]

22. The sacrificial method of killing.

Muhammadans however cannot eat the flesh of an animal unless its throat is cut and the blood allowed to flow before it dies. At the time of cutting the throat a sacred text or invocation must be repeated. It has been seen that in former times the blood of the animal was offered to the G.o.d and scattered on the altar or collected in a pit at its foot. It may be suggested that the method of killing which still survives was that formerly practised in offering the sacrifice, and that the necessity of allowing the blood to flow is a relic of the blood offering. When it no longer became necessary to sacrifice every animal at a shrine the sacrificial method of slaughter and the invocation to the G.o.d might be retained as removing the impiety of the act. At present it is said that unless an animal's blood flows it is a murda or corpse, and hence not suitable for food. But this idea may have grown up to account for the custom when its original meaning had been forgotten. The Gonds, when sacrificing a fowl, hold it over the sacred post or stone, which represents the G.o.d, and let the blood drop upon it. And when sacrificing a pig they first cut its tongue and let the blood fall upon the symbol of the G.o.d. In Chhattisgarh, when a Hindu is ill he makes a vow of the affected limb to the G.o.d; then on recovering he goes to the temple, and cutting this limb, lets the blood fall on to the symbol of the G.o.d as an offering. Similarly the Sikhs are forbidden to eat flesh unless the animal has been killed by jatka or cutting off the head with one stroke, and the same rule is observed by some of the lower Hindu castes. In Hindu sacrifices it is often customary that the head of the animal should be made over to the officiating priest as his share, and so in killing the animal he would naturally cut off its head. The above rule may therefore be of the same character as the rite of halal among the Muhammadans, and here also the sacrificial method of killing an animal may be retained to legalise its slaughter after the sacrifice itself has fallen into desuetude. In Berar some time ago the Mullah or Muhammadan priest was a village servant and the Hindus paid him dues. In return he was accustomed to kill the goats and sheep which they wished to sacrifice at temples, or in their fields to propitiate the deities presiding over them. He also killed animals for the Khatik or mutton-butcher and the latter exposed them for sale. The Mullah was ent.i.tled to the heart of the animal killed as his perquisite and a fee of two pice. Some of the Marathas were unmindful of the ceremony, but in general they professed not to eat flesh unless the sacred verse had been p.r.o.nounced either by the Mullah or some Muhammadan capable of rendering it halal or lawful to be eaten. [384] Hence it would appear that the Hindus, unprovided by their own religion with any sacrificial mode of legalising the slaughter of animals, adopted the ritual of a foreign faith in order to make animal sacrifices acceptable to their own deities. The belief that it is sinful to kill a domestic animal except with some religious sanction is thus clearly shown in full force.

23. Animal sacrifices in Indian ritual.

Among high-caste Hindus also sacrifices, including the killing of cows, were at one time legal. This is shown by several legends, [385] and is also a historical fact. One of Asoka's royal edicts prohibited at the capital the celebration of animal sacrifices and merry-makings involving the use of meat, but in the provinces apparently they continued to be lawful. [386] This indicates that prior to the rise of Buddhism such sacrifices had been customary, and also that when a feast was to be given, involving the consumption of meat, the animal was offered as a sacrifice. It is noteworthy that Asoka's rules do not forbid the slaughter of cows. [387] In ancient times also the most important royal sacrifice was that of the horse. The development of religious belief and practice in connection with the killing of domestic animals has thus proceeded on exactly opposite lines in India as compared with most of the world. Domestic animals have become more instead of less sacred and several of them cannot be killed at all. The reason usually given to account for this is the belief in the transmigration of souls, leading to the conclusion that the bodies of animals might be tenanted by human souls. Probably also Buddhism left powerful traces of its influence on the Hindu view of the sanct.i.ty of animal life even after it had ceased to be the state religion. Perhaps the Brahmans desired to make their faith more popular and took advantage of the favourite reverence of all cultivators for the cow to exalt her into one of their most powerful deities, and at the same time to extend the local cult of Krishna, the divine cowherd, thus following exactly the contrary course to that taken by Moses with the golden calf. Generally the growth of political and national feeling has mainly operated to limit the influence of the priesthood, and the spread of education and development of reasoned criticism and discussion have softened the strictness of religious observance and ritual. Both these factors have been almost entirely wanting in Hindu society, and this perhaps explains the continued sanct.i.ty attaching to the lives of domestic animals as well as the unabated power of the caste system.