The origin and development of the moral ideas

There are obvious indications that the ʿâr-sacrifice of the Moors is not unique of its kind, but has its counterpart among certain other peoples. In ancient religions sacrifice is often supposed to exercise a constraining influence on the god to whom it is offered. We meet with this idea in Zoroastrianism,94 in many of the Vedic hymns,95 and especially in Brahmanism. “Here,” says Barth, “the rites of religion are the real deities, or at any rate they constitute together a sort of independent and superior power, before which the divine personalities disappear, and which almost holds the place allotted to destiny in other systems. The ancient belief, which is already prominent in the Hymns, that sacrifice conditionates the regular course of things, is met with here in the rank of a commonplace, and is at times accompanied with incredible details.”96 Now, there can be little doubt that this ascription of a magic power to the sacrifice, by means of which it could control the actions of the gods, was due to the idea that it served as a conductor of imprecations; for it was invariably accompanied by a formula which was considered to possess irresistible force.

In the invocation lies the hidden energy which gives the efficacy to the sacrifice; without Brahmaṇaspati, the lord of prayer, sacrifice does not succeed.97 The Greeks actually offered anathemata, or curses, to their gods.98 The ancient Arabs, again, after killing the sacrificial animal, threw its hair on a holy tree as a curse.99 But so little has the true import of such sacrifices been understood even by eminent scholars, that they have been represented as votive offerings or gifts to the deity.100

Considering that the idea of sacrifice being a conductor of imprecations has hitherto almost entirely escaped the notice of students of early religion, it is impossible to say how widely it prevails and whether it also occurs in the savage world. We know that the practice of cursing a god not only was familiar to the ancient nations of culture, including the Egyptians,101 Hebrews, and other Semites,102 but is common among peoples like the South African Bechuanas103 and the Nagas of India.104 And that the shedding of blood is frequently applied as a means of transferring curses is suggested by various cases in which, however, the object of the imprecation is not a god but a man. We have previously noticed the reception sacrifices offered to visiting strangers, presumably for the purpose of transmitting to them conditional curses;105 and a very similar idea seems to underlie certain cases of oath-taking. Sometimes the oath is taken in connection with a sacrifice made to a god, and then the sanctity of the sacrificial animal naturally increases the efficacy of the self-imprecation. In other instances the oath is taken on the blood of an animal which is killed for the purpose, apparently without being sacrificed to a god. But in either case, I believe, the blood of the animal is thought not only to add supernatural energy to the oath, but to transfer, as it were, the self-imprecation to the very person who pronounces it.

The Mrús, a Chittagong hill tribe, “will swear by one of their gods, to whom, at the same time, a sacrifice must be offered.”106 Among the ancient Norsemen both the accused and the accuser grasped the holy ring kept for that purpose on the altar, stained with the blood of a sacrificial bull, and made oath by invoking Freyr, Niordr, and the almighty among the Asas.107 At Athens a person who charged another with murder made an oath with imprecations upon himself and his family and his house, standing upon the entrails of a boar, a ram, and a bull, which had been sacrificed by special persons on the appointed days.108 Tyndareus “sacrificed a horse and swore the suitors of Helen, making them stand on the pieces of the horse,” the oath being to defend Helen and him who might be chosen to marry her if ever they should be wronged.109 One of the three binding forms of oath prevalent among the Sânsiya in India is to “kill a cock and pouring its blood on the ground swear over it.”110 When the Annamese swear by heaven and earth, they often kill a buffalo or he-goat and drink its blood.111 Among the ancient Arabs comrades in arms swore fidelity to each other by dipping their hands in the blood of a camel killed for the purpose.112

The last mentioned case, which implies shedding of blood as a means of sealing a compact, leads us to a special class of sacrifices offered to gods, namely, the covenant sacrifice, known to us from Semitic antiquity. The Hebrews, as Professor Robertson Smith observes,113 thought of the national religion as constituted by a formal covenant sacrifice at Mount Sinai, where half of the blood of the sacrificed oxen was sprinkled on the altar and the other half on the people,114 or even by a still earlier covenant rite in which the parties were Yahve and Abraham;115 and the idea of sacrifice establishing a covenant between God and man is also apparent in the Psalms.116 In various cases recorded in the Old Testament sacrifice is accompanied by a sacrificial meal;117 “the god and his worshippers are wont to eat and drink together, and by this token their fellowship is declared and sealed.”118 Robertson Smith and his followers have represented this as an act of communion, as a sacrament in which the whole kin—the god with his clansmen—unite, and in partaking of which each member renews his union with the god and with the rest of the clan. At first, we are told, the god—that is, the totem god—himself was eaten, whilst at a later stage the practice of eating the god was superseded by the practice of eating with the god.

Communion still remains the core of sacrifice; and it is said that only subsequently the practice of offering gifts to the deity develops out of the sacrificial union between the worshippers and their god.119 But I venture to think that the whole of this theory is based upon a misunderstanding of the Semitic evidence, and that existing beliefs in Morocco throw new light upon the covenant sacrifice.

The Moorish covenant (l-ʿahd) is closely connected with the Moorish ʿâr. Whilst l-ʿâr is one-sided, l-ʿahd is mutual, both parties transferring conditional curses to one another. And here again the transference requires a material conductor. Among the Arabs of the plains and the Berbers of Central Morocco chiefs, in times of rebellion, exchange their cloaks or turbans, and it is believed that if any of them should break the covenant he would be punished with some grave misfortune. Among the Ulád Bu ʿAzîz, in the province of Dukkâla, it is a common custom for persons who wish to be reconciled after a quarrel to go to a holy man and in his presence join their right hands so that the fingers of the one go between the fingers of the other, after which the saint throws his cloak over the united hands, saying, “This is ʿahd between you.” Or they may in a similar manner join their hands at a saint’s tomb over the head of the box under which the saint is buried, or they may perform the same ceremony simply in the presence of some friends. In either case the joining of hands is usually accompanied by a common meal, and frequently the hands are joined over the dish after eating. If a person who has thus made a compact with another is afterwards guilty of a breach of faith, it is said that “God and the food will repay him”; in other words, the conditional curse embodied in the food which he ate will be realised. All over Morocco the usual method of sealing a compact of friendship is by eating together, especially at the tomb of some saint.

The ʿahd of the Moors helps us to understand the covenant sacrifice of the ancient Semites. The only difference between them is that the former is a method of establishing a compact between men and men, whilst the latter established a compact between men and their god. The idea of a mutual transference of conditional curses undoubtedly underlies both. It should be noticed that in the Old Testament also, as among the Moors, we meet with human covenants made by the parties eating together.121 Thus the Israelites entered into alliance with the Gibeonites by taking of their victuals, without consulting Yahve, and the meal was expressly followed by an oath.122 In other instances, again, the common dish consisted of sacrificial food, either because the sacredness of such food was supposed to make the conditional curse embodied in it more efficacious, or because the deity was included as a third party to the covenant.