MOTHERRIGHT 261 



Northern Europe and Asia, where the rite itself may 

 not be recorded, there are unmistakable traces of the 

 influence of those ideas. On the other hand where, 

 as among- some of the peoples included above, it 

 has ceased to be used for the purpose of admission 

 to a clan, the rite or some transparent modifica- 

 tion of it, has continued in use for the reconciliation 

 of ancient foes or the solemnisation of a specially 

 binding league. 1 



In a society organised by the bond of blood, and 

 where descent is reckoned through females only, the 

 father is not recognised as belonging to the kin of the 

 children. Among matrilineal peoples exogamy, or 

 marriage outside the kin, is usually if not always 

 compulsory. So far is this carried that the artificial 

 tie of the blood-covenant is a barrier to marriage. 

 When Cuchulainn in the Irish saga of The Wooing of 

 Emer wounded his love, Dervorgil, in the form of a 

 sea-bird with a stone from his sling, he became her 

 blood-brother by sucking from the wound the stone 

 with a clot of blood round it. "I cannot wed thee 

 now," he said, " for I have drunk thy blood. But I 

 will give thee to my companion here, Lugaid of the 

 Red Stripes." And so it was done. 2 This tale beyond 

 doubt reflects the custom among the ancient Irish. 

 The islanders of Wetar in the East Indies, to select 

 only one other example, represent even an earlier 



1 There is one doubtful account of its use among the descendants 

 of Genghis Khan for this purpose (see the passage quoted and 

 commented on by M. Rene Basset, Rev. Trad. Pop. x. 176). As 

 to the subject generally, see Robertson Smith (Kinship; and Rcl. 

 Sem.); Trumbull, The Blood Covenant (London, 1887); Strack, Das 

 Blut (Munchen, 1900). 



2 Eleanor Hull, The Cuchullin Saga, 82. 



