The origin and development of the moral ideas

The same may be said about other cases mentioned by Dr. Frazer, when more closely examined. “The Indians of Guayaquil, in Ecuador,” he says, “used to sacrifice human blood and the hearts of men when they sowed their fields.”97 But our authority, Cieza de Leon, adds that those Indians also offered human victims when their chiefs were sick “to appease the wrath of their gods.“98 “The Pawnees,” Dr. Frazer writes, “annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when they sowed their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been enjoined on them by the Morning Star, or by a certain bird which the Morning Star had sent to them as its messenger…. They thought that an omission of this sacrifice would be followed by the total failure of the crops of maize, beans, and pumpkins.99 James, to whom Dr. Frazer refers, and other authorities say that the human sacrifice was a propitiatory offering made to that star,100 a planet which especially with the Skidi—the only section of the Pawnees who offered human sacrifices—was an object of superstitious veneration.101 Sickness, misfortune, and personal mishaps of various kinds were often spoken of as attributable to the incurred ill-will of the heavenly bodies;102 and the object of the sacrifice to the morning star is expressly said to have been “to avert the evil influences exerted by that planet.”103 According to Mr. Dunbar, whose important104 article dealing with the subject has escaped Dr. Frazer’s notice, “the design of the bloody ordeal was to conciliate that being and secure a good crop.

Hence,” he continues, “it has been supposed that the morning star was regarded by them as presiding over agriculture, but this was a mistake. They sacrificed to that star because they feared it, imagining that it exerted malign influence if not well disposed. It has also been stated that the sacrifice was made annually. This, too, was an error. It was made only when special occurrences were interpreted as calling for it.”105 At the present day the Indians speak of the sacrifice as having been made to Ti-ra’-wa, the Supreme Being or the deity “who is in and of everything.”106 In the detailed account of the rite, which was given to Mr. Grinnell by an old chief who had himself witnessed it several times, it is said:—“While the smoke of the blood and the buffalo meat, and of the burning body, ascended to the sky, all the people prayed to Ti-ra’-wa, and walked by the fire and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and passed it over their bodies and over those of their children, and prayed Ti-ra’-wa to take pity on them, and to give them health, and success in war, and plenteous crops…. This sacrifice always seemed acceptable to Ti-ra’-wa, and when the Skidi made it they always seemed to have good fortune in war, and good crops, and they were always well.”107 According to this description, then, the human sacrifice of the Pawnees, like that of the Kandhs, was not an exclusively agricultural rite, but was performed for the purpose of averting dangers of various kinds. And this is also suggested by Mr.

Dunbar’s relation of the last instance of this sacrifice, which occurred in April, 1838. In the previous winter the Skidi, soon after starting on their hunt, had a successful fight with a band of Oglala Dacotahs, and fearing that the Dacotahs would retaliate by coming upon them in overwhelming force, they returned for safety to their village before taking a sufficient number of buffaloes. “With little to eat, they lived miserably, lost many of their ponies from scarcity of forage, and, worst of all, one of the captives proved to have the small-pox, which rapidly spread through the band, and in the spring was communicated to the rest of the tribe. All these accumulated misfortunes the Ski’-di attributed to the anger of the morning star; and accordingly they resolved to propitiate its favour by a repetition of the sacrifice, though in direct violation of a stipulation made two years before that the sacrifice should not occur again.”108

Nor is there any reason whatever to suppose that the Brahman boys whom the Gonds of India used to kidnap and keep as victims to be sacrificed on various occasions,109 were regarded as representatives of a spirit or god. They were offered up to Bhímsen, the chief object of worship among the Gonds, represented by a piece of iron fixed in a stone or in a tree,110 now “to sanctify a marriage, now to be wedded to the soil, and again to be given away to the evil spirit of the epidemic raging,” or “on the eve of a struggle.”111

Dr. Frazer writes:—“At Lagos In Guinea it was the custom annually to impale a young girl alive soon after the spring equinox in order to secure good crops…. A similar sacrifice used to be annually offered at Benin.”112 But Dr. Frazer omits an important fact mentioned or alluded to by the two authorities he quotes which gives us the key to the custom, without suggesting that it has anything to do with the corn-spirit. Adams states that the young woman was impaled “to propitiate the favour of the goddess presiding over the rainy season, that she may fill the horn of plenty.”113 And M. Bouche observes, “Au Bénin, on a conservé jusqu’à présent un usage qui régnait jadis à Lagos et ailleurs: celui d’empaler une jeune fille, au commencement de la saison des pluies, afin de rendre les orichas propices aux récoltes.”114 From these statements it appears that the sacrifice was intended to influence the rain, on which the crops essentially depend. That its immediate object was to produce rain is expressly affirmed by Sir R. Burton. At Benin he saw “a young woman lashed to a scaffolding upon the summit of a tall blasted tree and being devoured by the turkey-buzzards. The people declared it to be a ‘fetish,’ or charm for bringing rain.”115 We have previously noticed that the people of Benin also have recourse to a human sacrifice if there is too much rain, or too much sun, so that the crops are in danger of being spoiled.116 The theory of substitution accounts for all these cases.

The practice of offering human victims for the purpose of preventing drought and famine by producing rain is apparently not restricted to West Africa. In the beginning of their year, the ancient Mexicans sacrificed many prisoners of war and children who had been purchased for that purpose, to the gods of water, so as to induce them to give the rain necessary for the crops.117 The Pipiles of Guatemala celebrated every year two festivals which were accompanied by human sacrifices, the one in the beginning of the rainy season, the other in the beginning of the dry season.118 In India, among the aboriginal tribes to the south-west of Beerbhoom, Sir W. W. Hunter “heard vague reports of human sacrifices in the forests, with a view to procuring the early arrival of the rains.”119 Without venturing to express any definite opinion on a very obscure subject which has already led to so many guesses,120 I may perhaps be justified in here calling attention to the fact that Zeus Lycæus, in whose cult human sacrifices played a prominent part, was conceived of as a god who sent the rain.121 It appears from ancient traditions or legends that the idea of procuring rainfall by means of such sacrifices was not unfamiliar to the Greeks. A certain Molpis offered himself to Zeus Ombrios, the rain-god, in time of drought.122 Pausanias tells us that once, when a drought had for some time afflicted Greece, messengers were sent to Delphi to inquire the cause, and to beg for a riddance of the evil.

The Pythian priestess told them to propitiate Zeus, and that Aeacus should be the intercessor; and then Aeacus, by sacrifices and prayers to Panhellenian Zeus, procured rain for Greece.123 But Diodorus adds that the drought and famine, whilst ceasing in all other parts of the country, still continued in Attica, so that the Athenians once more resorted to the Oracle. The answer was now given them that they had to expiate the murder of Androgeus, and that this should be done in any way his father, Minos, required. The satisfaction demanded by the latter was, that they every nine years should send seven boys and as many girls to be devoured by the Minotaur, and that this should be done as long as the monster lived. So the Athenians did, and the calamity ceased.124