70 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



his accession to the government, to he washed in the hlood 

 of a near relative, generally a brother, who is put to death 

 on the occasion; &quot; and when we infer that before civilization 

 arose the sanguinary tastes and usages now exceptional 

 were probably general; we may suspect that from the 

 drinking of blood by conquering cannibals there arose some 

 kinds of blood-offerings at any rate, offerings of blood 

 taken from immolated victims. Possibly some offerings of 

 blood from the bodies of living persons are to be thus ac 

 counted for. But those which are not, are explicable as 

 arising from the practice of establishing a sacred bond be 

 tween living persons by partaking of each other s blood : the 

 derived conception being that those who give some of their 

 blood to the ghost of a man just dead and lingering near, 

 effect with it a union which on the one side implies sub 

 mission, and on the other side friendliness. 



On this hypothesis we have a reason for the prevalence of 

 self -bleeding as a funeral rite, not among existing savages 

 only, but among ancient and partially-civilized peoples 

 the Jews, the Greeks, the Huns, the Turks. We are 

 shown how there arise kindred rites as permanent pro 

 pitiations of those more dreaded ghosts which become gods 

 such offerings of blood, now from their own bodies and 

 now from their infants bodies, as those which the Mexicans 

 gave their idols; such offerings as were implied by the 

 self-gashings of the priests of Baal; and such as were 

 sometimes made even in propitiating Jahveh, as by the 

 fourscore men who came from Shechem, Shiloh, and 

 Samaria. Moreover, the instances of blood-letting as a 

 complimentary act in social intercourse, become explicable. 

 During a Samoan marriage ceremony the friends of the 

 bride, to testify their respect, &quot; took up stones and beat 

 themselves until their heads were bruised and bleed 

 ing.&quot; &quot; When the Indians of Potonchan (Central Amer 

 ica) receive new friends ... as a proof of friendship, they, 

 in the sight of the friend, draw some blood . . . from the 



