The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)

Beliefs as to the homoeopathic magic of the flesh of wolves, bears, and serpents

In Norse legend, Ingiald, son of King Aunund, was timid in his youth, but after eating the heart of a wolf he became very bold; Hialto gained strength and courage by eating the heart of a bear and drinking its blood;429 and when Sigurd killed the dragon Fafnir and tasted his heart's blood, he acquired thereby a knowledge of the language of birds.430 The belief that the language of birds or of animals in general can be learned by eating some part of a serpent appears to be ancient and wide-spread. Democritus is reported to have said that serpents were generated from the mixed blood of certain birds, and that therefore whoever ate a serpent would understand the bird language.431 The Arabs in antiquity were supposed to be able to draw omens from birds because they had gained a knowledge of the bird language by eating either the heart or liver of a serpent; and the people of Paraka in India are said to have learned the language of animals in general by the same means.432 Saxo Grammaticus relates how Rollo acquired all knowledge, including an understanding of the speech of animals, both wild and tame, by eating of a black serpent.433 In Norway, Sweden, and Jutland down to the nineteenth century the flesh of a white snake was thought to confer supernatural wisdom on the eater;434 it is a German and Bohemian superstition that whoever eats serpent's flesh understands the language of animals.435 Notions of the same sort, based [pg 147] no doubt on a belief in the extraordinary wisdom or subtlety of the serpent, often meet us in popular tales and traditions.436

Various beliefs as to the homoeopathic magic of the flesh of animals

In Morocco lethargic patients are given ants to swallow, and to eat lion's flesh will make a coward brave;437 but people abstain from eating the hearts of fowls, lest thereby they should be rendered timid.438 When a child is late in learning to speak, the Turks of Central Asia will give it the tongues of certain birds to eat.439 A North American Indian thought that brandy must be a decoction of hearts and tongues, “because,” said he, “after drinking it I fear nothing, and I talk wonderfully.”440 In Java there is a tiny earthworm which now and then utters a shrill sound like that of the alarum of a small clock. Hence when a public dancing girl has screamed herself hoarse in the exercise of her calling, the leader of the troop makes her eat some of these worms, in the belief that thus she will regain her voice and will, after swallowing them, be able to scream as shrilly as ever.441 The people of Darfur, in Central Africa, think that the liver is the seat of the soul, and that a man may enlarge his soul by eating the liver of an animal. “Whenever an animal is killed its [pg 148] liver is taken out and eaten, but the people are most careful not to touch it with their hands, as it is considered sacred; it is cut up in small pieces and eaten raw, the bits being conveyed to the mouth on the point of a knife, or the sharp point of a stick. Any one who may accidentally touch the liver is strictly forbidden to partake of it, which prohibition is regarded as a great misfortune for him.” Women are not allowed to eat liver, because they have no soul.442

The flesh and blood, but especially the hearts, of dead men eaten or drunk for the sake of acquiring the good qualities of the dead

Again, the flesh and blood of dead men are commonly eaten and drunk to inspire bravery, wisdom, or other qualities for which the men themselves were remarkable, or which are supposed to have their special seat in the particular part eaten. Thus among the mountain tribes of South-Eastern Africa there are ceremonies by which the youths are formed into guilds or lodges, and among the rites of initiation there is one which is intended to infuse courage, intelligence, and other qualities into the novices. Whenever an enemy who has behaved with conspicuous bravery is killed, his liver, which is considered the seat of valour; his ears, which are supposed to be the seat of intelligence; the skin of his forehead, which is regarded as the seat of perseverance; his testicles, which are held to be the seat of strength; and other members, which are viewed as the seat of other virtues, are cut from his body and baked to cinders. The ashes are carefully kept in the horn of a bull, and, during the ceremonies observed at circumcision, are mixed with other ingredients into a kind of paste, which is administered by the tribal priest to the youths. By this means the strength, valour, intelligence, and other virtues of the slain are believed to be imparted to the eaters.443 When Basutos of the mountains have killed a very brave foe, they immediately cut out his heart and eat it, because this is supposed to give them his courage and strength in battle. At the close of the war the man who has slain such a foe is called before the chief and [pg 149] gets from the doctor a medicine which he chews with his food. The third day after this he must wash his body in running water, and at the expiry of ten days he may return to his wives and children.444 So an Ovambo warrior in battle will tear out the heart of his slain foe in the belief that by eating it he can acquire the bravery of the dead man.445 A similar belief and practice prevail among some of the tribes of British Central Africa, notably among the Angoni. These tribes also mutilate the dead and reduce the severed parts to ashes. Afterwards the ashes are stirred into a broth or gruel, “which must be ‘lapped’ up with the hand and thrown into the mouth, but not eaten as ordinary food is taken, to give the soldiers courage, perseverance, fortitude, strategy, patience and wisdom.”446 In former times whenever a Nandi warrior killed an enemy he used to eat a morsel of the dead man's heart to make himself brave.447 The Wagogo of German East Africa do the same thing for the same purpose.448 When Sir Charles M'Carthy was killed by the Ashantees in 1824, it is said that his heart was devoured by the chiefs of the Ashantee army, who hoped by this means to imbibe his courage. His flesh was dried and parcelled out among the lower officers for the same purpose, and his bones were long kept at Coomassie as national fetishes.449 The Amazons of Dahomey used to eat the hearts of foes remarkable for their bravery, in order that some of the intrepidity which animated them might be transfused into the eaters. In former days, if report may be trusted, the hearts of enemies who enjoyed a reputation for sagacity were also eaten, for the Ewe-speaking negro of these regions holds that the heart is the seat of the intellect as well as of courage.450 Among the Yoruba-speaking negroes of the Slave Coast the [pg 150] priests of Ogun, the war-god, usually take out the hearts of human victims, which are then dried, crumbled to powder, mixed with rum, and sold to aspirants after courage, who swallow the mixture in the belief that they thereby absorb the manly virtue of which the heart is supposed to be the seat.451 Similarly, Indians of the Orinoco region used to toast the hearts of their enemies, grind them to powder, and then drink the powder in a liquid in order to be brave and valiant the next time they went forth to fight.452 The Nauras Indians of New Granada ate the hearts of Spaniards when they had the opportunity, hoping thereby to make themselves as dauntless as the dreaded Castilian chivalry.453 The Sioux Indians of North America used to reduce to powder the heart of a valiant enemy and swallow the powder, hoping thus to appropriate the dead man's valour.454 The Muskoghees also thought that to eat the heart of a foe would “communicate and give greater heart against the enemy. They also think that the vigorous faculties of the mind are derived from the brain, on which account, I have seen some of their heroes drink out of a human skull; they imagine, they only imbibe the good qualities it formerly contained.”455 For a similar reason in Uganda a priest used to drink beer out of the skull of a dead king in order that he might be possessed by the king's spirit.456 Among the Esquimaux of Bering Strait, when young men had slain an enemy for the first time in war, they were wont to drink some of the blood and to eat a small piece of the heart of their victim in order to increase their bravery.457 In some tribes of North-Western Australia, when a man dies who had been a great warrior or hunter, [pg 151] his friends cut out the fat about his heart and eat it, because they believe that it imparts to them the courage and cunning of the deceased.458

Other parts than the heart are eaten for the purpose of acquiring the virtues of the deceased

But while the human heart is thus commonly eaten for the sake of imbuing the eater with the qualities of its original owner, it is not, as we have already seen, the only part of the body which is consumed for this purpose. Thus in New Caledonia the victors in a fight used to eat the bodies of the slain, “not, as might be supposed, from a taste for human flesh, but in order to assimilate part of the bravery which the deceased was supposed to possess.”459 Among the tribes about Maryborough in Queensland, when a man was killed in a ceremonial fight, it was customary for his friends to skin and eat him, in order that his warlike virtues might pass into the eaters.460 Warriors of the Theddora and Ngarigo tribes in South-Eastern Australia used to eat the hands and feet of their slain enemies, believing that in this way they acquired some of the qualities and courage of the dead.461 In the Dieri tribe of Central Australia, when a man had been condemned and killed by a properly constituted party of executioners, the weapons with which the deed was done were washed in a small wooden vessel, and the bloody mixture was administered to all the slayers in a prescribed manner, while they lay down on their backs and the elders poured it into their mouths. This was believed to give them double strength, courage, and great nerve for any future enterprise.462 The Kamilaroi of New South Wales ate the liver as well as the heart of a brave man to get his courage.463 In Tonquin also there is a popular superstition that the liver of a brave man makes brave any who partake of it. Hence when a Catholic missionary was beheaded in Tonquin in 1837, the executioner cut out the liver of his victim and ate part of [pg 152] it, while a soldier attempted to devour another part of it raw.464 With a like intent the Chinese swallow the bile of notorious bandits who have been executed.465 The Dyaks of Sarawak used to eat the palms of the hands and the flesh of the knees of the slain in order to steady their own hands and strengthen their own knees.466 The Tolalaki, notorious head-hunters of Central Celebes, drink the blood and eat the brains of their victims that they may become brave.467 The Italones of the Philippine Islands drink the blood of their slain enemies, and eat part of the back of their heads and of their entrails raw to acquire their courage. For the same reason the Efugaos, another tribe of the Philippines, suck the brains of their foes.468 In like manner the Kai of German New Guinea eat the brains of the enemies they kill in order to acquire their strength.469 Among the Kimbunda of Western Africa, when a new king succeeds to the throne, a brave prisoner of war is killed in order that the king and nobles may eat his flesh, and so acquire his strength and courage.470 The notorious Zulu chief Matuana drank the gall of thirty chiefs, whose people he had destroyed, in the belief that it would make him strong.471 It is a Zulu fancy that by eating the centre of the forehead and the eyebrow of an enemy they acquire the power of looking steadfastly at a foe.472 In Tud or Warrior Island, Torres Straits, men would drink the sweat of renowned warriors, and eat the scrapings from [pg 153] their finger-nails which had become coated and sodden with human blood. This was done “to make strong and like stone; no afraid.”473 In Nagir, another island of Torres Straits, in order to infuse courage into boys a warrior used to take the eye and tongue of a man whom he had killed, and after mincing them and mixing them with his urine he administered the compound to the boy, who received it with shut eyes and open mouth seated between the warrior's legs.474 Before every warlike expedition the people of Minahassa in Celebes used to take the locks of hair of a slain foe and dabble them in boiling water to extract the courage; this infusion of bravery was then drunk by the warriors.475 In New Zealand “the chief was an atua [god], but there were powerful and powerless gods; each naturally sought to make himself one of the former; the plan therefore adopted was to incorporate the spirits of others with their own; thus, when a warrior slew a chief, he immediately gouged out his eyes and swallowed them, the atua tonga, or divinity, being supposed to reside in that organ; thus he not only killed the body, but also possessed himself of the soul of his enemy, and consequently the more chiefs he slew the greater did his divinity become.”476

Moral virtues of the dead acquired through simple contact with their bones

Even without absorbing any part of a man's bodily substance it is sometimes thought possible to acquire his moral virtues through simple contact with his bones. Thus among the Toradjas of Central Celebes, when a youth is being circumcised he is made to sit on the skull of a slain foe in order to make him brave in war;477 and [pg 154] when Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, was dead, the Turks, who had often felt the force of his arm in battle, are said to have imagined that by wearing a piece of his bones near their heart they should be animated with a strength and valour like his.478 A peculiar form of communion with the dead is practised by the Gallas of Eastern Africa. They think that food from the house of a dead man, especially food that he liked, or that he cooked for himself, contains a portion of his life or soul. If at the funeral feast a man eats some of that food, he fancies that he has thereby absorbed some of the life or soul of the departed, a portion of his spirit, intelligence, or courage.479

Savages sometimes seek to form a covenant of friendship with their dead foes by drinking their blood

Strange as it may seem to us, one motive which induces a savage warrior to eat the flesh or drink the blood of the foe whom he has slain appears to be a wish to form an indissoluble covenant of friendship and brotherhood with his victim. For it is a widespread belief among savages that by transfusing a little of their blood into each other's bodies two men become kinsmen and allies; the same blood now circulating in the veins of both, neither can injure the other without at the same time injuring himself; the two have therefore given each other the strongest bond, the best possible hostages, for their good behaviour.480 Acting on this theory, the primitive warrior seeks to convert his slain foe into the firmest of friends by imbibing the dead man's blood or swallowing his flesh. That at all events appears to be the idea at the root of the following customs. When an Arawak Indian of British Guiana has murdered another, he repairs on the third night to the grave of his victim, and pressing a pointed stick through the corpse he licks off and swallows any blood that he finds adhering to the stick. For he believes that if he did not taste his victim's blood, he would go mad and die; whereas by swallowing the blood he averts any ill consequences that might flow to him from the [pg 155] murder.481 The belief and practice of the Nandi are similar: “To the present day, when a person of another tribe has been slain by a Nandi, the blood must be carefully washed off the spear or sword into a cup made of grass, and drunk by the slayer. If this is not done it is thought that the man will become frenzied.”482 So among the tribes of the Lower Niger “it is customary and necessary for the executioner to lick the blood that is on the blade”; moreover, “the custom of licking the blood off the blade of a sword by which a man has been killed in war is common to all these tribes, and the explanation given me by the Ibo, which is generally accepted, is, that if this was not done, the act of killing would so affect the strikers as to cause them to run amok among their own people; because the sight and smell of blood render them absolutely senseless as well as regardless of all consequences. And this licking the blood is the only sure remedy, and the only way in which they can recover themselves.”483 Among the Shans executioners believe that they would soon fall ill and die if they did not taste the blood of their victims.484

Blood-covenant formed by manslayers with the ghosts of their victims

The most probable explanation of these practices seems to be that a manslayer is thought to be driven mad by the ghost of his victim, who takes possession of his murderer's body and causes him to demean himself in a frantic manner; whereas, as soon as the slayer has tasted the blood of the slain, he becomes a blood-brother of his victim, whose ghost accordingly will do him no harm.485 This hypothesis is strongly confirmed by the reason alleged for [pg 156] a similar custom formerly observed by the Maoris. When a warrior had slain his foe in combat, he tasted his blood, believing that this preserved him from the avenging spirit of his victim; for they imagined that “the moment a slayer had tasted the blood of the slain, the dead man became a part of his being and placed him under the protection of the atua or guardian-spirit of the deceased.”486 In the light of these facts we can now explain the opinion, still widely held in Calabria, that if a murderer is to escape, he must suck his victim's blood from the reeking blade of the dagger with which he did the deed;487 and, further, we can see at least a glimmering of reason, however misapplied, in the confidence cherished by the Botocudos of Brazil, that if only they ate a morsel of the flesh of their enemies, the arrows of the fellow tribesmen of the slain would not be able to hit them.488 Indeed the evidence which I have just adduced suggests that the intention of forming a blood-covenant with the dead may have been a common motive for the cannibalism which has been so often practised by savage victors on the bodies of their victims.489 If that was so, it would to some extent mitigate the horror with which such a practice is naturally viewed by civilised observers; since it would reveal the cannibal feast, no longer in the lurid light of a brutal outburst of blind rage and hatred against the vanquished, but in the milder aspect of a solemn rite designed to wipe out the memory of past hostilities and to establish a permanent relation of friendship and good fellowship with the dead.

Communion with the dead by swallowing their ashes

Another mode of entering into communion with the dead by means of their bodily relics is to grind their bones to powder or to burn them to ashes, and then to swallow the powder or the ashes mixed with food or drink. This method of absorbing the virtues or appropriating the souls [pg 157] of deceased kinsfolk has been practised by a number of Indian tribes of South America. Thus the Tarianas, Tucanos, and other tribes in the valley of the Amazon, about a month after the funeral, disinter the corpse, which is then much decomposed, and put it in a great pan or oven over the fire till all the volatile parts are driven off with a most horrible stench, leaving only a black carbonaceous paste. This paste is then pounded into a fine powder, and being mixed in several large vats of the native beer, the liquor is drunk by the assembled company until all is consumed. They believe that thus the virtues of the deceased are transmitted to the drinkers.490 Similarly among the Xomanas and Passes of the Rio Negro and Japura River in Brazil, it was customary to burn the bones of the dead and mingle the ashes in their drink; “for they fancied, that by this means they received into their own bodies the spirits of their deceased friends.”491 We may suppose that a similar motive underlies the custom wherever it has been observed by the Indians of South America, even when this particular motive is not expressly alleged by our authorities. For example, the Retoroños, Pechuyos, and Guarayos of eastern Bolivia “manifested their feeling for the dead by a remarkable custom: when the body had mouldered they dug up the bones, reduced them to powder, and mingling it with maize, composed a sort of cake, which they considered it the strongest mark of friendship to offer and partake. Some of the first missionaries were regaled with this family bread, before they knew what they were eating.”492 Again, in the province of Coro, in north-western Venezuela, when a chief died, they lamented him in the night, celebrating his actions; then they parched his body at the fire, and reducing it to powder drank it up in their liquor, deeming this act the highest honour they could pay him.493 The Tauaré Indians of the Rio Enivra burn their dead, keep their ashes in hollow reeds, and eat a portion of the ashes with every [pg 158] meal.494 So in antiquity Artemisia expressed her love and grief for her dead husband Mausolus by powdering his ashes and drinking them in water.495 It is said that Mwamba, a recent king or chief of the Wemba in Northern Rhodesia, having detected one of his wives in an intrigue with another man, caused the guilty pair to be burned alive, while he watched their tortures from a raised seat. “Shortly after this, however, he would seem to have been stricken with remorse and the dread of Nemesis. The presiding witch-doctor was therefore ordered to collect the ashes of the twain, and decoct therefrom a potion, which was administered to the king to avert the avenging furies of evil spirits of the murdered pair, which might otherwise have hounded him into a fit of madness.”496 By drinking the ashes of his victims the king sought to identify himself with them and so to protect himself against their angry ghosts, just as we have seen that manslayers seek to protect themselves against the ghosts of their victims by drinking their blood.497

Savages attempt to inoculate themselves with moral and other virtues by making cuts in their bodies and inserting in the cuts the ashes of animals and plants which they suppose to be endowed with the virtues in question

Just as the savage thinks that he can swallow the moral and other virtues in the shape of food, so he fondly imagines that he can inoculate himself with them. Here in Europe we as yet inoculate only against disease; in Basutoland they have learned the art of inoculating not [pg 159] merely against disease but against moral evil and public calamity, against wild beasts and winter cold. For example, if an epidemic is raging, if public affairs go ill, or war threatens to break out, the chief, with paternal solicitude, seeks to guard his people against the evils that menace them by inoculating them with his own hand. Armed with a lancet, he makes a slight incision in the temples of each one, and rubs into the wound a pinch of magic powder which has been carefully compounded of the ashes of certain plants and animals. The plants and animals whose ashes compose this sovereign medicine are always symbolical; in other words, they are supposed to be imbued with the virtues which the chief desires to impart to his people. They consist, for example, of plants whose foliage withstands the rigours of winter; mimosas, whose thorns present an impenetrable barrier to all animals of the deer kind; the claws or a few hairs from the mane of a lion, the bravest of beasts; the tuft of hair round the root of the horns of a bull, which is the emblem of strength and fecundity; the skin of a serpent; the feathers of a kite or a hawk.498 So when the Barotsé wish to be swift of foot, to cripple the fleeing game, and to ensure an abundant catch, they scarify their arms and legs and rub into the wounds a powder made of the burnt bones of various beasts and birds.499 Among some tribes of South-Eastern Africa the same magic powder which is made from various parts of slain foes, and is eaten by boys at circumcision,500 is used to inoculate the fighting-men in time of war. The medicine-man makes an incision in the forehead of each warrior, and puts the powder into the cut, thus infusing strength and courage for the battle.501 Among some Caffre tribes the powdered charcoal with which the warriors are thus inoculated in various parts of their bodies is procured by burning the flesh of a live ox with a certain kind of [pg 160] wood or roots, to which magic virtue is attributed.502 The Basutos think that they can render themselves invulnerable by inoculation,503 and the Zulus imagine that they can protect themselves against snake-bite by similar means. But the saving virtue of the inoculation is not permanent; like vaccination, it has to be periodically renewed. Hence every year, about October, Zulu men, women, and children have a small piece of skin cut from the back of the left hand, and the poison of a snake, mixed with spittle, is rubbed into the wound. No snake will ever approach a man who has thus been inoculated; and what is even more curious, if the shadow of an inoculated man should touch the shadow of a man who has not been inoculated, the latter will fall down as if he had been shot, overcome by the poison transmitted through the shadow: so exceedingly virulent is the virus.504 Among the Jukos, a tribe of the Benue River in Northern Nigeria, before a hunter goes forth to hunt elephants, he makes four cuts in his left arm and rubs in “medicine”; this helps him to see the beast next day.505