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FOLK-LORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
MACMILLAN AND CO., LiMnp;D
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA • MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCLSCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
FOLK-LORE IN
THE OLD TESTAMENT
STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION
LEGEND AND LAW
BY
Sir JAMES GEORGE FRAZER
HON. D.C.L., OXFORD; HON. LL.D., GLASGOW; HON. LITT.D. . DURHAM
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMEKIDGK
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1919
COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1918
Reprinttd 1919 (twice)
CONTENTS
PART II
THE PATRIARCHAL AGE
(^Continued)
CHAPTER III
JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS : OR THE NEW BIRTH
§ I . The Diverted Blessing
Story of Jacob's trick perhaps a reminiscence of a legal ceremony .
How Jacob, disguised as his elder brother, obtained the blessing .
Displacement of an elder by a younger son in the succession
PACK
I
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4
§ 2. Sacrijicial Skins in Ritual
East African tribes in relation to the Semites
Fat and skin of animal in Galla rite of adoption .
Rings made from skins of sacrificial victims in East Africa
Kikuyu ceremony of the new birth
Assimilation of mother and child to sheep and lamb
Sacrificial skins at Kikuyu ceremony of adoption .
Sacrificial skins at circumcision in East Africa
Sacrificial skins at marriage in East Africa
Sacrificial skins at covenants in East Africa
Sacrificial skins in another Kikuyu rite
Sacrificial skins at sacrifices in East Africa
Sacrificial skins in sickness, etc., in East Africa .
Sacrificial skins at expiations among the Wachaga
Sacrificial skins at expiations among the Akikuyu
Sacrificial skins at expiations among the Wawanga
Sacrificial skins at transference of government in East Africa
Victim's skin intended to identify the wearer with the animal
Passing a child through a skin ring in Madagascar
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FOLk'-r.ORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
§
TL- Nc-.u Birth
Legal fiction of a new birlli lo efl'ect a change of status
Fiction of new birth at adoption in antiquity and the Middle Ages
Ficlion of new birth at adoption among Slavs and Turks .
Fiction of new birth at adoption among the Klemantans .
Fiction of new birth at adoption among the Bahima
Fiction of new birth enacted in Greece and India by persons erroneously
thought to be dead ......
Fiction of new birth to raise a Brahman to tiie rank of a god
Fiction of new birth in Indis. as expiation for breach of custom
Fiction of new birth from a metal cow as expiation in India
Fiction of new birth from a golden cow to raise Maharajahs of Travancore
to Brahman rank ..... . ■
Fiction of new birth from a live cow in India ....
Rite of new birth tends to dwindle into an abridged form . ,
PAOR
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§ 4. Conclusion
Jacob and the kidskins in relation to the rite of the new birth
39
CHAPTER IV
J.\COD .\T BETHEL
§ I. Jacob'' s Dream
Jacob sent away to Laban in Haran
His dream of the heavenly ladder at Bethel
The stone at Bethel set up and anointed .
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§ 2. Drea/ns of the Gods
Belief that gods reveal themselves to men in dreams
Dreams in the sanctuaiy of Amphiaraus at Oropus
Dreams in the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Epidaurus
Dream oracle of Ino or Pasiphae in Laconia
Dream oracles in ancient Italy
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§ 3. 7'ke Heavenly Ladder
Africar. ivenly ladders .....
Toradja i^ilti of creepers connecting earth and heaven
Stories of heavenly ladder, etc., in Sumatra, Madagascar, and Russia
Ladders to facilitate the descent of gods or spirits
Ladders in graves for the dead to climb up . . .
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CONTENTS
§ 4. Tke Sacred Stone
Popularity of the sanctuary at Bethel
Sacred stones at Canaanite and Hebrew sanctuaries
Stones worshipped by the ancient Arabs and Greeks
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
Worsh
p of stones in the Banks' Islands and New Hebrides
p of stones in the Torres Straits Islands
p of stones in Samoa ....
p of stones in Bowditch Island and Nukunau
p of stones in the Indian Archipelago
p of stones among the Karens of Burma
p of stones among the Semas of Assam
p of stones in India ....
p of stones in China and the Caucasus
p of stones in Madagascar and Africa
p of stones among the North American Indians
The Gruagach stones in the highlands of Scotland
Sacred stones anointed in Norway
Sacred stones anointed in classical antiquity
Sacred stones anointed in India ....
Sacred stones anointed in the Kei Islands, Madagascar, and Africa
The anointed stone at Bethel ....
Many Bethels (baitylia) in Canaan
The standing stones (inasseboth) of Canaanite sanctuaries .
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CHAPTER V
JACOB AT THE WELL
§ I. Watcj'ing the Flocks
Jacob's meeting with Rachel at the well .
Watering the flocks at wells in modern Palestine .
Women as shepherdesses in Palestine and Arabia
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81
§ 2. Weeping as a Salutation
The weeping of Jacob at meeting Rachel
Weeping at the meeting of friends in the Old Testament .
Weeping at meeting among the Maoris
Weeping as a salutation in the Andaman Islands and India
Weeping as a salutation among the American Indians
Such salutations perhaps meant to effect a corporeal union
Initiation of a scavenger in the Punjab
Spittle at initiation among the Baluba
Spittle at covenanting and saluting in East Africa
The springs of tears and laughter
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FOLK-LORE IN rilE OLD TESTAMENT
CHAPTER VI
Jacob's marriage
§ I . Jaiob and his two Wives
Different motives assigned for Jacob's journey to Ilaran .
Aversion of Jews to marriage with strange women
Jacob's marriage with his cousins in accordance with common custom
PAGE
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97
§ 2. lyie Marriage of Cousins
Distinction between cross-cousins, who are marriageable, and ortho-cousins,
who are not marriageable . . . . .
§ 3. The Marriage of Cousins in India
Distinction in respect of cousin-marriage between Aryans and aborigines
Marriage of cousins forbidden by Hindoo law
Marriage of cross-cousins commonly preferred among the aborigines
Marriage with mother's brother's daughter in Southern India
Cross-cousin marriage among the Dravidians
Cross-cousin marriage in Ceylon and Cochin
Cross-cousin marriage among the Todas .
Cross-cousin marriage among the Tamil-speaking Dravidians
Marriage with a niece in Southern India .
Cross-cousin marriage among the Telugu-speaking Dravidians
Menarikam, marriage with a mother's brother's daughter .
Marriage with a cross-cousin or a niece in Mysore
Cross-cousin marriage among the Canarese-speaking Dravidians
Cross-cousin marriage among Oriya-speaking castes of Southern India
Cross-cousin marriage among Brahmans in Southern India
Cross-cousin marriage in Central and Northern India
Cross-cousin marriage among the Gonds .
Tendency to prefer marriage with father's sister's daughter
Economic motive for marriage with mother's brother's daughter
Marriage with father's sister's daughter forbidden in some castes
Economic motives for marriage with a cross-cousin
Preference for one of the two forms of cross-cousin marriage
Cross-cousin marriage among the Kotvalias of Baroda
Cross-cousin marriage among Dravidian tribes of Mirzapur
Cross-cousin marriage among Bhotiyas of Northern India .
Cross-cousin marriage in the Punjab
Cross-cousin marriage among Mohammedans of N.W. India
Cross-cousin marriage among aboriginal tribes of Bengal .
Cross-cousin marriage among Mongoloid tribes of Chittagong and Assam
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CONTENTS
§ 4. The Marriage of Cousins in other Parts of Asia
Cousin marriage practised in other parts of Asia
Cross-cousin marriage among the Chins of Burma
Cross-cousin marriage among the Singphos or Kachins of Burma
Cousin marriage among the Karens of Burma
Cousin marriage in Southern China and the Malay Peninsula
Cross-cousin marriage among the Gilyaks
Cousin marriage among the tribes of North-Eastern Siberia
PAGE
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139
§ 5. 77^1? Marriage of Cousins in America
Cousin marriage hardly recorded among American aborigines . . 140
Cousin marriage among the Aleuts . . . . .141
Cousin marriage among the Eskimo . . . .141
Cross-cousin marriage among the Western Tinnehs . . . 143
Economic motive for marriage with mother's brother's daughter . 145
Cross-cousin marriage probably once common in North America . .146
Cross-cousin marriage among the Indians of the Antilles and South
America ........ 148
§ 6. 7 he Marriage of Cousins in Africa
Cross-cousin marriage common in Africa .
Cross-cousin marriage among the Herero .
Cousin marriage among the Bantus of South-East Africa .
Cousin marriage among the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Rhodesia
Cross-cousin marriage among the Awemba of Rhodesia .
Cousin marriage forbidden among the Winamwanga
Cousin marriage forbidden in some tribes of Rhodesia
Cross-cousin marriage among the Wahehe and Wagogo .
Cross-cousin marriage in West Africa and Egypt .
Cousin marriage in Madagascar ....
The marriage of all first cousins forbidden among the Baganda,
Basoga, and Bateso ....
Cross-cousins obliged to avoid each other among the Baganda
Inference from avoidance of cross-cousins among the Baganda
Marriage of cousins forbidden among the Akikuyu
Expiation for marriage of cousins among the Akikuyu
Marriage of cousins forbidden among the Thonga
Expiation for marriage of cousins among the Thonga
The bond of kinship conceived as physical
Marriage of cousins barred among Wabemba and Wahorohoro
Marriage of cousins barred among the Masai
Expiation for marriage of cousins among the Masai
Marriage of cousins barred among the Yorubas .
VOL. II
Banyoro
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FOLK-LORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
§ 7. The Marriage of Cousins in the Indian Archipelago
Cross-cousin marriage in Sumatra
Cross-cousin marriage in the Kei Islands .
Cross-cousin martiage in islands between New Guinea and Celebes
Cousin marriage in Celebes ....
Expiation for marriage with cousin once removed in Celebes
Marriage of cousins barred among some peoples of Celebes
Expiation for marriage of cousins in Celebes
Marriage of cousins barred in Java
Marriage of cousins barred in British Borneo
Expiation for marriage of cousins in Borneo
Marriage of cousins barred in Dutch Borneo
PAGE
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§ 8. The Marriage of Cousins in New Guinea and the Torres Straits Islands
Marriage of first cousins discountenanced in New Guinea .
Marriage of first cousins discountenanced in Torres Straits
Cross-cousin marriage common in the Trobriand Islands .
§ 9. TJie Marriage of Cousins in Melanesia
Cross-cousin marriage in New Caledonia
Cross-cousin marriage in the New Hebrides
Cross-cousin marriage in the Torres Islands
Cross-cousin marriage in Fiji
Ortho-cousins obliged to avoid each other in Fiji
Marriage of first cousins forbidden in the Banks' Islands
Marriage of first cousins forbidden in New Ireland
Cross-cousins obliged to avoid each other in New Ireland
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§ 10. The Marriage of Cousins in Poly
Marriage of cousins discountenanced in Polynesia
Trace of cross-cousin marriage in Tonga .
Second cousins allowed to marry in Rotuma
Marriage even of distant cousins rare in Mangaia
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§ II. The Marriage of Cousins in Australia
Jlarriage of cousins preferred in some tribes and forbidden in others
Cross-cousin marriage among the Urabunna
Cross-cousin marriage in Victoria and New South Wales .
Cross-cousin marriage in Queensland and N.W. Australia
Marriage of children of cross-cousins among the Dieri
Contrast between Dieri and Urabunna customs .
Marriage of ortho-cousins always barred by two-class exogamy
Marriage of children of cross-cousins among the IMardudhunera
Marriage of all cousins forbidden in some Australian tribes
Diverger:ce of custom in regard to cousin-marriage in Australia
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^9i
CONTENTS
§ 12. Why is the Marriage of Cross-Cousins favoured)
I'AGB
Why is cross-cousin marriage favoured and orlho-cousin marriage forbidden? 193
Economic motive for cousin-marriage among the Australian aborigines . 194
Economic value of a wife among the Australian aborigines . .194
A wife generally obtained in exchange for a sister or daughter 195
Exchange of sisters or daughters for wives in South Australia . .196
Exchange of sisters or daughters for wives in Victoria and New South Wales 197
Commercial value of women in aboriginal Australia . . . 198
The rape of women from other tribes comparatively rare . . .199
By exchange old men get most of the young women for themselves . 200
Sisters or daughters usually given in exchange for wives . . 202
Exchange of sisters probably older than exchange of daughters . 203
Cross-cousin marriage a natural consequence of exchange of sisters ui
marriage ........ 205
Cross-cousin marriage probably older than the recognition of paternity . 205
Suggested origin of cross-cousin marriage confirmed by the practice of the
Kariera ........ 206
Double-cross cousins and single-cross cou.sins .... 207
Cross-cousin marriage in Australia probably everywhere an effect of the
exchange of sisters in marriage ..... 209
The exchange of sisters in marriage probably ihe source of cross-cousin
marriage elsewhere ....... 209
Cross-cousin marriage and exchange of sisters in Southern India . .210
Economic advantage of exchange of sisters in marriage . . .210
Cross-cousin marriage and exchange of sisters among the Bhotiyas . 212
Cross-cousin marriage and exchange of sisters among the Garos . .213
Cousin marriage and e.xcbange of daughters in Baluchistan . .213
Cross-cousin marriage not a necessary effect of exchange of sisters or
daughters . . . . . .214
Exchange of sisters in marriage in Torres Straits .... 214
Exchange of sisters in marriage in New Guinea . . . .214
Exchange of daughters in marriage among the Santals of Bengal . .217
Exchange of daughters in marriage among the tribes of the French Sudan 218
Exchange of daughters in marriage in Sumatra . . . . 2iS
Exchange of daughters in marriage in Palestine .... 219
Probability that cross-cou.sin marriage originated in the exchange of sisters
or daughters as wives ...... 220
§ 13. Why is the marriage of Ortho-Cousins forbidden 1
Marriage of ortho-cousins prevented by the dual organization or the system
of two exogamous classes . . . . . . .221
Dual organization probably everywhere at one time co-existent with cross
cousin marriage ......
Prevalence of dual organization attested by totemisui and the classificatory
system of relationship ...... 222
Totemism as evidence of the dual organization .... 223
xii FOLK-LORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Totemic exogamy prevents marriage of ortho-cousins in some cases
Totemic exogamy less comprehensive than two-class exogamy
Totemic exogamy probably everywhere derived from two-class exogamy .
The classificatory system of relationship as evidence of the dual organiza-
tion ...•••••
The classificatory system, a system of relationship between groups
The classificatory system extends the choice of wives
The classificatory system of relationship reflects a system of group
marriage ..••••••
In Australia the classificatory system based on two-class exogamy
The classificatory system not affected by the four- and eight-class exogamy
found in some Australian tribes .....
Intention of successive divisions into two, four, and eight exogamous
classes ....-•••
Two-class exogamy intended to bar marriage of brothers with sisters
Two-class exogamy systematized the marriage of cross-cousins
Two-class exogamy barred the marriage of ortho-cousins .
Preference for cross-cousin marriage probably older than two-class exogamy
Two-class exogamy derived from aversion to marriage of near kin
This derivation confirmed by comparison of rules as to cross-cousin
marriage among the Urabunna, Dieri, and Arunta .
Cross-cousin marriage barred by eight-class exogamy among the 'Arunta .
Marriage of parents with children barred by four- class exogamy .
Cross-cousin marriage not barred by four-class exogamy .
Traces of dual organization coincident with cross-cousin marriage .
The coincidence among the Dravidians of India ....
The coincidence in other races of Asia and America
The coincidence in Africa . • • • •
The coincidence in the Indian Archipelago ....
The coincidence in Melanesia ......
The coincidence in Australia ......
Preference for cross-cousin marriage and prohibition of ortho-cousin
marriage probably everywhere connected with dual organization
Growing aversion evinced to marriage of near kin
PAGE
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§ 14. A71 alternative Explanatiott of Cross-cousin Marriage
Other causes of cross-cousin marriage possible .... 246
Different theory of cross-cousin marriage proposed by Dr. Rivers . . 247
Anomalous forms of marriage in Melanesia .... 247
Dr. Rivers' explanation of these anomalous marriages . . . 248
Dr. Rivers derives cross-cou.<;in marriage in Melanesia from marriage with
mother's brother's wife ...... 250
Objections to this theory as a general explanation of cross-cousin marriage 251
Marriat^e with mother's brother's wife among the Garos rather effect than
cause of cross-cousin marriage . . . .252
Economic motive of cross-cousin marriage among the Garos . . 254
CONTENTS
§ 15- Cousin Marriage among the Arabs
Preference for marriage with an ortho-cousin, the daughter of a father'
brother .......
Preference for marriage with father's brother's daughter among the Arabs
Cousin marriage among the Arabs of Moab
Cousin marriage among the Arabs of Egypt
Marriage with the father's brother's daughter in Morocco
Marriage with the father's brother's daughter among the Hausas .
Preference for marriage with the father's brother's daughter not derived
from the dual organization .....
Wilken's theory that such marriages originated in ignorance of paternity
Robertson Smith's theory that such marriages originated in fraternal
polyandry .......
Marriage with the father's brother's daughter probably later than cross
cousin marriage and based on economic motives
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§ 16. The Sororate and the Levirate
Jacob's marriage with his cousins
Jacob's marriage with two sisters in their lifetime
Custom of marrying several sisters in order of seniority
The sororate and the levirate
The sororate and the levirate complementary customs
The sororate and levirate among the Indians of North America
The sororate and levirate among the Indians of South i\merica
The sororate and levirate in Africa
The sororate and levirate in Madagascar .
Brothers marry in order of seniority among the Kafirs
Brothers and sisters marry in order of seniority in India
Ancient Indian law on seniors marrying before juniors
Order of seniority in marriage observed among the South Slavs
Reminiscences of the order of seniority in Britain
Order of seniority in marriage in China, the East Indies, and Africa
The sororate and order of seniority in modern India
The sororate and levirate in modern India
The sororate and levirate among the tribes of Assam
The sororate and levirate among other Asiatic peoples
Marriage with deceased wife's sister among Cheremiss and Mordvins
The sororate and levirate in the Indian Archipelago
The sororate and levirate in Torres Straits, New Guinea, and the
Lousiades .....
The sororate and levirate in the New Hebrides .
The sororate and levirate in Polynesia and Micronesia
The sororate and levirate in Australia
Probable origin of the sororate and levirate in the marriage of a group of
brothers to a group of sisters
This form of group marriage in Australia and India
Santal marriage of a group of brothers to a group of sisters
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FOLK-LORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
This form of group marriage combines the sororate and levirate
Parallel between the Santa! and the Thonga system
Survival of group marriage among the Bhuiyas
Origin of the sororate and levirate in group marriage confirmed by the
classificatory terms for husband and wife
Classificatory terms for husband and wife in Australia
Classificatory terms for husband and wife in Melanesia and Polynesia
Classificatory terms for husband and wife among the Gilyaks
Sororate and levirate derived from group marriage
Sororate and levirate limited in regard to seniority
Other limitations of marriage in regard to seniority
Division of savage communities into age-grades .
Age-grades among the Kaya-Kaya of New Guinea
Age-grades at Bartle Bay in New Guinea
Age-grades among tribes of British East Africa .
Age-grades among the Masai ....
Sexual communism between members of the same age-grade
Age-grades among the Wataveta ....
Sexual communism between members of the same age-grade
Sexual relations regulated by age-grades .
All children borne by a woman after her daughter's marriage put to death
Age-grades among the Nandi
Ceremonies at circumcision among the Nandi
Circumcision and the reincarnation of the dead .
Circumcision in relation to age-grades
Transference of government from one age-grade to another
Age-grades among the Akamba and Akikuyu
Age-grades among the Suk ....
Age-grades among the Turkana ....
Age-grades among the Gallas and in Wadai
Association of age-grades with sexual communism
Converging evidence of former sexual communism
Suggested explanation of prohibition to marry before elder brother or sister
Suggested explanation of prohibition to marry daughter of junior uncle or
aunt .......
Suggested explanation of prohibition to marry wife's elder sister .
Suggested explanation of prohibition to marry younger brother's widow
Two later types of levirate, the economic and the religious
The original levirate a product of group marriage
§ 17. Serving for a Wife
How Jacob served Laban for his two wives
Custom of earning a wife by service
Serving for a wife in India
The Abbe Dubois on serving for a wife in India
Serving for a wife in Sikhim and Nepaul
Serving for a wife among the tribes of Assam
CONTENTS
Serving for a wife in Burma and Siam
Serving for a wife among the aborigines of Indo-China
Serving for a wife in Sumatra
Serving for a wife in Celebes
Serving for a wife among the Tenggeres of Java
Serving for a wife among the Kayans of Borneo
Serving for a wife in Amboyna, Ceram, etc.
Serving for a wife in the Pliilippine Islands
Serving for a wife among the Kamchadales
Serving for a wife among the Koryaks
Serving for a wife among the Chukchee .
Serving for a wife among the Yukaghirs .
Serving for a wife among the Eskimo and Indians of Aniericn
Servins: for a wife in Africa ....
XV
PAGE
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§ 18. Conclusion
Harmony of Biblical tradition with popular custom
371
CHAPTER VII
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
How Rachel conceived through eating mandrakes
Belief in the fertilizing virtue of mandrakes in modern Palestine
Amatory properties ascribed to the mandrake by the Greeks
Belief in the fertilizing power of mandrakes in Italy, England, and
The mandrake regarded as man-like
Artificial mandrakes as charms in modern Europe
Bacon and John Parkinson on mandrakes
Artificial mandrakes in the East .
The mandrake supposed to grow under a gallows
The mandrake uprooted by a dog
Valuable properties ascribed to the mandrake
The mandrake as a familiar spirit who brings wealth
Superstitions about the mandrake in Wales and England
Shakespeare on the mandrake . .
Narcotic property ascribed to the mandrake in antiquity
French superstition as to riches brought by mandrakes
The use of a dog to uproot the mandrake
Apuleius Platonicus on the uprooting of the mandrake
The use of a dog to uproot the aglacphotis or peony
Arab superstitions about the mandrake .
Josephus on the uprooting of the baaras by a dog
The baaras perhaps the sulphur-plant
The baaras possibly the mandrake
Jewish legend as to the mandrake and the ass
tVmerica
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Z^Z
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38s
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393
FOLK-LORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Hebrew and Homeric treatment of crudities in legend
Function of the dog in the mandrake superstition
Armenian parallel ....
Personification of the mandrake .
Dog employed to uproot other plants
Supposed rage of plants at being uprooted
Survival in poets of the primitive personification of plants
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397
CHAPTER VIII
THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN
Jacob's return to the land of his fathers .
His dispute with Laban .
The reconciliation and covenant at the cairn
The cairn personified as a witness
Rude stone monuments beyond Jordan .
Stones employed to give stability to covenants
The stone at marriage in India .
Oaths on stones in Scotland
Oaths on stones in Africa and India
Religious and magical uses of stones in oaths
Twofold aspect of the cairn in Jacob's covenant
Procopius on a detection of perjury
Cairns as witnesses in modern Syria
3^8
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403
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406
407
407
408
409
CHAPTER IX
JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK
Jacob's descent into the glen of the Jabbok
Jacob's wrestle with a mysterious adversary at the ford
His adversary perhaps the jinnee of the river
The wrestling of Greek heroes with water-sprites
Shape-shifting in such encounters
Propitiation of water-spirits at fords
Rivers worshipped by Bantu tribes of South Africa
Offerings to rivers at crossing them in Africa
Ceremonies at crossing rivers in South India
Chiefs and kings forbidden to cross certain rivers .
Ceremonies of the Angoni at crossing a river
Punishments inflicted on river-spirits
Punishing or fighting the spirits of the sea
The sinew that shrank ; American Indian parallels
Ancient Mexican parallel to Jacob's nocturnal wrestle
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411
412
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414
415
417
419
420
420
421
422
423
424
CONTENTS
CHAPTER X
JOSEPH S CUP
Joseph's divining cup .....
Divination by appearances in water in antiquity .
Divination by appearances in water or ink in modern Egypt
Divination by appearances in water in Scandinavia and Tahiti
Divination by appearances in water in the Malay Peninsula, New
Africa, and among the Eskimo
Vision of gods in water contrived by ancient oracle-mongers
Other ways of divining by a vessel of water
Divination by things dropped into water .
Divination by tea-leaves in a cup
Divination by molten lead or wax in water . .
Guinea
fa(;b
426
426
427
429
430
431
431
432
432
433
PART III
THE TIMES OF THE JUDGES AND THE KINGS
CHAPTER I
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES
National histoiy of Israel begins with Moses
Exposure and preservation of the infant Moses
Exposure and preservation of Semiramis
Exposure and preservation of Gilgamus
Exposure and preservation of Cyrus
Exposure and preservation of Perseus
Exposure and preservation of Telephus
Exposure and preservation of Aegisthus
Exposure and preservation of Oedipus
Exposure and preservation of Romulus
Exposure and preservation of Sargon
Exposure and preservation of Prince Kama in the Mahabharata
Exposure and preservation of Trakhan, king of Gilgit
Water ordeal to test the legitimacy of children
437
438
440
440
441
444
445
446
446
447
450
451
452
454
CHAPTER n
THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA
Passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea
• 456
xviii FOLK-LORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
PAGE
Passage of Alexander the Great through the Pamphylian Sea . . 457
Passage of a Roman storming-party through the sea at New Carthage . 459
African stories of miraculous passages through water . . .461
CHAPTER III
THE WATERS OF MERIBAH
How Moses produced water from a rock with his staff . . . 463
How Dori produced water from a rock with his spear . . . 463
CHAPTER IV
Gideon's men
Gideon commanded to deliver Israel from Midian . . . 465
The deliverers chosen for their mode of drinking water . . . 466
Throwing water into the mouth in Africa .... 467
Throwing water into the mouth in Cambodia, Samoa, and New Caledonia 468
Throwing water into the mouth in the New Hebrides . . . 468
Reason for this mode of drinking ..... 469
An incident in the wars of Mas.sachusetts .... 469
CHAPTER V
jotham's fable
How Abimelech made himself king of Shechem .
How Jotham spoke to the men of Shechem
His fable of the bramble as king of the trees
Rivalry between the trees in Aesop's fables
Callimachus on the rivalry of the laurel and olive
Rivalry between the trees in an Armenian fable .
Rivalry between plants in a Malay story .
Jotham's fable inserted in mediaeval collections .
CHAPTER VI
SAMSON AND DELILAH
471
471
472
473
473
476
477
478
Incongruity of Samson among the judges .... 480
The home country of Samson . . . . • . 48 1
Samson's strength in his hair : the secret betrayed . . . 482
Belief in East Indies that a man's strength is in his hair . . . 484
CONTENTS
Belief in Europe that the power of a witch is in her hair
Similar behef as to witches in India and Mexico .
Niasian story of king whose strength was in his hair
Ballad of I<ord Soulis and his charmed life
Ancient Greek stories like that of Samson and Delilah
Russian story of Koshchei the Deathless .
Serbian story of the warlock True Steel .
Serbian story of the dragon of the mill .
Islay story of the giant and the egg
Argyleshire story of the giant and the thorn
Indian story of the ogre king of Gilgit
Resemblance of all these stories to the Samson legend
Transposition of the hero and the villain
The harlequins of history
XIX
PAOB
486
486
488
490
493
494
495
496
497
501
501
502
CHAPTER VII
THE BUNDLE OF LIFE
The wilderness of Judea ...... 503
David and Abigail ....... 504
«' The bundle of life " . . . . 505
Belief that souls can be abstracted from their bodies . . 506
Souls extracted to keep them out of harm's way .... 507
Bundles of sticks and stones as receptacles of souls in Central Australia . 508
Analogy of these bundles to " the bundle of life ■■' . . .510
Ezekiel on women who hunt and catch souls . . . .510
The art of hunting and catching souls . . . -511
Trapping souls in Celebes . . . . . .512
" Houses of the soul" denounced by Isaiah . . . -513
" Houses of the soul " perhaps scent-bottles . . • 5^5
Folk-lore and poetry . . . . . .516
CHAPTER VIII
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
Saul and Samuel
The character of Saul
The eve of battle
Saul resolves to consult the ghost of Sam
Saul and the witch of Endor
Necromancy among the ancient Hebrews
Necromancy in the Gilgamesh epic
Necromancy among the ancient Greeks
The oracles of the dead .
The oracle of Aornum in Thesprotis
517
517
519
519
520
522
525
525
526
526
FOLK-LORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Oracles imparted by the dead in dreams .
Dream oracle of the dead in Italy
Dream oracles on graves in North Africa
Dream oracles on graves in Celebes
Evocation of the ghosts of Darius, Achilles, and Homer
Lucan on the evocation of the dead
Horace and Tibullus on the evocation of the dead
Evocation of the dead by Nero and Caracalla
Necromancy in Africa ....
Oracles of dead kings among the Baganda
Oracles of dead kings among the Banyoro
Oracles of dead chiefs among the Basoga
Oracles of dead chiefs among the Bantu tribes of Rhodesia
Oracles of dead kings among the Barotse
Evocation of the dead among the negroes of West Africa
Consultation of the dead by means of their images
Evocation of the dead among the Maoris
Evocation of the dead in Nukahiva
Evocation of the dead in New Guinea and Celebes
Evocation of the dead in Borneo
Evocation of the dead among the Bataks of Sumatra
Evocation of the dead among the Eskimo
Necromancy and evocation of the dead in China .
Evocation of the dead among the Mordvins
Wide diffusion of necromancy
CHAPTER IX
THE SIN OF A CENSUS
Aversion of Jehovah to the numbering of Israel .
Aversion of Congo peoples to count themselves or their children
Aversion of East African tribes to count themselves or their cattle
Aversion of the Hottentots to be counted
Aversion to numbering people and things in North Africa
Mode of counting measures of grain in Palestine .
Aversion to counting leaves in the Shortlands
Aversion to counting fruit or people among American Indians
Superstitious objection to counting in Europe
Jewish objection to a census probably superstitious
Later relaxation of the rule ....
CHAPTER X
SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
Riddles propounded to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba .
Contest of wit between Solomon and Hiram
564
566
CONTENTS- xxi
PAGE
Contests of wit between two Rajahs of Celebes .... 566
Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, and the crystal floor 567
King Duryodhana and the crystal floor in the Mahahharata . . 568
CHAPTER XI
THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON
Solomon's test of motherhood ...... 570
Repetition of the story in Jain literature . ■ , , . 570
PART II
THE PATRIARCHAL AGE
{.CONTINUED)
CHAPTER III
JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS OR THE NEW BIRTH
§ I . The Diverted Blessing
In the last chapter we found some reason to think that as a The story
younger son Jacob had, in virtue of an ancient custom, a ^^^'^^
•^ ° -^ ' . ' subterfuge
prior claim to the inheritance of his father Isaac, and that employed
the shifts to which he is said to have resorted for the pur- ^yJ^'=ob'°
i deprive
pose of depriving his elder brother Esau of his birthright Ksau of
were no more than attempts on the part of the historian to f^^^'her's
explain that succession of a younger in preference to an elder blessing
son which in his own day had long been obsolete and almost embody a
incomprehensible. In the light of this conclusion I propose 'eminis-
ccncG of
in the present chapter to consider the ruse which Jacob, a legal
acting in collusion with his mother Rebekah, is reported to ceremony
° '■ observed
have practised on his father Isaac in order to divert the for the
paternal blessing from his elder brother to himself I con- P"'"Poseof
\ _ ° _ substitut-
jecture that this story embodies a reminiscence of an ancient ing a
ceremony which in later times, when primogeniture had for^andder
generally displaced ultimogeniture, was occasionally observed brother,
for the purpose of substituting a younger for an elder son
as heir to his father. When once primogeniture or the suc-
cession of the firstborn had become firmly established as
the rule of inheritance, any departure from it would be
regarded as a breach of traditional custom that could only
be sanctioned by the observance of some extraordinary
formality designed either to invert the order of birth between
the sons or to protect the younger son against certain
dangers to which he might conceivably be exposed through
the act of ousting his elder brother from the heritage. We
need not suppose that such a formality was actually observed
VOL. n I i{
2 JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS part ii
by Jacob for the purpose of serving himself heir to his
father ; for if the custom of ultimogeniture was still in full
vogue in his day, he was the legal heir, and no special
ceremony was needed to invest him with those rights to
which he was entitled in virtue of his birth. But at a later
time, when ultimogeniture had been replaced by primogeni-
ture, Jacob's biographer may have deemed it necessary to
justify the traditionary succession of his hero to the estate
by attributing to him the observance of a ceremony which,
in the historian's day, was occasionally resorted to for the
sake of giving a legal sanction to the preference of a younger
son. At a still later time the editor of the biography, to
whom the ceremony in question was unfamiliar, may have
overlooked its legal significance, and represented it as merely
a cunning subterfuge employed by Jacob at the instigation
of his mother to cheat his elder brother out of the blessing
which was his due. It is in this last stage of misunder-
standing and misrepresentation that, on the present hypo-
thesis, the narrative in Genesis has come down to us. It
runs as follows : — ^
The " And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, and
Bibiica j^jg eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esau
narrative. •' ' '
How Isaac his elder son, and said unto him, My son : and he said unto
to^biesThis ^^^'""' Here am I. And he said, Behold now, I am old, I
elder son know not the day of my death. Now therefore take, I
pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out
to the field, and take me venison ; and make me savoury
meat, such as I love, and bring it to me, that I may eat ;
that my soul may bless thee before I die. And Rebekah
heard when Isaac spake to Esau his son. x^nd Esau went
to the field to hunt for venison, and to bring it. And
Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard
thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying. Bring me
venison, and make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and
bless thee before the Lord before my death. Now, there-
fore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I com-
mand thee. Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence
two good kids of the goats ; and I will make them savoury
meat for thy father, such as he loveth : and thou shalt bring
1 Genesis xxvii. 1-29.
CHAP. Ill THE DIVERTED BLESSING 3
it to th)' father, that he may eat, so that he may bless thee
before his death. And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Mow the
Behold Esau my brother is a Jiairy man, and I am a smooth >o""se'"^
•^ ^ ' son Jacob,
man. My father perad venture will feel me, and I shall seem instigated
to him as a deceiver ; and I shall bring a curse upon me, nfother
and not a blessing. And his mother said unto him, Upon Rebekah,
me be thy curse, my son : only obey my voice, and go fetch himsdTfn
me them. And he went, and fetched, and brought them to the likeness
his mother : and his mother made savoury meat, such as his receive"dthe
father loved. And Rebekah took the goodly raiment of pateraai
Esau her elder son, which were with her in the house, and which was
put them upon Jacob her younger son : and she put the '"''^"^ed
1- rii-iri 7-1 forhiselder
skms ot the kids ot the goats upon his hands, and upon the brother,
smooth of his neck : and she gave the savoury meat and the
bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son
Jacob. And he came unto his father, and said. My father :
and he said, Here am I : who art thou, my son ? And
Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy firstborn : I have
done according as thou badest me : arise, I praj' thee, sit
and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. And
Isaac said unto his son. How is it that thou hast found it so
quickly, my son ? And he said. Because the Lord thy God
sent me good speed. And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come
near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether
thou be my very son Esau or not. And Jacob went near
unto Isaac his father ; and he felt him, and said, The voice
is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. And
he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his
brother Esau's hands : so he blessed him. And he said.
Art thou my very son Esau ? And he said, I am. And
he said. Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son's
venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it
near to him, and he did eat : and he brought him wine, and
he drank. And his father Isaac said unto him. Come near
now, and kiss me, my son. And he came near, and kissed
him : and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed
him, and said. See, the smell of my son is as the smell of
a field which the Lord hath blessed : and God give thee of
the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and
plenty of corn and wine : let peoples serve, and nations bow
JACOB AND THE KIDS KINS
The dis-
placement
of an
elder b)- a
younger
son, and
the means
by which
it was
effected.
down to thee : be lord over thy brethren, and let thy
mother's sons bow down to thee : cursed be every one that
curseth thee, and blessed be every one that blesseth thee."
The points in this narrative to which I would call
attention are first, the displacement of the elder by the
younger son, and, second, the means by which the displace-
ment was effected. The younger son pretended to be his
elder brother by dressing in his elder brother's clothes and
b}^ wearing kidskins on his hands and neck for the purpose
of imitating the hairiness of his elder brother's skin ; and to
this pretence he was instigated by his mother, who actively
assisted him in the make-believe by putting his elder brother's
garments on his body and the kidskins on his hands and neck.
In this way Jacob, the younger son, succeeded in diverting
to himself the paternal blessing which was intended for his
elder brother, and thus he served himself heir to his
father. It seems possible that in this story there may be
preserved the reminiscence of a legal ceremony whereby a
younger son was substituted for his elder brother as rightful
heir to the oaternal inheritance.
Tribes in
East Africa
whose
customs
resemble
in some
points
those of the
Semites.
8 2. Sacrificial Skins in Ritual
In Eastern Africa there is a group of tribes, whose
customs present some curious points of resemblance to
those of Semitic peoples, and may help to illustrate and
explain them ; for in the slow course of social evolution
these African tribes have lagged far behind the Semitic
nations, and have accordingly preserved, crisp and clear,
the stamp of certain primitive usages which elsewhere has
been more or less effaced and worn down by the march
of civilization. The tribes in question occupy what is called
the eastern horn of Africa, roughly speaking from Abyssinia
and the Gulf of Aden on the north to Mount Kilimanjaro
and Lake Victoria Nyanza on the south. They belong
neither to the pure negro stock, which is confined to Western
Africa, nor to the pure Bantu stock, which, broadly speaking,
occupies the whole of Southern Africa from the equator to
the Cape of Good Hope. It is true that among them are
tribes, such as the Akainba and Akikuyu, who speak Bantu
SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL
languages and perhaps belong in the main to the Bantu
family ; but even in regard to them it may be doubted how
far they are true Bantus, and how far they have been trans-
formed by admixture or contact with tribes of an alien race.^
On the whole the dominant race in this part of Africa is the
one to which modern ethnologists give the name of Ethiopian,
and of which the Gallas are probably the purest type.^
Their farthest outpost to the west appears to be formed by
the pastoral Bahima of Ankole, in the Uganda Protecto-
rate, to whom the royal families of Uganda, Unyoro, and
Karagwe are believed to be allied.^ Among the other
tribes of this family the best - known perhaps are the
kindred Masai and Nandi, as to whom we are fortunate
enough to possess two excellent monographs hy an English
ethnologist, Mr. A. C. Hollis.'* On the affinity of these
tribes to the Gallas he tells us : "I do not consider that
the part which the Galla have played in building up the
Masai, Nandi-Lumbwa, and other races, such as perhaps the
1 "In dealing with the Akikuyu
people it is as yet impossible to speak
definitely on the subject of race. On
this matter, as on that of their more
recent origin and history, much yet
remains to be learnt. They speak un-
doubtedly a Bantu language, but Mr.
McGregor informs me that they possess
another language in addition to that in
common use " (W. Scoresby Routledge
and Katherine Routledge, With a Pre-
historic People, the Akiktiyu of British
East Africa, London, 1910, p. 19).
The Akikuyu say that their nation is
derived from the Akamba, and in the
opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Routledge the
statement is probably correct, " as an
examination of the two languages will
show, although certain evidence points
to the fission as being remote ; the
Akamba are to-day their neighbours to
the south-east" {op. cit. pp. 2 sq.).
If this view of the derivation of the
Akikuyu from the Akamba is well
founded, it will follow that the same
doubt as to the ethnical affinity of the
Akikuyu will apply to the Akamba,
though according to Mr. C. W. Hobley,
" the A-Kamba are probably the purest
Bantu race in British East Africa"
{^Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East
African Tribes, Cambridge, 1910, p.
2). According to the Hon. K. R.
Dundas, the present Akikuyu have
been formed by the fusion of many
different tribes, as appears from the
numerous physical types which are to
be seen among them, and which a
practised eye can readily distinguish.
Among these types he mentions the
Masai, the Kamba, and the Dorobo.
See Hon. K. R. Dundas, " Notes on
the Origin and History of the Kikuyu
and Dorobo tribes," Alan, viii. (1908)
pp. 136 sqq. See also Sir Charles
Eliot, in M. W. H. Beech, The Stik
(Oxford, 191 1), p. xi.
2 J. Deniker, The Races of Alan
(London, 1900), pp. 436 sqq.
2 J. H. Spake, foiernal of the Dis-
covery of the Source of the Nile (Lon-
don, 1912), ch. ix. pp. 201 sqq., 421,
430 ; Sir Harry Johnston, The Uganda
Protectorate, Second Edition (London,
1904), ii. 484 sqq., 600 sqq.; John
Roscoe, The Baganda (London, 191 1),
pp. 186 sq.
* The Masai, their Language and
Folklore (Oxford, 1905) ; The Nandi,
their Language and Folklore (Oxford,
1909).
6 JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS part ii
Bahima of Uganda, has been sufficiently realized or taken
into account in the past. The influence of their Galla
ancestors is frequently shown in the personal appearance,
religion, customs, and, in a lesser degree, in the languages
of many of these tribes." ^ Now the home of the Gallas in
Africa is separated only by a narrow sea from Arabia, the
cradle of the Semitic race, and intercourse between the two
countries and the two peoples must have been frequent from
a remote antiquity. Hence it is not so surprising as might
at first appear, if we should find resemblances between
Semitic and Ethiopian customs. The cry from Mount Zion
to Kilimanjaro is indeed far, but it may have been passed
ort through intermediate stations along the coasts of Arabia
and Africa. In saying this I do not wish to imply any
opinion as to the question whether similarities of Semitic
and Ethiopian usage are to be explained by derivation from
a common source or by the influence of similar circumstances
acting independently on the minds of different races. I
only indicate the hypothesis of a common origin as an
alternative which should not be lightly rejected."
Having said so much to guard myself against the sus-
picion of fetching my comparisons from an unreasonable
distance, I will now adduce some of the facts which sug-
gest that an ancient legal formality underlies the story of
the deceit practised by Jacob on his father.
Use of Among the Gallas it is customary for childless couples
sacrificial ^^ adopt children ; and so close is the tie formed by adoption
skin at the that even if the couple should afterwards have offspring of
^^"'^ their own, the adopted child retains all the rights of the
ceremony ' •'■ ^
°' . 1 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, p. i has at all events been modified by
adoption. ^^^.^ 2 jyj^. C. W. Hobley inclines to intermarriage with immigrants from
regardthe Nandiasablendof the Nilotic Arabia. See J. H. S^oke, Jotirnal of
and Hamitic stocks {Eastej-n Uganda, the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
London, 1902, p. 10). Sir Harry (London, 1912), eh. viii. pp. 201 sqq.;
Johnston finds in the Masai language J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p.
" distinct though distant signs of re- 429. The Galla language, though it
lationship " to the Galla. See his is not Semitic, is said to present
article, " The people of Eastern Equa- points of resemblance to the Semitic
torial Ah'icdi,' Journal of the Anthropo- family of speech in respect of conjuga-
logical Institute, xv. (1886) p. 15. tion, pronouns, numerals, and so forth.
See Ernest Renan, Histoire Ghiirale
2 Some respectable authorities are et Systeme compard des Langues Simi-
of opinion that this group of African tiques'" (Paris, 1878), pp. 91 sq., 338
tribes is either of Arabian origin or sqq.
CHAF. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL 7
firstborn. In order to transfer a child from its real to its
adoptive parents, the following ceremony is performed. The
child, who is commonly about three years old, is taken from
its mother and led or carried away into a wood. There the
father formally relinquishes all claim to it, by declaring that
thenceforth the child is dead to him. Then an ox is killed,
its blood is smeared on the child's forehead, a portion of its
fat is put round the child's neck, and with a portion of its
skin the child's hands are covered.-^ The resemblance of
this ceremony to Jacob's subterfuge is obvious : in both
cases the hands and neck of the person concerned are
covered with the skin or fat of a slain animal. But the
meaning of the ceremony is not yet apparent. Perhaps we
may discover it by examining some similar rites observed on
various occasions by tribes of East i\frica.
Among these tribes it is a common practice to sacrifice Ceremonial
an animal, usually a goat or a sheep, skin it, cut the skin J^^^deVrom^
into strips, and place the strips round the wrists or on the the skins of
fingers of persons who are supposed in one way or other to ^.^^Tims'ln
benefit thereby ; it may be that they are rid of sickness or East
rendered immune against it, or that they are purified from
ceremonial pollution, or that they are invested with mysteri-
ous powers." Thus, among the Akamba, when a child is
born, a goat is killed and skinned, three strips are cut from
the skin, and placed on the wrists of the child, the mother,
and the father respectively.^ Among the Akikuyu, on a like
occasion, a sheep is slaughtered, and a strip of skin, taken
from one of its fore-feet, is fastened as a bracelet .on the
infant's wrist, to remove the ill-luck or ceremonial pollution
{tJiahu) which is supposed to attach to new-born children.'*
Again, a similar custom is observed by the Akikuyu at the Kikuyu
curious rite of " being born again " {ko-cJii-a-ru-o ke-ri) or ofTheTew
" born of a goat " [ko-chi-a-re-i-riL-o vibSr-i), as the natives birth,
call it, which every Kikuyu child had formerly to undergo
1 Ph. Paulitschke, Ethnographie \.oxy o[YJ\\.\x\" Journal of the Royal An-
Nordost-Af7-ikas, die materielle CtiUur thropolo^cal Institute, xliii. (1913) p.
der Dandkil, Galla und Somdl*{^i^xX\n, 528.
1893), PP- 193 ^l- ; ^^-j Beit7-dge zur ^ Hon. Ch. Dundas, op. cit. p. 546.
Ethnographie itnd Anfhropologie der * C. W. Hobley, " Kikuyu Custcms
Somdl, Galla and Harari (Leipsic, 2^nd V,t\\&is," Journal of the Royal An-
1886), pp. 54 stj. thropological Institute, xl. (1910) p.
^ Compare Hon. Ch. Dundas, " His- 431.
JACOB AND THE KID SKINS
Meaning
cf the
Kikuyii
ceremony
of the new
birth.
before circumcision. The age at which the ceremony is
performed varies with the abihty of the father to provide
the goat or sheep which is required for the due observance
of the rite ; but it seems that the new birth generally takes
place when a child is about ten years or younger. If the
child's father or mother is dead, a man or woman acts as
proxy on the occasion, and in such a case the woman is
thenceforth regarded by the child as its own mother. A
goat or sheep is killed in the afternoon and the stomach
and intestines are reserved. The ceremony takes place at
evening in a hut ; none but women are allowed to be present.
A circular piece of the goat-skin or sheep-skin is passed over
one shoulder and under the other arm of the child who is to
be born again ; and the animal's stomach is similarly passed
over the child's other shoulder and under its other arm. The
mother, or the woman who acts as mother, sits on a hide on
the floor with the child between her knees. The goat's or
sheep's gut is passed round her and brought in front of the
child. She groans as if in labour, another woman cuts the
gut as if it were the navel-string, and the child imitates the
cry of a new-born infant. Until a lad has thus been born
again in mimicry, he may not assist at the disposal of his
father's body after death, nor help to carry him out into the
wilds to die. Formerly the ceremony of the new birth was
combined with the ceremony of circumcision ; but the two
are now kept separate.^
Such is the curious custom of the new birth, as it is, or
used to be, practised by the Akikuyu, and as it was described
to Mr. and Mrs. Routledge by natives who had freed them-
selves from tradition and come under the influence of
Christianity. Yet great reluctance was shown to speak
about the subject, and neither persuasion nor bribery availed
to procure leave for the English inquirers to witness the
ceremony. Yet its general meaning seems plain enough,
and indeed is sufficiently declared in the alternative title
which the Akikuyu give to the rite, namely, " to be born of
a goat." The ceremony, in fact, consists essentially of a
pretence that the mother is a she-goat and that she has
' W. Scoresby Routledge and Kalh-
erine Routledge, With a Prehistoric
People, the Akikuyu of British East
Africa (London, 1 910), pp. 151- 153.
ciiAV. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL 9
given birth to a kid. This explains why the child is
enveloped in the stomach and skin of a goat, and why the
goat's guts are passed round both mother and child. So Another
far as the mother is concerned, this assimilation to an animal ^'^'^o""'
of the
comes out perhaps more clearly in an mdependent account ceremony,
which Mr. C. W. Hobley has given of the ceremony ; though
in his description the animal which the mother mimics is a
sheep and not a goat. The name of the ceremony, he tells
us, is Ku-cJiiaruo ringi, the literal translation of which is
"to be born again." He further informs us that the Akikuyu 1
are divided into two guilds, the Kikuyu and the Masai, and
that the ceremony of being born again differs somewhat as
it is observed by the two guilds respectively. When the
parents of the child belong to the Masai guild, the rite is
celebrated as follows. " About eight days after the birth of
the child, be it male or female, the father of the infant kills
a male sheep and takes the meat to the house of the mother,
who eats it assisted by her neighbours as long as they belong
to the Masai guild. At the conclusion of the feast the mother
is adorned with the skin from the left fore-leg and shoulder
of the sheep, the piece of skin being fastened from her left
wrist to left shoulder ; she wears this for four days, and it
is then taken off and thrown on to her bed and stays there
till it disappears. The mother and child have their heads
shaved on the day this ceremony takes place ; it has no
connection with the naming of the child which is done on
the day of its birth." ^ Here the intention seems to be to
assimilate the mother to a sheep ; this is done by giving her
sheep's flesh to eat and investing her with the skin of the
animal, which is left lying on the bed where, eight days
before, she gave birth to the child. For it is to be observed
that in this form of the ritual the simulation of the new birth
follows the real birth at an interval of only a few days.
But if the parents belong to the Kikuyu guild, the ritual Another
of the new birth is as follows in the south of the Kikuyu ^°'""' °^ '^^^
■' ceremony
country. "The day after the birth a male sheep is killed ofthene'w
and some of the fat of the sheep is cooked in a pot and amono- the
given to the mother and infant to drink. It was not specific- Akikuyu.
^ C. W. Hobley, "Kikuyu Customs thropological Institute, xl. {1910) pp.
and Beliefs, "yi7?<;v/a/ of the Royal An- 440 sq.
lo JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS part n
ally stated that this had a direct connection with the rite
referred to, but the description commenced with a mention
of this. When the child reaches the age of from three to
six years the father kills a male sheep, and three days later
the novice is adorned with part of the skin and the skin of
the big stomach. These skins are fastened on the right
shoulder of a boy or on the left shoulder of a girl. The
skin used for a boy has, however, the left shoulder and leg
cut out of it, and that for a girl has the right shoulder and
I leg cut away. The child wears these for three days, and on
the fourth day the father cohabits with the mother of the
child. There is, however, one important point, and that is
that before the child is decorated with the sheep-skin it has
to go and lie alongside its mother on her bed and cry out
like a newly born infant. Only after this ceremony has
been performed is the child eligible for circumcision. A
few days after circumcision the child returns to sleep on a
bed in its mother's hut, but the father has to kill a sheep
before he can return, and the child has to drink some of the
blood, the father also has to cohabit with the mother upon
the occasion." ^
Assimiia- In this form of the ritual, as in the one described by
tion of T^,jj.^ ^j^^ '^'ix's,. Routledge, the ceremony of the new birth is
mother and *=" ' ■' _
child to deferred until several years after the real birth. But the
sheep an gssence of the rite appears to be the same : it is a pretence
that the mother is a sheep, and that she has given birth to a
lamb. However, we must note the inconsistency of using,
for the purpose of this legal fiction, a ram instead of a ewe.
Kikuyu Having described the ceremony of the new birth in the
oradoption ^^° forms in which it is observed by the two guilds of the
Akikuyu, Mr. Hobley proceeds to describe another Kikuyu
ceremony, which is similar in form to the rite of the new
birth and is designated by a similar, though not identical,
name {Ku-chiaruo kungi instead of Ku-chiaruo ringi). It is
a ceremony of adoption and is said to resemble the Swahili
rite called ndugu Kuchanjiana. " If a person has no brothers
or parents he will probably try to obtain the protection of
some wealthy man and his family. If such a man agrees to
1 C. W. Hobley, "Kikuyu Customs thropological Institute, xl. (1910) p.
and Beliefs, "ybwrwa/ of the Royal An- 441.
cwAP. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL li
adopt him, he will take a male sheep and slaughter it, and
the suppliant takes another one. The elders are assembled
and slaughter these sheep, and strips of the skin {rukzvaru)
from the right foot and from the chest of each sheep are
tied round each person's hand, each is decorated with strips
of skin from the sheep of the other party. The poor man
is then considered as the son of the wealthy one, and when
the occasion arises the latter pays out live stock to buy a
wife for his adopted son." ^ In this ceremony there can
hardly be any pretence of a new birth, since both the per-
formers are males ; but on the analogy of the preceding
customs it seems fair to suppose that the two parties, the
adopting father and the adopted son, pretend to be sheep.
Further, a similar ritual is observed before the Kikuyu Cere-
ceremony of circumcision. On the morning of the day which "{3° "1.^,^^^ j^,
precedes the rite of circumcision, a he-goat is killed by being circumci-
strangled ; it is then skinned, and the skin having been cut Akikuyul^^
into strips, a strip of the skin is fastened round the right Wash-
wrist and carried over the back of the hand of each male wachaga,
candidate, after which the second finger of the candidate's and
, . . ,, , ,.., . ri-2A Bworana
hand is mserted through a slit in the strip ot skin. A caiias.
similar custom is observed by the Washamba, another
tribe of East Africa. Before the rite of circumcision is
performed, they sacrifice a goat to an ancestral spirit,
and cut wristlets from its skin for the boys who are to
be circumcised, as well as for their parents and kins-
folk. In sacrificing the goat the father of the boy prays to
the ancestor, saying, " We are come to tell thee that our
son is to be circumcised to-day. Guard the child and be
gracious, be not wrathful ! We bring thee a goat." ^ Here,
by binding strips of the skin on their own bodies, the
members of the family seem to identify themselves with the
goat which they offer to the ancestral ghost. Among the
Wachaga of Mount Kilimanjaro, about two months after
fircumcision the lads assemble at the chief's village, where
the sorcerers or medicine-men are also gathered together.
Goats are killed and the newly circumcised lads cut thongs
^ C. W. Hobley, oJ>. cit. pp. 441 sq. 3 a. Karasek, " Beitrage zur Kennt-
niss der Waschamba," Baessler-Archiv,
2 C. W. Hobley, op. cit. p. 442. i. (191 1) p. 191.
JACOB AND THE KIDS KINS
Ceremonial
use of
sacrificial
skins at
marriage
in East
Africa.
from the hides and insert the middle fingers of their right hands
through sHts in the thongs. Meantime the sorcerers com-
pound a medicine out of the contents of the stomachs of the
goats, mixed with water and magical stuffs. This mixture
the chief sprinkles on the lads, perhaps to complete the
magical or sacramental identification of the lads with the
animal. Next day the father of each lad makes a feast for
his relations. A goat is killed, and every guest gets a
piece of the goat's skin, which he puts round the middle
finger of his right hand.^ We may compare a ceremony
observed among the Bworana Gallas when lads attain their
majority. The ceremony is called ada or forehead, but this
is explained by a wox^ jara, which means circumcision. On
these occasions the young men, on whose behalf the rite is
celebrated, assemble with their parents and elder relatives in
a hut built for the purpose. A bullock is there sacrificed,
and every person present dips a finger into the blood, which
is allowed to flow over the ground ; the men dab the. blood
on their foreheads, and the women on their windpipes.
Further, the women smear themselves with fat taken from
the sacrificial victim, and wear narrow strips of its hide round
their necks till the next day. The flesh of the bullock
furnishes a banquet."
A similar use of sacrificial skins is made at marriage in
some of these African tribes. Thus among the Wawanga
of the Elgon District, in British East Africa, a part of the
marriage ceremony is this. A he-goat is killed, and a long
strip of skin is cut from its belly. The bridegroom's father,
or some other elderly male relative, then slits the skin up
lengthwise and passes it over the bride's head, so that it
hangs down over her chest, while he says, " Now I have put
this skin over your head ; if you leave us for any other man,
may this skin repudiate you, and may you become barren."^
Again, among the Theraka, a tribe who live on both sides
^ M. Merker, Rcchtsverhdltnisse und
Sitien der Wadschagga (Gotha, 1902),
pp. 14 sq. {Peternianns liliileihoigen,
Ergdnzungsheft, No. 138).
^ E. G. Ravenstein, "Soma! and
Galla land ; embodying information
collected by the Rev. Thomas Wake-
field," Proceedings of the Royal Geo-
graphical Society, N.S. vi. (1884) p.
271.
3 Hon. Kenneth R. Dundas, "Tht?
Wawanga and other tribes of the Elgon
District, British East Africa, ''yipMrw^/
of the Royal Anthi-opological Institute,
xliii. (1913) p. 39.
CHAP. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL 13
of the Tana River in British East Africa and closely
resemble the Akikii)'U in appearance and language, when
a husband brings his bride to his village, he kills a
goat and carries it before the girl into the hut ; accord-
ing to others, the goat is laid before the door of the
hut and the girl must jump over it. A strip of the goat's
skin is then put on the bride's wrist.^ Again, among the
Wa-giriama, a Bantu tribe of British East Africa, on the
day after marriage the husband kills a goat, and cutting off
a piece of skin from its forehead makes it into an amulet and
gives it to his wife, who wears it on her left arm. The flesh
of the goat is eaten by the persons present.^ In these cases
the goat's skin is applied only to the bride, but among the
Nandi of British East Africa it is applied to the bridegroom
also. On the marriage day a goat, specially selected as a
strong, healthy animal from the flock, is anointed and then
killed by being strangled. Its entrails are extracted and
omens drawn from their condition. Afterwards the animal
is skinned, and while the women roast and eat the meat, the
skin is rapidly dressed and given to the bride to wear.
Moreover, a ring and a bracelet are made out of the
skin ; the ring is put on the middle finger of the bride-
groom's right hand, and the bracelet is put on the bride's
left wrist. ^
Again, rings made from the skin of a sacrificed goat are Ceremonial
placed on the fingers of persons who form a covenant of sacrificial
friendship with each other. The custom appears to be skins at
common among the tribes of British East Africa. Thus, i^n E^i^^^'^
among the Wachaga " friendships are formed by the Africa.
Kiskojig'o ceremony, which consists in taking the skin from
the head of a goat, making a slit in it, and putting it upon
the middle finger in the form of a ring."^ Similarly, among
the Akamba, the exchange of rings made out of the skin of a
sacrificial victim, which has been eaten in common, cements
1 Hon. Charles Dundas, "History Iiislitute, x!i. (191 1) p. 21.
of YJa-m." Journal of the Royal An- 3 ^ q HoUis, 'Lke Nandi {Oxford,
thropolo^cal Jnstiltite,\\n\. {i^iT,)Y>'p. 1909), p. 63. Such rings are described
541 sg., 546. by Mr. Hollis as amulets (oJ>. cit. p.
2 Captain \V. E. H. Barrett, '« Notes- 87).
on the Customs and Beliefs of the Wa- * Charles New, Lije, Wanderings
giriama, etc., British East Africa," and Labours in Easte7-n A/fica (l^on-
Journal of the Royal Anthropological don, 1873), p. 458.
14 JACOB AND THE KID SKINS part ii
/ the bond of friendship.^ For example, when Baron von
der Decken was in Dafeta, the chief or sultan Maungu
formed a league of friendship by means of the following
ceremony. A goat was brought and both parties spat on
its forehead. The animal was next killed, the skin of its
forehead removed, and cut into thin strips, each with a slit
in it. The chief then put one of these strips of skin on the
middle finger of the traveller's right hand, and the traveller
did the same to the chief Afterwards a piece of the flesh
of the goat was roasted, each of the parties spat upon it, and
then ate, or was supposed to eat, the portion upon which
the other had spat. However, the Baron contrived to slip
his morsel aside without being detected.^ In this ceremony
the union effected by wearing rings cut from the skin of the
same goat is further cemented by partaking of the animal's
flesh and by swallowing each other's spittle ; for since the
spittle is a portion of a man, an exchange of spittle is like an
exchange of blood and forms a binding covenant, each party
to the compact being thus put in possession of a physical
part of the other, by means of which he can exercise a
magical control over him and so hold him to the terms of
aereement.^ An English traveller has described how in like
manner he made friendship with a chief or sultan of the
Wachaga in East Africa. He says : " On the day after
our arrival, a Swahili runaway came as a messenger of the
chief to make friends and brothers with me. A goat was
brought, and, taking it by one ear, I was required to state
where I was going, to declare that I meant no evil, and did
not work in ticJiawi (black magic), and finally, to promise
that I would do no harm to the country. The other ear
was then taken by the sultan's ambassador, and he made
promise on his part that no harm would be done to us, that
food would be given, and all articles stolen returned. 'The
^ J. M. Hildebrandt, " Elhno- fia- Religmiswisseiischaft, x. (1907)
graphische Notizen liber Wakamba pp. 274 sq.
und ihre Nachbarn," Zeitschrift fih-
Ethnologie, x. (1878) p. 386. ^ For examples, see J. Raum, "Blut
2 Baron Carl Claus von der Decken, und Speichelbiinde bei den Wad
Reisen in Ost-Afrika (Leipsic and schagga," Archiv fiir Religions%vhsen
Heidelberg, 1869-1871), i. 262 sq. schaft, x. {1907) pp. 290 sq. ; H
Compare T. Raum, "Blut- und Speichel- Trilles, Le Toidinisjiie chez les Fdn
biinde bei den Wadschagga," Archiv (Miinster i. W. 1912), p. 462.
CHAP. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL 15
goat was then killed, and a strip of skin cut off the forehead,
in which two slits were made. The M-swahili, taking hold
of this, pushed it on my finger by the lower slit five times,
finally pushing it over the joint. I had next to take the
strip, still keeping it on my own finger, and do the same for
the M-swahili, through the upper slit. This operation finished,
the strip had to be cut in two, leaving the respective portions
on our fingers, and the sultan of Shira and I were sworn
brothers." ^
Among the Akikuyu a similar, but somewhat more Ceremonial
elaborate, ceremony is observed when a man leaves his own sacrificial
district and formally joins another. He and the representa- skins in
tive of the district to which he is about to attach himself kikuyu
each provide a sheep or, if they are well off, an ox. The '"''^
animal is killed, " and from the belly of each a strip is cut,
and also a piece of skin from a leg of each animal. Blood
from each of the two animals is put into one leaf and
the contents of the two bellies into another leaf. The
elders {ki-d-vid) slit the two pieces of skin from the leg and
the two strips from the belly, and make four wristlets ; the
two coming from the beast of one party are placed on the
right arm of the other party, and vice versa.. The elders then
take the two leaves containing blood, and both parties to the
transaction extend their hands ; the elders pour a little blood
into all the four palms, and this is passed from the palms of
the one person to those of the other. All round are called
to see that the blood is mingled, and hear the proclamation
that the two are now of one blood." ^ This last example is
instructive,^ since it shows clearly that the intention of the
rite is to make the two contracting parties of one blood ;
hence we seem bound to explain on the same principle the
custom of encircling their wrists with strips of skin taken
from the same animals which furnished the blood for the
ceremony.
We have seen that the same custom of wearing wristlets Variation
made from the skin of a sacrificial victim is observed by the wacha<-a
Wachaga of Mount Kilimanjaro when they sacrifice a goat rite at cir-
cumcision.
' Joseph Thomson, Through Masai erine Routledge, With a Prehistoiic
Za«a? (London, 1885), p. 158. People, the Akikuyu of British East
2 W. Scoresby Routledge and Kath- Africa (London, 1910), pp. 176 sq.
I6 JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS part ii
to an ancestral spirit at circumcision. Tlie ritual varies some-
what according as the spirit is an ancestor in the paternal or
the maternal line. If he is a paternal ancestor, the strip of
skin is worn on the middle finger of the right hand ; if he is
a maternal ancestor, it is worn on the middle finger of the
left hand. If the sacrifice was offered to an undefined
ancestor on the father's side, the strip is worn on the big
toe of the right foot ; if it was offered to an undefined
ancestor on the mother's side, it is worn on the big toe of
the left foot.^
Ceremonial In the Same tribe, when a childless couple desire to obtain
"P'^ °^, offspring, or a couple whose children have died one after the
victim s i oj 1
skin at Other wish to ensure the life of the rest, they sacrifice a goat
sacrifices ^^ q^^ (Ruwo) or to an ancestral spirit, with a peculiar ritual.
among the ^ ' u ' r
Wachaga. All the married couples of the family assemble at the house
of the afflicted couple ; a goat is laid on its back at the
entrance of the house, so that its body is half within the
door and half without it ; the husband spits four times
between the horns of the animal, and afterwards he and his
wife leap four times over its body. Then just at noon the
goat is killed by an old woman, who stabs it with a knife.
If the sacrifice is offered to an ancestral spirit, a prayer is
addressed to him, begging him to behold the tears of his
grandson and grant him a child, while the ghost is at the
same time invited to accept the goat and eat it with his
friends in his house. At the conclusion of the ceremon}^ all
the participants put rings on their fingers, which have been
made out of the goat's skin. The ring is put on the husband's
finger by the oldest male member of the family, who in doing
so prays that the man's wife may give birth to a male child.
Then the husband puts the ring on his wife's finger with a
similar prayer." Again, among the Wachaga, on the eighth
day after a death, a goat is sacrificed to the ancestral spirits,
and rings made from the skin of its head are given to all
the surviving female relations to wear. This is believed to
avert all evil consequences of the death.^ Among the
1 y[.yie.xV&x, Rechtsverhdltnisse tiiid der \^a.d^ch:iggsi," Zei(sch7-i/l fuj- Eth-
Sitten der Wadschagga (Gotha, 1902), nologie, xlv. (1913) pp. 509 sq.
p. 20 (Pctennanns Mitteilungen, Er- ^ B. Guttniann, "Trauer undBegrab-
gdnzungsheft. No. 138). nissitten der Wadschagga, ■* Globus,
2 Bruno Guttmann, " Feldbausitten Ixxxix. (1906) p. 198.
CHAP. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL 17
Wagogo, another tribe of East Africa, a different use is Ceremonial
made of the victim's skin in sacrificing at the grave of a vktim's
chief. The victim is a black ox or sheep ; it is stifled, and skin at
its skin is cut in strips, which are laid round the grave,^ no among the
doubt to indicate the consecration of the animal to the ghost. "Wagogo,
But in sacrificing a black ox to God for rain they cut the Wawanga,
hide into strips and every person present wears one of them ^°^
n , Njamus.
on his arm. When disease breaks out in a herd, the Nandi
kindle a great bonfire and drive the cattle to it. A pregnant
sheep is then brought and anointed with milk by an elder,
who prays, " God ! give us the belly which is good." After-
wards two men belonging to clans that may intermarry seize
the sheep and strangle it. The intestines are inspected, and
if the omens are good, the meat is roasted and eaten, whilst
rings are made of the skin and worn by the cattle-owners.^
Among the VVawanga of the Elgon District, in British East
Africa, various sacrifices have to be offered before the people
are allowed to sow their millet. Among the rest, a black
ram is strangled before the hut of the king's mother, after
which the carcass is taken into the hut and placed by the
bedside facing towards the head of the bed. Next day it
is taken out and cut up, and the king, his wives, and children,
tie strips of its skin round their fingers.'* The Njamus, a mixed
people of British East Africa, water their plantations by means
of ditches cut in the dry season. When the time is come to
irrigate the land by opening the dam and allowing the water
to flow into the fields, they kill a sheep of a particular colour by
smothering it, and then sprinkle its melted fat, dung, and blood
at the mouth of the furrow and in the water. Then the dam
is opened, and the flesh of the sacrificed sheep is eaten. For
two days afterwards the man who performed the sacrifice,
and who must belong to one particular clan (the II Mayek),
has to wear the skin of the sheep bound about his head.
Later in the season, if the crops are not doing well, recourse
is again had to sacrifice. Two elders of the same officiating
clan, who may be compared to the Levites of Israel, repair
1 H. Claus, Die Wagogo (Leipsic * Hon. Kenneth R. Dundas, "The
and Berlin, 191 1), p. 49. Wawanga and other tribes of the Elgon
2 H. Claus, Die Wagogo, p. 42. District, British East MncTs." Journal
3 A. C. Mollis, The Nandi {OvSoxA, of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
1909), pp. 45 ^9- xliii. (191 3) p. 48.
VOL. II C
JACOB AND THE KIDS KINS
Ceremonial
use of
victim's
skin at
sacrifices
among the
Masai.
Ceremonial
use of
sacrificial
victim's
skin in
cases of
sickness
and on
other
occasions
among the
Wawanga.
to the plantations along with two elders from any other clan.
They take with them a sheep of the same colour as before ;
and having killed and eaten it, they cut up the skin, and each
man binds a strip of it round his head, which he must wear
for two days. Then separating, they walk in opposite direc-
tions round the plantation, sprinkling fat, honey, and dung
on the ground, until they meet on the other side.^
The Masai sacrifice to God for the health of man and
beast at frequent intervals, in some places almost every
month. A great fire is kindled in the kraal with dry wood,
and fed with certain leaves, bark, and powder, which yield a
fragrant smell and send up a high column of thick smoke.
God smells the sweet scent in heaven and is well pleased.
Then a large black ram is brought forward, washed with
honey beer, and sprinkled with the powder of a certain
wood. Next the animal is killed by being stifled ; after-
wards it is skinned and the flesh cut up. Every person
present receives a morsel of the flesh, which he roasts in
the ashes and eats. Also he is given a strip of the skin,
which he makes into rings, one for himself and the others
for the members of his family. These rings are regarded as
amulets which protect the wearers from sickness of every
kind. Men wear them on the middle finger of the right hand ;
women wear them fastened to the great spiral-shaped necklaces
of iron wire by which they adorn, or disfigure, their necks."
Again, similar sacrificial customs are observed in cases
of sickness. For example, among the \\'awanga it some-
times happens that a sick man in a state of delirium calls
out the name of a departed relative. When he does so, the
sickness is at once set down at the door of the ghost, and
steps are taken to deal eflectually with him. A poor old
man is bribed to engage in the dangerous task of digging
up the corpse, after which the bones are burnt over a nest
of red ants, and the ashes swept into a basket and thrown
into a river. Sometimes the mode of giving his quietus to
the ghost is slightly different. Instead of digging up his
bones, his relatives drive a stake into the head of the
1 Hon. K. R. Dundas, " Notes on
the Tribes inhabiting the Baringo Dis-
trict, East Africa Protectorate, "y^^wrwa/
of the Royal Anthi-opological Institute,
xl. (1910) pp. 54 ^q-
2 M. Merker, Die Masai (Berlin,
1904), pp. 200 sq.
CHAP. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL 19
grave, and, to make assurance doubly sure, pour boiling
water down after it. Having thus dispo.sed of the ghost
in a satisfactory manner, they kill a black ram, rub dung
from the stomach of the animal on their chests, and tie
strips of its skin round their right wrists. Further, the head
of the family, in which the sickness occurred, binds a strip
of the skin round the second finger of his right hand, and
the sick man himself fastens a strip round his neck.^ In
this case we cannot regard the sacrifice of the black ram as
intended to soothe and propitiate the ghost who had just
had a stake thrust through his head and boiling water poured
on his bones. Rather we must suppose that the sacrifice is
due to a lingering suspicion that even these strong measures
may not be wholly effectual in disarming him ; so to be on
the safe side the sick man and his friends fortify themselves
against ghostly assaults by the skin of a sacrificial victim,
which serves them as an amulet. Again, among these same
people a man accused of theft will sometimes go with his
accuser to a tree of a particular kind {Erythrina touientosd) and
the two will thrust their spears into it. After that the guilty
party, whether the thief or his wrongful accuser, falls sick.
The cause of the sickness is not alleged, but w^e may suppose
that it is the wrath of the tree-spirit, who naturally resents
being jabbed with spears and, with a discrimination which
does him credit, vents his anguish on the criminal only.
So the bad man sickens, and nothing can cure him but to
dig up the tree, root and branch ; for that, we may suppose,
is the only way of settling accounts with the tree-spirit.
Accordingly the friends of the sufferer repair to the tree and
root it up ; at the same time they sacrifice a sheep and eat
it on the spot, with some medicinal concoction. After that
every one ties a strip of the sheep's skin round his right
wrist ; and the sick man, for whose benefit the ceremony is
performed, binds a strip of the skin round his neck, and rubs
some of the dung of the slaughtered beast on his chest.^
^ Hon. Kenneth R. Dundas, "The 43. Sometimes, instead of the Ery-
\\ awanga and other tribes of the Elgon thrina tomentosa, a tree of a difterent
District, British East Mnzz.,'' Joitmal kind, called by the natives imuumba
of the Royal Anthropological Institute, (the bark-cloth tree of Uganda), is used
xliii. (1913) p. 38. for this purpose.
" Hon. K. K. Dundas, op. cit. p.
20
JACOB AND THE KIDS KINS
Use of
skins of
sacrificial
victims
as a
preventive
of sickness
among the
Akikuyu.
Ceremonial
use of
skins of
sacrificial
victims at
expiations
among the
Wachaga.
Here again the sacrifice of the sheep can hardly be regarded
as propitiatory ; rather it is designed to protect the patient
and his friends against the natural indignation of the tree-
spirit, in case they should not have succeeded in radically
destroying him. Once more, the Wawanga are acquainted
with a form of witchcraft which consists in burying a dead rat
at the door of a hut. This causes the inmates to fall sick,
and they may even die, if the proper remedy is not resorted
to, which is to kill a red or a white cock and pour its bldod
on the spot where the rat was found. However, if they
venture to apply this remedy without consulting a licensed
practitioner, that is, a witch-doctor, they will again fall sick
and will not recover till they have called in the man of skill,
who kills a sheep, ties a piece of the skin round each
person's hand, and rubs dung on their chests. The whole
of the mutton, except one shoulder, is given to the doctor as
his fee.-' Here again the intention of the sacrifice is clearly
protective, not propitiatory. Some years ago the Akikuyu
rejoiced in the possession of a prophet, who was favoured
with revelations from the Supreme Being. In April 191 i
he predicted that the young people would suffer greatly from
dysentery in the course of the year, and to guard against the
danger he recommended that sheep should be sacrificed at
the sacred fig trees, and that the women and children should
put bracelets from the skins of the sacrificed sheep on their
wrists. Many did so in the confident hope of escaping the
visitation.^
Further, the custom of wearing portions of the skins of
sacrificial victims is commonly observed among these East
African tribes at expiatory ceremonies. For example,
among the Wachaga, if a husband has beaten his wife and
she comes back to him, he cuts off a goat's ear and makes
rings out of it, which they put on each other's fingers. Till
he has done this, she may neither cook for him nor eat with
him.^ Further, like many other African tribes, the Wachaga
1 Hon. K. R. Dundas, of. cit. p. xli. (1911) pp. 437-439.
44.
2 C. W. Flobley, "Further re-
searches into Kikiiyu and Kamba re-
ligious beliefs and customs," Journal
of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
3 J. Raum, "Die Religion der
Landschaft Moschi am Kilimandjaro,"
Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft, xiv.
(1911) p. 189.
CHAP. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL 21
look upon a smith with superstitious awe as a being invested
with mysterious powers, which elevate him above the level
of common men. This atmosphere of wonder and mystery
extends also to the instruments of his craft, and particularly
to his hammer, which is supposed to be endowed with
magical or spiritual virtue. Hence he must be very careful
how he handles the hammer in presence of other people,
lest he should endanger their lives by its miraculous in-
fluence. For example, if he merely points at a man with
the hammer, they believe that the man will die, unless a
solemn ceremony is performed to expiate the injury. Hence
a goat is killed, and two rings are made out of its skin.
One of the rings is put on the middle finger of the smith's
right hand, the other is put on the corresponding finger
of the man whose life he has jeopardized, and expiatory
formulas are recited. A similar atonement must be made
if the smith has pointed at any one with the tongs, or has
chanced to hit any one with the slag of his iron. Again,
when he is hammering a piece of iron for somebody, and
the head of the hammer flies off, the smith says to the
owner of the iron, who commonly sits by watching the
operation, " The chief wants you, I must keep your iron
and cannot work it until you have given him satisfaction."
So the owner of the iron must bring a goat, and they kill
the animal and eat its flesh together. Next they cut rings
out of the skin of the goat's head and place the rings on
each other's fingers with mutual good wishes and blessings.
Moreover, another ring, made out of the goat's skin, is put
on the handle of the hammer ; and with the hammer thus
decorated, or rather guarded against the powers of evil, the
smith resumes and completes his task of hammering the iron
into the desired shape.^
* B. Gutmann, " Der Schmied und Bakongo (London, 1914), pp. 93, 240,
seine Kunst im animistischen Denken," 249; C. G. Seligmann, "A note on
Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, -/tXw. {\^\z) the magico-religious aspect of iron
pp. 82-84. As to the superstitions working' in Southern Kordofan," ^«-
attaching to smiths and smithcraft in nals of Archaeology and Anthropology,
Africa and elsewhere, see Richard issued by the Liverpool Institute of
Andree, Ethnographische Parallelen Archaeology, vi (1914) pp. \\<^ sq. ;
und Vergleiche (Stuttgart, 1878). pp. and the authorities referred to in Ta^J^i?
153-164; Giinter Tessmann, Die and the Perils of the Soul, p. 236
Pangwe (Berlin, 1913), i. 224-226; note* {The Golden Bough, Third
John H, Weeks, Among the Primitive Edition, Part ii,).
22 JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS fart ii
Further Again, aiTiong the Wachaga on the eastern side of Mount
nse^or"^ Kilimanjaro, it is a custom that a newly married woman may-
skins of not drink the milk of a cow belonging to her husband which
^^ctims at ^as just calvcd, unless she makes the following expiation.
expiations ^gr husband kills a goat or an ox and cuts off one of the fore-
Wachaga. legs together with the breast. These pieces are put on the
young wife's head and she is sent away to her own people,
with the words, " Go home (to your mother's people). Do
not quarrel with your husband. May your cows give plenty
of milk, may your goats cast good kids, may your beans
not be eaten by mice, nor your corn by birds. When you
go to market, may you be well received and find a chance
of cheating. But be careful not to cheat so as to be found
out and be taken to law." With these good wishes the
young wife is sent away to her parents, who receive her
solemnly, take the flesh from her head, and lay it on the
ground. Then they take the leg of the goat or ox and cut
out of the skin a ring large enough to be pushed over the
woman's left hand. There they fasten it, and then push
four small morsels of flesh between the ring and her hand.
These pieces she must eat, a fifth piece, which they after-
wards push through, she allows to fall on the ground.
Finally her mother's .people utter good wishes like those
which her husband's people uttered when they sent her with
the goat's flesh and skin to her old home. That ends the
ceremony, and after it is over, the young wife is free to
drink the milk of the cow at her husband's house.^ The
exact meaning of this ceremony in all its details is no longer
understood even b}^ the natives themselves, and we can
hardly hope to divine it ; but the general intention appears
to be to expiate the breach of a taboo which forbade a
young wife to partake of the milk of a cow that had just
calved on her husband's farm. As we shall see later on,
the drinking of milk among these East African tribes is
hedged round by many curious restrictions, the object of
which is to guard, not the drinker of the milk, but the cow,
against certain evil consequences believed to flow from con-
tact of the fluid with tabooed persons or things. In the
1 Bruno Guttmann, •' Feldbausitten der Wadschagga," Zeitschrift filr Ethno-
logie, xlv. (1913) pp. 507 sq.
CHAP. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL 23
present case we may conjecture that if the young wife were
to drink of the cow's milk without first performing the cere-
mony of expiation, she would be supposed thereby to endanger
the cow's milk and perhaps even its life.
Expiatory ceremonies involving the use of the skin of a Ceremonial
sacrificial victim are performed by the Akikuyu on a variety "j^fng ^f
of occasions. For example, if two men, wlio have been cir- sacrificial
cumcised at the same time, fight each other and blood is spilt, expiations
ceremonial pollution is incurred, and a medicine-man must be among the
called in to remove it. He kills a sheep, and the elders put ' ^ '
a strip of its skin on the wrist of each of the two men. This
removes the pollution and "teconciles the adversaries.^ Again,
among the Akikuyu, the wives of smiths usuall)^ wear armlets
of twisted iron. If a man enters the hut of a smith and
cohabits with a woman so decorated, a state of ceremonial
pollution is incurred, which can only be expiated by another
smith, who kills a sheep, and, cutting strips from its skin, puts
them on the wrists of the man, his wife, and any children
she may have. The bracelet is placed on the left wrist of
a woman, on the right wrist of a man." Again, in the same
tribe, if the side pole of a bedstead breaks, the person lying
on the bed incurs a state of ceremonial pollution. A sheep
must be killed, and a bracelet made from its skin must be
placed on the arm of the person whose bed gave way ; other-
wise he or she might die.^ Again, among the Akikuyu, if a
man strikes another who is herding sheep or cattle, so that
blood is drawn, the flock or herd is thereby brought into a
state of ceremonial pollution. The offender must give a
sheep, and the elders kill it, and place a strip of its skin on
the wrist of the culprit.'* Again, when a Kikuyu child has
been circumcised, and leaves the village for the first time
after the ceremony, if it should happen that in the evening
the goats and sheep return from pasture and enter the village
before the child has come back, then that child is ceremoni-
ally unclean, and may not return to the village till the
usual ceremony of expiation has been performed. His father
must kill a sheep, and place a strip of its skin on his child's
1 C. W. Hobley, " Kikuyu Customs 2 c. W. Hobley, I.e.
and Beliefs," lournal of the Royal - „ ,,, ^t 1-1
, .r . , ■ i T .-^ / , , -^ . 3 C. W. Hobley, op. at. p. 431:.
Anthropological Institute, xl. (19 10) ' ^ ^ ^•^-'
p. 432. * C. W. Hobley, op. cit. p. 436.
24 JACOB AND THE KIDS KINS part ii
arm. Till that is done the child may not return to the
village, but must sleep at a neighbouring village, where some
of the boys live who went through the ceremony of circum-
cision along with him.^ Again, if a Kikuyu man or woman
has been bitten by a hyena or a dog, he or she is unclean,
and, must be purified in the usual way by a medicine-man,
who kills a sheep and puts a strip of its skin on the patient's
wrist.^ Further, if a Kikuyu man strikes a woman who is
with child, so that she miscarries, the culprit must bring two
sheep, which are killed and eaten, the one by the villagers
and the elders, the other by the woman and visitors. More-
over, bracelets are made out of the skin of the first of these
sheep and placed on the wrists of all persons present who
are nearly related either to the offender or to the woman.^
Ceremonial Expiatory ceremonies of the same kind are performed
"^^ °^ ^ by the Wawans^a, in the El^on District of British East
skms of -^ ° ' '^
sacrificial xAifrica. For example, if a stranger forces his way into a
victims at j^ , ^^^ j^ doing SO his skin cloak falls to the ground, or if
expiations ' o o '
among the he be bleeding from a fight, and his blood drips on the floor,
and^the^^ onc of the inmates of the hut will fall sick, unless proper
Bantu measures are taken to prevent it. The offender must produce
Kavirondo. ^ go^t. The animal is killed, and the skin, having been
removed from its chest and belly, is cut into strips ; these
strips are stirred round in the contents of the goat's stomach,
and every person in the hut puts one of them round his right
wrist. If any person in the hut should have fallen sick
before this precaution was taken, the strip of skin is tied
round his neck, and he rubs some of the goat's dung on his
chest. Half of the goat is eaten by the occupants of the
hut, and the other half by the stranger in his own village.
The same procedure is resorted to by the Wawanga in case
the artificial tail which a woman wears has been torn off her,
or she should be guilty of the gross impropriety of entering
a hut without that appendage. Indeed, the Wawanga believe
that a woman may cause her husband's death simply by
walking abroad without her tail. To avert the catastrophe
the husband demands a goat from her people, and eats it in
* C. W. Hobley, op. cit. p. 437. searches into Kikuyu and Kamba Re-
2 p, -,, ^ , , . ligious Beliefs and Customs, "yi77/r;/a/
" ^' ■ ■ of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
^ C. W. Hobley, "Further Re- xli. (191 1) p. 425.
CHAP. Ill SACRIFICIAL SKINS IN RITUAL it,
company with his wife, who further ties a strip of skin from
the goat's belly round her neck and rubs some of the contents
of its stomach on her chest. This saves her husband's life.
Again, a man of this tribe, returning from a raid on which he
has killed one of the enemy, may not enter his own hut till
he has purified himself by the sacrifice of a goat ; and he must
wear a strip of skin taken from the goat's forehead for the
next four days.^ Once more, the Wawanga, like many other
savages, believe that a woman who has given birth to twins
is in a very parlous state, and a variety of purificatory cere-
monies must be performed before she can leave the hut ;
otherwise there is no saying what might not happen to her.
Among other things they catch a mole and kill it by driving
a wooden spike into the back of its neck. Then the animal's
belly is split open and the contents of the stomach removed
and rubbed on the chests of the mother and the twins.
Next, the animal's skin is cut up, and strips of it are tied
round the right wrist of each of the twins, and round the
mother's neck. They are worn for five days, after which
the mother goes to the river, washes, and throws the pieces
of skin into the water. The mole's flesh is buried in a hole
under the verandah of the hut, before the door, and a pot,
with a hole knocked in the bottom, is placed upside down
over it.^ Among the Bantu tribes of Kavirondo, at the north-
eastern corner of Lake Victoria Nyanza, it is a rule that only
very near relations are allowed to penetrate be5^ond the first
of the two fireplaces which are found, one behind the other,
in every hut. Any person who transgresses this rule must
kill a goat, and all the occupants of the hut wear small pieces
of the skin and smear a little of the dung on their chests.^
Lastly, it may be noticed that- a similar use of sacrificial Ceremonial
skins is made by some of these East African tribes at certain si^j^g ^^
solemn festivals which are held by them at long intervals sacrificial
determined by the length of the age grades into which the transfer-
whole population is divided. For example, the Nandi are ^"^^ °*"
>■ ^ *■ govern-
ment from
1 Hon. Kenneth R. Dundas, "The pp. 67 sq. one
Wawanga and other Tribes of the Elgon generation
District, British East Africa, " /""''W'^:/ ^ C. W. Hobley, Eastern Uganda to another.
of the Royal Anthropological Institute, (London, 1902), p. 15; Sir Harry
xhii. (1913) pp. 46 J^. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate"^ ^
2 Hon. Kenneth R. Dundas, op. cit. (London, 1904), ii. 732.
26 JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS part ii
divided into seven such age grades, and the festivals in ques-
tion are held at intervals of seven and a half years. At each
of these festivals the government of the country is transferred
from the men of one age grade to the men of the age grade
next below it in point of seniority. The chief medicine-man
attends, and the proceedings open with the slaughter of a
white bullock, which is purchased by the young warriors for
the occasion. After the meat has been eaten by the old
men, each of the young men makes a small ring out of the
hide and puts it on one of the fingers of his right hand.
Afterwards the transference of power from the older to the
younger men is formally effected, the seniors doffing their
warriors' skins and donning the fur garments of old men.^
At the corresponding ceremony among the Akikuyu, which
is held at intervals of about fifteen years, every person puts
a strip of skin from a male goat round his wrist before he
returns home."
The On a general survey of the foregoing customs we may
skin"seems concludc that the intention of investing a person with a portion
intended to of a sacrificial skin is to protect him against some actual or
wearer by threatened evil, so that the skin serves the purpose of an
identifying amulct. This interpretation probably covers even the cases in
him with ,.,, .1 1, .-.
the animal, which the custom IS observcd at the ratification of a covenant,
since the two covenanters thereby guard against the danger
which they apprehend from a breach of contract. Similarly,
the strange rite of the new birth, or birth from a goat, which
the Akikuyu used to observe as a preliminary to circumcision,
may be supposed to protect the performers from some evil
which would otherwise befall them. As to the mode in
which the desired object is effected by this particular means,
we may conjecture that by wearing a portion of the animal's
skin the man identifies himself with the sacrificial victim,
which thus acts as a sort of buffer against the assaults
of the evil powers, whether it be that these pov.-ers are
persuaded or cajoled into taking the beast for the man, or
that the blood, fliesh, and skin of the victim are thought
to be endowed with a certain magical virtue which keeps
^ A. C Hollis, The Nandi (Oxford, searches into the Kikuyu and Kamba
1909), pp. \i sq. Religious Beliefs and Customs, "yi>«;-«a/
of the Roval Anthropological Institute,
2 C. W. Hobley, "Further Re- xli. (19x1) pp. 4191(7., 421.
CHAP. Ill THE NEW BIRTH 27
malignant beings at bay. This identification of the man
with the animal comes out most clearly in the Kikuyu rite
of the new birth, in which mother and child pretend to be a
she-goat and her newborn kid. Arguing from it, we may
suppose that in every case the attachment of a piece of
sacrificial skin to a person is only an abridged way of
wrapping him up in the whole skin for the purpose of
identifying him with the beast.
With these rites we may compare a ceremony performed Malagasy
1 • 1 Tx T 1 r ii 1 r ceremony
by certain clans m south-eastern Madagascar tor the sake ot of passing
avertino; the ill-luck with which a child born under an evil a child
, , , , . . .^ , through a
destmy is supposed to be threatened. An ox is sacrihced, ring cut
and its blood rubbed on the brow and behind the ears of ^^^ '!?^
skin of a
the infant. Moreover, a sort of hoop or large ring is made sacrificial
with a thong cut from the victim's hide, and through this ^vert'"iii°
hoop the mother passes with the child in her arms.^ The luck.
custom of passing through a hoop or other narrow opening
in order to give the slip to some actual or threatened
calamity is widespread in the world ; ^ but a special signifi-
cance attaches to the practice when the aperture is formed
by the skin of a sacrificial victim. Like the rite of passing
between the pieces of a slaughtered animal,^ the act of pass-
ing through a ring of its hide may perhaps be interpreted
as an abridged form of entering into the victim's body in
order to be identified with it and so to enjoy the protection
of its sacred character.
§ 3. The Neiv Birth
The quaint story of the Diverted Blessing, with its im- J^J^J^^^f^
plication of fraud and treachery practised by a designing new birth
mother and a crafty son on a doting husband and father, Jn^^pio^y"^
wears another and a far more respectable aspect, if we sup- L)y many
pose that the discreditable colour it displays has been im- JhepuTpose
ported into it by the narrator, who failed to understand the ofchanging
true nature of the transaction which he described. That status.
' Alfred Grandidier et GuiUaume ^ Balder the Beautiful, ii. 168 sgq.
Grandidier, Etlaiographie de Madagas- {The Golden Botigh, Third Edition,
cai; ii. (Paris, 1914) p. 278 (Histoire Part vii.).
Physique, Naturelle et Politique de
Madagascar, vol. iv.). ^ Above, vol. i. pp. 392 sqq.
28 JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS part ii
transaction, if I am right, was neither more nor less than a
legal fiction that Jacob was born again as a goat for the
purpose of ranking as the elder instead of the younger son
of his mother. We have seen that among the Akikuyu of
East Africa, a tribe possibly of Arabian, if not of Semitic,
descent, a similar fiction of birth from a goat or a sheep
appears to play an important part in the social and religious
life of the people. It will be some confirmation of our
hypothesis if we can show that the pretence of a new birth,
either from a woman or from an animal, has been resorted
to by other peoples in cases in which, for one reason or
another, it has been deemed desirable that a man should, as
it were, strip himself of his old personality and, assuming
a new one, make a fresh start in life. In short, at an early
stage in the history of law the legal fiction of a new birth
has often been employed for the purpose of effecting and
marking a change of status. The following instances may
serve to illustrate this general proposition.
The fiction In the first place, then, the fiction of a new birth has
birth"ar been made use of, not unnaturally, in cases of adoption for
adoption in the sake of Converting the adopted child into the real child
and'^the^ of liis adopting mother. Thus the Sicilian historian Diodorus
Middle informs us that when Hercules was raised to the rank of the
gods, his divine father Zeus persuaded his wife Hera to
adopt the bastard as her own true-born son, and this the
complacent goddess did by getting into bed, clasping
Hercules to her body, and letting him fall through her
garments to the ground in imitation of a real birth ; and
the historian adds that in his own day the barbarians fol-
lowed the same procedure in adopting a son.^ During the
Middle Ages a similar form of adoption appears to have
been observed in Spain and other parts of Europe. The
adopted child was taken under the mantle of his adopting
father or mother ; sometimes he was passed through the
folds of the flowing garment. Hence adopted children were
called " mantle children." ^ " In several manuscripts of the
* Diodorus Siculus, iv. 39. 2. 254 j^. See particularly Surita lib.
2 Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Rechts- l ind. rer. ara°on. ad a. 1032,
alierthiinier^ (Goltingen, 1881J, pp. quoted by J. Grimm, op, cit. p. 464,
160 sq., 464 sq. ; J. J. Bachofen, Das '■^ Adoptionis jus illoric/n tempo>-um
Mutterrecht (Stuttgart, 1 861). pp. institjtto more rite sancitum tradunt,
Ajjes.
CHAP. Ill THE NEW BIRTH 29
Cronica General it is told how, on the day when Mudarra
was baptized and dubbed a knight, his stepmother put on a
very wide shirt over her garments, drew a sleeve of the same
over him, and brought him out at the opening for the head,
by which action she acknowledged him for her son and heir."
This procedure is said to have been a regular form of
adoption in Spain,^ and it is reported to be still in vogue
among certain of the Southern Slavs. Thus in some parts The fiction
of Bulgaria the adoptive mother passes the child under her binh^at^
dress at her feet and brings it out at the level of her breast ; ^ adoption
and among the Bosnian Turks it is said that "the adoption southern^
of a son takes place thus : the future adoptive mother pushes ^'^^^'^ ^°<i
1-1 • • Turks.
the adoptive child through her hose, and m that way imitates
the act of birth." ^ And of the Turks in general we are
told that " adoption, which is common among them, is
carried out by causing the person who is to be adopted
to pass through the shirt of the person who adopts him.
That is why, to signify adoption in Turkish, the expression
is employed, ' to cause somebody to pass through one's
shirt.' " ^
In Borneo "some of the Klemantans (Barawans and The fiction
Lelaks in the Baram) practise a curious symbolic ceremony ^inhar
on the adoi)tion of a child. When a couple has arranged adoption
to adopt a child, both man and wife observe for some weeks i<^°mfn-'^
before the ceremony all the prohibitions usually observed 'ans of
during the later months of pregnancy. Many of these
prohibitions may be described in general terms by saying
that they imply abstention from every action that may
suggest difficulty or delay in delivery ; e.g. the hand must
not be thrust into any narrow hole to pull anything out of
it ; no fixing of things with wooden pegs must be done ;
qui is inoleverat, tit qui adoptaret, per ^ Felix Liebrecht, Zur Volksku7ide
stolae fluentis sinus eiim qui adopta- (Ileilbronn, 1879), p. 432.
retzir iradttceret " ; also Du Cange, ^ Stanislaus Ciszewski, Kiinstiiche
Glossarium ad Scrip tores Mediae ct Venvandtschap beiden Siidslaven^LeA-p-
Infimae Latinitatis{V2j{\%,i-]ii-\']T^(i), sic, 1897), p. 104.
V. 63, J-.z'. " Pallio coope7'ire," ^^ Ciijics ^ S. Ciszewski, op. cit. p. 103,
ritus initiu7n jluxisse arbitror ab eo, referring to I. F. Jukic, Bosanski
qui inadoptionibus observabalur : quippe p7-ijatelj (Sisak, 1870), iv. 175.
adoptivos pallio ac stola propria adop- * B. d'Herbelot, Biblioiheque Orien-
ta7ites quoda7)i77iodo i7ivolveba7it, ut ab /a/^'(The Hague, I777-I779)» >• I5^»
iis quasi prog7tatos i/idica7e77t." s.v. " Akhrat."
30
JACOB AND THE KIDS KINS
The fiction
of a new
birth at
adoption
among the
Bahinia.
there must be no lingering on the threshold on entering or
leaving a room. When the appointed day arrives, the
woman sits in her room propped up and with a cloth round
her, in the attitude commonly adopted during delivery.
The child is pushed forward from behind between the
woman's legs, and, if it is a young child, it is put to the
breast and encouraged to suck. Later it receives a new
name. It is very difficult to obtain admission that a
particular child has been adopted and is not the actual
offspripg of the parents ; and this seems to be due, not so
much to any desire to conceal the facts as to the complete-
ness of the adoption, the parents coming to regard the child
as so entirely their own that it is difficult to find words
which will express the difference between the adopted child
and the offspring. This is especially the case if the woman
has actually suckled the child." ^ Here it is to be observed
that both the adopting parents participate in the legal
fiction of the new birth, the pretended father and mother
observing the same rules which, among these people, real
fathers and mothers observe for the sake of facilitating the
real birth of children ; indeed, so seriously do they play their
parts in the little domestic drama that they have almost
ceased to distinguish the pretence from the reality, and can
hardly find words to express the difference between the child
they have adopted and the child they have begotten. The
force of make-believe could scarcely go farther.
Among the pastoral Bahima of Central Africa, " when a
man inherits children of a deceased brother, he takes the
children and places them one by one in the lap of his chief
wife, who receives them and embraces them and thus
accepts them as her own children. Her husband after-
wards brings a thong, which he uses for tying the legs of
restive cows during milking and binds it round her waist
in the manner a midwife binds a woman after childbirth.
After this ceremony the children grow up with the family
and arc counted as part of it." " In this ceremony we may
detect the simulation of childbirth both in the placing of
' Charles Hose and William
McDouc;all, The Tagan Tribes of
Borneo (London, 19 12), i. 78 sq.
- John Roscoe, The Northern Bantu
(Cambridge, 1915), p. 1 1 4.
THE NEW BIRTH
31
the children on the woman's lap and in the tying of a thong
round her waist after the manner of midwives, who do the
same for women in actual childbed.
Further, the pretence of a new birth has been enacted The fiction
for the benefit of persons who have erroneously been ^i,.fh"^^
supposed to have died, and for whom in their absence enacted in
funeral rites have been performed for the purpose of laying creeceand
their wandering ghosts, who might otherwise haunt and ^"^^'a by
trouble the survivors. The return of such persons to the who'were
bosom of their family is embarrassing, since on the prin- erroneously
c • -^ .- • , , 1- 1 , thought to
ciples of imitative magic or make-believe they are theo- be dead,
reticallv dead, though practically alive. The problem thus ^"'^' ^"^
/ , 1 . . ^ whom
created was solved in ancient Ureece and ancient India by funerairites
the legal fiction of a new birth ; the returned wanderer had h^'^/^'^'^"
° perlornied.
solemnly to pretend to come to life by being born again of a
woman before he might mix freely with living folk. Till
that pretence had been enacted, the ancient Greeks treated
such persons as unclean, refused to associate with them, and
excluded them from all participation in religious rites ; in
particular, they strictly forbade them to enter the sanctuary
of the Furies. Before they were restored to the privi-
leges of civil life, they had to be passed through the bosom
of a woman's robe, to be washed by a nurse, wrapped in
swaddling clothes, and suckled at the breast. Some people
thought that the custom originated with a certain Aristinus,
for whom in his absence funeral rites had been performed.
On his return home, finding himself shunned by all as an
outcast, he applied to the Delphic oracle for advice, and
was directed by the god to perform the rite of the new
birth. Other people, however, with great probability
believed that the rite was older than the time of Aristinus
and had been handed down from remote antiquity.^ In
ancient India, under the like circumstances, the supposed
dead man had to pass the first night after his return in a
tub filled with a mixture of fat and water. When he
stepped into the tub, his father or next of kin pronounced
over him a certain verse, after which he was supposed to
have attained to the stage of an embryo in the womb. In
that character he sat silent in the tub, with clenched fists,
' Plutarch, Qiiaestiones Komanae, 5 ; Hesychius, i.v. Aei;Tepo7ro7/uos.
32
JACOB AND THE KIDS KINS
The fiction
of a new
birth
enacted in
ancient
India by a
Brahman
for the
purpose of
raising
himself to
the rank of
a god.
while over him were performed all the sacraments that were
regularly celebrated for a woman with child. Next morn-
ing he got out of the tub, at the back, and went through all
the other sacraments he had formerly partaken of from his
youth upwards ; in particular he married a wife or espoused
his old one over again with due solemnity.^ This ancient
custom appears to be not altogether obsolete in India even
at the present day. In Kumaon a person supposed to be
dying is carried out of the house, and the ceremony of the
remission of sins is performed over him by his next of kin.
But should he afterwards recover, he must go through all
the ceremonies previously performed by him from his birth
upwards, such as putting oin the sacred thread and marrying
wives, though he sometimes marries his old wives over
again.^
But in ancient India the rite of the new birth was also
enacted for a different and far more august purpose. A
Brahman householder who performed the regular half-
monthly sacrifices was supposed thereby to become himself
a god for the time being,^ and in order to effect this transi-
tion from the human to the divine, from the mortal to the
immortal, it was necessary for him to be born again. For
this purpose he was sprinkled with water as a symbol of
seed. He feigned to be an embryo and as such was shut
up in a special hut representing the womb. Under his robe
he wore a belt, and over it the skin of a black antelope ;
the belt stood for the navel-string, and the robe and the
black antelope skin typified the inner and outer membranes
(the amnion and chorion) in which an embryo is wrapped.
He might not scratch himself with his nails or a stick,
because he was an embryo, and were an embryo scratched
with nails or a stick, it would die. If he moved about in
the hut, it was because a child moves about in the womb.
If he kept his fists clenched, it was because an unborn babe
ii. p. 74, § 452 (February, 1885).
3 Satapatha-Brdhmana, translated
by J- Eggeling, Part ii. (Oxford, 1885)
pp. 4, 20, 29, 38, 42, 44 [The Sacred
Books of the East, vol. xxvi. ) ; H.
Hubert et M. Mauss, " Essai sur le
Sacrifice," DAnn^e Sociologique, ii.
(1897-189S) pp. 48 sqq.
' W. Caland, Die altindischen
Todteii- ttnd Bestattungsgebrdtichen
(Amsterdam, 1896), p. 89 (Verhande-
linoeti der Koninkli'ke Akadeniie van
Wetenschappen te Amsterdam^ Afdeel-
ing Letlei-kunde, Deel i. No. 6).
2 Major Reade, " Death Customs —
Kumaun," Panjab Notes and Queries,
CHAP. Ill THE NEW BIRTH 33
does the same. If in bathing he put off the black antelope
skin but retained his robe, it was because the child is born
with the amnion but not with the chorion. By these
observances he acquired, besides his old natural and mortal
body, a new and glorified body, invested with superhuman
powers and encircled with an aureole of fire. Thus by a
new birth, a regeneration of his carnal nature, the man
became a god.^
Thus we see that the ceremony of the new birth may The fiction
serve different purposes, according as it is employed to S[rfh"^'^
raise a supposed dead man to life or to elevate a living employed
man to the rank of a deity. In modern India it has been, India^'^an
and indeed still is, occasionally performed as an expiatory expiation
rite to atone for some breach of ancestral custom. The train the breach
of thought which has prompted this use of the ceremony is o^ancestrai
obvious enough. The sinner who has been born again
becomes thereby a new man and ceases to be responsible
for the sins committed by him in his former state of
existence ; the process of regeneration is at the same time
a process of purification, the old nature has been put off
and an entirely new one put on. For example, among
the Korkus, an aboriginal tribe of the Munda or Kolarian The fiction
stock in the Central Provinces of India, social offences t-^^^^^
c y birth
of an ordinary kind are punished by the tribal council, observed
which inflicts the usual penalties, but " in very serious Sp^ation
cases, such as intercourse with a low caste, it causes the for breach
offender to be born again. He is placed inside a large custom^
earthen pot which is sealed up, and when taken out of among the
this he is said to be born again from his mother's womb, india.^
He is then buried in sand and comes out as a fresh incar-
nation from the earth, placed in a grass hut which is fired,
and from within which he runs out as it is burning, immersed
in water, and finally has a tuft cut from his scalp-lock and
is fined two and a half rupees." ^ Here the ceremony of
^ Sylvain Levi, La Doctrine du 23 sq. {The Sacred Books of the East,
Sacrifice dans les Brdhmatias (Paris, vols. xxvi. and xliv.). Compare The
1898), pp. 102-107; H. Hubert et Magic Art and the Evolutioti of Kings,
M. Mauss, " Essai sur le Sacrifice," i. 380 sq. {The Golden Bough, Third
L'Ann^e Sociologique, ii. (1897-1898) Edition, Part i.).
pp. 48 sqq.', Satapatha Brdhtnana, " R. ^V. Russell, The Tribes and
Part ii. (Oxford, 1885) pp. 18-20, 25- Castes of the Central Provinces of India
35> 73. Part v. (Oxford, 1900) pp. (London, 1916), iii. 568.
VOL. II D
34 JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS part ii
the new birth seems clearly intended to relieve the culprit
from all responsibility for his former acts by converting him
into an entirely new person. With what show of reason
could he be held to account for an offence committed by
somebody else before he was born ?
The fiction Far more elaborate and costly is the ceremony of the
birth'from "^^ birth whcn the sinner who is to be regenerated is a
a golden or persoH of high birth or exalted dignity. In the eighteenth
enacted century " when the unfortunate Raghu-Nath-Raya or Ragoba,
^^ ^" sent two Brahmens as embassadors to England, they went
expiation r r^ i i 1111
by persons by sca as far as buez, but they came back by the way of
ofhighrank pgisia, and of course crossed the Indus. On their return
HI India.
they were treated as outcasts, because they conceived it
hardly possible for them to travel through countries in-
habited by Mlec'Jihas or impure tribes, and live according
to the rules laid down in their sacred books : it was also
alledged, that they had crossed the Attaca. Numerous meet-
ings were held in consequence of this, and learned Brahmens
were convened from all parts. The influence and authority
of Raghu-Nath-Raya could not save his embassadors. How-
ever, the holy assembly decreed, that in consideration of
their universal good character, and of the motive of their
travelling to distant countries, which was solely to promote
the good of their country, they might be regenerated and
have the sacerdotal ordination renewed. For the purpose
of regeneration, it is directed to make an image of pure gold
of the female power of nature ; in the shape either of a
woman or of a cow. In this statue the person to be regener-
ated is enclosed and dragged through the usual channel.
As a statue of pure gold and of proper dimensions would be
too expensive, it is sufficient to make an image of the sacred
Yoni^ through which the person to be regenerated is to
pass. Raghu-Nath-Raya had one made of pure gold and
of proper dimensions : his embassadors were regenerated,
and the usual ceremonies of ordination having been per-
formed, and immense presents bestowed on the Brahmens,
they were re-admitted into the communion of the faithful." '
1 Captain Francis Wilford, " On Charles Coleman's Mythology of the
WoviXil-Qz.ViCZSW^,^'' Asiatick Researches, ///ndus (hondon, 1832), pp. 150.?^.
vi. (London, iSoi) pp. 537 s^. (octavo Raghu-Nath-Raya or Ragoba (Raghu.
edition). The passage is reprinted in nath Rao or Raghuba) was an unsuc.
CHAP. Ill THE NEW BIRTH 35
Again, " it is on record that the Tanjore Nayakar, having
betrayed Madura and suffered for it, was told by his Brah-
man advisers that he had better be born again. So a
colossal cow was cast in bronze, and the Nayakar shut up
inside. The wife of his Brahman guru [teacher] acted as
nurse, received him in her arms, rocked him on her knees, and
caressed him on her breast, and he tried to cry like a baby."^
In India the fiction of a new birth has further been The fiction
employed for the purpose of raising a man of low caste into ^S^^^^
a social rank higher than the one tO'which his first or real golden cow
birth had consigned him. For example, the Maharajahs of ^"^the'^
Travancore belong to the Sudra caste, the lowest of the four Maha-
great Indian castes, but they appear regularly to exalt them- n-avancore
selves to a level with the Brahmans, the highest caste, by for the
being born again either from a large golden cow or from raising^ °
a large golden lotus-flower. Hence the ceremony is called themselves
Hiranya Garbham^ " the golden womb," or Patina Garblia rank of
DdnajH, " the lotus womb-gift," according as the effigy, from brahmans.
which the Maharajah emerged new-born, represented a cow
or a lotus-flower. When James Forbes was at Travancore,
the image through which the potentate passed was that of a
cow made of pure gold ; and after his passage through it
the image was broken up and distributed among the Brah-
mans. But when the ceremony was performed by the
Rajah Martanda Vurmah in July 1854, the image was cast
in the form of a lotus-flower and was estimated to have cost
about ;^6ooo. Inside the golden vessel had been placed a
small quantity of the consecrated mixture, composed of the
five products of the cow (milk, curd, butter, urine, and dung) :
which suggests that the proper rebirth for the Maharajah is
rather from the sacred cow than from the sacred lotus.
After entering the vessel. His Highness remained within it
for the prescribed time, while the officiating priests repeated
prayers appropriate to the occasion."
cessful claimant for the Peshwaship of ^ Edgar Thurston, Ethnographic
the Marathas, and his claims were Notes in Southern India (Madras,
supported by the British. His son 1906), pp. 271 sq.
succeeded to the office in 1796. See ^ James Forbes, Oriental Memoirs
The Imperial Gazetteer of India, The (London, 18 13), i. 378; Samuel
Indian Empire, \\. (Oxford, 1 909) pp. Mateer, The Land of Charity 'Xoadon,
442 sq. 1 87 1), pp. 169-171.
36 JACOB AND THE KIDSKINS part ii
Later From later notices of the ceremony we may infer that
accounts j-j^g Maharajahs have since reverted to the other, and perhaps
ceremony more orthodox, form of the new birth, namely the birth
of the new fj-Qj^ ^ ^^q^ Thus in the year 1869 it was announced that
birth from . •' ,, , r^ • ,
a cow as " another not less curious ceremony, called hrnjagkerptim^
performed ^^jjj ^^j^^ place ncxt year, whereat His Highness (the Maha-
Maharajahs rajah of Travancore) will go through a golden cow, which
of Travan- ^^j^gj-gupon will also bccome the property of the priests." ^
Again, we read that " the Maharaja of Travancore, a Native
State in the extreme South of India, has just completed the
second and last of the costly ceremonies known as * going
through the golden cow,' which he has to perform in order
to rank more or less on the same footing as a Brahman —
his original caste being that of Sudra. The first of these
ceremonies is known as Thulapurusha danain — Sanskrit
Thula, scales ; purusha, man ; and danam, gift of a religious
character. The ceremony consists in the Maharaja entering
the scales against an equal weight of gold coins, which are
afterwards distributed among Brahmans. . . . The second
ceremony is known as the Hiramiya garbham — Sanskrit
hirannya, gold ; and garbham, womb — and constitutes the
process known as going through the golden cow. A large
golden vessel is constructed, ten feet in height and eight
feet in circumference. This vessel is half filled with water,
mixed with the various products of the cow, and Brahmans
perform the prescribed rites over it. The Maharaja next
enters the vessel by means of a specially constructed orna-
mental ladder. The cover is then put on, and the Raja
immerses himself five times in the contained fluid, while the
Brahmans keep up a chanted accompaniment of prayers and
Vedic hymns. This portion of the ceremony lasts about
ten minutes, after which time the Maharaja emerges from
the vessel and prostrates himself before the image of the
deity of the Travancore kings. The high priest now places
the crown of Travancore on the Raja's head, and after this
he is considered to have rendered himself holy by having
passed through the golden cow. The previous ceremony of
^ Felix Liebrecht, Zzir Volkskiinde Aiigsb. Allgeni. Zeitung, 1S69, No.
(Heilbronn, 1879), p. 397, referring 255, S. 3941.^
to the Madfas Mail, as quoted by the
1
CHAV. Ill • THE NEW BIRTH 37
being weighed against gold simply fitted him for performing
the more exalted and more costly ceremony of going through
the golden cow. The cost of these curious ceremonies is
very great ; for quite apart from the actual value of the
gold, much expenditure is incurred in feasting the vast con-
course of Brahmans who assemble in Trevandrum on these
occasions. From time immemorial, however, the Rajas of
Travancore have performed these ceremonies, and any
omission on their part to do so would be regarded as an
offence against the traditions of the country, which is a very
stronghold of Hindu superstition." ■*
If none could be born again save such as can afford At the
to provide a colossal cow of pure gold for the ceremony, it new°binh^
seems obvious that the chances of regeneration for the from a cow
human race generally would be but slender, and that prac- reaUive^
tically none but the rich could enter into the realms of bliss cow is
,,,.., _^ , , sometimes
through this smgular aperture, rortunately, however, the employed
expedient of employing a real cow instead of a golden image 'nstead of
places the rite of the new birth within the reach even of the
poor and lowly, and thus opens to multitudes a gate of
paradise which otherwise would have been barred and bolted
against them. Indeed we may with some probability con-
jecture, that birth from a live cow was the original form of
the ceremony, and that the substitution of a golden image
for the real animal was merely a sop thrown to the pride of
Rajahs and other persons of high degree, who would have
esteemed it a blot on their scutcheon to be born in vulgar
fashion, like common folk, from a common cow. Be that
as it may, certain it is that in some parts of India a real
live cow still serves as the instrument of the new birth. ♦
Thus in the Himalayan districts of the North-Western Pro-
vinces " the ceremony of being born again from the cow's
mouth {gomukkaprasava) takes place when the horoscope
foretells some crime on the part of the native or some
deadly calamity to him. The child is clothed in scarlet and
tied on a new sieve, which is passed between the hind-legs of
a cow forward through the fore-legs to the mouth and again
in the reverse direction, signifying the new birth. The usual
^ North Indian Notes and Queries, quoting the Pioneer, but without giving
iii. p. 215, § 465 (March, 1894), the date of the paper.
38
JACOB AND THE KIDS KINS
PART 11
The
elaborate
rite of the
new birth
from an
anitiial
tends to
dwindle
into an
abridged
form.
worship, aspersion, etc., takes place, and the father smells
his son as the cow smells her calf." ^ Here, though it is
necessarily impossible to carry out the simulation of birth
completely by passing the child through the body of the
living cow, the next best thing is done by passing it back-
wards and forwards between the cow's legs ; thus the infant
is assimilated to a calf, and the father acts the part of
its dam by smelling his offspring as a cow smells hers.
Similarly in Southern India, when a man has for grave
cause been expelled from his caste, he may be restored to it
after passing several times under the belly of a cow.^ Though
the writer who reports this custom does not describe it as a
ceremony of rebirth, we may reasonably regard it as such in
the light of the foregoing evidence. A further extenuation
of the original ceremony may perhaps be seen in the practice
of placing an unlucky child in a basket before a good milch
cow with a calf and allowing the cow to lick the child, " by
which operation the noxious qualities which the child has
derived from its birth are removed." ^
If the rite of birth from a cow could thus dwindle down
into one of which, without a knowledge of the complete
ceremony, we could hardly divine the true meaning, it seems
not improbable that the rite of birth from a goat may have
similarly dwindled from its full form, such as we find it
among the Akikuyu,* into a greatly abridged form, such as
the practice of putting the animal's skin on the hands of
the person who is to be regenerated. Consistently with this
hypothesis we see that this latter practice is commonly
observed on a variety of occasions by the Akikuyu,^ the very
people who on solemn occasions observe the ceremony of
the new birth at full length. Is it not natural to suppose
that in the hurr}^ and bustle of ordinary existence, which
does not admit of tedious ceremonial, the people have con-
tracted the sovereign remedy of the new birth, with its
1 Edwin T. Atkinson, The Hinia- (Paris, 1825), i. 42.
^ Alexander Mackintosh, Account of
the Origin and Present Condition oj
the Tribe of Ramoosies (Bombay, 1833),
p. 124.
* Above, pp. 7 sqq.
° Above, pp. 10 sq., 15, 20, 23 sq.
layan Districts oj the North- Western
Provinces of India, \\. (Allahabad,
1884), p. 914. Compare Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, liii.
(1884) Part i. p. loi.
2 J. A. Dubois, Mcetirs, Institutions
et Cc'r^/nonies des Peuples de PInde
CHAP. Ill CONCLUSION 39
elaborate details, into a compendious and convenient shape
which they can apply without needless delay in the lesser
emergencies of life ?
§ 4. ConclusioJi
To return now to the point from which we started, I i" f^'s
conjecture that the story of the deception practised by form.^the
Jacob on his father Isaac contains a reminiscence of an ^^t^'emony
, , r 1 • 1 <- . of the new
ancient legal ceremony of new birth from a goat, which it birth may
was deemed necessary or desirable to observe whenever a Perhaps be
detected in
younger son was advanced to the rights of the firstborn at the story
the expense of his still living brother ; just as in India to ^'^nTh"^
this day a man pretends to be born again from a cow when kidskins.
he desires to be promoted to a higher caste or to be restored
to the one which he has forfeited through his misfortune
or misconduct. But among the Hebrews, as among the
Akikuyu, the quaint ceremony may have dwindled into a
simple custom of killing a goat and placing pieces of its
skin on the person who was supposed to be born again as
a goat. In this degenerate form, if my conjecture is well
founded, the ancient rite has been reported and misunder-
stood by the Biblical narrator.
CHAPTER IV
JACOB AT BETHEL
§ I. Jacob's Dream
Jacob sent The treachery of Jacob to Esau, as it is represented in the
his^mother ^ibHcal narrative, naturally led to an estrangement between
to her the brothers. The elder brother smarted under a sense of
Laban^n intolerable wrong, and his passionate nature prompted him
Haran. to avenge it on his crafty younger brother, who had robbed
him of his heritage. Jacob therefore went in fear of his life,
and his mother, who had been his accomplice in the deceit,
shared his fears and schemed to put him in a place of safety
till the anger of his hot-tempered, but generous and placable,
brother had cooled down. So she hit upon the device of
sending him away to her brother, Laban, in Haran. ^ Memories
of the far home beyond the great river, from which in the
bloom of her youthful beauty she had been brought to be
the bride of Isaac, rose up before her mind and perhaps
touched her somewhat hard and worldly heart. How well
she remembered that golden evening when she lighted from
her camel to meet yon solitary figure pacing meditatively
in the fields, and found in him her husband ! ^ That manly
form was now a blind bedridden dotard ; and only last even-
ing, when she looked into the well, she saw mirrored there
in the water a wrinkled face and grizzled hair — a ghost and
shadow of her former self! Well, well, how time slips by !
It would be some consolation for the ravages of years if her
^ Genesis xxvii. 41-45. This pass-
age is part of the Jehovistic narrative.
A different explanation of Jacob's de-
parture to Haran is given by the
Priestly writer (Genesis xxvii. 46-
xxviii. 5), who assigns for its motive
the wish of the parents to marry
their son to one of their own kinsfolk ;
thus the writer ignores as unedifying
the story of the quarrel between the
brothers.
^ Genesis xxiv.
40
CHAP. IV JACOBS DREAM 41
favourite son should bring back from her native land a fair
young wife in whom she might see an image of her own lost
youth. This thought may have occurred to the fond mother
in parting with her son, though, if we may trust the Jehovistic
writer, she said not a word of it to him.^
So Jacob departed. From Beer-Sheba, on the verge of Jacob's
the desert in the extreme south of Canaan, he took his hisXianT
journey northward. He must have traversed the bleak ^t Bethel.
uplands of Judea, and still pursuing his northward way by
a rough and fatiguing footpath he came at evening, just as
the sun was setting, to a place where, weary and footsore,
with the darkness closing in upon him, he decided to pass
the night. It was a desolate spot. He had been gradually
ascending and now stood at a height of about three thou-
sand feet above sea-level. The air was keen and nipping.
Around him, so far as the falling shadows permitted him to
judge, lay a wilderness of stony fields and grey rocks, some
of them piled up in weird forms of pillars, menhirs, or
cromlechs, while a little way off a bare hill loomed dimly
skyward, its sides appearing to rise in a succession of stony
terraces. It was a dreary landscape, and the traveller had
little temptation to gaze long upon it. He laid himself
down in the centre of a circle of great stones, resting his
head on one of them as a pillow, and fell asleep. As he
slept, he dreamed a dream. He thought he saw a ladder The
reaching from earth to heaven and angels plvine up and |^«'iy*^"iy
. ory&r- ladder.
down it. And God stood by him and promised to give all
that land to him and to his seed after him. But Jacob
woke from his sleep in terror and said, " How dreadful is
this place ! This is none other but the house of God, and
this is the gate of heaven." He lay still, trembling till
morning broke over the desolate landscape, revealing the
same forbidding prospect of stony fields and grey rocks on
which his eyes had rested the evening before. Then he The stone
arose, and taking the stone on which he had laid his head Jnid""^
he set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and
called the place Bethel, that is, the House of God." Over-
' Genesis xxvii. 41-45. able circle of stones, which tradition
2 Genesis xxviii. 10-22. Bethel is probably identified with the spot where
the modern village of Beitin. A little Jacob slept and dreamed his dream,
to the north of the village is a remark- As to the place and the scenery see
42
JACOB AT BETHEL
awed though he was by the vision of the night, we may
suppose that he pursued his journey that day in better
spirits for the divine promise which he had received. As
he went on, too, the landscape itself soon began to wear a
more smiling and cheerful aspect in harmony with the new
hopes springing up in his breast. He left behind him the
bleak highlands of Benjamin and descended into the rich
lowlands of Ephraim. For hours the path led down a
lovely glen where the hill-sides were terraced to the top and
planted with fig-trees and olives, the white rocks tapestried
with ferns and embroidered with pink and white cyclamens
and crocuses, while woodpeckers, jays, and little owls
laughed, tapped, or hooted, each after its kind, among the
boughs.^ So with a lighter heart he sped him on his way
to the far country.
2. Dreams of the Gods
As critics have seen, the story of Jacob's dream was
probably told to explain the immemorial sanctity of Bethel,
Belief that
the gods
reveal
themselves which may well have been revered by the aboriginal in-
habitants of Canaan long before the Hebrews invaded and
The belief that the sfods revealed
worship-
pers in
dreams.
conquered the land,
themselves and declared their will to mankind in dreams
was widespread in antiquity ; and accordingly people re-
sorted to temples and other sacred spots for the purpose of
sleeping there and holding converse with the higher powers
in visions of the night, for they naturally supposed that the
deities or the deified spirits of the dead would be most likely
to manifest themselves in places specially dedicated to their
worship. For example, at Oropus in Attica there was a
Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches
in Palestine, Second Edition (Lon-
don, 1856), i. 448-451; A. P.
Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, Second
Edition (London, 1856), pp. 217 sq. ;
C. R. Conder, Teitt Work in Pales-
tine (London, 1885), pp. 251 sq. ; (Sir)
George Adam Smith, in Encyclopaedia
Biblica, i. col. 552, s.v. " Bethel " ;
id. , Historical Geography of the Holy
Land (London, 1894), pp. 2S9 sqq. ;
H. B. Tristram, The Land of Israel,
Fourth Edition (London, 1882), pp.
162 sq. ; K. Baedeker, Palestine and
Syria, Fourth Edition (Leipsic and
London, 1906), p. 213; S. R. Driver,
The Book of Genesis, Tenth Edition
(London, 1916), p. 264; Principal
J. Skinner, Comtnentary on Genesis,
p. 378.
* H. B. Tristram, The Land of
Israel, Fourth Edition (London, 18S2),
p. 161.
CHAP. IV DREAMS OF THE GODS 43
sanctuary of the dead soothsayer Amphiaraus, where in- Dreams
quirers used to sacrifice rams to him and to other divine sanctuary
beings, whose names were inscribed on the altar ; and having of Amphi-
offered the sacrifice they spread the skins of the rams on the oropus in
ground and slept on them, expecting revelations in dreams.^ Attka.
The oracle appears to have been chiefly frequented by sick
people who sought a release from their sufferings, and, when
they had found it, testified their gratitude by dropping gold
or silver coins into the sacred spring." Livy tells us that
the ancient temple of Amphiaraus was delightfully situated
among springs and brooks,^ and the discovery of the site
in modern times has confirmed his description. The place
is in a pleasant little glen, neither wide nor deep, among low
hills partially wooded with pine. A brook flows through it
and finds its way between banks fringed by plane-trees and
oleanders to the sea, distant about a mile. In the distance
the high blue mountains of Euboea close the view. The
clumps of trees and shrubs, which tuft the sides of the glen
and in which the nightingale warbles, the stretch of green
meadows at the bottom, the stillness and seclusion of the
spot, and its sheltered and sunny aspect, all fitted it to be
the resort of invalids, who thronged thither to consult the
healing god. So sheltered indeed is the spot that even on
a May morning the heat in the airless glen, with the Greek
sun beating down out of a cloudless sky, is apt to be felt by
a northerner as somewhat overpowering. But to a Greek
it was probably agreeable.^ The oracle indeed appears to The con-
have been open only in summer, for the priest was bound th^ orad^^
to be in attendance at the sanctuary not less than ten days
a month from the end of winter till the ploughing season,
which fell at the time of the setting of the Pleiades in
November ; and during these summer months he might not
absent himself for more than three days at a time. Every
patient who sought the advice of the god had first of all to
pay a fee of not less than nine obols (about a shillmg) of
' Pausanias i. 34. 5. As to the * I have described the site as I saw it
mode in which Amphiaraus is said to on a day in May many years ago. For
have acquired his power of divination, an account of the ruins of the sanctuary,
see Pausanias ii. 13. 7. which have been excavated in modern
^ Pausanias i. 34. 2-5. times, I may refer to my notes on Pau-
^ Livy xlv. 27. sanias i. 34 (vol. ii. pp. 463 sqq.).
44
JACOB AT BETHEL
PART 11
Dream?
in the
sanctuary
of Aescu-
lapius at
Epidaurus.
The votive
tablets at
Epidaurus.
good silver into the treasury, in presence of the sacristan,
who thereupon entered his name and the name of his city
in a public register. When the priest was in attendance, it
was his duty to pray over the sacrificial victims and lay
their flesh on the altar ; but in his absence the person who
presented the sacrifice might perform these offices himself.
The skin and a shoulder of every victim sacrificed were the
priest's perquisites. None of the flesh might be removed
from the precinct. Every person who complied with these
rules was allowed to sleep in the sanctuary for the purpose
of receiving an oracle in a dream. In the dormitory the
men and women slept apart, divided by the altar, the men
on the east and the women on the west.^
There was a similar dormitory for the use of patients
who came to consult the Good Physician in the great
sanctuary of Aesculapius near Epidaurus. The ruins of the
sanctuary, covering a wide area, have been excavated in
modern times, and together form one of the most impressive
monuments of ancient Greek civilization. They stand in a
fine open valley encircled by lofty mountains, on the north-
west rising into sharp peaks of grey and barren rock, but on
the south and east of softer outlines and verdurous slopes.
In spring the level bottom of the valley, interspersed with
clumps of trees and bushes, is green with corn. The whole
effect of the landscape is still and solemn, with a certain
pleasing solitariness ; for it lies remote from towns. A wild,
romantic, densely wooded glen leads down to the ruins of
the ancient Epidaurus, beautifully situated on a rocky pro-
montory, which juts out into the sea from a plain covered
with lemon groves and backed by high wooded mountains.^
Patients who had slept in the sanctuary of Aesculapius at
Epidaurus, and had been healed of their infirmities through
the revelations accorded to them in dreams, used to com-
memorate the cures on tablets, which were set up in the
holy place as eloquent testimonies to the restorative powers
^ These particulars we learn from
an inscription discovered on the spot.
See Corpus Inscriptionum Graecm'um
Graeciae Septetitrionalis, vol. i. (Berlin,
1892) pp. 70 sqq.. No. 235 ; 'E(pr]fiepU
'ApxaioXoytKi^, 1885, pp. 93 sqg. ; Ch.
Michel, Recueil a^ Inscriptions Grecgues
(Brussels, 1900), pp. 604 sq.. No. 698.
2 I have described these scenes from
personal observation. The reader will
find fuller particulars in my Pausanias,
vol. iii. 236 sqq., vol. v. 570 sqq.
cnAiMv DREAMS OF riiE GODS 45
of the god and to the saving faith of those who put their
trust in him. The sacred precinct was crowded with such
tablets in antiquity,^ and some of them have been discovered
in modern times. The inscriptions shed a curious h"ght on
institutions which in some respects answered to the hospitals
of modern times.
For example, we read how a man whose fingers were Records at
all paralysed but one, came as a suppliant to the god. ^^P^^^^'^^^'s
But when he saw the tablets in the sanctuary and the effected
miraculous cures recorded on them, he was incredulous, drea^'^
However, he fell asleep in the dormitory and dreamed a^'ureofa
dream. He thought he was playing at dice in the temple, man.^^"^
and that, as he was in the act of throwing, the god appeared,
pounced on his hand, and stretched out his fingers, one after
the other, and, having done so, asked him whether he still
disbelieved the inscriptions on the tablets in the sanctuary.
The man said no, he did not. " Therefore," answered the
god, " because you disbelieved them before, your name shall
henceforth be Unbeliever." Next morning the man went
forth whole. Again, Ambrosia, a one-eyed lady of Athens, Cure of a
came to consult the god about her infirmity. Walkinsf 0"*^-^^^^
^ ^ lady.
about the sanctuary she read the cures on the tablets and
laughed at some of them as plainly incredible and impossible.
" How could it be," said she, " that the lame and the blind
should be made whole by simply dreaming a dream?" In
this sceptical frame of mind she composed herself to sleep
in the dormitory, and as she slept she saw a vision. It
seerhed to her that the god stood by her and promised to
restore the sight of her other eye, on condition that she
should dedicate a silver pig in the sanctuary as a memorial
of her crass infidelity. Having given this gracious promise,
he slit open her ailing eye and poured balm on it. Next
day she went forth healed. Again, Pandarus, a Thessalian, The case of
came to the sanctuary in order to get rid of certain scarlet ^^ndl^"^
letters which had been branded on his brow. In his dream letters
he thought that the god stood by him, bound a scarf about hiTb?ow.°"
his brow, and commanded him, when he went forth from
' Strabo viii. 6. 15, p. 374, ed. second century of our era, only six of
Casaubon ; Pausanias ii. 27. 3. When these tablets were left.
Pausanias visited the sanctuary in the
46
JACOB AT BETHEL
Echedorus
and the
letters
branded on
his brow.
the dormitory, to take off the scarf and dedicate it in the
temple. Next morning Pandarus arose and unbound the
scarf from his head, and on looking at it he saw that the
infamous letters were transferred from his brow to the
scarf So he dedicated the scarf in the temple and
The case of departed. On his way home he stopped at Athens, and
despatched his servant Echedorus to Epidaurus with a pres-
ent of money, which he was to dedicate as a thank-offering
in the temple. Now Echedorus, too, had letters of shame
branded on his brow, and when he came to the sanctuary,
instead of paying the money into the treasury of the god,
he kept it and laid himself down to sleep in the dormitory,
hoping to rid himself of the marks on his forehead, just as
his master had done. In his dream the god stood by him
and asked whether he had brought any money from Pandarus
to dedicate in the sanctuary. The fellow denied that he
had received anything from Pandarus, but promised that, if
the god would heal him, he would have his portrait painted
and would dedicate it to the deity. The god bade him take
the scarf of Pandarus and tie it round his forehead ; and
when he went out of the dormitory he was to take off the
scarf, wash his face in the fountain, and look at himself in
the water. So, when it was day, the rascal hurried out of
the dormitory, untied the scarf and scanned it eagerly,
expecting to see the brand - marks imprinted on it. But
they were not there. Next he went to the fountain, and,
looking at his face reflected in the water, he saw the red
letters of Pandarus printed on his brow in addition t(i his
own. Again, we hear of Euphanes, a boy of Epidaurus,
who suffered from stone. As he slept and dreamed in the
sanctuary, the god appeared to him and said, " What will
you give me if I make you whole ? " " I'll give you ten
knuckle - bones," said the boy. The god laughed, and
promised to cure him. Next day the boy went out whole.
Again, there came a man to the sanctuary so blind of one
eye that nothing was left of it but the empty socket and
eyelid. Some even of the temple officials thought his case
hopeless, and said that he was a fool to fancy he could
ever see again with an empty socket. Nothing daunted,
h? slept in the dormitory, and in his dream he thought the
Cure of
stone.
Cure of a
one-eyed
man.
CHAP. IV DREAMS OF THE GODS 47
god boiled a certain drug, and then, raising the h'd of the
blind eye, poured it into the empty socket. Next day the
man went out of the sanctuary seeing with both his
eyes. Again, a certain man named Aeschines, curious to
behold the sick folk sleeping in the sanctuary, climbed up a
tree and peeped over the wall. But craning his neck to
get a better view of them he lost his balance, and falling on
two stakes put out both his eyes. Nevertheless, he prayed
to the god, slept in the sanctuary, and recovered his
sight. Then we read of a certain Euippus, who had a Surgical
splinter of a spear sticking in his jaw for six years. As he peHbrme"d
slept, the god came, drew the splinter from his jaw, and by Aescu-
placed it in his hands. Next morning he walked out of the pTtlentsIn
dormitory with the splinter, sure enough, in his hands. Again, breams.
a man from Torone, in Macedonia, suffered from intestinal
worms, which his stepmother had administered to him in
a posset. In his dream, he thought that the god cut
open his chest with a knife, took out the worms, and having
put them in his hands, sewed up the wound in his breast.
Next morning he in like manner walked out of the sanctuary
with the worms in his hands. Again, we read of a man uicer
who suffered from a grievous ulcer on one of his toes. sJ,pe'„j ^^
The attendants carried him out and set him on a bench.
It was broad day, but sitting there on the bench he fell
fast asleep, and as he slept, a serpent crawled out of
the dormitory, licked his ulcer, and healed it. When he
awoke from his nap, the man said that he had dreamed of
a comely youth who had laid a healing balm on the sore.
Again, we hear of a blind man named Alcetas, from the town Cure of a
of Halice, in Argolis, who saw in his dream the god opening
his blind eyes with his own divine fingers, so that he could
see the trees in the sanctuary. Next day he went forth with
his sight restored. Further, the case is recorded of a certain Cure cf
a bald-
Heraeus of Mytilene, who had no hair on his head but a long headed
beard on his chin. Ashamed of the ridiculous contrast, '"^"•
which subjected him to a fire of raillery, he slept in the sanc-
tuary, and in his dream it seeemd to him that the god rubbed
his bald pate with an ointment, which produced a crop of hair.^
' 'E(/)r7^epij 'ApxatoXoYtK'ij, Athens, Y. Yiechiel, Sa>nmlung der _^iechisc/ien
1883, coll. 197-228; H. CoUitz und Dialekt-Inschriften, iii. Erste Hiilfte
48
J A COB AT BE THEL
PART II
Other
cures at
Epidaurus.
Cure of a
dropsy.
An opera-
tion for
All these cases are recorded on a single tablet which
was found among the ruins of the sanctuary, and which
appears to have been seen there by the Greek traveller
Pausanias in the second century of our era.^ On another
tablet, which has been recovered on the site, we read of a
Laconian woman named Arata who suffered from a dropsy.
So her mother made a pilgrimage on her behalf to the
sanctuary of Aesculapius at Epidaurus. There she slept
and dreamed a dream, and in her dream she thought that
the god cut off her daughter's head and hung up the head-
less body neck downwards, so that all the water ran out ;
then he took down the body, and clapped on the head again.
When the mother returned to Lacedaemon, she found that
her daughter had dreamed the same dream and was now
perfectly cured. Again, the case of Aristagora of Troezen
presents some remarkable features. She suffered from an
intestinal worm, and in order to be cured she slept and
dreamed a dream in the local precinct of Aesculapius at
Troezen. It seemed to her that in the absence of the god,
who was away at Epidaurus, his sons cut off her head to
extract the worm, but that, being unable to fit the head on
the trunk again, they sent a messenger to Epidaurus to fetch
their divine father. At that point the lady awoke, and when
the day dawned, the priest, to whom no doubt she had told
her dream, averred that he saw with his waking eyes the
severed and gory head. However, next night the lady had
another dream : she thought she saw the god, who had
come from Epidaurus, putting her head on her body and
then slitting open her stomach, extracting the worm, and
(Gottingen, 1,899) PP- iSi-157. No.
3339 ; Ch. Michel, Reciieil d' Inscrip-
tions Grecques (Brussels, 1900), pp.
823-827, No. 1069 ; Dittenberger,
Sylloge Inscriptionuin Graecarum 2
(Leipsic, 1898-1901), ii. pp. 649-
656, No. 802.
1 Pausanias ii. 36. i, "Though
Halice in our day is deserted, it wa^;
once inhabited. Mention is made of
natives of Halice on the Epidaurian
tablets, which record the cures wrought
by Aesculapius ; but I know of no
other authentic document in which
mention is made of the town or its in-
habitants." We have just seen that
the case of a blind man from Halice
is' recorded on one of the recovered
tablets, and we shall meet with (p. 49)
another case of a patient from Halice of
which the record has survived the wreck
of ages. In modern times the accuracy
and good faith of Pausanias have
been rashly impugned by some German
critics, but the stones of Greece have
risen up to refute them and to justify
him.
CHAP. IV DREAMS OF THE GODS 49
stitching up the wound. After that she was quite cured.
Again, a boy named Aristocritus, of Halice,^ dived into the Recoveryof
... , , , , a drowned
sea, and bemg entangled among the rocks never came to boy.
the surface again. His sorrowing father slept on his behalf
in the sanctuary of Aesculapius, and in his dream he
thought that the god led him to a certain place and told
him that his lost son was there. Next day, on quitting
the sanctuary, he went straight to the spot, and having
caused the rock to be cut open, found his son there after
seven days. Again, we read of a man who was afflicted
with an internal ulcer. He slept in the sanctuary and Cure of an
dreamed a dream. In his dream it seemed to him that the
god commanded his servants to take and hold him, that he
might cut open his belly ; at that he fled, but the servants
of the god laid hold on him and tied him to a post, where-
upon Aesculapius slit open his belly, removed the ulcer, and
sewed up the wound, after which he was released from his
bonds. Next morning he went forth whole, but the floor
of the dormitory was full of blood. Again, a Theban
named Clinatas suffered from a plague of lice, with which Cure of
his body swarmed. So he came to the sanctuary and slept
there. And in a dream he thought that the god stripped
him naked, set him up, and swept the lice from his body
with a broom. Next morning he went forth from the
dormitory perfectly cured. Again, a certain Agestratus
used to suffer from headache, so that he could not Cure of
sleep at night for the pain. However, when he entered
the dormitory he fell fast asleep, and in his dream he
thought that the god healed his headache, stripped him
naked, and taught him the rough-and-tumble {paucratmin).
When day broke he went forth cured, and not long
after he won a prize at Nemea in the rough-and-tumble.
Again, Gorgias of Heraclea was wounded in a battle by Cure of a
an arrow, the point of which remained sticking in one fng wound.
of his lungs. The wound suppurated to such an' extent,
that in eighteen months the discharged matter filled sixty-
seven pans. Well, he slept in the sanctuary and dreamed
that the god extracted the point of the arrow from his lung.
Next day he went forth cured, with the point of the arrow
^ See above, p. 48, note '.
VOL. II E
5°
JACOB AT BETHEL
Cure of a
blind man.
Cure of
weak
knees.
Serpent
begets
children on
women in
dreams.
Dream
oracle of
Ino or
Pasiphae in
Laconia.
in his hands. Another man, who had lost both his eyes by
the thrust of a spear in a battle, carried about the head of
the spear in his forehead for a whole year. When he slept
in the sanctuary he dreamed that the god drew out the
blade and replaced his eyeballs in the sockets. Next day
he went forth with both his eyes as good as ever. Again,
a certain Diaetus suffered from a weakness of the knees,
which prevented him from standing upright. Sleeping in
the sanctuary he dreamed that the god commanded his
servants to take him up, carry him forth from the dormitory,
and set him down in front of the temple. Then the god
mounted a chariot and drove round the temple, trampling
the body of poor Diaetus under the hoofs of his horses.
Strange to say, this effected a complete cure, for next
morning Diaetus walked out as firm on his legs as anybody.
Again, we read of two childless women who came to the
sanctuary in the hope that the god would grant them
offspring. One of them, Andromeda of Ceos, dreamed
that a serpent crawled forth and lay upon her ; after
which she bore five children. The other woman, Nicasibula
a Messenian, dreamed that the god brought a great serpent
and made it lie down beside her. She fondled the reptile,
and in a year from that time she was delivered of twin
boys.^ In these last cases, as in the case of the man
whose ulcer was healed by a serpent,^ the reptile is the
animal embodiment of the god himself; for Aesculapius
was often conceived and represented in the form of a
snake.^
Again, on the wild ironbound coast of Laconia, where
the great range of Taygetus descends in naked crags to the
sea, there was an oracular shrine, where a goddess revealed
their hearts' desires to mortals in dreams. Different opinions
prevailed as to who the goddess was. The Greek traveller
Pausanias, who visited the place, thought that she was Ino,
' 'E(pr]iJLepls 'Apxo-i-oKoyiK'/i, Athens,
1885, coll. 1-28 ; H. CoUitz und F.
Bechtel, Sammlung der griechischen
Dialekt-Inschriften^ iii. Erste Halfte
(Gottingen, 1899), pp. 157-162, No.
3340 ; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscrip-
tionttm Graecarum'^ (Leipsic, 1898-
1901), ii. pp. 656-663, No. 803.
2 See above, p. 47.
3 Pausanias ii. 10. 3. In a note on
that passage (vol. iii. p. 65) I have
collected more evidence of the relation
of Aesculapius to serpents.
CHAP. IV DREAMS OF THE GODS 51
a marine goddess ; but he acknowledged that he could not
see the image in the temple for the multitude of garlands
with which it was covered, probably by worshippers who
thus expressed their thanks for the revelations vouchsafed
to them in sleep. The vicinity of the sea, with the solemn
lullaby of its waves, might plead in favour of Ino's claim to
be the patroness of the shrine. Others, however, held that
she was Pasiphae in the character of the Moon ; and they
may have supported their opinion, before they retired at
nightfall to the sacred dormitory, by pointing to the silvery
orb in the sky and her shimmering reflection on the moonlit
water. Be that as it may, the highest magistrates of
Sparta appear to have frequented this sequestered spot for
the sake of the divine counsels which they expected to
receive in slumber, and it is said that at a momentous crisis
of Spartan history one of them here dreamed an ominous
dream. ^
Ancient Italy as well as Greece had its oracular seats. Dream
where anxious mortals sought for advice and comfort from andem"
the gods or deified men in dreams. Thus the soothsayer Italy.
Calchas was worshipped at Drium in Apulia, and persons
who wished to inquire of him sacrificed a black ram and
slept on the skin." Another ancient and revered Italian
oracle was that of Faunus, and the mode of consulting him
was similar. The inquirer sacrificed a sheep, spread out its
skin on the ground, and sleeping on it received an answer in
a dream. If the seat of the oracle was, as there is reason to
think, in a sacred grove beside the cascade at Tibur, the
solemn shade of the trees and the roar of the tumbling
waters might well inspire the pilgrim with religious awe and
mingle with his dreams.^ The little circular shrine, which
* Pausanias iii. 26. I ; Plutarch, Casaubon.
■^i^-f) 9; id., Ckomenes, 7; Cicero, 3 Virgil, Aen. vii. 81 sqq., with
De divinatione, i. 43. 96. As to the Conington's commentary on verse 82 ;
site of the oracle and the character of Ovid, Fasti, iv. 649 sqq. For more
the scenery I may refer the reader to evidence of divination by dreams in
my note on Pausanias (vol. iii. p. 400). antiquity, see B. Biichsenschiitz, Trattm
Cicero was mistaken in thinking that und Traumdeutung zfn Aliertkutue
the shrine was near the city of Sparta. (Berlin, 1868); A, Bouche-Leclercq,
The whole lugged and lofty range of Histoire de la Divination dans VAnti-
Taygetus lay between. qtiiti (Paris, 1879), i. 280 sqq.; L.
Deubner, De Incubatione (Leipsic,
^ Strabo vi. 3. 9, p. 2S4, ed. 1900).
52
J A COB AT BE THEL
still overhangs the waterfall, may have been the very spot
vi^here the rustic god was believed to whisper in the ears of
his slumbering: votaries.
Stories of
ladders
leading
from earth
to heaven.
African
tales of
heavenly
ladders.
Toradja
tales of
creepers
that led
from earth
to heaven.
S 3. The Heavenly Ladder
Far different from these oracular seats in the fair land-
scapes of Greece and Italy was the desolate stony hollow
among the barren hills, where Jacob slept and saw the vision
of angels ascending and descending the ladder that led from
earth to heaven. The belief in such a ladder, used by divine
beings or the souls of the dead, meets us in other parts of
the world. Thus, speaking of the gods of West Africa, Miss
Kingsley tells us that " in almost all the series of native
traditions there, you will find accounts of a time when there
was direct intercourse between the gods or spirits that live
in the sky, and men. That intercourse is always said to
have been cut off by some human error ; for example, the
Fernando Po people say that once upon a time there was
no trouble or serious disturbance upon earth because there
was a ladder, made like the one you get palm-nuts with,
'only long, long'; and this ladder reached from earth to
heaven so the gods could go up and down it and attend
personally to mundane affairs. But one day a cripple boy.
started to go up the ladder, and he had got a long way up
when his mother saw him, and went up in pursuit. The
gods, horrified at the prospect of having boys and women
invading heaven, threw down the ladder, and have since left
humanity severely alone." ^
The Bare'e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes say
that in the olden time, when all men lived together, sky
and earth were connected with each other by a creeper.
One day a handsome young man, of celestial origin,
whom they call Mr. Sun {Lasaed), appeared on earth, riding
a white buffalo. He found a girl at work in the fields, and
falling in love with the damsel he took her to wife.
They lived together for a time, and Mr. Sun taught
people to till the ground and supplied them with buffa-
loes. But one day it chanced that the child, which Mr.
1 Mary H. Kingsley, Travels in West A/riira {London, 1S97), p. 507.
cHAi'. IV THE HEAVENLY LADDER 53
Sun had by his wife, misbehaved in the house and so
offended his father that, in disgust at mankind, he re-
turned to heaven by the creeper. His wife attempted to
clamber up it after him, but he cut the creeper through, so
that it and his wife together fell down to earth and were
turned to stone. They may be seen to this day in the
form of a limestone hill not far from the river Wimbi.
The hill is shaped like a coil of rope and bears the name
of the Creeper Hill {Tamoengkoe viBaloegai)} Further, in
Toradja stories we hear of a certain Rolled-up Rattan, by
which mortals can ascend from earth to heaven. It is a
thorny creeper growing about a fig-tree and adding every
year a fresh coil round the bole. Any person who would
use it must first waken it from sleep by shattering seven
cudgels on its tough fibres. That rouses the creeper from
its slumber ; it shakes itself, takes a betel-nut, and asks the
person what he wants. When he begs to be carried up to
the sky, the creeper directs him to seat himself either on
its thorns or on its upper end, taking with him seven
bamboo vessels full of water to serve as ballast. As the
creeper rises in the air, it heels over to right or left, where-
upon the passenger pours out some water, and the creeper
rights itself accordingly. Arrived at the vault of heaven,
the creeper shoots through a hole in the firmament, and,
grappling fast by its thorns to the celestial floor, waits
patiently till the passenger has done his business up aloft
and is ready to return to earth. In this way the hero of
the tale makes his way to the upper regions and executes his
purpose there, whatever it is, whether it be to recover
a stolen necklace, to storm and pillage a heavenly village,
or to have a dead man restored to life by the heavenly smith.^
The Battas or Bataks of Sumatra say that at the middle stories of
of the earth there was formerly a rock, of which the top reachr"
reached up to heaven, and by which certain privileged rock, cable
beings, such as heroes and priests, could mount up to the JaddeHn"^
sky. In heaven there grew a great fig-tree iwaringiti) which Sumatra,
Mada-
gascar,
1 N. Adrian! en A. C. Kruijt, De 2 n. Adriani en A. C. Kruijt, De and Russia.
Bare'e-sprekefide ^oradja's van Midden- Bare'e-sprekende Toradja' s van Midden-
Celebes{T\^Q Hague, 1912-1914), i. 23 Celebes, iii. 396 sq., 433 sq., 436 sq.,
^5'-. 273- 440.
54 JACOB AT BETHEL part ii
sent down its roots to meet the rock, thus enabling mortals
to swarm up it to the mansions on high. But one day a
man out of spite cut down the tree, or perhaps rather severed
its roots, because his wife, who had come down from heaven,
returned thither and left him forlorn.^ The Betsimisaraka
of Madagascar think that the souls of the dead ascend to
the sky by climbing up a silver cable, by which also celestial
spirits come and go on their missions to earth.^ According
to the Cheremiss of Russia, in the beginning of things men
knew not God, who dwelt apart in his heavenly house. He
had a beautiful daughter, but no servant, so he had to work
hard for his living, and his daughter kept his flocks and
herds. However, grass did not grow in heaven; hence
God was obliged to send his flocks and herds down
to earth to pasture, and his daughter accompanied them
in the capacity of shepherdess or herd-girl. For that
purpose God opened the gate of heaven and let down
a long scarf of felt ; his daughter slid down it, and on
reaching the earth called out, " Dokh, dokk, dokh ! " where-
upon the horses slid down the scarf after her. In like
manner she called the cows and the sheep, and they also
slid down the scarf to earth. When the evening was come,
she would cry, " Father, let down the scarf ; I must return
home." So God opened the gate of heaven and let down
the scarf, and the shepherdess, followed by her flocks,
ascended by it to the sky. But one day, when she had
come down to earth, she saw a young man and gave him her
handkerchief and her hand. For two years they hid their
marriage from her divine father, but at last they acknow-
ledged it to him. God celebrated the wedding with a grand
feast and gave his daughter a handsome dowry. Since that
time men have known God ; but what has become of the
scarf, which used to serve as a ladder between heaven and
earth, the story does not relate.^ Again, " a Mazovian
^ W. Kodding, "Die batakschen ^ \ et G. Grandidier, "De la
Gotter und ihr Verhaltnis zum Brah- religion des Malgaches," VAiith)-o-
manismus," Allgemeine Missio7is-Zeit- pologie, xxviii. (1917) p. III.
schrift, xii. (1885), p. 404; Alb. C.
Kruijt, Het Am'misme in den Indischen ^ J. N. Smirnov, Les Populations
Archipel (The Hague, 1 906), pp. 494 Finnoises des Bassins de la Volga et
sq. The former of these writers does de la A'atna, Premiere Partie (Paris,
not mention the fig-tree. 1898), p. 202.
CHAP. IV THE HE A VENL V LADDER 55
legend tells how a certain pilgrim, on his way to
worship at the Holy Sepulchre, became lost in a rocky
place from which he could not for a long time extricate
himself At last he saw hanging in the air a ladder
made of birds' feathers. Up this he clambered for three
months, at the end of which he reached the Garden of
Paradise, and entered among groves of gold and silver and
gem-bearing trees, all of which were familiar with the past,
the present, and the future." ^
Different from these imaginary ladders are the real Ladders to
ladders which some people set up to facilitate the descent [hedetcent
of gods or spirits from heaven to earth. For example, the of gods or
natives of Timorlaut, Babar, and the Leti Islands in the Indian ganh! ^°
Archipelago worship the sun as the chief male god, who
fertilizes the earth, regarded as a goddess, every year at the
beginning of the rainy season. For this beneficent purpose
the deity descends into a sacred fig-tree {waringiti), and to
enable him to alight on the ground the people place under the
tree a ladder with seven rungs, the rails of which are decorated
with the carved figures of two cocks, as if to announce the
arrival of the god of day by their shrill clarion.^ When the
Toradjas of Central Celebes are offering sacrifices to the
gods at the dedication of a new house, they set up two
stalks of plants, adorned with seven strips of white cotton or
barkcloth, to serve the gods as ladders whereby they may
descend to partake of the rice, tobacco, betel, and palm-
wine provided for them.^ Among the Dyaks of Dusun, in
Southern Borneo, when a medicine-man is called into a
house to heal a sick person, an altar with offerings is set up
in the middle of the room, and from it a light ladder, made
of reeds, is stretched to the ridge of the roof In response
to an invocation the spirits alight on the roof, and descending
the ladder enter into the medicine-man, who, thus possessed
^ W. R. S. Ralston, The Songs of as to this ceremony of the annual
the Russia7i People, Second Edition fertilization of the earth by the sun,
(London, 1872), p. in. see The Magic Art and the Evolu-
2 G. W. W. C. Ba on van Hoevell, tion of Kings, ii. 98 sq. (The Golden
" Einige weitere ''votizen iiber die j9<?«^/i, Third Edition, Part i.).
Formen der Gotterverehrung auf den
Sud-westerundSud-osterInseln,"/«/'£r- 3 n_ Adriani en A. C. Kxm]t, De
nationales Archiv fur Ethnographie, Bare'e-sprekende Toradjd's van Midden-
viii. (1895) p. 134- For more details Celebes {'QzX.z.vxs., 1912-1914), ii. 163.
56 JACOB AT BETHEL part ii
by them, dances wildly about and then sucks the sickness
out of the patient's body/
Ladders in Again, some peoples both in ancient and modern times
graves for h^ve imasfined that the souls of the dead pass up from earth
the souls ol ^ r 1 1 1 111 1 ,
the dead to to heaven by means oi a ladder, and they have even placed
dimb up. miniature ladders in the graves in order to enable the ghosts
to swarm up them to the abode of bliss. Thus in the
Soul- Pyramid Texts, which are amongst the oldest literature of
ladders in ^j^g world, mention is often made of the ladder up which
Egypt. dead Egyptian kings climbed to the sky. Generally this
celestial ladder appears to be made by the Sun-god, Ra or
Atum. Thus we read that " Atum has done that which he
said he would do for this king Pepi II., binding for him the
rope-ladder, joining together the (wooden) ladder for this
king Pepi II. ; (thus) this king is far from the abomina-
tion of men." Or it is the four sons of Horus who " bind a
rope-ladder for this king Pepi II. ; they join together a
(wooden) ladder for king Pepi II. They send up king Pepi
II. to Khepri (the Sun-god) that he may arrive on the east
side of the sky. Its timbers are hewn by Shesa, the ropes
that are in it are joined together with cords of Gasuti, the
Bull of the Sky (Saturn) ; the uprights at its sides are
fastened with leather." " Again, the dead man is told that
Ra and Horus set up a ladder for him : " One of them
stands on this side and the other on that side : thou
ascendest on it up to heaven. The gate of heaven is opened
for thee, and the great bolts are withdrawn for thee. There
wilt thou find Ra standing ; he will take thee by the hand
and lead thee into the sanctuary (?) of heaven, and will set
thee on the throne of Osiris, on that throne of thine that
thou mayest rule over the Blessed." ^ In many Egyptian
graves there has been found a ladder, which may have been
intended to enable the ghost to scramble up out of the grave,
perhaps even to ascend up to heaven, like the kings of old.'*
The Mangars, a fighting tribe of Nepaul, are careful to
1 P. te Wechel, " Erinnerungen aus (London, 1912), pp. 11 1 sq., compare
den Ost- and West - Dusun - landern pp. 153 ^j^.
(Borneo)," Internationales Archiv fiir ^ . -c t-i- • .c- i d ?• • 9
Ethnographic, xxn. (191S) PP- 45 -'I- (Berlin iqoq^ d 112
2 J. H. Breastead, Devehptnetit of ^^e"^""' ^909;, P- 112.
Religion and Thought in Ancient Eg)'pt * A. Erman, op. cit. pp. 210 sq.
CHAP. IV THE HEAVENLY LADDER 57
provide their dead with ladders up which they may climb Soui-
to the celestial mansions. " Two bits of wood, about three ^epaul '"
feet long, are set up on either side of the grave. In the one
are cut nine steps or notches forming a ladder for the spirit
of the dead to ascend to heaven ;-on the other every one
present at the funeral cuts a notch to show that he has been
there. As the maternal uncle steps out of the grave, he
bids a solemn farewell to the dead and calls upon him to
ascend to heaven by the ladder that stands ready for him."
However, lest the ghost should decline to avail himself
of this opportunity of scaling the heights of heaven, and
should prefer to return to his familiar home, the mourners
are careful to barricade the road against him with thorn
bushes.^
It is, or used to be, a popular belief in Russia, that " the Soul-
soul had to rise from the grave, and therefore certain aids to Russian'"
climbing were buried with the corpse. Among these were graves,
plaited thongs of leather and small ladders. One of the
most interesting specimens of survival to be found among
the customs of the Russian peasantry is connected with this
idea. Even at the present day, when many of them have
forgotten the origin of the custom, they still, in some districts,
make little ladders of dough, and have them baked for the
benefit of the dead. In the Government of Voroneje a
ladder of this sort, about three feet high, is set up at the
time when a coffin is being carried to the grave ; in some
other places similar pieces of dough are baked in behalf of
departed relatives on the fortieth day after their death, or
long pies marked crosswise with bars are taken to church on
Ascension Day and divided between the priest and the poor.
In some villages these pies, which are known as Lyesenki or
' ladderlings,' have seven bars or rungs, in reference to the
Seven Heavens. The peasants fling them down from the
belfry, and accept their condition after their fall as an
omen of their own probable fate after death." ^ From the
Russians the belief and the custom have been borrowed by
the Cheremiss. They imagine that the abode of bliss is
1 (Sir) H. H. Risley, The Tnbes "- W. R. S. Ralston, The Songs of
a/ici Casies 0/ Bengal {Ca\c\Msi, 1891), the Russia7i People''' (London, 1872),
i'- 75- pp. no sq.
58
J A COB A T BETHEL
Soul-
ladders
among the
Cheremiss
of Russia
and some
tribes of
the Malay
Peninsula.
somewhere up aloft, and to enable a dead man to mount up
to it, they obligingly place a small ladder in the coffin or
supply him with the article on the fortieth day after burial.^
The Besisi and Jakun, two pagan tribes of the Malay
Peninsula, provide their dead with soul-ladders {tangga
semangat), which are plain upright or inclined sticks, whereby
the soul of the deceased can leave the grave at pleasure.^
Popularity
of the
sanctuary
at Bethel
in later
times.
§ 4. T/u: Sacred Stone
In spite of its dreary and inhospitable surroundings,
Bethel became in later times the most popular sanctuary
of the northern kingdom.^ Jeroboam instituted there the
worship of one of the two golden calves which he had made
to be the gods of Israel ; he built an altar and created a
priesthood/ In the age of the prophet Amos the sanctuary
was under the special patronage of the king and was regarded
as a royal chapel ; ^ it was thronged with worshippers ; ^ the
altars were multiplied ; '^ the ritual was elaborate ; ^ the
expenses of maintenance were met by the tithes levied at the
shrine ; ^ the summer and winter houses of the noble and
wealthy in the neighbourhood were numerous and luxurious.^"
To account for the odour of sanctity which, from time
immemorial, had hung round this naturally desolate and
uninviting spot and had gradually invested it with all this
splendour and refinement of luxury, the old story of
Jacob and his dream was told to the worshippers. As
often as they paid their tithes to the priests, they under-
stood that they were fulfilling the vow made long ago
by the patriarch when, waking in fright from his troubled
sleep in the circle of stones, he promised to give to God a
tenth of all that the deity should give to him.^^ And the
1 P. V. Stenin, " Ein neuer Beitrag
zur Ethnographic der Tscheremissen,"
Globus, Iviii. (1890) p. 202; J. N.
Smirnov, Les Populations Finnoises Jes
Bassins de la Viplga et de la Kama,
Premiere Partie (Paris, 1898), p. 141.
2 W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden.
Pagatt Races of ike Malay Peninsula
(London, 1906), ii. 108, 1 14.
3 See S. R. Driver's note on Amos
ii. 14 {Joel and Amos, Cambridge,
1901, p. 162, Cambridge Bible for
Schools and Colleges).
* I Kings xii. 28-33.
^ Amos vii. 1 3.
^ Amos ix. I.
" Amos iii. 14.
8 Amos iv. 4, 5.
^ Amos iv. 4.
10 Amos V. 4.
^^ Genesis xxviii. 22,
CHAP. IV THE SACRED STONE 59
great standing-stone or pillar, which doubtless stood beside
the principal altar, was believed to be the very stone on
which the wanderer had laid his weary head that memorable
night, and which he had set up next morning as a monument
of his dream. For such sacred stones or monoliths were Sacred
regular features of Canaanite and Hebrew sanctuaries in canaanitc
days of old ; many of them have been discovered in their and
original positions by the excavators who have laid bare these sanctuaries,
ancient " high places " in modern times.^ Even the prophet
Hosea appears to have regarded a standing-stone or pillar as
an indispensable adjunct of a holy place dedicated to the
worship of Jehovah." It was only in later times that the
progressive spirit of Israelitish religion condemned these rude
stone monuments as heathenish, decreed their destruction,
and forbade their erection.^ Originally the deity seems to
have been conceived as actually resident in the stones ; it
was his awful presence which conferred on them their sanctity.
Hence Jacob declared that the stone which he erected at
Bethel should be God's house.*
The idea of a stone tenanted by a god or other power- Stones
ful spirit was not peculiar to ancient Israel ; it has been b^The^^*^
shared by many peoples in many lands. The Arabs in ancient
antiquity worshipped stones,^ and even under Islam the creeks^"'^
Black Stone at Mecca continues to occupy a principal
place in their devotions at the central shrine of their
religion.^ As commonly understood, the prophet Isaiah, or
the later writer who passed under his name, denounced
the idolatrous Israelites who worshipped the smooth, water-
worn boulders in the dry rocky gullies, pouring libations
and making offerings to them.'' We are told that in the
' G. F. Moore, in Encyclopaedia ^ Clement of Alexandria, Protrept.
Biblica, ii. coll. 2974 sgq. ; J. Ben- iv. I, p. 40, ed. Potter.
imgQT, Hehrdische Archdologie^ {Tnhin- ^ (Sir) E. B. Tylor, Primitive Cul-
gen, 1907), pp. 42 sq., 321 sqq. ; S. R. ture"^ (London, 1873), "• 166.
Tinv&x, Modern Research as illustrating ^ Isaiah Ivii. 6. However, this in- ■
the Bible, The Schweich Lectures, igo8 terpretation, though probable, is not
(London, 1909), pp. 62-65 5 H. Vin- free from doubt, since the ordinary
cent, Canaan dap7-ls P Exploration word for "stones" is absent from the
recente (Paris, 1914), pp. 102 sqg. Hebrew text. See the commentaries
* Hosea iii. 4, x. i. of Aug. Dillmann {Der Prophet Jesaia,^
3 Exodus xxiii. 24, xxxiv. 13 ; Leipsic, 1890, p. 486), Principal J.
Leviticus xxvi. i : Deuteronomy vii. Skinner {Cambridge Bible for Schools
5. xvi. 22. and Colleges), and O. C. Whitehouse
' Genesis xxviii. 22. ( The Century Bible) on the passage.
6o
J A COB A T BETHEL
Worship of
stones in
Melanesia.
Sacred
stones in
the Banks'
Islands
and New-
Hebrides.
olden time all the Greeks worshipped unwrought stones
instead of images. In the market-place of Pharae, in Achaia,
there were thirty square stones, to each of which the people
gave the name of a god.^ At Megara there was a stone in
the shape of a pyramid, which was called Apollo Carinus ; ^
on coins of the city it is represented as an obelisk standing
between two dolphins.^ Near Gythium in Laconia there
was an unwrought stone which went by the name of Zeus
Cappotas ; legend ran that the matricide Orestes had been
cured of his madness by sitting on it.^ In a temple of Hercules
at Olmones in Boeotia the god was represented, not by an
image, but in the old fashion by an unwrought stone.' The
inhabitants of Thespiae, in Boeotia, honoured Love above all
the gods ; and the great sculptors Lysippus and Praxiteles
wrought for the city glorious images of the amorous deity
in bronze and marble. Yet beside these works of refined
Greek art the people paid their devotions to an uncouth
idol of the god in the shape of a rough stone. *" The
Aenianes of Thessaly worshipped a stone, sacrificing to it
and covering it with the fat of victims. They explained
its sanctity by a story, that in days of old one of their kings
had slain another king in single combat by hurling this stone
at him.'^
The worship of rude stones has been practised all over
the world, nowhere perhaps more systematically than in
Melanesia. Thus, for example, in the Banks' Islands and
the Northern New Hebrides the spirits to whom food is
offered are almost always connected with stones on which
the offerings are made. Certain of these stones have been
sacred to some spirit from ancient times, and the knowledge
of the proper way of propitiating the spirit has been handed
down, generation after generation, to the particular man
who is now the fortunate possessor of it. " But any man
may find a stone for himself, the shape of which strikes his
fancy, or some other object, an octopus in his hole, a shark,
a snake, an eel, which seems to him something unusual, and
^ Pausanias vii. 22. 4. * Pausanias iii. 22. I.
2 Pausanias i 44- ~- ^ ^ ,^ ^ 6 Pausanias ix. 24. 3.
•* P . Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner,
JViimismaiic Commen/aryonPausaniaSf Pausanias ix. 27. 1-3.
p. 6, with plate A viii. ^ Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae, 13.
CHAP. IV THE SACRED STONE 6l
therefore connected with a spirit. He gets money and
scatters it about the stone, or on the place where he has seen
the object of his fancy ; then he goes home to sleep. He
dreams that some one takes him to a place and shews him
the pigs or money he is to have because of his connexion
with the thing that he has found. This thing in the Banks'
Islands becomes his tano-oloolo, the place of his offering, the
object in regard to which offering is made to get pigs or
money. His neighbours begin to know that he has it, and
that his increasing wealth has its origin there ; they come to
him, therefore, and obtain through him the good offices of
the spirit he has come to know. He hands down the know-
ledge of this to his son or nephew. If a man is sick he
gives another who is known to have a stone of power —
the spirit connected with which it is suggested that he has
offended — a short string of money, and a bit of the pepper
root, gea, that is used for kava ; the sick man is said to oloolo
to the possessor of the stone. The latter takes the things
offered to his sacred place and throws them down, saying,
' Let So-and-So recover.' When the sick man recovers he
pays a fee. If a man desires to get the benefit of the stone,
or whatever it is, known to another, with a view to increase
of money, pigs, or food, or success in fighting, the possessor
of the stone will take him to his sacred place, where probably
there are many stones, each good for its own purpose. The
applicant will supply money, perhaps a hundred strings a i^w
inches long. The introducer will shew him one stone and
say, 'This is a big yam,' and the worshipper puts money
down. Of another he says it is a boar, of another that it
is a pig with tusks, and money is put down. The notion
is that the spirit, vui, attached to the stone likes the money,
which is allowed to remain upon or by the stone. In case
the oloolo, the sacrifice, succeeds, the man benefited pays the
man to whom the stones and spirits belong." ^
From this instructive account we learn that in these a
islands a regular sanctuary may originate in the fancy of BethJi.*^^'^"
a man who, having noticed a peculiar-looking stone and
dreamed about it, concludes that the stone must contain
a powerful spirit, who can help him, and whom he and his
1 R. H. Codrington, The Mela7iesians (Oxford, 1891), pp. 140 sq.
62 JACOB AT BETHEL part ii
descendants henceforth propitiate with offerings. Further,
we see how such a sanctuary, as it rises in reputation, may
attract more and more worshippers, and so grow wealthy
through' the offerings which the gratitude or the cupidity of
the devotees may lead them to deposit at the shrine. Have
we not here a Melanesian counterpart of the history of
Bethel ? An older mode of interpretation might see in it a
diabolical counterfeit of a divine original.
Worship of Again, speaking of the natives of Aneityum, one of the
AneiTyim. Southem Ncw Hebrides, Dr. George Turner tells us that
" smooth stones apparently picked up out of the bed of the
river were regarded as representatives of certain gods, and
wherever the stone was, there the god was supposed to be.
One resembling a fish would be prayed to as the fisherman's
god. Another, resembling a yam, would be the yam god.
A third, round like a bread-fruit, the bread-fruit god, and so
on." ^ Similarly, referring to the same island, another mis-
sionary writes, "Many Natmases or spirits were worshipped;
these were appealed to and propitiated by small offerings of
food, hung in small baskets on the branches of trees, or laid
on the top of sacred stones, where certain of these spirits
were supposed to have their habitation." ^
Worship of Again, describing the religion of Futuna, an island of the
New Hebrides, another missionary writes, " Some gods wor-
shipped by the natives inhabited trees and stones, and thus
their religion descended to fetishism. Further, they possessed
sacred or magical stones, to make the fruits of the earth
grow. The stones resembled in form the yams, or fruits,
over which their magic influence was used. The stones for
causing bread-fruit to grow were almost exactly like the
fruit ; but in others the resemblance between the stones and
the objects represented was fanciful. These stones were
very numerous, and common people as well as chiefs pos-
sessed them. Some were used for catching fish ; others were
love-charms to help the possessor in obtaining a wife or
1 George Turner, Samoa (London, - Rev. J. Lawrie, " Aneityum, New
1884), p. 327. These "smooth stones Hebrides," Report of the Fourth Aleet-
apparently picked up out of the bed of iiig of the Australian Association for
the river " answer to the similar stones the Advancement of Science, held at
worshipped by the Israelites. See Hobart, Tasmania, in January iSgs
above, p. 59. (Sydney), p. 712.
stones m
Futuna.
Islands.
CHAP. IV THE SACRED STONE 63
husband ; others were used in war to give a steady aim in
throwing the spear, or in warding off blows of enemies. The
sorcerers used them in making disease, and the sacred men
in causing drought, hurricanes, rain, etc." ^
The natives of the Torres Straits Islands used to worship Worship of
round painted stones, which they believed could help them the'rorres
in fishing or procure them a fair wind, and so forth.'-^ For straits
example, some of these stones were supposed to give success
in turtle-fishing ; accordingly their assistance was invoked
and offerings made to them. Live turtles were often buried
beside these stones, their heads only projecting from the
earth and their flappers tied securely to prevent their escape.
A Christian native who stole, or rather released, two such
votive turtles for the purpose of consecrating them to the
pot, excited the rage of the islanders, who predicted the
speedy death of the impious thief.^ Again, in the island of
Tauan there used to be a large, perfectly round stone, painted
red, which could give success in hunting dugong, the large
marine mammal, something like a porpoise, with a pig's head
and a horse's mouth, which abounds in these seas. The
stone was supposed to represent a dugong, and a white streak
encircling it stood for the rope with which the dugong-hunter
hoped to bind his prey. When a man resolved to go dugong-
hunting, he used to present an offering of fish and coco-nuts
to the stone, and in approaching it he mimicked the paddling
of a canoe. Then coming near, he would rush at the stone
and clasp it in his arms, all the while uttering a prayer for
success. The firmer he gripped the mock dugong, the surer
he was to catch a real one.* In this ceremony elements of
religion and magic are clearly combined. The prayer and
offering to the stone are purely religious, being app^ently
intended to propitiate a spirit resident in the stone. On
the other hand the simulation of a dugong-hunt, by going
through the actions of paddling a canoe and clasping a
dugong in the arms, are pure pieces of mimetic magic
designed to ensure the desired end by imitating it.
In one of the Samoan Islands the god Turia had his
' W. Gunn, The Gospel in Futima em /j/t^j- (London, n.d.), p. 217.
(London, 19 14), pp. 221 sq. 3 \v. Wyatt Gill, op. cit. p. 293.
2 W. Wyatt Gill, Life in the South- * W. Wyatt Gill, op. cit. p. 302.
64 JACOB AT BETHEL part ii
Worship of shrinc in a very smooth stone, which was kept in a sacred
Samoa." grove. The priest was careful to weed all round about, and
covered the stone with branches to keep the god warm.
When prayers were offered on account of war, drought,
famine, or epidemic, the branches were carefully renewed.
Nobody dared to touch the stone, lest a poisonous and
deadly influence should radiate from it on the transgressor.^
In another Samoan village two oblong smooth stones, stand-
ing on a platform, were believed to be the parents of Saato,
a god who controlled the rain. When the chiefs and people
were ready to go off for weeks to the bush for the sport of
pigeon-catching, they laid offerings of cooked taro and fish
on the stones, accompanying them with prayers for fine
weather and no rain. Any one who refused an offering to
the stones was frowned upon ; and if rain fell, he was blamed
and punished for bringing down the wrath of the fine-weather
' god and spoiling the sport of the season. Moreover, in time
of scarcity, when people were on their way to search for wild
yams, they would give a yam to the two stones as a thank-
offering, supposing that these gods caused the yams to grow,
and that they could lead them to the best places for finding
such edible roots. Any person casually passing by with a
basket of food would also stop and lay a morsel on the stones.
When such offerings were eaten in the night by dogs or rats,
the people thought that the god became temporarily incarnate
in these animals in order to consume the victuals."
Worship of ji^ Fakaofo, or Bowditch Island, South Pacific, the great
stones in . ' £>
Bowditch native god was called Tui Tokelau, or king of Tokelau. He
was thought to be embodied in a stone, which was kept care-
fully wrapt up in fine mats, and never seen by any one but the
king, and that only once a year, when the decayed mats were
stripped off and thrown away. In time of sickness fine mats
were brought as offerings and rolled round the sacred stone,
which thus became busked up to a prodigious size ; but as the
idol stood exposed to the weather under the open sky, the mats
soon rotted. No one dared to appropriate what had been
offered to the god ; so the old mats, as they were taken off,
were heaped in a place by themselves and left to decay.
* G. Turner, Samoa (London, 1884), p. 62.
- G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 24 sq.
Island and
Nukunau.
CHAP. IV THE SACRED STONE 65
Once a year, about the month of May, a great festival was
held there in honour of the god. It lasted a whole month.
All work was laid aside. The people assembled from the
islands of the group and feasted and danced, praying for life,
health, and a plentiful supply of coco-nuts.^ In Nikunau,
an island of the Gilbert Group in the South Pacific, the gods
and goddesses were represented by sandstone slabs or pillars.
If the stone slab represented a goddess it was not set up erect,
but laid down on the ground, the natives thinking that it
would be cruel to make the divine lady stand so long.^
The natives of Timor, an island of the Indian Archipelago, Worship of
are much concerned about earth-spirits, which dwell in rocks f^^'T!"
^ ' the Indian
and stones of unusual and striking shape. Not all such Archipei-
rocks and stones, however, are haunted, and when a man ^^^'
.has found one of them he must dream upon it, in order to
ascertain whether a spirit dwells in it or not. If in his
dream the spirit appears to him and demands a sacrifice of
man, or beast, or betel, he has the stone removed and set
up near his house. Such stones are worshipped by whole
families or villages and even districts. The spirit who
resides in the stone cares for the welfare of the people, and
requires to receive in return betel and rice, but sometimes
also fowls, pigs, and buffaloes. Beside the stone there often
stand pointed stakes, on which hang the skulls of slain foes.^
The Bare'e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes tell of a
time when all their tribes dwelt together about Lake Posso.
At last under the leadership of six brothers and a sister they
broke up into seven bands and parted. But before they
separated they set up seven stones, called the Stones of
Parting, of which three are standing to this day. When a '
Toradja passes the stones, he strews yellow-dyed rice on
them, invokes his forefathers, and begs them to give him rice
and fish.^ The Dyaks of Dusun, in the south of Borneo,
believe that the souls of dead ancestors sometimes lodge in
certain stones. A man will dream that the gho.st of a
departed kinsman has appeared to him, and on awaking
^ G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 268 sq. Archiv fiir Anthropologie, N.F. xii.
2 G. Turner, 6-aw^«, p. 296. ^'^4'^) PP* '•".'^- . ^ rr - „
^ ^ * N. Adriani en A. C. Kruijt, De
^ J. Wanner, " Ethnologische Noti- Bare" e-sprekende Toradja' s van Midden-
zen tiber die Inseln Timor und Misol," Celebes (Batavia, 1912-1914), i. 5.
VOL. II F
66 JACOB AT BETHEL part ii
he will engage a sorcerer to discover the stone in which
the spirit resides. When the stone has been found, it is
carefully preserved and sacrifices are regularly offered to it^
Worship of In Burma "all the Karens, but especially the wilder
stones Bsfhai tribes, hold certain stones in great reverence as pos-
among the fc> ' o r
Karens of scssing superhuman powers. I do not know exactly what
^^'^'^' spirits are supposed to dwell in them, but rather fancy they
are regarded more as amulets or magic stones than as gods.
Yet sacrifices of hogs and fowls are offered, and the blood
poured on the stones. These stones have the wonderful
property of always returning to the owner if lost or taken
away. They are generally private property, though in some
villages there are stones so sacred and powerful that none
but certain of the wisest elders dare look on them. These
stones are generally pieces of rock-crystal, or curiously strati-
fied rock ; anything that strikes the poor ignorant Karen
as uncommon is regarded as necessarily possessing occult
powers." ^
Sacred The vvorship of stones appears to be common among
stone of the ^j^^ Nagfa tribes of Assam.^ For instance, on a ridge
5emas in ° » o
Assam. near the Sema village of Champini, there may be
seen a large solitary stone, about nine feet long by two
feet wide ; one end of the stone is split off and lies close
by. The place is surrounded by a circle of trees. The
stone is the god Puzzi, but he is dead, because Tukko, the
god of the Angamis, a neighbouring hill tribe, came and
fought him, knocked him down, and cut his head off. One
of the god's ears, too, was severed from his head, and lies in
the valley below, where the natives point it out to strangers.
Long ago, they say, before the English came to the hills,
Puzzi was not broken, but stood erect, and so bright and
shining was he, that nobody could approach him within
many paces. Yet though Puzzi is unfortunately dead, the
spot where his body lies is still hallowed ground, and is kept
free of weeds and undergrowth. When the villagers make
^ P. te Wechel, " Erinnerungen aus p. 295.
den Ost- und West - Dusun - landei;i
(Borneo)," In'ernationales Archiv fur ^ W. H. Furness, "The Ethno-
Ethnographie, -^yM. (1915) p. 19. graphy of the Nagas of Eastern Assam,"
■'' Capt. C. !• F. S. Forbes, British Journal of the Anthropological Insti-
Biirma and its People (London, 1878), lute, xxxii. (1902) pp. 457 sqq.
CHAP. IV THE SACRED STONE 67
their clearings for rice-fields in front of Puzzi's corpse, they
sacrifice a fowl, and from its entrails they read the omens for
the harvest. The body of the fowl may not be eaten, but
must be hung on one of the neighbouring trees, and some of
its feathers tied to stakes near Puzzi's head.^
There is hardly a village in Northern India which has Worship o(
not its sacred stone. Very often the stone is not appropri- jJJJir '"
ated to any one deity in particular, but represents the aggre-
gate of the local divinities who have the affairs of the com-
munity under their charge.^ In Chhattisgar, for example, a
division of the Central Provinces, the village god, Thakur
Deo, is represented by a collection of oddly shaped stones,
which usually lie on a platform under a shady tree. In the
Drug subdivision the sacifed stones are shaped like two-legged
stools. Every village worships Thakur Deo twice a year, in
the months of Paus and Chaitra, and on these occasions they
sacrifice goats and fowls to him and have a feast,^ Among
the tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, " in every village in which
Shins are in the majority, there is a large stone which is still
more or less the object of reverence. Each village has its
own name for this stone, but an oath taken or an engagement
made over it, is often held more binding than where the Koran
is used. In several villages goats are still annually sacrificed
beside the stone, which is sprinkled with blood, and in other
places the practice has only lately been discontinued." *
The Miao-kia of Southern China revere certain natural
1 W. H. Furness, "The Ethno- 3 p. jvj. gose, "Chhattisgar: notes
graphy of the Nagas of Eastern Assam," on its tribes, sects and cz.s\.qs," Jourfial
Journal of the Anthropological Institute, of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, lix.
xxxii. (1902) pp. 458 sq. As to the Part i. (Calcutta, 1891), p. 275. The
Semas, who worship this stone, Sir E. village god Thakur Deo seems to be
A. Gait tells us that they are- " the specially concerned with cultivation,
most barbarous and savage tribes with The Baigas and Bhainas worship him
which we have yet come into contact before they sow their crops ; on these
in these hills. But four years ago the occasions the village priest sows a few
custom of head-taking was in full swing seeds in the earth before Thakur Deo,
amongst all the villages to the east of who among the Baigas lives in a tree
the Doyang river, and the use of money instead of a stone. See R. V. Russell,
was unknown to almost every village Tie Tribes and Castes of the Central
of the tribe." See Census of India, Provinces of India {LonAon, 19 16), ii.
!Sgi, Assam, vol. i. Report, by (Sir) 85, 231.
E. A. Gait (Shillong, 1892), p. 247.
^ W. Crooke, The Popular Religion •• Major J. Biddulph,- Tribes of the
and Folk-lore of Northern India i^iii.\.- Hindoo Koosh (Calcutta, 1880), pp.
minster, 1896), ii. 163 j</. 1145(7.
68
JACOB AT BETHEL
Worship of
stones
among the
Miao-kia
of China
and the
Ingouch
of the
Caucasus.
Sacred
stones in
Madagas-
car and
Africa.
stones of more or less geometrical shape. These they
enclose in little wooden shrines roofed with tiles or thatch,
and from time to time they offer sacrifices before them.
Like the Chinese, they also burn sticks of incense before
oddly shaped rocks or boulders.^ The Ingouch tribe of the
Caucasus regard certain rocks as sacred and offer costly
sacrifices to them, especiailj^ at funerals. And if an Ingouch
is alleged to owe money to a Tchetchense, and cannot or
will not pay it, he may be compelled to deny his debt on
oath in presence of the sacred rock. For this purpose the
bones and dung of dogs are mixed up together, and the
mixture having been carried before the holy rock, the two
parties take their stand at the same place, and the debtor
says aloud, " If I am not speaking the truth, I consent to
the dead of my family carrying on their backs the dead
of So and So's family, on this very road, after the rain
shall have fallen and the sun shall have shone thereupon." "
Here the sacred rock seems to be regarded as a witness who
will ensure the fulfilment of the oath or avenge its breach.
Other examples of the use of stones in swearing solemn
oaths will be given later on.^
Among the tribes of northern and eastern Madagascar,
who bury their dead in deep woods or desert places, far from
the abodes of man, it is customary to erect stones by the
wayside in memory of the illustrious or the wealthy departed.
Some of these stones measure from sixteen to nearly twenty
feet in height. They serve as altars on which offerings to
the shades are deposited, and before which people address
their prayers to the spirits on solemn occasion."* The king
of Karagwe, in Central Africa, to the west of Lake Victoria
Nyanza, used to set beer and grain before a large stone
on the hillside, hoping to be favoured with better crops for
doing so, although in conversation with Speke he admitted
that the stone could not eat the food or indeed make any use
of it.^ In Busoga, a districj of Central Africa, to the north of
1 La Mission Lyotttiaise d'Explora- * A. et G. Grandidier, " De la
tioii Commerciale en Chine (Lyons, religion des Malgaches," UAnthro-
1898), p. 361. pologie, xxviii. (1917) p. I20.
2 Potocki, Voyage dans les Steps ^ J. H. Speke, Jou7-nal of the Dis-
d Asii-akhan et du Catuase (Paris, covefy of the Source of the Nile (LonAon,
1829), i. 124, 126. 1912), ch. viii. p. 197 {Evetyinan's
^ See below, pp. 405 sqq. Library).
CHAP. IV THE SACRED STONE 69
Lake Victoria Nyanza, " each piece of rock and large stone
is said to have its spirit, which is always active in a district
either for good or for evil. Various kinds of diseases, especi-
ally plague, are attributed to the malevolence of rock-spirits.
When sickness or plague breaks out, the spirit invariably
takes possession of some person of the place, either a man
or a woman ; and, under the influence of the spirit, the
person mounts the rock and calls from it to the people.
The chief and the medicine-men assemble the people, make
an offering of a goat or a fowl to the spirit, and are then
told how to act in order to stay the disease. After making
known its wishes to the people, the spirit leaves the person
and returns to the rock, and the medium goes home to his
or her ordinary pursuits and may possibly never be used
again by the spirit." ^ Hence there are many sacred rocks
and stones in Busoga. They are described as local deities ;
and to them the people go under all manner of circum-
stances to pray for help.^ The Menkieras of the French
Sudan, to the south of the Niger, offer sacrifices to rocks and
stones. For example, at Sapo the village chief owns a
great stone at the door of his house. Any man who can-
not procure a wife, or whose wife is childless, will offer a
fowl to the stone, hoping that the stone will provide him
with a wife or child. He hands over the bird to the chief,
who sacrifices and eats it. If his wishes are granted, the man
will present another fowl to the stone as a thank-offering.^
The Huron Indians of Canada worshipped certain rocks, Worship
to which they offered tobacco. Of these the most celebrated °'^'"°'^''s,
■' among the
was one called Tsanhohi Arasta, that is, the abode of Huronsof
Tsanhohi, which was a kind of bird of prey. It seems to ^^"^^*-
have stood on the bank of a river, perhaps the St. Lawrence,
down which the Indians paddled on their way to Quebec.
They told marvellous stories of this rock. They said it had
once been a man, and they fancied they could still dis-
tinguish his head, arms, and body. Yet the rock was so
huge that the arrows which they shot at it could not rise
to the top. The Hurons thought that in the hollow of the
^ J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu 3 'LomsTa.u\\(ix, Le Noir du Soudan
(Cambridge, 1915), p. 250. (Paris, 1912), p. 105.
^ J. Roscoe, op. fit. p. 251.
70 JACOB AT BETHEL part ii
great crag there dwelt a demon, who could make their
voyage prosperous. So in passing they used to stop padd-
ling and offer him tobacco, depositing it in one of the clefts
of the rock, and praying, " O demon, who dost inhabit this
place, here is some tobacco which I offer to you. Help us,
save us from shipwreck, defend us from our enemies, cause
us to do good business and to return safe and sound to our
The village." ^ The great oracle of the Mandan Indians was a
stone of the thick porous stone some twenty feet in circumference, whose
Mandan miraculous utterances were believed with implicit confidence
Indians. i . i • i t^ • i
by these simple savages. iLvery sprmg, and on some occa-
sions during the summer, a deputation waited on the holy
stone and solemnly smoked to it, alternately taking a whiff
themselves and then passing the pipe to the stone. That
ceremony duly performed, the deputies retired to an adjoin-
ing wood for the night, while the stone was supposed to
be left to his unassisted meditations. Next morning the
ripe fruit of his reflections was visible in the shape of
certain white marks on the stone, which some members
of the deputation had the less difficulty in deciphering
because they had themselves painted them there during the
hours of darkness, while their credulous brethren were
The plunged in sleep.^ The Minnetarees, another Indian tribe
stoneof the ^^ ^he Missouri, revered the same or a similar oracular stone,
Minne- and Consulted it in like manner. The wonderful stone " is
a large, naked, and insulated rock, situate in the midst of
a small prairie, at the distance of about two days' journey,
southwest of the village of that nation. In shape it resembles
the steep roof of a house. The Minnetarees resort to it, for
the purpose of propitiating their Man-ho-pa or Great Spirit,
by presents, by fasting, and lamentation, during the space
of from three to five days. An individual, who intends to
perform this ceremony, takes some presents with him, such
as a gun, horse, or strouding, and also provides a smooth
skin upon which hieroglyphics may be drawn, and repairs
to the rock accompanied by his friends and magi. On his
arrival, he deposits the presents there, and after smoking
1 Relations des J^snitcs (Quebec, to the Source of the Missot/ri River
1858), i. 1636, pp. 10% sg. (London, 1815), i. 224 (i. 225 sg.,
^ M. Lewis and W. Clark, Travels London, 1905).
CHAP. IV THE SACRED STONE 71
to the rock, he washes a portion of the face of it clean, and
retires with his fellow- devotees to a specified distance.
During the principal part of his stay, he cries aloud to his
god to have pity on him ; to grant him success in war and
in hunting ; to favour his endeavours to take prisoners,
horses, and scalps from the enemy. When the appointed
time for lamentation and prayer has elapsed, he returns to
the rock ; his presents are no longer there, and he believes
them to have been accepted and carried off by the Manhopa
himself. Upon the part of the rock, which he had washed,
he finds certain hieroglyphics traced with white clay, of
which he can generally interpret the meaning, particularly
when assisted by some of the magi, who were no doubt
privy to the whole transaction. These representations are
supposed to relate to his future fortune, or to that of his
family or nation ; he copies them off with pious and scrupu-
lous exactness upon the skin which he brought for the
purpose, and returns to his home, to read from them to the
people, the destiny of himself or of them. If a bear be
represented, with its head directed towards the village, the
approach of a war party, or the visitation of some evil, is
apprehended. If, on the contrary, the tail of the bear be
towards the village, nothing but good is anticipated, and
they rejoice." ^ Again, we are told of the Dacota Indians Worship
that a man " will pick up a round stone, of any kind, and amon"The
paint it, and go a few rods from his lodge, and clean away Dacotas.
the grass, say from one to two feet in diameter, and there
place his stone, or god, as he would term it, and make an
offering of some tobacco and some feathers, and pray to the
stone to deliver him from some danger that he has probably
dreamed of" or imagined.^
1 Edwin James, Account of an Ex- instruments ; they represented the foot-
pedition fiotn Pittsbtirgh to the Rocky prints of men and animals, and also
Mountains {'LonAo-n, 1823), i. 252 j^^. dogs with sledges. Offerings of kettles,
Compare Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, blankets, guns, knives, axes, pipes, and
Reise in das Innere Nord-Ainerica so forth might be seen lying beside the
(Coblenz, 1 839- 1 841), ii. 186 sq. holy stone.
According to the Prince of Wied, who,
however, wrote only from hearsay, the 2 Philander Prescott, "The Dacotahs
oracular stone of the Mandans and or Sioux of the Upper Mississippi," in
Minnetarees was one and the same, II. R. Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes of
and the marks on it were permanent, the United States (Philadelphia, 1853-
being apparently engraved by cutting 1856), iii. 229.
72
J A COB A T BETHEL
The
Gruagach
stones of
the High-
landers of
Scotland.
Stones
anointed
in Norway.
The
practice of
anointing
sacred
stones in
classical
antiquity.
The Highlanders of Scotland used to believe in a certain
fairy called the Gruagach, sometimes regarded as male and
sometimes as female, who looked after the herds and kept
them from the rocks, haunting the fields where the cattle
were at pasture. A Gruagach was to be found in every
gentleman's fold, and milk had to be set apart for him every
evening in the hollow of a particular stone, which was kept
in the byre and called the Gruagach stone. If this were
not done, the cows would yield no milk, and the cream
would not rise to the surface in the bowls. Some say that
milk was poured into the Gruagach stone only when the
people were going to or returning from the summer pastures,
or when some one was passing the byre with milk. At
Holm, East-Side, and Scorrybreck, near Portree in Skye,
the stones on which the libations were poured may still be
seen. However, these stones are perhaps to be regarded
rather as the vessels from which the Gruagach lapped the
milk than as the houses in which he lived. Generally he or
she was conceived as a well-dressed gentleman or lady with
long yellow hair.^ In some mountain districts of Norway
down to the end of the eighteenth century the peasants used
to keep round stones, which they washed every Thursday
evening, and, smearing them with butter or some other grease
before the fire, laid them on fresh straw in the seat of honour.
Moreover, at certain seasons of the year they steeped the
stones in ale, believing that they w^ould bring luck and com-
fort to the house.^
This Norwegian custom of smearing the stones with
butter reminds us of the story that Jacob poured oil on the
stone which he set up to commemorate his vision at Bethel.
The legend is the best proof of the sanctity of the stone.
1 John Gregorson Campbell, Super-
stitions of the Uigh lands and Islands of
Scotland (Glasgow, 1900), pp. 184-
186. Compare Th. Pennant, "Tour
in Scotland," in J. Pinkerton's General
Collection of Voyages and Travels (Lon-
don, 1808-1814), iii. 330 sq., 553 ;
Miss C. F. Gordon Camming, In the
Hebrides (London, 1SS3), pp. 70 sq.
2 Sven Nilsson, The Primitive In-
habitants of Scandinavia, edited by Sir
John Lubbock (London, 1S68), pp.
241 sq. For more examples of tiie
worship of stones see A. Bastian, " Der
Steincaltus in der Ethnographie,"
Archiv fur Antlu-opologie, iii. (186S)
pp. 1-18 ; (Sir) E. B. Tylor, Primitive
Ctiltitre'^ (London, 1873), ii. 161 sqq. ;
Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury),
Origin of Civilisation'^ (London, 1882),
pp. 301 sqq. Compare \V. Robertson
Smith, Religion of the Se?nites- (Lon-
don, 1894), pp. 201 sqq.
CHAP. IV THE SACRED SrONE 73
and probably points to an ancient custom of anointing the
sacred stone at the sanctuary. Certainly the practice of
anointing holy stones has been widespread. At Delphi,
near the grave of Neoptolemus, there was a small stone on
which oil was poured every day ; and at every festival un-
spun wool was spread on it.^ Among the ancient Greeks,
according to Theophrastus, it was characteristic of the super-
stitious man that when he saw smooth stones at crossroads
he would pour oil on them from a flask, and then falling on
his knees worship them before going his way." Similarly
Lucian mentions a Roman named Rutillianus, who, as often
as he spied an anointed or crowned stone, went down on his
knees before it, and after worshipping the dumb deity re-
mained standing in prayer beside it for a long time.^ Else-
where, the same sceptical writer refers scornfully to the oiled
and wreathed stones which were supposed to give oracles.*
Speaking of the blind idolatry of his heathen days, the
Christian writer Arnobius says, " If ever I perceived an
anointed stone, greasy with oil, I used to adore it, as if there
were some indwelling power in it, I flattered it, I spoke to it,
I demanded benefits from the senseless block." '" The same
custom is alluded to by other ancient authors.^ At the
present day the peasants of Kuklia in Cyprus still anoint, or
anointed till lately, the great corner-stones of the ruined
temple of the Paphian Aphrodite.^ In doing so it may well
be that they keep up a custom handed down from antiquity.
The Waralis, a tribe who inhabit the jungles of Northern The
Konkan, in the Bombay Presidency, worship Waghia, the aJJo^nt'^in *^^
lord of tigers, in the form of a shapeless stone smeared with sacred
red lead and clarified butter. They give him chickens and \^2\^ '"
goats, break coco-nuts on his head, and pour oil on him.
In return for these attentions he preserves them from tigers,
gives them good crops, and keeps disease from them.^
And generally in the Bombay Presidency, particularly in
' Pausanias x. 24. 6. Felix, Octavius, 3.
^ Theophrastus, Characteres, recen- "^ D. G. Hogarth, A Wandering
suit H. Dials (Oxford, n.d. ), xvi. 5. Scholar 171 ike Leva7it (London, 1896),
^ Lucian, Alexander, 30. pp. 179 sg.
* L\xc\a.VL, Deo7-n7n concilium, 12. ^ Jotinia I of the Royal Asiatic Society
' Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, i. 39. of Great Britain and Ireland, vii.
Apuleius, Florida, i. i ; Minucius (1843) p. 20.
74 JACOB AT BETHEL part ii
the Konkan districts, fetish stones are worshipped by the
ignorant and superstitious for the purpose of averting evil or
curing disease. In every village such stones are to be seen.
The villagers call each of them by the name of some god or
spirit, of whom they stand in great fear, believing that he has
control over all demons or ghosts. When an epidemic
prevails in a village people offer food, such as fowls, goats,
and coco-nuts, to the fetish stones.^ For example, at Poona
there is such a sacred stone which is coloured red and
oiled.^ Among the Bedars or Baydarus of Southern India
the spirits of men who die unmarried are supposed to become
Virika or heroes, and to their memory small temples and
images are erected, where offerings of cloth, rice, and the
like are made to their ghosts. " If this be neglected, they
appear in dreams, and threaten those who are neglectful of
their duty. These temples consist of a heap or cairn of
stones, in which the roof of a small cavity is supported by
two or three flags ; and the image is a rude shapeless Stone,
which is occasionally oiled, as in this country all other
images are." ^ Among the Todas of the Neilgherry Hills,
in Southern India, the sacred buffaloes migrate from place
to place in the hills at certain seasons of the year. At the
sacred dairies there are stones on which milk is poured
and butter rubbed before the migration begins. For example,
at Modr there are four such stones, and they are rounded
and worn quite smooth, probably through the frequent repeti-
tion of the ceremony.^
The In the Kei Islands, to the south-west of New Guinea,
anointin° every houscholdcr keeps a black stone at the head of his
sacred sleeping-place ; and when he goes out to war or on a voyage
the Kei or on business, he anoints the stone with oil to secure
Islands, success.^ " Although the Malagasy have no temples they
Madagas- *^ ^ ^ f y
car, and
EaslAfrica. ' R. E. Enthoven, " Folklore of ton's Voyages and Ti-aveh (London,
the Konkan," p. 8i (Supplement to i8o8-i8i4),viii. 677; Edgar Thurston,
The htdian Antiquary, xliv. , 19 15). Castes and Tribes of Southern India
2 Captain Edward Moor, "Account (Madras, 1909), i. 208 sq.
of an hereditary living deity," Asiatic * W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas
Researches, vii. (London, 1803) pp (London, 1906), pp. 130 sq., 139 sq.,
394 -s-'/- 143-
3 Francis Buchanan, " Journey from * J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en
Madras through thecountriesof Mysore, kroeshai-ige rassen tusschen Selebes en
Canara, and Malabar," in John Pinker- Papua (The Hague, 1886), p. 223.
CHAP. IV THE SACRED STONE 75
have sacred places, where certain sacrifices are offered,
and which may be considered as a kind of altar. Of
these, the headstones of their tombs, rude undressed slabs
of blue granite or basalt, are the most prominent, being,
as already mentioned, anointed with the blood and fat of
the animals killed both at funerals and on other occasions,
especially at the New Year's festival. In numerous places,
other stones may be seen anointed in a similar wa)'. Some
of these are in the bed of streams, being thus honoured to pro-
pitiate the spirits supposed to dwell in the water or around
it. Other stones are anointed by women who wish to obtain
children."^ Thus with regard to the Betsileo, a tribe in
central Madagascar, we are told that " in many parts of the
country are large stones, which strike the eye of every
traveller, owing to the fact that they present the appearance
of having been greased all over, or at any rate of having had
fat or oil poured on the top. This has given rise to a belief
among strangers that these stones were gods worshipped by
the Betsileo. I think it can scarcely be said that they were
reverenced or treated as divinities, but that they were con-
nected with superstitious beliefs there can be no shadow of
a doubt. There are two kinds of single stones in the
country looked upon thus superstitiously by the people.
One kind, called vatobetroka, is resorted to by women who
have had no children. They carry with them a little fat or
oil with which they anoint the stone, at the same time
apostrophising it, they promise that if they have a child,
they will return and re-anoint it with more oil." These same
stones are also resorted to by traders, who promise that, if
their wares are sold at a good price and quickly, they will
return to the stone and either anoint it with oil, or bury a
piece of silver at its base. These stones are sometimes
natural but curious formations, and sometimes, but more
rarely, very ancient memorials of the dead." ^ At Ambatond-
* James Sibree, The Great African U AntJiropologie, xxviii. (191 7) pp.
Island, chapters on Madagascar (Lon- 120, 121.
don, 1880), p. 305. Compare A. et 2 George A. Shaw, " The Betsileo :
G. Grandidier, Ethnographie de Mada- Religious and Social Customs," The
gascar,\\. (Paris, 1914) p. 246 [His- Antananarivo Annual and Aladagascar
toire Physique, Naturelle et Politique Magazine, Reprint of the First Four
de Madagascar, \o\.\\.); K.&\.G.QiXZX\- N'ttmbers (Antananarivo, 18S5), pp.
didier, " De la Religion des Malgaches," 404 sq.
76
JACOB AT BETHEL
The
anointed
stone at
Bethel.
Many
Bethels
[baity Ha)
in Canaan.
razaka, in Madagascar, there is one of these venerable
stones, which gives its name to the town ; for Ambatond-
razaka means " The Town of the Stone of Razaka." This
Razaka is said to have been a man or a woman who died
long ago. The stone is partly buried in the earth, but so
much of it as is visible is of oblong shape, standing about a
foot above the ground, and enclosed within a rough circle of
masonry. It is customary to anoint the stone with grease
and oil, and to sprinkle it with the blood of sacrificial
victims.^ At a certain spot in a mountain pass, which is
particularly difficult for cattle, every man of the Akamba
tribe, in British East Africa, stops and anoints a particular
rock with butter or fat.^
In the light of these analogies it is reasonable to suppose
that there was a sacred stone at Bethel, on which worshippers
from time immemorial had been accustomed to pour oil,
because they believed it to be in truth a " house of God "
{Beth-el), the domicile of a divine spirit. The belief and
the practice were traced to a revelation vouchsafed to the
patriarch Jacob on the spot long before his descendants had
multiplied and taken possession of the land. Whether the
story of that revelation embodies the tradition of a real event,
or was merely invented to explain the sanctity of the place in
harmony with the existing practice, we have no means of
deciding. Probably there were many such sacred stones or
Bethels in Canaan, all of which were regarded as the abodes
of powerful spirits and anointed accordingly. Certainly the
name of Beth-el or God's House would seem to have been a
common designation for sacred stones of a certain sort in
Palestine ; for in the form baityl-os or baityl-ion the Greeks
adopted it from the Hebrews and applied it to stones which
are described as round and black,^ as living or animated by
a soul,* as moving through the air and uttering oracles in a
whistling voice, which a wizard was able to interpret.^ Such
^ Joseph Pearse, " Ambatondrazaka:
the capital of the Antishanaka Pro-
vince," The AntaJtanarivo Annual
and Madagascar Magazine, Reprint of
the First Four Numbers (Antananarivo,
1885), p. 164.
- J. M. Hildebrandt, " Ethno-
yraphische Notizen iiber Wakamba und
ihre Nachbarn," Zeitschrift Jiir Ethno-
logie, X. (1878) p. 384.
3 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxxvii. 135.
■* Philo of Bybius, quoted by Euse-
bius, Praeparatio Evangelii, i. 10. 18,
Batri/Xta \idov% f/i^i/xous.
° Damascius, Vita Isidoii, § 203,
compare § 94.
THE SACRED STONE
77
stones were sacred to various deities, whom the Greeks called
Cronus, Zeus, the Sun, and so forth.^ However, the descrip-
tion of these stones suggests that as a rule they were small
and portable ; one of them is said to have been a perfect
sphere, measuring a span in diameter, though it miraculously
increased or diminished in bulk and changed in colour from
whitish to purple ; letters, too, were engraved on its surface
and picked out in vermilion.^ On the other hand the holy
stone at Bethel was probably one of those massive standing- The
stones or rough pillars which the Hebrews called massebotk, slone'"^
and which, as we have seen, were regular adjuncts of Canaanite {massebotk)
of
and early Israelitish sanctuaries. Well-preserved specimens canaanite
of these standing-stones or pillars have been recently dis- sanctuaries,
covered in Palestine;" notably at the sanctuaries of Gezer
and Taanach. In some of them holes are cut, either on the
top or on the side of the pillar, perhaps to receive offerings
of oil or blood.* Such we may suppose to have been the
sacred stone which Jacob is said to have set up and anointed
at Bethel, and for which his descendants probably attested
their veneration in like manner for many ages.
1 Damascius, Vita Tsidori, § 203.
2 Damascius, loc. cit. On such stones
[baitylia) see further Pauly-Wissowa,
Real- Encyclopddie der clasiischen Alter-
tums7vissejischaft, ii. 2779 sqq. Some
of them may have been of meteoric origin
(A. Benzinger, Hebrdische Archdologie^
Tubingen, 1907, p. 315).
2 See above, p. 59.
* S. R. Driver, Modern Research as
illustrating the Bible, The Sch-weich
Lectures, 1908 (London, 1909), p. 65.
The holes are differently interpreted by
A. Benzinger, Hebrdische Archaologie^
p. 324.
CHAPTER V
JACOB AT THE WELL
§ I. Watering the Flocks
Jacob's Cheered by the vision of angels and by the divine promise
"^■irREK:hei °^ protection which he had received at Bethel, the patriarch
at the well, went on his way and came in time to the land of the children
of the East. There he met his kinsfolk ; there he found his
wives ; and there, from being a poor homeless wanderer, he
grew rich in flocks and herds. The land where these events,
so momentous in the history of Jacob and his descendants,
took place is not exactly defined. The historian, or rather
the literary artist, is content to leave the geography vague,
while at the same time he depicts the meeting of the exile
with his first love in the most vivid colours. Under his pen
the scene glows as intensely as it does under the brush of
Raphael, who has conferred a second immortality, on it in
the panels of the Vatican. It is a picture not of urban but
of pastoral life. The lovers met, not in the throng and
bustle of the bazaar, but in the silence and peace of green
pastures on the skirts of the desert, with a great expanse
of sky overhead and flocks of sheep lying around, waiting
patiently to be watered at the well. The very hour of the
day when the meeting took place is indicated by the writer ;
for he tells us that it was not yet high noon, he allows us,
as it were, to inhale the fresh air of a summer morning
before the day had worn on to the sultry heat of a southern
afternoon. What more fitting time and place could have
been imagined for the first meeting of youthful lovers ?
Under the charm of the hour and of the scene even the hard
mercenary character of Jacob melted into something like
78
CHAP. V WATERING THE FLOCKS 79
tenderness ; he forgot for once the cool calculations of gain
and gave way to an impulse of love, almost of chivalry : for
at sight of the fair damsel approaching with her flocks, he
ran to the well and rolling away the heavy stone which
blocked its mouth he watered the sheep for her. Then
he kissed his cousin's pretty face and wept.^ Did he
remember his dream of angels at Bethel and find the
vision come true in love's young dream ? We cannot
tell. Certainly for a time the selfish schemer appeared to
be transformed into the impassioned lover. It was the
one brief hour of poetry and romance in a prosaic and
even sordid life.
The immortal picture of the meeting of Jacob and Rachel The
, ,111111 • • 1 -^ watering o{
at the well makes all the deeper impression on us because it flocks at
is painted from the life. Such scenes may be witnessed in ^^'-""s in
. modern
the East to this day. In Palestine "as the summer comes Palestine-
on and the weather gets hotter, the herbage becomes dry.
The sheep and goats begin to need water, which is not the
case while the pasture is green and succulent. The flocks
are then usually watered once a day, about noon, from a
stream or spring, or, if these highly prized blessings do not
exist, from wells or cisterns. Many of these cisterns are out
in the open country, on the site of some ancient village which
has disappeared ages ago, or found dug in a long-forgotten
garden or vineyard. In such cases a large stone or pile of
stones is placed over the well's mouth, partly to prevent the
water being stolen, and partly to keep animals from falling
in. This practice dates from remotest antiquity. . . . Some-
times a huge circular block of stone, in shape resembling a
giant millstone, is placed over the well. This stone has an
opening in the centre large enough to admit the easy passage
of a bucket filled with water. In this opening a closely-
fitting pear-shaped stone, like a stopper, is inserted, so smooth
and heavy that it is almost impossible to remove it with the
hands alone. It is a beautiful sight to watch, as mid-day
draws on, the various flocks, led by their respective shepherds,
converging towards some large spring, and then patiently
awaiting their turn to come at their master's bidding and
quench their thirst in the cool rivulet. Throughout the
^ Genesis xxix. i-ii.
So JACOB AT THE WELL part u
hotter months the sheep are taken to some shady spot to
rest during the middle of the day. A grove of trees, the
shadow of an overhanging rock, a cave, a ruin — all are utilized
for this purpose. From time immemorial the shepherds in
Palestine have done this, and the practice is referred to in
the words of the Bride (Cant. i. 7) : * Tell me where thou
makest thy flock to rest at noon.' In the deep valleys which
descend from the tableland of Moab, and those in the hills
- about Es Salt (Ramoth Gilead), the perennial streams are
bordered with a thick grove of tamarisk, oleander, and tall
reeds. Here I have often seen the shepherds bring their
flocks at noon to drink, and then rest in the deep, cool shade
of the bushes by the water's side. David had, no doubt,
often done the same when feeding his father's sheep, and
had some such scene before his mind when he penned the
words : ' He maketh me to lie down in green pastures : he
leadeth me beside the still waters.' " ^
Springs " In such a dry climate as Palestine, every spring, how-
Paierune ^^^^ small, is Utilized to the utmost for irrigating gardens of
fruit-trees and vegetables, and water-rights are therefore ver}-
valuable. As the springs for the most part come out on the
sides of the valleys, it is easy to water a series of terraces,
at different levels, from the same source, the little rivulet
sometimes reaching a long distance down the vallej^ before
it is finally absorbed. At times the traveller will come
suddenly on a deep glen whose brilliant green gardens and
fruit-laden trees form a striking contrast to the bare hillsides
around. Descending into the valley, he will find issuing from
a mass of fallen rocks, gray with the storms of centuries, a
little thread of water, clear and cool, which runs into a large
open cistern hewn in the solid rock, or built on the side of a
natural terrace, and carefully cemented all round the inside.
Here, from the neighbouring village, come at morning'and
evening troops of laughing girls or careworn women, with
their pitchers on their heads, to draw water. Here, too, in
the heat of the day, come the shepherds with their thirsty
flocks, the goats and sheep patiently standing waiting their
turn to come, at the shepherd's bidding, and slake their
thirst, or lying quietly chewing the cud in the shade
* C. T. Wilson, Peasant Life hi the Holy Za«^ (London, 1906), pp. 172 sq.
CHAP. V WATERING THE FLOCKS 8r
of the overhanging rocks or under the shadow of a leafy
tree." ^
Thus the watering-place of the flocks is sometimes a Weiis
cistern into which the water pours from the hills ; sometimes ^""^ ^'.^*=
^ ' watering of
it is a well sunk in the rock, where the water rises from a Hocks at
spring and is drawn to the surface in leathern buckets or ' ^"^'
earthenware pitchers suspended from a rope. The sides of
the wells are faced with masonry to a considerable depth,
and the stones are often worn into deep grooves by the
friction of the ropes which have been drawing up buckets
from the depth for hundreds or thousands of years. Many
of the cisterns and wells are closed with broad flat slabs of
stone, each of them pierced with a round hole in the middle,
which forms the mouth of the well or cistern. Often the
hole in its turn is stopped with a stone so heavy that it
requires the united strength of two or three men to roll it
away. Round the well usually stand a number of stone
troughs into which the water drawn up in the buckets is
poured for the use of the cattle. Built into these troughs
and serving to support them may sometimes be seen frag-
ments of ancient marble columns. The scene at one of
these wells, when flocks and herds are gathered round, and
men and women are busy drawing up water, pouring it into
the troughs, and watering the animals, is animated and
pleasing. The traveller feels himself transported into the
patriarchal age, especially if he chance to be there at day-
break and to see in the distance, across the plain, strings of
camels converging on the well and casting long shadows
before them in the light of the rising sun.^
In modern times, as in Jacob's day, it is sometimes the Women as
women who drive the flocks to the wells to be watered. ^h^P'^f'''^-
esses in
" Who that has travelled much in this country has not often Palestine,
arrived at a well in the heat of the day which was surrounded
with numerous flocks of sheep waiting to be watered ? I once
saw such a scene in the burning plains of northern Syria.
^ C. T. Wilson, Peasant Life in the son. The Lattd and the Book (London,
ffoly Land, ^Y>- ^'^'^ ^1- 1859), p. 589; H. B. Tristram, The
^ Edward Robinson, Biblical Re- L.and ojF Lsrael,' ¥our\.\\ Edition (Lon-
searches in Palestine, Second Edition don, 1882), pp. 363 5^^. ; C. R. Conder,
(London, 1856), i. 201, 204, 490, ii. Tent Work in Palestine, Nrw Edition
22, 26, 35, 226, 378; W. M. Thorn- (London, 1885), pp. 246-248.
VOL. II G
82
JACOB AT THE WELL
Half-naked, fierce-looking men were drawing up water in
leather buckets ; flock after flock was brought up, watered,
and sent away ; and after all the men had ended their work,
then several women and girls brought up their flocks and
drew water for them." ^ " In the Negeb, as I have often
observed, the flocks of sheep or goats are entrusted to the
care of women or girls ; in Moab this occupation is rather
reserved for the men, though not to the exclusion of women.
At Gebal and near Neba I have several times met flocks
confided to the charge of a girl. The fact is indeed very
inconvenient for the traveller, who may wish to buy a sheep
or procure milk. He cannot treat with a woman and is
obliged to await a better opportunity."^
Unmarried " Among tlic Arabs of Sinai and those of the Egyptian
Sherkieh, it is an established rule that neither men nor boys
should ever drive the cattle to pasture. This is the exclu-
sive duty of the unmarried girls of the camp, who perform
it by turns. They set out before sun-rise, three or four
together, carrying some water and victuals with them, and
they return late in the evening. Among other Bedouins,
slaves or servants take the flocks to pasture. Thus early
accustomed to such fatiguing duties, the Sinai women are
as hardy as the men. I have seen those females running
barefooted over sharp rocks where I, well shod, could with
difficulty step along. During the whole day they continue
exposed to the sun, carefully watching the sheep ; for they
are sure of being severely beaten by their father, should any
be lost. If a man of their tribe passes by the pasturing
ground, they offer to him some sheep's milk, or share with
him their scanty stock of water, as kindly as their parents
would have treated him in their tent." ^
girls as
shepherd-
esses
among the
Arabs of
Sinai.
^ 2. Weeping as a Salutation
The The commentators on Genesis are a little puzzled to
TaoDbaf Iris ^^P'^i" ^^^7 Jacob, on Jcissing his pretty cousin Rachel,
meetmg
with
Rachel.
"' VV. M. Thomson, The Laud and
the Book (London, 1859), p. 589.
^ Antonin Jaussen, Coiitumes des
Arabes an pays de Moab (Paris, 1 908),
P- 34-
3 J. L. Burckhardt, Notes on the
Bedouins and Wahabys (London,
1831), i. 351 sq. In this passage the
text reads " They set out bef(jre sun-
set," but here "sun-set" is clearly a
mistake for "sun -rise," and I have
corrected it accordingly.
Testament.
CHAP. V WEEPING AS A SALUTATION 83
should hdve burst into tears. They suppose that his tears
flowed for joy at the happy termination of his journey, and
they account for this mode of manifesting pleasure by the
greater sensibility of Oriental peoples, or by the less degree
of control which they exercise over the expression of their
feelings. The explanation perhaps contains a measure of
truth ; but the commentators have apparently failed to
notice that among not a few races weeping is a conventional
mode of greeting strangers or friends, especially after a long
absence, and that as such it is often a simple formality
attended with hardly more emotion than our custom of
shaking hands or raising the hat. Examples of the custom
will make this clear.
In the Old Testament itself we meet with other examples other
of thus saluting relations or friends. When Joseph revealed '"^^^"'^^s
_ ^ "' f^ of woeping
himself to his brethren in Egypt, he kissed- them and wept at the
so loudly that the Egyptians in another part of the house friend"'"in°^
heard him.^ But his tears on that occasion were probably a the Old
natural, not a mere conventional, expression of his feelings.
Indeed this is rendered almost certain by the touching incident
at his first meeting with Benjamin, when, moved beyond his
power of control by the sight of his long-lost and best-loved
brother, he hastily quitted the audience chamber and retiring
to his own room wept there alone, till he could command him-
self again ; then he washed his red eyes and tear-wetted cheeks,
and returned with a steady face to his brethren.^ Again, when
Joseph met his aged father Jacob at Goshen, he fell on the
old man's neck and wept a good while.^ But here too his
tears probably welled up from the heart when he saw the
grey head bent humbly before him, and remembered all his
father's kindness to him in the days of his youth so long
ago. Again, when the two dear friends David and Jonathan
met in a dark hour for the last time, with a presentiment
perhaps that they should see each other no more, they kissed
one another and wept one with another, till David exceeded.''
Here also we may well believe that the emotion was un-
feigned. Once more we read in the Book of Tobit how when
Tobias was come as a stranger to the house of his kinsman
^ Genesis xlv. 2, \^ sq. 3 Genesis xlvi. 29.
2 Genesis xliii. 30 sq. * I Samuel xx. 41.
84
JACOB AT THE WELL
Weeping
at the
meeting
and parting
of friends
among the
Maoris of
New
Zealand.
Raguel in Ecbatana, and had revealed himself to his host,
" then Raguel leaped up, and kissed him, and wept." ^ Even
here, however, the outburst of tears may have been an effect
of joyous surprise rather than a mere conformity to social
custom.
But however it may have been with the Hebrews, it
seems certain that among races at a lower level of culture
the shedding of tears at meeting or parting is often little or
nothing more than a formal compliance with an etiquette
prescribed by polite society. One of the peoples among
whom this display of real or artificial emotion was rigorously
required of all who had any claim to good breeding, were
the Maoris of New Zealand. " The affectionate disposition
of the people," we are told, " appears more, however, in the
departure and return of friends. Should a friend be going
a short voyage to Port Jackson, or Van Dieman's Land, a
great display of outward feeling is made : it commences with
a kind of ogling glance, then a whimper, and an affectionate
exclamation ; then a tear begins to glisten in the eye ; a
wry face is drawn ; then they will shuffle nearer to the
individual, and at length cling round his neck. They then
begin to cry outright, and to use the flint about the face and
arms ; and, at last, to roar most outrageously, and almost
to smother with kisses, tears, and blood, the poor fellow who
is anxious to escape all this. On the return of friends, or
when visited by them from a distance, the same scene, only
more universally, is gone through ; and it is difficult to keep
your own tears from falling at the melancholy sight they
present, and the miserable bowlings and discordant noises
which they make. There is much of the cant of affection
in all this ; for they can keep within a short distance of the
person over whom they know they must weep, till they have
prepared themselves by thinking, and have worked them-
selves up to the proper pitch ; when, with a rush of pre-
tended eagerness, they grasp their victim (for .that is the
best term to use), and commence at once to operate upon
their own bodies, and upon his patience. There is one
thing worthy of observation, that, as they can command
tears to appear, upon all occasions, at a moment's warning,
^ Tobit %ii. 6.
CHAP. V WEEPING AS A SALUTATION 85
so they can cease crying when told to do so, or when it
becomes inconvenient to continue it longer. I was once
much amused at a scene of this kind, which happened at a
village called Kaikohi, about ten miles from the Waimate.
Half-a-dozen of their friends and relations had returned,
after an absence of six months, from a visit to the Thames.
They were all busily engaged in the usual routine of crying ;
when two of the women of the village, suddenly, at a signal
one from the other, dried up their tears, closed the sluices of
their affection, and very innocently said to the assembly :
' We have not finished crying yet : we will go and put the
food in the oven, cook it, and make the baskets for it, and
then we will come and finish crying ; perhaps we shall not
have done when the food is ready ; and if not, we can cry
again at night' All this, in a canting, whining tone of
voice, was concluded with a ' Shan't it be so ? he 1 shan't it
be so? he !' I spoke to them about their hypocrisy, when
they knevv they did not care, so much as the value of a
potato, whether they should ever see those persons again,
over whom they had been crying. The answer I received
was, ' Ha ! a New Zealander's love is all outside : it is in
his eyes, and his mouth.'" ^ The navigator Captain P. Other
Dillon frequently fell a victim to these uproarious demon- ^"^^^""'^ °'
^ ■' i^ weeping as
strations of affection, and he tells us how he contrived to a form of
respond to them in an appropriate manner. " It is the anwn"°he
custom," he says, " in New Zealand, when friends or relations ^laoris.
meet after long absence, for both parties to touch noses and
shed tears. With this ceremony I have frequently complied
out of courtesy ; for my failure in this respect would have
been considered a breach of friendship, and I should have
been regarded as little better than a barbarian, according to
the rules of New Zealand politeness. Unfortunately, how-
ever, my hard heart could not upon all occasions readily
produce a tear, not being made of such melting stuff as
those of the New Zealanders ; but the application of a
pocket handkerchief to my eyes for some time, accompanied
with an occasional howl in the native language, answered all
the purposes of real grief This ceremony is dispensed with
from strange Europeans ; but with me it was indispensable,
' W. Yate, Aft Account of New Zealand CLondon, 1835), pp. 100-102.
86
JACOB AT THE WELL
I being a Thongata moury ; that is, a New Zealander, or
countryman, as they were pleased to term me." ^ Again,
we read that " emotion characterised the meeting of New
Zealanders, but parting was generally unattended by any
outward display. At meeting men and women pressed
their noses together, during which, in a low lachrymose
whine, they repeated amidst showers of tears circumstances
which had occurred mutually interesting since they last met.
Silent grief is unknown among them. When the parties
meeting are near relatives and have been long absent, the
pressing of noses and crying were continued for half an hour;
when the meeting was between accidental acquaintances,
it was merely nose to nose and away. This salutation is
called hongi, and is defined as a smelling. Like the Eastern
custom of eating salt, it destroyed hostility between enemies.
During the hongi the lips never met, there was na kissing."^
Again, among the aborigines of the Andaman Islands
" relatives, after an absence of a iew weeks or months, testify
among the their joy at meeting by sitting with their arms round each
ishinders" Other's nccks, and weeping and howling in a manner which
would lead a stranger to suppose that some great sorrow had
befallen them ; and, in point of fact, there is no difference
observable between their demonstrations of joy and those of
grief at the death of one of their number. The crying
chorus is started by women, but the men speedily chime in,
and groups of three or four may thus be seen 'weeping in
concert until, from sheer exhaustion, they,are compelled to
desist." ^ Among the people of Mungeli Tahsil, in the
Bilaspore district of India, " it is an invariable practice when
relatives come together who have not met for a long while,
for the womenfolk to weep and wail loudly. A son has
been away for months and returns to his parents' house.
He will first go and touch the feet of his father and mother.
When he has been seated, the mother and sisters come to
him and each in turn, placing both hands on his' shoulders,
' Chevalier Capt. P. Dillon, Narra- or New Zealand and its Inhabitants,
tive and Successful Result of a Voyage Second Edition (London, 1870), p. 222.
to the South Seas (London, 1829), i.
211 5^. ^ E. H. Man, On the Aboriginal
2 A. S. Thomson, The Story of Nezv Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,
Zealand (London, 1859), i. 200. Second Edition (London, N.D.), pp.
Compare R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, 79 sq.
Weeping as
a form of
salutation
and in
India.
CHAP. V WEEPING AS A SALUTATION 87
weeps loudly and in a wailing tone narrates anything special
that has taken place in his absence." ^ Among the Chauhans
of the Central Provinces in India etiquette requires that
women should weep whenever they meet relatives from a
distance. *' In such cases when two women see each other
they cry together, each placing her head on the other's
shoulder and her hands at her sides. While they cry they
change the position of their heads two or three times, and
each addresses the other according to their relationship, as
mother, sister, and so on. Or if any member of the family
has recently died, they call upon him or her, exclaiming ' O
my mother! O my sister! O my father! Why did not
I, unfortunate one, die instead of thee?' A woman when
weeping with a man holds to his sides and rests her head
against his breast. The man exclaims at intervals, ' Stop
crying, do not cry.' When two women are weeping together
it is a point of etiquette that the elder should stop first and
then beg her companion to do so, but if it is doubtful which
is the elder, they sometimes go on crying for an hour at a
time, exciting the younger spectators to mirth, until at length
some elder steps forward and tells one of them to stop." "
The custom of shedding floods of tears as a sign of Weepingas
welcome seems to have been common among the Indian Salutation
tribes of both South and North America.^ Among the among the
Tupis of Brazil, who inhabited the countr}' in the neighbour- gouih"^
hood of Rio de Janeiro, etiquette required that when a America
stranger entered the hut where he expected to receive
hospitality, he should seat himself in the hammock of his
host and remain there for some time in pensive silence.
Then the women of the house would approach, and sitting
down on the ground about the hammock, they would cover
their faces with their hands, burst into tears, and bid the
stranger welcome, weeping and paying him compliments in
the same breath. While these demonstrations were proceed-
ing, the stranger on his part was expected to weep in
' Rev. E. M. Gordon, " Notes con- Castes of the Central Provi7tces of India
cerning the people of Mungeli Tahsil, (London, 1916), ii. 428.
Bilaspore District," yw/rwa/ and Pro- ^ Much evidence of the custom is col-
ceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, lected by G. Friederici, " Der tranen-
New Series, i. (1905) p. 184. gruss der Indianer," Globus, Ixxxix.
'^ R. V. Russell, The Tribes and (1906) pp. 30-34.
88
JACOB AT THE WELL
Weeping
as a form of
salutation
among the
Indians of
North
America.
sympathy, or if he could not command real tears, the least he
could do was to heave deep sighs and to look as lugubrious
as possible. When these formalities, exacted by the Tupi
code of good manners, had been duly complied with, the host,
who had hitherto remained an apparently indifferent and
unconcerned spectator, would approach his guest and enter
into conversation with him.^ The Lenguas, an Indian tribe
of the Chaco, *' employ among themselves a singular form of
politeness when they see again any one after some time of
absence. It consists in this : the two Indians shed some
tears before they utter a word to each other ; to act other-
wise would be an insult, or at least a proof that the visit was
not welcome." ^
In the sixteenth century the Spanish explorer, Cabeca
de Vaca, describes a similar custom observed by two tribes
of Indians who inhabited an island off what seems to be
now the coast of Texas. " On the island," he says, " there
dwell two peoples speaking different languages, of whom the
one are called Capoques and the other Han. They have a
custom that when they know each other and see each other
from time to time, they weep for half an hour before they
speak to one another. Then the one who receives the visit
rises first and gives all he possesses to the other, who accepts
it and soon afterwards goes away ; sometimes even, after the
gift has been accepted, they go away without speaking a
word." ^ In the seventeenth century the French missionary,
L. Hennepin, has recorded a custom of the same sort among
the Sioux, though apparently he mistook these conventional
1 J. Lerius (Lery), Histona A^aviga-
Honis in Brasiliam quae ct America
dicihir (1586), pp. 251-253 ; Andre
Thevet, Les Singtilariiez de la Trance
Antarctique, Nouvelle Edition (Paris,
1878), pp. 225 sq. (fol. 85). Accord-
ing to Thevet, the host himself also
wept in sign of welcome, sitting in his
hammock. Compare Pero de Magal-
hanes de Gandavo, Histoire de la pro-
vince de Sancta- Cruz qtie nous nommons
ordinairenient le Bresil (Paris, 1837),
pp. 113 sq. (in H. Ternaux-Compans,
Voyages, Relations et Mdmoires origin-
aux pour scrvir a F Histoire de la Dhou-
verte de r Amirique) ; Yves d'Evreux,
Voyage dans le Norddu Bresil (Leipsic
and Paris, 1S64), pp. 37, 90, 220;
Francois Coreal, Voyages aux hides
Occidentales (Amsterdam, 1722), i.
236-238.
2 F. de Azara, Voyages dans
r Amirique Miridionale (Paris, 1809),
ii. 151.
3 Alvar Nunez Cabeza de V"aca,
"NaufragosyRelacion," in E. deVedia,
Historiado7-es Primitivos de Indias
(Madrid, 1852-1853), vol. i. p. 529,
cap. XV. ; id. in H. Ternaux-Compans,
Voyages, Relations et Mdtnoires Origin-
aux pour sei~vir a r Histoire de la Di.
couverte de P Avi^rique (PariSj 1837),
CHAP. V WEEPING AS A SALUTATION 89
tears at greeting for genuine expressions of sorrow. He tells
us how, during his captivit}- among the Indians, old men
came and wept copiously, putting their hands on his head
and rubbing his arms and the whole of his body. He did
not know what to make of it, but thought the old men might
be moved to compassion by the sight of the ill-treatment to
which he and his fellow-captives were subjected. He received
similar marks of regard on several occasions while he resided
with the Sioux. ^ Another Frenchman, Nicolas Perrot, who
lived among the Indians for many years in the latter part of
the seventeenth century, describes how a party of Sioux,
visiting a village of their friends the Ottawas, " had no sooner
arrived than they began, in accordance with custom, to weep
over all whom they met, in order to signify to them the
sensible joy they felt at having found them." "^ Indeed, the
Frenchman himself was more than once made the object, or
rather the victim, of the like doleful demonstrations. Being
sent by the governor of New France to treat with the Indian
tribes beyond the Mississippi, he took up his quarters on the
banks of that river, and there received an embassy from the
Ayeos, the neighbours and allies of the Sioux, whose village
lay some days to the westward, and who wished to enter
into friendly relations with the French. A French historian
has described the meeting of these Indian ambassadors with
poor Perrot. They wept over him till the tears ran down
their bodies ; they beslobbered him with the filth which
exuded from their mouths and their noses, smearing it on
his head, his face, and his clothes, till he was almost turned
sick by their caresses, while all the time they shrieked and
howled most lamentably. At last the present of a few
knives and awls had the effect of checking these noisy
pp. 1165^. Compare G. Friederici, I73i-i738),ix. 313^-^., 327. Hennepin
*' Der Tranengruss der Indianer," calls the Indians, among whom he was
Globus, Ixxxix. (1906) p. 32. From captive, the Nadouessiou or Nadousiouz,
the mishaps which they suffered on it, and of this name the ordinary form
the Spaniards named the island the Isle Sioux is merely an abbreviation. See
of Misfortune {Isla del Malhado). F. W. Hodge, Handbook of American
^ Le R. P. Louis Hennepin, De- Indians North of Mexico (V^'ashington,
scriptio7i de la Lcuisiane (Paris, 1688), 1907-1910), ii. 9, s.v. "Nadowa."
pp. 229 sq., 242, 245, 247. Compare - Nicolas Perrot, Memoire stir les
" Decouverte d'un pays plus grand que Alcettrs, Coustianes et Relligio7i des
I'Europe situe dans I'Amerique," Re- Sazcvages de FAmerigue Septentriouale
cueil de Voiages au Nord (Amsterdam, (Leipsic and Paris, 1864), p. 86.
90
JACOB AT THE WELL
Such
salutations
may be
intended
to form a
corporeal
union with
the person
saluted.
Ceremony
at the
initiation of
a scavenger
in the
Punjab.
effusions ; but having no interpreter with them, they were
quite unable to make themselves intelligible, and so had to
return the way they came without effecting their purpose.
A few days later four other Indians arrived, one of whom
spoke a language understood by the French. He explained
that their village was nine leagues up the river, and he
invited the French to visit it. The invitation was accepted.
At the approach of the strangers the women fled to the
woods and the mountains, weeping and stretching out their
arms to the sun. However, twenty of the chief men appeared,
offered Perrot the pipe of peace, and carried him on a
buffalo's skin into the chief's hut. Having deposited him
there, they and the chief proceeded to weep over him in the
usual way, bedewing his head with the moisture which
dripped from their eyes, their mouths, and their noses.
When that indispensable ceremony was over, they dried
their eyes and their noses, and offered him the pipe of peace
once more. " Never in the world," adds the French historian,
" were seen such people for weeping ; their meetings are
accompanied by tears, and their partings are equally tearful."^
Disgusting as such forms of salutation may seem to
us, it is not impossible that the application of all these
exudations to the person of the stranger was not a mere
accident, the effect of uncontrollable emotion, but that it
may have been seriously intended to form a corporeal as
well as a spiritual union with him by joining parts of their
body to his. At least this is suggested by a similar
ceremony which the Chuhras, the sweepers or scavengers of
the Punjab, perform over a candidate for admission to their
ignoble order. " Over a rectangular pit is put a cJidrpdi, and
1 De la Potherie, ii. 182-184, quoted
by J. Tailhan, in his notes to Nicolas
Perrot, Memoire stir les Mcetirs, Cotis-
ttiines et Rslliglon des Sauvages de
rAmeriqne Septentiionale (Leipsic and
Paris, 1864), pp. 197 sq. In the
account of the first interview which
Perrot had with these savages we read :
" lis abordh-ent Ic Francois [Penvt] eii
pleurant a chatides larmes qu'tls/ais-
oient couler dans lews inaitts avec de la
salive et autre sale/^ qui leur sortait du
nez, dont ils leur frottoient la iete, le
visage et les habits. Toutes ces caresses
ltd Jaisoient bondir le coeur. " Here the
context suggests that " ?7j leur frot-
toient la tete" etc., is a mistake for "?'/j
lui frottoient la tete," etc., and this is
confirmed by the account of Perrot's
second interview with the Indians :
" ce chef se ??iit a pleurer sur la tite en
la mouillant de ses larmes et des eatix,
qtii distilloient de sa bouche et du nez. "
Accordingly I have so understood and
paraphrased the first passage in the
text.
CHAP. V WEEPING AS A SALUTATION 91
beneath it the candidate is seated in the pit, while the
Chuhras sit on the chdrpdi. Each bathes in turn, clearing
his nose and spitting, so that all the water, etc., falls on to
the man in the pit. He is then allowed to come out and
seated on the chdrpdi. Aftei this all the Chuhrds wash his
body and eat with him, and then ask him to adopt their
profession." In explanation of this ceremony we are told
that " Chuhrds think that the dirt of their own bodies purifies
others, and they so remove it with their own hands. If a
man follows their occupation but does not undergo the
ordeal described above, they do not treat him as a Chuhra
or effect any relationship with him." ^ On this explanation
it may be observed that, while ideas of purification no doubt
differ widely in different peoples, it is difficult to believe that
a very high degree of ceremonial cleanliness can be regarded
as indispensable to any man who would engage in the
business of scavenging and sweeping the streets. It seems
more probable that the process of bedewing the candidate
vith the dirty water, spittle, and nasal excretion of other
scavengers is intended not so much to purge him from all
uncleanness as, on the contrary, to dirty him with the dirt of
his future colleagues, and, by sinking him to their level, to
make him one with them.
Certainly spittle has been employed as a bond of Use of
union by other peoples besides these Indian scavengers. fni'^a^jQ,'
For example, among the Baluba, a tribe of the Belgian intoasecret
Congo, a ceremony performed at initiating a candidate fj°^o^jj^ (j,g
into the secret order of sorcerers is as follows. A new Baiuba of
, , ... n 1 1-1 the Congo.
pot IS produced, contammg beer, Hour, and two kmds
of bark. Each sorcerer then spits into the pot, and the
candidate must swallow the contents of the pot without
wincing or pulling a wry face. When he has gulped it down,
the grand master addresses him, saying, " You have drunk
something of ourselves. Know that henceforth you will be
powerless to injure us by your charms, since after our death
we should be able to take vengeance and to come and seize
you." So saying he breaks the pot.^ Here the notion is
' H. A. Rose, Glossmy of the Tribes ^ H.TnUes,Le Toi^mzsmecAez/esTdii
and Castes of the Punjab and North- (Mlinster i. W. 19 1 2), p. 462, quoting
West Frontier Province, ii. (Lahcirc, P. Colle, in Btilletin des Phrs Planes,
191 1) p. 192. Anveis, 15 Aout 1908, pp. 229 sqq.
92 JACOB AT THE WELL part ii
that spittle, being part of a man, confers on the spitter
a magical power over him who has swallowed it. The
case thus falls under the general head of Contagious
Magic.^ Hence it is natural that spittle, as a part of
the person, should be used like blood to form the cement
of a binding covenant. It is so used, for example, by
Use of the Wachaga of East Africa. When two persons of that
covenant- tribe wish to make a solemn agreement which will be
ing and obligatory on both parties, they sit down on a hide with
among a vessel of milk or beer between them. Each of them
tribes of then utters the oath, waving a stick in a circle over the
East Africa ,..,-.-.. , ... , , . ,
liquid. Having done so, each ot them takes a mouthful
of the milk or beer and spits it into the mouth of the other,
or they both spit the mouthful back into the vessel, and then
drink the contents of the vessel together. They believe that
should either of them forswear himself, the liquid which he has
swallowed will kill him. If the matter is pressing and there
is no time for these formalities, the two covenanters will
simply spit into each other's mouths, and this answers the
purpose of giving a guarantee of good faith equally well.
In whichever form the covenant is concluded, the spittle
which passes from the body of the one covenanter into the
body of the other is conceived as the magical substance
which ensures the fulfilment of the agreement.^ The Nandi
of British East Africa similarly make use of spittle in ratify-
ing agreements and imparting blessings. Thus in con-
cluding a covenant of peace or arranging a marriage, both
parties spit to make sure that the pact will be kept ; and
when a man has sold cattle, grain, or household utensils, he
spits to show that the sale is complete. Again, old people
and warriors often spit on children when they greet them ;
and a dying father, uncle, or elder will spit in a boy's hand
when the lad comes to bid him farewell, and the grateful
youth will rub the dying man's spittle on his face.^ So
among the Masai of British East Africa, when small
children salute very old men, the greybeards spit on them,
^ The Magic Art and Ihe Evohitioi fur Religioiiswissenschaft, x. (1907)
of Kings, i. 53 sq., 174 sqq. {The pp. 290 jy.
Golden Bough, Third Edition, Part i. ).
- J. Raum, " Blut- und Speichel- ■'' A. C. Hollis, The Nandi (Oxford,
blinde bei den Wadschagga," Archiv 1909), pp. 78 sq.
CHAP. V WEEPING AS A SALUTATION 93
saj'ing, " May God give you long life and grey hairs like
mine." ^ Among the Suk, another tribe of British East
Africa, before a man shakes hands with you he spits on his
hands.^ " Not only amongst the Masai, but in the allied
Nandi and Suk peoples, to spit at a person is a very great
compliment. The earlier travellers in Masailand were
astonished, when making friendship with old Masai chiefs
and head-men, to be constantly spat at. When I entered
the Uganda Protectorate and met the Masai of the Rift
Valley for the first time, every man, before extending his
hand to me, would spit on the palm." ^ At Orango, in the
Bissagos Archipelago, when two men wish to make friends,
they spit into each other's hands,* probably as a guarantee
of mutual confidence and good faith, since in so doing each
of them, on the principles of sympathetic magic, places
himself at the mercy of the other by entrusting him with a
vital portion of himself.
Such modes of salutation, and of cementing friendship, Thesprings
however kindly meant, appear at least as strange to °f^*^frsand
Europeans as the tears which the demonstrative savage
sheds at meeting and parting. Perhaps they cannot be
fully understood till science has determined more exactly
the laws, based on our physical and mental constitution,
which govern the expression of the emotions and the
dift'erent degrees of emotional susceptibility in the different
races of man. But to engage in such an inquiry would be
to outstep the limits of folk-lore, and to trespass on the
spheres of those other, though kindred, studies which take
for their provinces the human body and mind. The springs
of tears and laughter, we are told, lie not far apart, yet they
remain enveloped in a mystery more baffling than that which
so long shrouded the sources of the Isile. In truth, it is
easier for man to ascertain the facts and operations of external
nature than to understand himself.
^ A. C. Hollis, The Masai {OnSoxfS., Protectorate, Second Edition (London,
1905), P- 316. 1904), ii. 833.
2 Mervyn W. H. Beech, The Suk,
their Language and Folklore (Oxford, * C. de Mensignac, Recherches
191 1 ), p. 25. Ethnographiques stir la Salive et le
* Sir Harry Johnston, The Uganda Ciachat (Bordeaux, 1892), p. 22.
CHAPTER VI
JACOB S MARRIAGE
Different
motives
assigned
by the
Biblical
writers for
Jacob's
journey to
Haran.
^ I . Jacob and his tivo Wives
Of the motives which induced Jacob to undertake the long
journey to Haran, two very different accounts are given
in Genesis. xA.ccording to one account, which we owe mainly
or entirely to the Jehovistic writer, Jacob fled to his uncle
Laban in Haran in order to escape the vengeance of his
brother Esau, whom he had angered by supplanting him in
the inheritance and the blessing of their father Isaac, and he
purposed to stay only a {qw days with his kinsfolk in the far
country till his brother's hot anger against him had cooled.^
According to the other account, which we owe to the Priestly
writer alone, Jacob was sent by his parents to find a wife for
himself among his kinsfolk in Haran, because they did not
wish him to marry one of the strange Hittite women of
Canaan.^ As the Priestly writer composed his history of the
patriarchal age several centuries after the Jehovistic writer,^
it is reasonable to suppose that, viewing the old narratives
from the standpoint of a higher morality, he was shocked
at the cheat said to have been practised by Jacob on his
elder brother, and that he endeavoured to put a more
favourable colour on the patriarch's journey to Haran by
representing it, not as a flight to escape the just anger
of an injured brother, but as a mission to fulfil a pious
1 Genesis xxv. 29-34, xxvii. 1-45.
The latter narrative is commonly sup-
posed by critics to be a compilation
from the Jehovistic and Elohistic docu-
ments, but there is no general agree-
ment as to the analysis of the two
sources. S. R. Driver held that " the
narrative belongs chiefly, if not entirely,
to J " (The Book of Genesis, ^^ p. 255).
2 Genesis xxvii. 46-xxviii. 7.
^ See above, vol. i. p. 131.
94
CHAP. VI JACOB AND HIS TWO WIVES 95
duty, on which he was sent with the approval and blessing
of his parents.
Whatever may have been the feeling in earlier days, we Aversion of
know that after the Babylonian captivity the current of \^^^^ 1"^^^
popular opinion among the Jews ran strongly against mar- tomamage
riages with women of foreign blood, particularly with women sn'ange
of the old Canaanite stock, whom now, perhaps, more than women,
ever, they viewed askance as heathens and enemies of the women of
national God Jehovah. After the return of the exiles to 'he old
- . Canaanite
Jerusalem it was a matter of bitter self-reproach to tiiem stock.
that many of their number had married " strange women of
the peoples of the land " ; and in a national assembly, held
in the great square before the ruined temple, the repentant
sinners made public confession of their guilt, and resolved to
put away their foreign wives and the children whom they had
by them. It was a strange scene. The return of the banished
people fell at the beginning of the rainy season in autumn ;
and as the multitude sat crowded there together in the vast
square, surrounded by the blackened ruins of the temple and
of the city, the sky above them was dark with clouds, and
the rain descended in sheets. Drenched and chilled they
wept and shivered, less at the cold and the wet than at
the thought of the divine wrath which they had incurred by
their imprudent marriages, and which manifested itself even
to the most sceptical in the nipping air and the driving rain.
Many, perhaps most, of the exiles had never seen Jerusalem
before ; they had been born and bred by the broad, willow-
fringed waters of Babylon, and coming straight from the
burning heat and cloudless summer sky of that foreign, yet,
to many of them, native land, they must have been sadly
disenchanted by the first view of Zion, the city of which their
fathers had told them so much, and to which their thoughts
and hearts had longingly- turned for so many years. It had
been pictured to them as a sort of earthly paradise, the
chosen home of God himself, the joy and pride of the whole
earth. And this was the reality ! this was Jerusalem !
Those fallen walls ! those blackened and crumbling ruins !
yon bleak and frowning mountains ! that lowering sky ! that
torrential rain ! How many of the exiles may not have
secretly yearned to return to the land of their banishment and
96
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
Priestly
writer's
account of
Jacob's
marriage
coloured by
the late
Jewish
aversion to
marriage
with
strange
women.
of their birth, on whose willow-trees they had hung their
harps, and perhaps, though they hardly knew it, their hearts
also.^
In these days of national humiliation and repentance,
when the Jews ascribed the disasters that had overwhelmed
their country to the defilement which they had contracted
by contamination with the Canaanites, the Priestly writer
composed the history of his nation ; and the whole work
reflects the current spirit of the age. It was the time when,
smarting under the bitter disappointment of their secular
ambitions, the people sought for consolation in the spiritual
sphere by dedicating themselves wholly to the worship of God
and separating themselves more sharply than ever from the
alien races which surrounded them, and in which the leaders
of the people beheld the source of all their misfortunes.
No wonder that, writing in such an age, the Priestly his-
torian should have remembered that Jacob in Palestine,
like Abraham and Isaac before him, was a sojourner in a
strange land, and believing that his parents must have been
loath to see him wedded to a native wife, should have
assigned that reluctance as their true motive for sending
him away for a time to their kinsfolk in Haran. The
ascription of this motive to Isaac and Rebekah was all the
more natural, because the Priestly writer did not invent the
marriage of Jacob with his cousins Leah and Rachel, but
found it recorded in the earlier sources on which he drew.
For the beautiful narrative of Jacob's love and marriage is
from the pen of the much earlier Jehovistic and Elohistic
writers ; the dull Priestly historian has accepted the
narrative at their hands, and has merely done his best to
spoil the romantic colouring of the story by representing the
marriage, not as one of love at first sight, but as a mere
manage de convenance which Jacob contracted, not as an
ardent lover, but as a dutiful son acting in obedience to
the wishes of his parents. It is thus that a tincture of
ethical theory, infused into the magic glass of old romance,
can precipitate the prismatic hues of poetry into a grey
powder of prose at the bottom.
Still, whatever motive may have led Jacob to Haran,
' Ezra ix.-x.
CHAP. VI JACOB AND HIS TWO WIVES 97
whether the fear of an angry brother, or the prospect of a The story
blooming bride, we may take it as certain that accordin"- to °Oacob's
Israelitish tradition he married his two cousins, Leah and reflects
Rachel, the daughters of Laban, his mother's brother, and '^'f^'^^^^
. observed at
that he had these two sisters to wife simultaneously, in marriage
their lifetime, having first wedded the elder, whom he did rJc^s^"^
not love, and afterwards the younger, whom he did love, many parts
because the custom of the country forbade a younger sister °orid.
to marry before her elder sister. Further, we learn that
Jacob served Laban, his mother's brother and his father-in-
law in one, for many years in tlie capacity of a shepherd
and goatherd ; and that he regarded his two wives and their "
children as the wages which he received for his long period
of service.^ In all these respects the story of Jacob's
marriage, whether strictly historical or not, reflects the
customs which have been observed at marriage by many
more or less primitive peoples in many parts of the world ;
and accordingly we may fairly suppose that at an early
stage of their history similar customs were practised by the
Israelites, although in later ages they fell into abeyance.
The customs in question may conveniently be distinguished
as three in number, namely : first, marriage with a cousin,
and in particular the marriage of a man with his mother's
brother's daughter, or, to put it conversely, the marriage of
a woman with her father's sister's son ; second, the marriage
of a man with two sisters in their lifetime, the elder sister
being married before the younger ; and third, the prac-
tice of a son-in-law serving his father-in-law for a wife.
All three customs I propose to illustrate by examples,
and afterwards to inquire into their origin and mean-
ing. Although in doing so we shall wander far from our
immediate subject, which is the folk-lore of ancient Israel,
the excursion may be pardoned if it sheds a sober light on
the exquisite pictures of the patriarchal age in Genesis, and
thereby helps to reveal the depth and solidity of the human
background against which the figures of the patriarchs are
painted.
In this inquiry we shall begin with the marriage of
cousins.
* Genesis xxix.-xxxi.
VOL. II li
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Mnny races
distinguish
between
cross-
cousins (the
children of
a brother
and a sister
respect-
ively),
who are
marriage-
able, and
ortho-
cousins ( the
children
of two
brothers
or of
two sisters),
who are not
marriage-
able.
Further
distinction
drawn by
some races
between
cross-
cousins.
\ 2. The Marriage of Cousins
Many races draw what may seem to Europeans a curi-
ous and superfluous distinction between cousins. They think
that cousins who are the offspring of either two brothers
or of two sisters stand on a wholly different footing from
cousins who are the offspring of a brother and a sister,
that is, cousins so related that the father of the one
cousin is the mother's brother of the other cousin, or, to
put it conversely, cousins so related that the mother of the
one cousin is the father's sister of the other cousin. And
on the sharp distinction drawn between these two classes
of cousins the same races generally found a» correspond-
ing distinction in respect of marriageability ; for while they
strictly forbid marriage between cousins who are the chil-
dren of two brothers or of two sisters, they allow or even
strongly recommend marriage between cousins who are the
children of a brother and a sister respectively, in other words,
between cousins who are so related that the father of the
one cousin is the mother's brother of the other cousin, or,
to put it conversely, between cousins so related that the
mother of the one cousin is the father's sister of the other
cousin. It is convenient to have names to distinguish the
two classes of cousins, the marriageable and the unmarriage-
able, from each other ; and accordingly it has become
customary to call the marriageable cousins cross-cousins,
because, being the children of a brother and a sister respect-
ively, the related parents are of opposite or cross sexes.
There has hithero been no special name for the unmarriage-
able cousins, the children of two brothers or of two sisters,
but for convenience I propose to call them ortho-cousins to
distinguish them from cross-cousins. In the case of ortho-
cousins the related parents are of the same sex, whether
both male or both female ; whereas in the case of cross-
cousins the related parents are of opposite sexes, the one
being male and the other female.
Even among cross-cousins, the children of a brother
and a sister respectively, certain races draw a distinction
in respect of marriageability ; for some people allow a man
to marry his mother's brother's daughter but forbid him to
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 99
marry his father's sister's daughter, whereas, conversely,
some people allow a man to marry his father's sister's
daughter but forbid him to marry his mother's brother's
daughter. Where this distinction is drawn, it is usually
the mother's brother's daughter who is allowed, and the
father's sister's daughter who is forbidden. More com-
monly, however, no such distinction is drawn between cross-
cousins, and all are allowed to marry each other indiffer-
ently ; in other words, a man is free to marry the daughter
either of his mother's brother or of his father's sister, and
a woman is free to marr\' the son either of her father's
sister or of her mother's brother.
S 3 . TJie Marriage of Cousins in India ^
When the Aryans entered India from the north-west and Distinction
gradually spread over the vast plains of the Punjab and ofcoTsln
Bengal, they encountered and drove before them southward marriage
. , - , . , . , between
into the mountams those races 01 swarthier complexion and the Aryans
coarser features whose descendants still occupy a great part ^"^ ^'^^^
,..,.,, aborigines
of the peninsula. Among these aboriginal tribes the con- of India,
quering immigrants observed the custom of marriage between
cross-cousins. For in an ancient law-book, drawn up some
centuries before our era for the use of the Aryans of India,
a sharp distinction is drawn between the customs pre-
valent in the north and in the south, and among the usages
characteristic of the south are mentioned the practices of
eating in the company of uninitiated persons, of eating in
the company of a man's wife, and of marrying a cousin, the
daughter either of a mother's brother or of a father's sister.
The comments of the writer who records these customs seem
to show that in his age opinions differed as to the legality of
the practices in question, for while some people held them
to be lawful within the countries where they prevailed, others
condemned them everywhere." At a later time Hindoo
' The subject of cousin marriages in - Baudhayana, I. i. 2, in The Sacred
India has been discussed by Dr. La7vs of the Aryas, translated by G.
W. H. R. Rivers in a Aery lucid and Biihler, Part ii. (Oxford, 1882) pp.
instructive essay, "The Alarriage of 146-149 {Sacred Books of the East,
Qowims '\n\nd\3i," Jownal of the lioyal vol. xiv.). Professor Btihler would
Asiatic Society, July 1 907, pp. 61 1- apparently date Baudhayana some-
640, where between 700 and 550 B.C. See
loo JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
Marriage opinion as to the marriage of cousins hardened and crystal-
forWdde'n li^cd into an absolute condemnation. In the great metrical
by Hindoo law-book known as The Laws of Manu, which may have
a^nci'ent and assumed its final form about two hundred years after the
modern. beginning of our era,^ it is expressly laid down that " he who
has approached the daughter of his father's sister, (who is
almost equal to) a sister, (the daughter) of his mother's
sister, or of his mother's full brother, shall perform a lunar
penance. A wise man should not take as his wife any of
these three ; they must not be wedded because they are
{Sapinda-) relatives, he who marries (one of them) sinks
low." ' So to this day among Hindoos the marriage of all
first cousins is strictly barred by the rule recorded in a
common formula : chacherd, mameru, p/mphera, inusera, ye
char ndtd bacJidke sJiadi hoti hai, " the line of paternal uncle,
maternal uncle, paternal aunt, maternal aunt, these four
relationships are to be avoided in marriage." ^
Among the The line of cleavage in this respect between the invading
of India to Aryans and the aboriginal races persists to a great extent
this day ^o this day; for among many of these aborigines the mar-
withacross- riagc of a man with his cousin, the daughter of his mother's
cousm, the brother or of his father's sister, is still not only allowed but
daughter of . •'
a mother's cven preferred to all others; in some tribes and castes the
^f°Mh°^' "^^" ^^^ ^ right to marry the girl, and can claim compensa-
sister, is tion if slie is given in marriage to anybody else. And while
prefeiredm ^^^^ preference wavers in different places between the mother's
all others, brother's daughter and the father's sister's daughter as the
most suitable wife for a man, on the whole the balance of
opinion appears to preponderate decidedly in favour of union
his discussion, op. cit. pp. xxxv sqq, ; translated by G. Biihler (Oxford, 1886),
and The Saa-ed Laws of the Aryas, p. 466 [Sacred Books of the East, vol.
Part i. (Oxford, 1879) pp. xxii, xliii xxv. ).
(Sacre(^ Books of the East, vol. ii. ). A
somewhat later date (500-200 B.C.) is 3 sir Herbert Risley, The People of
assigned by Professor A. A. Macdonell India, Second Edition, edited by W.
to the class of legal works to which Crooke (Calcutta, Simla, and London,
Baudhayana's book belongs. See The 19 1 5), p. 162. The use of this for-
It?iperial Gazetteer of India, The Indian mula, as a reminder of the prohibited
Empire (Oxford, 1909), ii. 232. degrees, seems to be widespread in
^ A. A. Macdonell, in The Imperial Northern India. See W. Crooke,
Gazetteer of India, The Indian Empire Tribes and Castes of the North- Western
(Oxford, 1909), ii. 262. Pt-or'inces and Oudh (Calcutta, 1896),
2 The Laws of Manu, xi. 172 sq., ii. 217, iii. 417
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA loi
with the mother's brother's daughter, the match of which
Jacob's marriage with his mother's brother's daughters, Leah
and Rachel, is the typical instance. And since on the whole
the Aryan invasion has been confined to the north of India,
while the great mass of the black aboriginal population
remains entrenched in the south, it is in the south that the
marriage of cousins continues to prevail ; indeed it has
there gained a footing even among classes, which claim,
rightly or wrongly, to be Brahmans. On this subject Mr.
Edgar Thurston observes, " It is a prevalent custom through-
out Southern India that a girl's father's sister's son has the
first right to her hand in marriage. This obtains not only
among the Dravidian peoples, but also among Brahmans.
The Malayalam word for son-in-law {marumakan) means
nephew. If a stranger should marry a girl, he also is called
nephew. But the unmarried nephew, having the first
admitted right to the girl, must be paid eight annas, or two
faaams, before he will allow her to be taken away. The
argument is said to be as follows. A sister pays forty-two
fanams as kanam for her brother's wife. When the product,
i.e. a. daughter, is transferred to a stranger, the son claims
compensation on his mother's investment at the same rate
as that at which a coco-nut tree is valued — eight annas.
At all events, the nephew has the first right to a girl, and
must be compensated before she can be taken away by
another." ^
Too much stress need not be laid on the commercial Marriage
theory which equates a girl to a coco-nut tree; for it is l^jgl^j^g^.g
obviously the afterthought of a business age which seeks to brother's
reduce the old ties of blood to their exact equivalents in p^e^knUr
pounds, shillings, and pence, or rather in annas and fa7iains. Southern
The calculation may be neglected, but the fact should be " ' '
borne in mind that, broadly speaking, all over Southern
India a man has a right to the hand of his mother's brother's
daughter, and must be compensated if she is given to
another ; and that in this region the custom in question is
not confined to the aboriginal population, but extends to
classes who, claiming to rank as Brahmans, implicitly assert
their descent from the Aryan race.
^ E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India (Madras, 1909), vii. 60.
I02 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
Cross- Conspicuous among the indigenous tribes of India who
cousin gj.jjj fayQur t;he marriage of cross-cousins, are the Dravidians,
among the the short, black, long-headed, broad-nosed people who occupy
lans. ^ la^j-gg pa^jt Qf Southern and Central India from Ceylon to
the valley of the Ganges and probably represent the earliest
inhabitants of the peninsula of whom we have any know-
Cross- ledge.^ To this ancient stock appear to belong the Veddas,
cousin ^ primitive triLe of hunters now greatly reduced in numbers
marriage ^ o j
in Ceylon and rapidly dying out, who roam the dense jungles and
Cochin forests of Ceylon.^ Now kinship among the Veddas is
based on the marriage of cross-cousins, that is, on the
marriage of a man either with the daughter of his mother's
brother or with the daughter of his father's sister ; and while
both forms of marriage occur, there is some evidence to show
that marriage with the mother's brother's daughter is pre-
ferred ; according to one statement, the most correct marriage
of all is that with the daughter of the mother's younger
brother.^ Among the Singhalese of Ceylon the most proper
marriage which a man can contract is that with his first
cousin, the daughter either of his mother's brother or of his
father's sister. On the other hand he may not marry his
first cousin, the daughter of his father's brother ; such a
union would be accounted incestuous/ Similarly among
^ the Mohammedans of Ceylon preference is given to marriage
with the daughter either of a mother's brother or of a father's
sister.^ In the State of Cochin, near the southern extremity
of India, "the best form of marriage, among all castes below
Brahmans, is where a young man marries the daughter of
his maternal uncle, over whom he has a preferential claim." ^
^ The Imperial Gazetteer of India, Seligmann, The Veddas, pp. 64 sq.
The Indian Empire (Oxford, 1909), * J. Bailey, "An Account of the
i. 296-299. Wild Tribes of the Veddahs of Ceylon,"
2 In the opinion of Dr. and Mrs. Transactions of the Etli7iological Society
C. G. Seligmann, who have made a of London, N.S. ii. (London, 1863) p.
careful study of the tribe, the Veddas 294.
belong to "the same race as the so- ^ "The Marriage Customs of the
called Dravidian jungle tribes of Moors of Ceylon," Tlie Folk-lore
Southern India," though they have Journal, vi. (1S88) p. 140.
long lost the Dravidian language and •* L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, Tl,e
speak a dialect of Singhalese. See Cochin Tribes and Castes (Madras,
C. G. Seligmann and Brenda Z. Selig- 1909- 1912), i. 282. The writer is
mann, The Veddas (Cambridge, 1911), here speaking particularly of the Izhu-
pp. 380 sqq., 413 sqq. vans, 1 11a vans, or Tiyyans, a tribe
^ C. G. Seligmann and Brenda Z. widely spread in Malabar, Cochin, and
i
CHAi'. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 103
For example, among the Kadars or Kadirs, a very primitive
tribe in tlie forests and jungles of Cochin and Travancore,
who speak a Dravidian dialect but may have negrito blood
in their veins, " marriage between persons descended in a
direct line from the same parents is forbidden, if the relation-
ship can be traced, but to some extent the custom prevails
among them of a man's marrying the daughter of his
maternal uncle." At the same time, while he is allowed or
encouraged to marry the daughter of his mother's brother, he
is forbidden to marry the daughter of his father's sister.^
Similar customs in regard to the marriage of cousins Cross-
prevail among the Todas, a primitive pastoral tribe of the ^^rda2(?
Neilgherry Hills in Southern India, who resemble the primi- among the
tive Kadars in speaking a Dravidian tongue, but differ from ^^^^
them very widely in physical type, mode of life, and natural Neilgherry
surroundings. In this remarkable tribe, whose racial affinities southern
are still very obscure, a man's proper wife, the woman whom '"'^'^•
he ought to marry, is his first cousin, the daughter of his
mother's brother or of his father's sister. But he is forbidden
to marry his other first cousins, what I have called his ortho-
cousins, namely the daughters of his father's brothers or of
his mother's sisters. These latter cousins he includes under
the general term piiliol, which he applies to all the relatives
with whom, by the custom of the tribe, he is prohibited from
contracting marriage. And because he commonly marries
the daughter of his mother's brother, he applies one and the
same term (iniin) to his mother's brother and to his father-
in-law, even in cases where his father-in-law happens not to
be his actual mother's ■ brother. And similarly, because he
commonly marries the daughter of his father's sister, he
applies the same term {viiivii) to his father's sister and to his
mother-in-law.^ It may be objected that though a man may
Travancore, but his remark appears ^ w_ fj_ j^_ Rivers, The Todas
to apply to all the tribes of Cochin. (London, 1906), pp. 487 i"^., 502, 509,
Compare further his work, vol. i. p. ^12 sq. Compare ?V/. " The Marriage
74, vol. ii. pp. 105, 349, 367, 376, of Cousins in India," Journal of the
380. Royal Asiatic Society, July 1907, pp.
' L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, The 612, 619 sq. As to the language of
Cochin Tribes and Castes, i. 4 sq. As the Todas and the difficult question of
to this tribe see further E.Thurston, their racial affinity, see \V. II. R,
Castes and Tribes of Southern India Rivers, The Todas, pp. 602 sqq., 693
(Madras, 1909), iii. 6 sqq. sqq.
I04 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
marry either his mother's brother's daughter or his father's
sister's daughter, he does not marry them both, and that
accordingly he ought not at the same time to call his father-
in-law his mother's brother and his mother-in-law his father's
sister. The answer to this is that, in a case of fundamental
importance for the understanding of the whole subject, a
man's father-in-law and mother-in-law are simultaneously
his mother's brother and his father's sister. The case is that
in which two men exchange their sisters in marriage, and
the cousins, the offspring of these two marriages, again
intermarry ; for in that case the male cousin marries a
female cousin who is at once the daughter of his mother's
brother and the daughter of his father's sister. In other
words, his wife is simultaneously his mother's brother's
daughter and his father's sister's daughter ; and simultane-
ously his father-in-law is his mother's brother, and his
mother-in-law is his father's sister. Later on we shall see
reason to believe that this excliange of sisters in marriage is
the root from which the whole widely ramified system of
cross-cousin marriage springs.
Cross- The practice of marriage between cross -cousins is
'^°"^'." common in both the great branches of the Dravidian race
marriage o
common to whi'ch spcak the Tamil and Telugu languages respectively.
andTeiu'c^u Tamil is, roughly speaking, the language of the northern
branches part of Ccylou and the southern part of India, as far north
Dravidian as Mysore and the Ghauts on the west and the city of
race. Madras or somewhat beyond it on the east. Telugu is the
principal form of speech in the eastern part of the Indian
peninsula from Madras to near Orissa. It is also spoken in
the east of the Nizam's dominions and in the extreme south
of the Central Provinces, extending into Berar,^ I will give
examples of cross-cousin marriage among both these branches
of the Dravidian family, beginning with the Tamil-speaking
people.
Cross- The Kalians of Madura and Tinnevelly, in the extreme
marriage soutli-cast of India, are a Tamil caste who used to be notori-
among the ous for their robberies and other crimes of violence. With
The regard to their marriage customs, " the most proper alliance
Kalians.
' The Iviperial Gazetteer of India, The Indian Empire (Oxford, 1 909), i.
380 sq.
ciiAi'. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 105
in the opinion of a Kalian is one between a man and the
daughter of his father's sister ; and if an individual have
such a cousin, he must marry her, whatever disparity there
may be between their respective ages. A boy of fifteen
must marry such a cousin, even if she be thirty or forty
years old, if her father insists upon him so doing. Failing
a cousin of this sort* he must marry his aunt or his niece or
any near relative." ^ We shall meet with other instances of
Indian castes in which marriage with a niece, the daughter
of a sister, is an alternative to marriage with a cross-cousin
and is even sometimes preferred to it. Not only has a
Kalian the first claim to the hand of his father's sister's
daughter in marriage, but if she is given to wife to any one
else, he can exact as compensation from her mother, his
father's sister, the sum which the mother received as dowry
at her own marriage.^ Similarly among the Nattamans or The
Udaiyans, a caste of Tamil cultivators in Tanjore, Trichino- ^^^ ^"'^"s
poly, and Madura, " a man has a right to marry the daughter Udaiyans.
of his father's sister, and if she is given to another man the
father's sister has to return to her father or brother the
dowry which she received at the time of her marriage, and
this is given to the man who had the claim upon the girl." ^
Again, among the Vallambans, a small caste of Tamil culti- The
vators in the Tanjore, Trichinopoly, and Madura districts of ban'r""
Southern India, a boy may claim as his right the hand either
"^ '\.Yi.'^&\%ov\., The Madura Coimtry, or "his father's sister's husband,"
a Manual compiled by Order of the though this involves a mere repetitior
Madras Government (Madras, 1868), of the statement which the writer had
Part ii. pp. 50 sq. Compare Edgar already made as to the obligation laid
Thurston, Castes and Tribes ofSotdhern on a man to marry his father's sister's
/wa'za (Madras, 1909), iii. 76 .yi7. Mr. daughter, " if her father insists upon
Nelson adds, " If his father's brother him so doing." Compare E. Thur-
has a daughter, and insists upon him ston, Ethnographic N'otes in Southern
marrying her, he cannot refuse: and India (Madras, 1906), p. 53; and as
this whatever may be the woman's age." to the Kalians, see id.. Castes and
But marriage with the daughter of a Tribes of Southern India, iii. 53 sqq.
father's brother stands on a totally - Censjts of India, igoi, vol. xv.
different footing from marriage with Mcuiras, Part i. Report, by W. Francis
the daughter of a father's sister; and (Madras, 1902), p. 158.
people who permit or even encourage '^ Census of India, igoi, vol. xv.
the latter marriage, generally prohibit Madras, Part i. Report, by W. Francis
the former. Hence we may suppose (Madras, 1902), p. 169. As to the
that in the passage which I have just Nattamans or Udaiyans, see E. Thurs-
quotedthe words " his father's brother " ton, Castes and Tribes of Southern
are a mistake for "his father's sister" India, vii. 206 sqq.
lo6
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Vellalas.
of his father's sister's daughter or of his mother's brother's
daughter, so that a boy of ten may be wedded to a mature
woman of twenty or twenty-five years, if she happens to be
unmarried and without issue. In case of such a great dis-
crepancy of age between husband and wife, any elderly
male member of the youthful bridegroom's family — his elder
brother, uncle, or even his father — will Have intercourse with
the bride and beget children by her, and these children the
boy, when he comes of age, will accept as his own and
TheKonga legitimatize.^ Similarly among the Konga Vellalas, a caste
of Tamil cultivators in Trichinopoly, " the most desirable
match for a boy is his maternal uncle's daughter. To such
an extent is the preference for such unions carried out, that
a young boy is often married to a grown-up woman, and it
is admitted that, in such cases, the boy's father takes upon
himself the duties of a husband until his son has reached
maturity, and that the wife is allowed to consort with any
one belonging to the caste whom she may fancy, provided
that she continues to live in her husband's house." ^ Among
the Nanchinad Vellalas of Travancore, the extreme southern
country of India, a man's legitimate wife is either the daughter
of his father's sister or the daughter of his mother's brother.^
TheNattu- Again, among the Nattukottai Chettis, a wealthy caste of
i^?"^'. c money-lenders in Madura, who have been called the Tews of
Chettis, &c. ■' _ ' _ _ -'
South India, every man "is said to have the inviolable right
to claim the hand of his paternal aunt's daughter. This
being so, ill-assorted marriages are quite common, the puta-
tive father being often but a child." ^ The right to marry
the daughter of a father's sister is also recognized among the
The
Nanchinad
Vellalas.
1 E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Sotithern India, vii. 300 sq., quoting
Manual of the Madura District. Com-
pare id. , Ethnograpliic A'oles in Southern
India, pp. 53 sq.
2 E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, iii. 418. The Vellalas,
of whom the Kongas are a branch, "are
the great cultivating caste of the Tamil
country, and by general consent the
first place in social esteem among the
Tamil Sudra castes is awarded to them."
They number over two and a quarter
millions, and are dispersed all over the
Madras Presidency. See Census of
India, igoi, vol. xv. Madras, Part i.
Kepoi-t, by W. Francis (Madras, 1902),
p. 183.
^ E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, v. 244.
* E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, v. 265. As to this
caste, see Census of India, igoi, vol.
XV. Madi-as, Part i. Report, by W.
Francis (Madras, 1902), pp. 149 sq.
It is not e.xpressly said that the caste is
Tamil, but from its geographical posi-
tion in the heart of the Tamil country,
I assume that it is so.
I
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 107
Pudunattu Idaiyans, a Tamil caste of shepherds in the
Madura district/ among the Kottai Vellalas of Tinne-
velly,^ among the Uppilyans, a Tamil caste of salt-makers,
found all over the Madras Presidency,^ and among the
Vannans, the washermen of the Tamil and Malayalam
countries.'*
The Gurukkals or Kurukkals, who are priests of Tamil Cross-
origin in Travancore, consider that the most proper wife for ^°"^'"
... ... r r marriage
a man is his cousin, the daughter either of his mother's among the
brother or of his father's sister.^ Among the Mondis, a ^"["•^•^^'^
«=> ' and
Tamil-speaking class of mendicants, " in the North Arcot Mondis.
district, it is customary for a man to marry his maternal
uncle's daughter, and in the Madura district a man can
claim his paternal aunt's daughter in marriage." ^ Thus,
some of these beggars seem to prefer marriage with a
mother's brother's daughter, while others look upon a father's
sister's daughter as a man's proper wife. The Maravars or The
Maravans are a turbulent Dravidian tribe of Madura and '"^la^^a-^^rs
or
Tinnevelly, who have been little affected by Brahmanical Maravans.
influence and were formerly notorious for their crimes of
violence and cattle-lifting, at which they were and are ex-
tremely expert. Among them cousins, the children of two
brothers, are not allowed to marry each other ; but on the
other hand cousins, the children of a brother and a sister
respectively, not only may but should marry each other, if
it can be arranged." The Paraiyans are a low caste of The
agricultural labourers, widely spread over the Tamil country, P^^'^iyans.
from North Arcot to Tinnevelly, and inhabiting the southern
extremity of the Native State of Travancore. Among them
it is a rule that " the bridegroom must be older than the
bride. Subject to this condition, it is usual for a youth to
marry his father's sister's daughter, or his mother's brother's
daughter. A girl should be married to her mother's brother's
son if he is old enough, but not, as among the Konga
1 E. Thurston, Castes ami Tribes of "^ E. Thurston, op. cit. v. 73.
Southern India^n. 1<,(i. "^ F. Fawcett, "The Kondayam-
E. Thurston, op. cit. iv. 35. kottai Maravars, a Dravidian tribe of
3 E. Thurston, op. cit. vii. 22S v^., • Tjnnevelly Southern Ir^^v^^ Journal
oj the Aittliropological Institute, xxxiii,
\'' „, . .. (1903) P- 62. As to the tribe see
E. Thurston, op. cit. vii. 317. further E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes
6 E. Thurston, op. cit. ii. 311. of Southern India, v. 22 sqg.
io8
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross-
cousin
marriage
Yerukalas.
Vellalas and some Reddis, if he is a child. In short,
Paraiyans follow the usual Tamil custom, but it is often
neglected." ^
The Koravas, Kuravas, Koramas, Korachas, Yerkalas, or
Yerukalas are a ubiquitous set of vagrant and light-fingered
among the gentry, found all over the Tamil country, who earn their
Korachas, bread by the precarious resources of fortune-telling, tattooing,
quack medicine, and petty larceny. When railways spread
over India, the Koravas seized the opportunity to extend
the scope of their professional operations to other parts
of the country, and reaped a golden harvest by reliev-
ing the sleeping passengers of their luggage, appearing
suddenly in places where they were least expected, and
departing, without leaving any address, when the hue and
cry was hot behind them. Their origin is uncertain, but
probably they belong to one of the aboriginal tribes,
or at least have a large proportion of aboriginal blood in
their veins. They speak a corrupt Tamil dialect, interlarded
with Telugu and Canarese words ; but they always know
more than one language colloquially and can converse with
the people of the countries through which they wander.^
In their marriage customs the Koravas seem to prefer
the union of a man with his father's sister's daughter, or,
in other words, the union of a woman with her mother's
brother's son ; for we read that among them *' a girl's
mother's brother's son has the right to have her to wife,
and, if his right is abrogated by giving her to another, he (or
his father?) receives a penalty from the man to whom she
is given. The girl's maternal uncle disposes of the girl." ^
However, in some parts of India, including Vizagapatam
and Mysore, these vagrants allow a man to marry either with
his father's sister's daughter or with his mother's brother's
1 E. Thurston, Castes atid Tribes of
Southei-n India, vi. 94.
2 Full and interesting accounts of
this criminal caste are given by E.
Thurston, Castes and T-ribes of Southern
India, iii. 438 sgg. ; and H. V. Nan-
jundayya, The Ethiiographical Survey
of Mysore, vii. Koj'acha Caste (Banga-
lore, 1906). Compare J. A. Dubois,
McEurs, Institutions et Ct!!-i!»ionies des
Peiiples de PInde (Paris, 1825), i. 74
scjq. (who calls them Kouravers or
Kouroumarous) ; J. Shortt, "On the
Wild Tribes of Southern India,"
Transactions of the Ethnological
Society of london, N.S., vii. (1869)
pp. 1 86 sgg. ; Census of India, iQOi,
vol. XV. Madras, Part i. Report, by
W. Francis (Madras, 1902), pp. 164.
3 E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes
of Southern India, iii. 482, quoting
Fawcett.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 109
daughter.^ But the orthodox marriage certainly seems to be
with the daughter of the father's sister. For we read that " a
custom prevails among them by which the first two daughters
of a family may be claimed by the maternal uncle as wives for
his sons. The value of a wife is fixed at twenty pagodas.
The maternal uncle's right to the first two daughters is
valued at eight out of twenty pagodas, and is carried out
thus : If he urges his preferential claim, and marries his
own sons to his nieces, he pays for each only twelve pagodas ;
and, similarly, if he, from not having sons, or any other cause,
forgo his claim, he receives eight pagodas of the twenty paid
to the girl's parents by anybody else who may marry them.
The value of a wife differs in different places : in some places
they are very much less, and in others again only nominal." ^
But the Korava uncle who gets his niece, the daughter Custom of
of his sister, at a reduced price, is not obliged to hand her 1^;^^"^!^^°
over to his son ; he may keep her to himself, thus getting a "iecc, the
wife at a bargain ; for in this tribe, as in a number of other an^dde^"
tribes of Southern India, a man has the option of marr3nng sister, in
his niece, always provided that she is the daughter of his ofSouthern
elder sister ; the daughter of his younger sister he may not ^"'^''^
take to wife, unless indeed he should happen to be a widower.^
This permission to marry a niece, the daughter of an elder
sister, as an alternative to marrying a cousin, the daughter
either of a mother's brother or of a father's sister, appears
to be particularly common in the Telugu-speaking branch
of the Dravidian race, in which indeed marriage with such
a niece is often preferred to marriage with such a cousin.
Instances will meet us in our survey of cousin marriage
among Telugu-speaking peoples, to whom we now turn.
The marriage of a man with the daughter of his mother's Cross-
brother, and correspondingly of a girl with the son of her marHage
among the
1 E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of confirmed by Mr. II. V. Nanjundayya, Telugus.
Southern India, iii. 484 ; II. V. Nand- who puts the vakie of a wife and the
jundayya, The Ethnographical Survey reduced price offered to her uncle at
of Mysore, vii. Ko7-acha Caste (Banga- the same figures (twenty and twelve
lore, 1906), p. 7. pagodas respectively). See H. V.
2 J. Shortt, "The Wild Tribes of 'H7\x{]\mA2i-^y\, The Ethnographical Stir-
Southern India," T-ansactions of the vey of Mysore, vii. Kcracha Caste
Ethnological Society of London, New (Bangalore, 1906), p. 7.
Series, vii. (1S69) pp. 187 sq. The
writer's statement as to the practice is ^ jj. V. Nanjundayya, I.e.
no JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
father's sister, seems to be common among the Telugu people,
who have a special name (jnenarikam) for it.'' It is observed
The with particular strictness by the Komatis, the great Telugu
trading caste of the Madras Presidency, who are found, not
only in almost all districts of Madras, but also in Mysore,
the Bombay Presidency, Berar, the Central Provinces, and as
far north-west as Baroda. They are devoted to their mother-
tongue, and they have a common proverb that " Telugu is
easy and Tamil is wretched."' " Of all Dravidian languages,"
says an English writer, " Telugu is the sweetest and most
musical. It is exceedingly mellifluous, and sounds harmoni-
ous even in the mouth of the most vulgar and illiterate. It
has justly been called the Italian of the East." ^ Among
the Komatis a boy is obliged to marry his mother's brother's
daughter, however unattractive she may be ; and conversely
the mother's brother must give his daughter in marriage to
Thecustom his sister's son, however poor he may be. The custom is
cousin^" called vicnarikam? The holy book of the caste, known as
marriage the Kanyakd Piinxna, is an eloquent and lasting monument
kam)^^ of the inflexible rigidity with which the custom is, or ought
recom- |;o be, obscrvcd by all who believe in the inspiration of the
in the sacred volume. We there read how a lovely maid received
Kanyaka ^-^ offer of marriage from a neighbouring king, but sternly
the sacred rejected the noble wooer, because he was no relation of hers,
book of the ^^^ even her second cousin twice removed. But the king,
Komatis. _ ^'
inflamed by love of her indescribable beauty, pressed his
suit, and threatened, if he did not lead her to the altar, that
he would besiege the city, clap the inhabitants into dark
dungeons, and carry off the young lady in a palanquin.
The dreadful threat produced a great impression. The
members of the caste, to which the damsel belonged, met
in council and deliberated whether they should give her to
the king or not. The spiritual head of the caste took the
chair at the meeting, and a resolution was passed to the
effect, that rather than submit to the king's demands and
1 Rev. J. E. Padfield, The Hindu Caste (Bangalore, 1906), p. 8; Census
at Home (Madras, 1896), p. 1 13. of India, igoi, vol. xv. Madi-as, Part i.
2 E. Tluirston, Castes and Tribes Repoj-t, hy'SM. Francis (Madras, 1902),
of Southern India, iii. 306, 307 sq., p. 162 ; E. Thurston, Ethnogi-aphic
quoting Mr. Henry Morris. Notes in Southern India (Madras,
^ H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno- 1906), p. 54 ; id.. Castes and Tribes
graphical Survey of Mysore, vi. Koviati of Southern India, iii. 314.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA in
abandon the good old custom of marrying their mothers'
brothers' daughters, the)' would perish in the flames. Although
the resolution appears to have been carried by acclamation,
when they came to the point of putting it in practice the
courage of many failed them, and deciding that discretion was
the better part of valour, they laid legs to the ground and fled
from the city. A few stalwarts, however, persisted in their
noble resolve, and among them was the beauteous maid who,
though she had seen but some seven summers, nevertheless
preferred death by fire to marriage with a king who was not
the son of her mother's brother. Accordingly one hundred
and three fire-pits were made ready for the accommodation
of these martyrs to duty. Before they descended into them,
they addressed their children, giving them solemn instruc-
tions as to how they were to behave when they too should be
grown up and should have marriageable sons and daughters.
" Do not," they charged them, " ask a bride-price for the
marriage of your daughters. Do not communicate secrets to
females. Do not allow rulers, infidels, and village accountants
to set foot in your houses. Be sure to give your daughters
in marriage to the sons of their fathers' sisters, even though
the young men should be black - skinned, plain, blind
of one eye, senseless, of vicious habits, and though their
horoscopes should not agree, and the omens be inauspicious.
However, should the young man in question, the son of the
father's sister, be blind of both e}'es, deaf, insane, stricken
with disease, a eunuch, thief, idiot, leper, dwarf, or immoral, or
should he be an old man or younger than the girl, you need
not give her to him to wife." When they had thus taught
their children the way they should go, the lovely maid, who
scorned to wed a king, came forward in her turn and addressed
the spectators gathered about the fire-pits. She solemnly
blessed the few choice spirits of her caste who had resolved
to follow her to the death rather than be false to the great
principle of marrying their mothers' brothers' daughters ; as
for the cravens who had fled away, she cursed them, and
prayed that Brahma would create no m.ore beautiful girls
among their descendants, but that for the future their
daughters might be dumpy, with gaping mouths, dispro-
portionate legs, broad ears, crooked hands, red hair, sunken
112
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The custom
of cross-
cousin
marriage
still
generally
observed
among the
Komatis.
Cross-
cousin
marriage
among the
Tottiyans.
eyes, dilated eye-balls, insane looks, broad noses, wide nostrils,
hairy bodies, black skin, and protruding teeth. With these
last words, and in this charitable frame of mind, she jumped
into the fire-pit prepared for her ; the other stalwarts with
their wives did the same into the pits made ready for them
respectively, and all were soon reduced to ashes. ^
The same great principle, which is illustrated by the
death of these noble martyrs, is the theme of a touching
ballad sung all over the northern districts of Madras, which
relates how a husband murdered his own wife rather than
give their daughter in marriage to anybody but his sister's
son. The custom thus sanctified by immemorial usage, by
poetry, and by the holy book, retains to this day a strong hold
on the hearts of the Komatis. Even yet a man who violates
it in the caste, or indeed in any caste addicted to the custom,
is looked down upon. Such conduct is usually described as
bending the twig from its natural course ; and it is believed
that just as such a twig must waste away and die, so the
parties who contract such marriages cannot prosper.^ True
it is, that of late years some Komatis have broken away from
the ancient custom ; but common folk look at them askance,
and allege that these transgressors have suffered for their sin
in the death of their sons-in-law and in other misfortunes.^
Among the Tottiyans, a caste of Telugu cultivators, " the
custom of marrying boys to their paternal aunt's or maternal
uncle's daughter, however old she may be, also obtains, and
in such cases the bridegroom's father is said to take upon
himself the duty of begetting children to his own son."*
According to another account, in this caste " a man has the
usual claim to his paternal aunt's daughter, and so rigorously
is this rule followed that boys of tender years are frequently
married to grown women. These latter are allowed to
consort with their husband's near relations, and the boy is
held to be the father of any children which may be born."^
From these accounts we gather that a Tottiyai\ may marry
^ E, Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, iii. 3 14-3 1 9.
2 E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes oj
Southern India, iii. 325.
3 E. Thurston, Ethnographic Notes
in Southern India, p. 54.
^ Census of India, igoi, vol. xv.
Madras, Part i. Report, by W. Francis
(Madras, 1902), p. 18 1 ; E. Thurston,
Castes and Tribes of Southern India,
vii. 184.
* E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, vii. 191, quoting the
Gazetteer of the Madura District.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 113
either the daughter of his father's sister or the daughter of
his mother's brother ; but that marriage with the father's
sister's daughter is preferred, her male cousin, the son of her
mother's brother, being held to have a legitimate claim to
her hand. On the contrary, among the Medas or Medaras, The Medas
a caste of workers in bamboo in the Telugu, Canarese, "^^ ^ ^^^'
Oriya, and Tamil countries, a man most frequently marries
the daughter of his mother's brother, and less frequently the
daughter of his father's sister.^ Among the Silavantulus of The Siiav-
Vizagapatam, a religious sect who seem to be an offshoot of ^"^"'^s-
the Pattu Sales, Telugu-speaking weavers, the custom of
menarikavi is observed, in virtue of which a man usually
marries the daughter of his mother's brother ; indeed so
strong is his claim on the hand of this particular cousin,
that if his mother's brother happens to have no daughter, he
is bound to find another wife for his nephew.^ Similarly
among the Muka Doras, a Telugu-speaking class of culti- The Muka
vators, who are traditionally regarded as one of the primitive °''^'
hill tribes, " the menarikani system is in force, according to
which a man should marry his maternal uncle's daughter."^
The same rule which prescribes marriage with the daughter of a
mother's brother as the most proper that a man can contract is
observed also by the Telugu castes of the Bagatas, Gudalas,
Kamsalas, Malas, Nagaralus, Salapus, and Viramushtis.^
Among the Telugu- or Canarese-speaking castes of Custom in
Mysore marriage with a niece, the daughter of a sister, is „,an°yhi,"
often allowed as an alternative, or even preferred to, marriage either a
. . 1 J 1 1 cross-
with a cousm. the daughter either of a mothers brother or
cousin or a
of a father's sister. Thus among the Agasas, who speak "'"^ce the
° £> ' r daughter of
either Telugu or Canarese according to their place of resi- a sister.
Tile
Agasas.
dence, in marriages " the relationship of maternal uncle's or ^'''^
paternal aunt's daughter is preferred. Marriage with an
elder sister's daughter is not only allowed, but it is specially
favoured. . . . Marriage with a younger sister's daughter is The
prohibited."^ Similarly among the Vaddas, a rude, illiterate,
1 E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of * E. Thurston, op. cit. i. 129 sq.,
Soutkei-n India, v. 52, 55. ii. 301, iii. 146, iv. 371, v, 136, vi.
2 E. Thurston, op. cit. vi. 387. As 264, vii. 407. ,
to the Pattu Sales, see E. Thurston, & H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
op. cit. vi. 265. graphical Survey of Mysore, iv. Agasa
3 E. Thurston, op. cit. v. 103, 104. Caste (Bangalore, 1906), pp. 5 sq.
VOL. II I
114 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
Telugu-speaking" caste of Mysore, in choosing a wife preference
is given to a near relation, such as the daughter of the father's
sister, the daughter of the mother's brother, or the daughter
The of an elder sister.^ Again, among the Nayindas, who speak
ayin as. -pgi^jgjj j^-j gQj^g parts of Mysore and Canarese in others, a
man is free to wed the daughter of his mother's brother, or
the daughter of his father's sister, or the daughter of his own
elder sister ; but of these three marriages the third, with a
niece, is the most popular. But the niece whom a man
marries should be, as usual, the daughter of his elder sister ;
only in cases of extreme necessity, such as that of a widower
who cannot find a suitable mate, is marriage with a younger
sister's daughter tolerated. " When a man has married a
daughter of his sister, his son is not allowed to marry either
a daughter of that sister or of other sisters, for though before
the father's marriage they were eligible as his paternal aunt's
daughters, they become the equals of his mother's sisters
The after that event." ^ So among the Morasu Okkalus, who
Okkaius. speak both Telugu and Canarese, marriage with the daughter
of a mother's brother, or the daughter of a father's sister,
or the daughter of a man's own elder sister is specially
favoured ; but except in extreme cases, such as that of
widowers, a man may not marry his younger sister's daughter.^
The Among the Sanyasis, a Telugu-speaking caste of itinerant
mendicants, an elder sister's daughter is preferred as a wife
to any other ; but if a man has no such niece to wed, he
puts up with a cousin, the daughter either of his father's
sister or of his mother's brother, as second best.^ The
The Madigas, who, along with the Holeyas, are sometimes called
Madigas, , , , ,
" black people, ' are a low caste of Mysore, and are believed
to represent the earliest stratum of the inhabitants of the
country, who have settled in towns and villages. In appear-
ance they are short, dark, and muscular, with somewhat
flattened noses. They speak either Telugu or Canarese
according to the place of their abode. Among them, the
1 H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno- ^ H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
gi-aphical Survey of Mysore, ■id. Vadda graphical Survey of Mysore, y.v. Morasu
Caste (Bangalore, 1907), pp. I, 4. Okkahi (Bangalore, 1908), p. 13.
2 H. V. Nanjundayya, 71ie Ethno- * H. V. Nanjundaj'ya, The EtJino-
graphtcal Su)-vey of Mysore, xii.Nayinda graphical Siu-vey of Mysore, xvi. San
Caste (Bangalore, 1907), pp. 5 sq. yasi Caste (Bangalore, 1908), pp. i, 2.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 115
most suitable marriage which a man can contract is that
with the daughter of his own elder sister, or with the
daughter of his mother's brother, or with the daughter of
his father's sister. But while marriage with these cousins is
thought most suitable, marriage v/ith other cousins, the
daughters either of a father's brother or of a mother's sister,
is absolutely prohibited, for these cousins are counted
equivalent to a man's sisters.^ Among the Holeyas, an The
outcaste race of Mysore, who rank, however, a little above °^y^-
the Madigas, the marriage rule is similar. A man gener-
ally marries either the daughter of his own elder sister, or
the daughter of his father's sister, or the daughter of his
mother's brother. But he may not marry his younger
sister's daughter, unless no other wife can be found for him.^
The Gollas are an illiterate caste of Mysore, whose original TheGoiias
language seems to have been Telugu, though some of them
now speak Canarese. Their original calling appears to have
been the tending of cattle and the sale of milk and other
dairy produce. But most of them have abandoned their
ancestral vocation, and now earn their livelihood as farmers
or day-labourers. They allow marriage with a cousin, the
daughter either of a mother's brother or of a father's sister ;
but they forbid marriage with a cousin, the daughter either of
a father's brother or of a mother's sister, for they regard such
a cousin as equal to a sister and marriage with her as
incestuous.^ Similarly among the Devangas, a caste of The
weavers in Mysore, some of whom speak Telugu and others ^^^"S^^-
Canarese, a man may marry his cousins, the daughters of
his mother's brother or the daughters of his father's sister ;
but he may not marry his cousins, the daughters of his
father's brother or the daughters of his mother's sister, for
these cousins are esteemed his sisters. However, in this
caste the most proper wife for a man is his niece, the
1 H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno- of Tamil origin {id. pp. 4 sq.). As to
graphical Survey of Mysore, xvii. the social suf)eriority of the Holeyas
Madiga Caste (Bangalore, 1909), pp. to the Madigas, see id.. The Ethiio-
I, 2, 3, II. graphical Su)~vey oj Mysore, xvii.
^ H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno- Madiga Caste^ p. I.
graphical Survey of Alysore, ii. Holey a
Caste (Bangalore, 1906), pp. I, 7. ^ H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
Some groups of Holeyas speak Telugu, graphical Survey of Mysore, xx. Golla
others speak Canarese, and some are Caste (Bangalore, 1910), pp. i, 4, 6.
ii6
JACOBS MARRIAGE
The
Nagartas
and
Upparas.
The
Mondarus.
The
Kurubas.
The Milas.
The
Gavaras.
daughter of his elder sister ; but the daughter of a younger
sister he is forbidden to marry.^ Similarly among the
Nagartas and Upparas, two other castes of Mysore, some
of whom speak Telugu and others Canarese, marriage with
an elder sister's daughter is allowed, but marriage with
a younger sister's daughter is prohibited. Some of the
Nagartas ev^en prefer an elder sister's daughter as a wife to
any other.^ The Mondarus, a Telugu caste of beggars in
Mysore, allow marriage, to all appearance indifferently,
either with the daughter of an elder sister, or with the
daughter of a mother's brother, or with the daughter of a
father's sister.^ The Kurubas, a large shepherd caste of
Mysore, whose native language is Canarese, particularly
recommend marriage with the daughter of a mother's brother,
but marriage with the daughter of a mother's sister they, as
usual, forbid. They also permit a man to marry his "niece,
the daughter of his elder sister ; nay, in some places, such
as Kolar and Bowringpet, they allow him to marry the
daughter of a younger sister, which is quite contrary to the
ordinary rule.'* Among the Milas, a fishing caste in Ganjam
and Vizagapatam, the custom of inenankain, according to
which a man should marry his mother's brother's daughter,
is in force ; but he is also free to marry his own sister's
daughter.^ Whether he is at liberty to marry the daughter
of his younger sister, we are not told. To judge by analogy,
his choice is probably restricted to the daughters of his
elder sister. Similarly, among the Gavaras, a Telugu-speak-
ing caste in the Vizagapatam district, " the custom of
menarikani, by which a man marries his maternal uncle's
daughter, is in force, and it is said that he may also marry
his sister's daughter," ^ and exactly the same customs as to
marriage with a cousin or a niece are reported to prevail
1 H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
graphical Sui-vey of Mysore, xxxiv.
D^vdngas (Bangalore, 1914), pp. i, 5.
2 H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
graphical Survey of Mysore, xxi.
Uppara Caste (Bangalore, 19 10), p. 4 ;
id.. The Ethnographical Survey of
Mysore, xxx. Nagartas (Bangalore,
1913), p. 6.
^ H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
graphical Survey of Mysore, xxiii.
Alondaru Caste (Bangalore, 1911), pp.
I, 2.
* H. V. Nanjundayya, 77/1? Ethno-
graphical Survey of Mysore, i. Kuruba
Caste (Bangalore, 1906), pp. I, 8.
^ E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, v. 63.
^ E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, ii. 2 7 8.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 117
among the Chinna Kondalus, a caste of hill cultivators in The
Vizagapatam, who appear to be related to the Khonds, Kondalus.
though they speak the Telugu language and have adopted
Telugu customs,^ But whether in these cases a man is
free to take to wife the daughter of his younger sister,
or is limited to the daughter of his elder sister, we are not
informed.
From many of the foregoing instances it appears that Cross-
the custom of marriage with a cross-cousin, the daughter of carriage
a mother's brother or of a father's sister, is not confined to in the
those branches of the Dravidian race which speak the Tamil speaking
and Telugu languages, but that it is also practised by castes branch
which speak the Canarese or, as it is sometimes called, Dravidian
the Kannada tongue." Among the Kappiliyans, who are ^^^•
Canarese-speaking farmers in Madura and Tinnevelly, a man's Kappiii-
right to marry his cousin, the daughter of his father's sister, >'^"^-
is so rigorously insisted upon that, as among the Tottiyans,
ill-assorted matches are common. A woman, whose cousin
husband is too young to perform his marital duties, is allowed
to consort with his near relations, and the children begotten
by such intercourse are treated as his.^ Precisely the same
custom is observed, with the same results as to the paternity of
the children fathered on the youthful husband, among the
Anuppans, another caste of Canarese farmers, who are found The
chiefly in the districts of Madura, Tinnevelly, and Coim- ""PP^"^-
batore.*
In Southern India the practice of marriage with a cross- Cross-
cousin is not limited to those aboriginal castes and tribes "'"f'-" „
»-' iiiu.rri3 2c
which speak one or other of the languages belonging to the among
Dravidian family. It is observed also by a number of castes gpe^in^
or tribes which speak Oriya, an Indo-Aryan language con- castes of
fined to Orissa and the adjoining parts of Madras and the i^dia.
Central Provinces.® For example, among the Godagulas, a The
1 E. Thurston, Castes aiid Tribes of Like Tamil and Telugu, it possesses
Southern India, iii. 351. an ancient literature.
2 On Canarese (Kannada), as a 3 j;_ Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
branch of Dravidian speech, see The Southei-n India, iii. 215, 217.
Imperial Gazetteer of India, The In- , rr, ■, j-
dian Empire, i. (Oxford, 1909) pp. * E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
380 sq. It is the language of Mysore Southern India, 1. 49, 50.
and of the neighbouring portion of the ^ The Imperial Gazetteer of India,
Ghaut country, including the southern The Indian Empire (Oxford, 1909), i.
corner of the Bombay Presidency. 376.
ii8 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
caste of workers in bamboo who speak Oriya, " the custom
of menarikam, according to which a man should marry his
maternal uncle's daughter, is so rigidly enforced that, if the
uncle refuses to give his daughter in marriage, the man has
a right to carry her off, and then pay a fine, the amount of
which is fixed by the caste council. A portion thereof is
given to the girl's parents, and the remainder spent on a
caste feast. If the maternal uncle has no daughter, a man
may, according to the eduru (or reversed) menarikam. custom,
marry his paternal aunt's daughter." ^ This account is in-
structive, since it shows that in this caste marriage with the
daughter of a father's sister is only permitted in default of
a daughter of a mother's brother, who is regarded as a man's
The proper wife. Among the Bavuris or Bauris, a low class of
Bavuns. Qriya basket-makers living in Ganjam, a man is forbidden to
marry the daughter of his father's sister, while he is allowed,
as usual, to marry the daughter of his mother's brother.^
ThePaidis. Again, among the Paidis, a class of cultivators and traders
in Vizagapatam, who speak a corrupt dialect of Oriya, " the
menarikam custom is in force, according to which a man
should marry his maternal uncle's daughter. If he does so,
the bride-price {yoW) is fixed at five rupees ; otherwise it is
Economic ten rupecs." ^ Thus a man gets his cousin, the daughter of
advantage j^j^ mother's brother, at half-price, which no doubt to a thrifty
of marriage > i ' j
with a man is a grq^t inducement to marry her. However, regarded
as a bargain, even this reduction in price compares dis-
advantageously with the practice, or at least, the theory of
the Komatis, who, according to the injunction of their
scriptures, should let a man have his cousin for nothing.^
We may suspect that this represents the original practice
in the marriage of cousins, and that one great secret of the
immense popularity of such marriages was their cheapness ;
for any other woman a man had to pay more or less heavily,
but for a female cousin of the proper kind he had to pay
* E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Hayavadana Rao, whose account of
Southern India, ii. 282. According the caste is reproduced by Mr. E.
to the Indian Census Report of 1901 Thurston.
(vol. XV. Madras, Part i. Rep07-t, by ^ E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
W. Francis, p. 154), the Godagulas Southern India, i. 175, 177.
(Godugalas) are identified with the ^ E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Gudalas, a Telugu caste of basket- Southern India, v. 455.
makers. But this is denied by Mr. C. * See above, p. 1 11.
cross-
cousin.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 1 19
little or nothing. In her case the passion of love was
reinforced by the spirit of economy.
Other Oriya castes prefer marriage with the daughter of Cross-
a father's sister to marriage with the daughter of a mother's ^°"^'."
'^^ ^ marriage
brother. Thus, among the Bhumias, Bottadas, Bodo, Malis, in other
Omanaitos, and Pentiyas, all cultivators, a man has the ^^,^^
right to claim the hand of his father's sister's daughter in
marriage.^
In Southern India the practice of marriage with a cross- Cross-
cousin, the daughter either of a mother's brother or of a ^^o^sm
^ marriage
father's sister, seems to have spread even to Brahmans, or among
at all events to classes which claim to rank as Brahmans. P''^'^'"^"^
m Southern
We are told that " the custom has apparently been copied India.
by the Desasta Brahmans of Southern India, in whom it
would, but for modern enlightenment, have almost been
crystallised into law. The Ayyar Brahmans have adopted
it in order to keep the family property intact within it." ^
The adoption of cousin-marriage by the Desasta or Deshasth
Brahmans of Southern India is all the more remarkable,
because in the Deccan these Brahmans " form a community
believed to represent the oldest stock that migrated to the
south and got mixed in various ways with the Dravidian races
by long intercourse extending over centuries. They retain
the oldest records of the Hindu texts and speak a language
closely allied to Sanskrit. Their rules of exogamy are so
complicated that it would be difficult to believe in them
except for the assurance that any breach directly involves
excommunication from the parent stock." ^ Among the
Shivalli Brahmans of South Canara " a maternal uncle's
daughter can be married without consulting any horoscope,
and during the marriage ceremonies it is customary for a
bridegroom's sister to obtain from him a formal promise
' E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of uncle's" is almost certainly a mistaive
Southerti hidia, i. 238, 265, iv. 441, either for "paternal aunt's " or for
V. 444, vi. 190. This may be the "maternal uncle's," more probably,
custom also among the Ronas, another perhaps, for the former.
Oriya caste of cultivators, as to whom 9 t^ rr-i ^ 77^7 ^r • «r
■' . u .V ^ \u << v • E. Thurston, Ethnographic Notes
we are told that among; them " it is ■ ,~ ,1 t j- -
, ^ ,. tn tiouthern India, p. ^±.
customary for a man to marry his ^ -'
paternal uncle's daughter " (E. Thurs- ^ Census of India, igoi, vol. i.
\.QXi, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, India, Ethnographic Appendices (Cal-
vi. 258). In this passage "paternal cutta, 1903), p. 114.
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross -
cousin
marriage in
Central
and
Northern
India.
Cross-
cousin
marriage
among the
Gonds.
that, if he has a daughter, he will give her in marriage to
her son." ^ Among the Konkani Brahmans of Cochin,
" the marriage to a paternal aunt's daughter or to a maternal
uncle's daughter, though not sanctioned by the Smritis and
though not prevalent among other branches of Gauda
Saraswata Brahmans, has in imitation of the Dravida
Brahmans been introduced. But such marriages do not at
all amount to an injunction. The marriage to one's sister's
daughter, which obtains among Desastha and Karnataka
Brahmans, is not in vogue among the Gauda Saraswata
Brahmans." ^ In the South Maratha country of the Bombay
Presidency thirty -one castes allow a man to marry the
daughter either of his mother's brother or of his father's
sister ; three allow him to marry also the daughter of his
mother's sister ; and fifteen allow him to marry the daughter
of his mother's brother, but no other first cousins.^
When we pass from Southern to Central and Northern
India we find that the custom of cross-cousin marriage,
though by no means so prevalent, is still practised in these
regions by some tribes, particularly by those of Dravidian
or other non-Aryan origin. Thus among the Gonds of
the Central Provinces, who are the principal tribe of the
Dravidian family, and perhaps the most important of the
non-Aryan or forest tribes in India,* " the marriage of first
cousins is considered especially suitable. Formerly, perhaps,
the match between a brother's daughter and a sister's son
was most common ; this is held to be a survival of the
matriarchate, when a man's sister's son was his heir. But
the reason has now been generally forgotten, and the union
of a brother's son to a sister's daughter has also become
customary, while, as girls are scarce and have to be paid
for, it is the boy's father who puts forward his claim. Thus
in Mandla and Bastar a man thinks he has a right to his
sister's daughter for his son on the ground that his family
1 E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, i. 382, quoting H. A.
Stuart, Manual of the South Canara
District.
2 L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, The
Cochin Tribes and Castes (Madras,
1909-1912), ii. 349.
3 Census of India, igii, vol. vii.
Bombay, Part i. Report, by P. J.
Mead and G. Laird Macgregor (Bom-
bay, 1912), p. 122.
* In 191 1 the Gonds numbered
three millions and were increasing
rapidly. See R. V. Russell, Tribes
and Castes of the Central Provinces of
India (London, 1916), iii. 41.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 121
has given a girl to her husband's family, and therefore they
should give one back. This match is known as Diidh
laiitdna or bringing back the milk ; and if the sister's
daughter marries any one else her maternal uncle some-
times claims what is known as ' milk money,' which may be
a sum of Rs. 5, in compensation for the loss of the girl as a
wife for his son. This custom has perhaps developed out
of the former match in changed conditions of society, when
the original relation between a brother and his sister's son
has been forgotten and girls have become valuable. But it
is said that the dudh or milk money is also payable if a
brother refuses to give his daughter to his sister's son. In
Mandia a man claims his sister's daughter for his son and
sometimes even the daughter of a cousin, and considers that
he has a legitimate grievance if the girl is married to some-
body else. Frequently, if he has reason to apprehend this,
he invites the girl to his house for some ceremony or festival,
and there marries her to his son without the consent of her
parents." ^ Similarly among the Gonds of the Madras
Presidency, in the Eastern Ghauts, " the most usual thing
for a man is to marry his own paternal aunt's daughter,"
and the writer who reports the custom adds that " one
reason of this is possibly the incurring of less marriage
expenses, a bride amongst these tribes and castes being
rated at very heavy prices." ^
From these accounts we may perhaps infer that, while Growing
Gonds allow and even favour marriage with the daughter among the
either of a mother's brother or of a father's sister, there is a Gonds to
growing tendency among them to prefer the marriage with marriage
the daughter of a father's sister, because, in the scarcity of ^'^^ ^
. . -AC father s
marriageable girls, who have ordinarily to be paid for, a sisters
father is more anxious to get his niece for nothing for his daughter.
son than to give his daughter for nothing to his nephew.
Thus purely economic considerations appear to exercise
a strong influence on the change from the one form of
cousin marriage to the other.
Among the Bhunjias, a small Dravidian tribe of the
1 R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes ^ c. Hayavadana Rao, " The Gonds
of the Central Provinces of India, iii. of the Eastern Ghauts, India," An-
71. thropos, V. (19 10) p. 794.
122 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
Cross- Central Provinces, both forms of cross-cousin marriage are
cousin allowed ; for we read that in the tribe " a special tie exists
marriage ' ^
among the between a man and his sister's children. The marriage of
unjias. ^ brother's son or daughter to a sister's daughter or son is
considered the most suitable. A man will not allow his
sister's children to eat the leavings of food on his plate,
though his own children may do so. This is a special
token of respect to his sister's children. He will not
chastise his sister's children, even though they deserve it.
And it is considered especially meritorious for a man to pay
for the wedding ceremony of his sister's son or daughter." ^
The Similarly among the Kamars, a small Dravidian tribe
who claim to be aborigines of the Central Provinces, " as
among some of the other primitive tribes, a man stands in
a special relation to his sister's children. The marriage of
his children with his sister's children is considered as the
most suitable union. If a man's sister is poor he will
arrange for the wedding of her children. He will never
beat his sister's children, however much they may deserve
it, and he will not permit his sister's son or daughter to eat
from the dish from which he eats. This special connection
between a maternal uncle and his nephew is held to be a
survival of the matriarchate, when a man stood in the place
^ a father now occupies to his sister's children, the real father
having nothing to do with them." ^ The Sonjharas or
The Jharas, a small caste of gold - washers in the Central
Sonjharas. Provinces, " permit the intermarriage of the children of a
brother and a sister, but not of those of two sisters, though
their husbands may be of different septs." ^ Similarly
among the Dhobas, an offshoot of a primitive tribe in the
The Central Provinces, whose facial features resemble those of
the Gonds, " the children of brothers and sisters may
marry, but not those of two sisters, because a man's maternal
aunt or mausi is considered as equivalent to his mother." *
^ R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes H. R. Rivers, " The Marriage of
of the Central Prcrvinces of India, ii. Cousins in India, "yb//r«a/^/,45 A'^ya/
326 sq. Asiatic Society, July 1907, pp. 629 sqq.
2 R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 325. 3 r_ y. Russell, Tribes and Castes
On the close relationship in India of the Ce/itral Provinces of India, iv.
between a man and his sister's children, 5 10.
especially in connexion with the mar- * R. V. Russell, oj). cit. ii. 515,
riage of the sister's children, see W. 516.
Dhobas.
CHAP. VI TIJE AfARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 123
So, too, among the Gandas, a servile and impure caste The
in the Central Provinces, marriage between cousins, the ''^"'^^^
children of two sisters, is forbidden, but marriage between
cousins, the children of brothers and sisters, is permitted.^
In all these cases, apparently, a man is free to marry either
the daughter of his mother's brother or the daughter of his
father's sister, and no indication is given of a preference for
the one marriage over the other.
The Bhatras, a primitive Dravidian tribe, akin to the Cross-
Gonds, in the Bastar State of the Central Provinces, think '=°"^'."
' marriage
that a man has a right to marry the daughter of his mother's among the
brother, and in former days, if the girl was refused by her ^''^""'^^■
parents, he carried her off and married her by force.^
Among the Manas, a Dravidian caste of cultivators and The
labourers in the Central Provinces, " the practice of marry- ^^^"^^•'
ing a brother's daughter to a sister's son is a very favourite
one, being known as 3fdhunc/uir, and in this respect the
Manas resemble the Gonds." ^ Similarly among the Halbas, The
a mixed caste of cultivators and farm -servants in the ^^^'^''^•
Central Provinces, " a match which is commonly arranged
where practicable is that of a brother's daughter to a sister's
son. And a man always shows a special regard and respect
for his sister's son, touching his feet as to a superior, while,
whenever he desires to make a gift as an offering of thanks
or atonement or as a meritorious action, the sister's son is
the recipient. At his death he usually leaves a substantial
legacy, such as one or two buffaloes, to his sister's son,
the remainder of the property going to his own family.
This recognition of a special relationship is probably a sur-
vival of the matriarchate, when property descended through
women, and a sister's son would be his uncle's heir. Thus
a man would naturally desire to marry his daughter to his
nephew in order that she might participate in his property,
and hence arose the custom of making this match, which
is still the most favoured among the Halbas and Gonds,
though the reasons which led to it have been forgotten for
several centuries." *
1 R. V. Russell, Tribes atid Castes 274.
of the Central Provinces of India, iii. q t, tr t, h • •
J > ' 3 y; V. Russell, op. cit. iv. 175. <i
2 R. V. Russell, op. cit. ii. 271, "• R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 189 sq.
124
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Economic
motive for
preferring
marriage
with a
mother's
brother's
daughter.
Marriage
with a
father's
sister's
daughter
forbidden
in some
castes of
the Central
Provinces.
Among the
Kunbis,
while
marriage
with a
father's
sister's
daughter is
forbidden,
marriage
with a
mother's
brother's
daughter
is almost
obligatory.
Thus, whereas among the Gonds a man may marry the
daughter either of his mother's brother or of his father's
sister, Ijut the marriage with the father's sister's daughter
is apparently coming into vogue, the Bhatras, Manas, and
Halbas, on the other hand, still prefer the marriage of a man
with his mother's brother's daughter, or, in other words, the
marriage of a woman with her father's sister's son, and this
preference may, as Mr. Russell points out, date from a time
when a man's heir was his sister's son, and when, accord-
ingly, a father might naturally desire to give his daughter
in marriage to his sister's son as his heir, in order that
she might share the property which would descend to her
husband from his maternal uncle, her father. Hence it
appears that under the particular form of mother-kin in
which a man's heir is his sister's son, a father has an
economic motive for marrying his daughter to his sister's
son.
In not a few castes or tribes of the Central Provinces
the preference for marriage with the daughter of the mother's
brother is so decided that they positively forbid marriage
with the daughter of the father's sister ; and as marriages
with other cousins, the daughters of a mother's sister or of a
father's brother, are regularly barred, it follows that in these
tribes the only marriage between cousins which is tolerated
is that between a brother's daughter and a sister's son.
This rule holds good, for example, of the Kunbis, the great
agricultural caste of Berar and the Central Provinces,
whose internal structure seems to show that they are a
mixed body recruited from different classes of the com-
munity, but with Gond blood in their veins. Among them
marriages between first and second cousins are prohibited,
" except that a sister's son may be married to a brother's
daughter. Such marriages are also favoured by the
Maratha Brahmans and other castes, and the suitability of
the match is expressed in the saying Ato ghari bhdsi sun,
or ' At a sister's house her brother's daughter is a daughter-
in-law.' The sister claims it as a right and not unfrequently
there are quarrels if the brother decides to give his daughter
to somebody else, while the general feeling is so strongly in
favour of these marriages that the caste committee some-
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 125
times imposes a fine on fathers who wish to break through
the rule. The fact that in this single case the marriage of
near relatives is not only permitted but considered almost
as an obligation, while in all other instances it is strictly
prohibited, probably points to the conclusion that the
custom is a survival of the matriarchate, when a brother's
property would pass to his sister's son. Under such a law Two
of inheritance he would naturally desire that his heir should ^'^'^'■'="^.
-' economic
be united to his own daughter, and this union might motives for
gradually become customary and at length almost obligatory. |^Iarr[a""e^
The custom in this case may survive when the reasons which with a
justified it have entirely vanished. And while formerly brother's
it was the brother who would have had reason to desire daughter.
the match for his daughter, it is now the sister who insists
on it for her son, the explanation being that among the
Kunbis as with other agricultural castes, to whom a wife's
labour is a valuable asset, girls are expensive and a con-
siderable price has to be paid for a bride." ^
From Mr. Russell's instructive account of cousin mar- The same
riages in the Gond and Kunbi castes respectively, we gather n^oJ-ve""^
that among the Gonds a father desires and claims the viz., the
marriage of his son with his sister's daughter, and that adaughter-
among the Kunbis a mother desires and claims the marriage in-law
of her son with her brother's daughter, the desire and the induces a
claim in both cases being based on the economic motive of ^^}^^^ '°
.... . . , 11.1. favour the
bnngmg that expensive article, a daughter-m-law, mto the one form
family for nothing. Thus, while interest moves a father 0^^^°^^-
cousin-
to promote one form of cross-cousm marriage, namely, the marriage
marriage of a man with his father's sister's daufrhter,^ it ('^at ^uh
° ^^ ' a father s
simultaneously moves a mother to promote the other form sister's
of cross-cousin marriage, namely, the marriage of a man with andfnducls
his mother's brother's daughter ; so that the same motives a mother
pulling brother and sister in opposite directions in a sense the other
balance each other and tend to produce an equilibrium form of
between the two forms of cross-cousin marriage. For it is cousin
to be observed that, where the economic motive is in plav. marriage
.,, . . ., , . 1 (that with 3
It Will not act \x\ one way m one tnbe, and m another way mother's
brother's
' R. V. Russell, Tribes and Cashes 2 See above, p. 120, in regard to the daughter).
of the Central Provinces 0/ India, iv, Gonds.
22 sq.
126
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
In the
Central
Provinces
marriage
with a
mother's
brother's
daughter is
preferred to
marriage
with a
father's
sister's
daughter.
in another tribe ; in every tribe the pecuniary interests
of brother and sister in respect of the marriage of their
children will be diametrically opposed to each other, the
brother always seeking his sister's daughter as a wife for his
son, and the sister always seeking her brother's daughter as
a wife for her son, so that within the limits of the same tribe
similar motives will draw brother and sister in opposite
directions and tend to balance each other. The result will
be that both forms of cross-cousin marriage (the marriage
with a mother's brother's daughter and the marriage with a
father's sister's daughter) will probably survive for a long
time side by side in the same tribe without the one being
able to oust the other. And this is exactly what is observed
to happen among many castes or tribes of India at the
present day.^
The Gowaris are the herdsman or grazier caste of the
Maratha country in the Central Provinces. They appear to
be of mixed origin, being sprung from a union of forest
Gonds with Ahirs, a caste of cowherds and milkmen, who
are believed to have been descended from a tribe which
entered India from Central Asia about the beginning of the
Christian era. Among the Gowaris the rule is, that a man
may marry his daughter to his sister's son, but may not take
her daughter as a wife for his son." In other words, the
Gowaris allow a man to marry his cousin, the daughter of
his mother's brother, but forbid him to marry his cousin, the
daughter of his father's sister. Thus they permit the one
form of cross-cousin marriage but not the other. A similar
permission, accompanied by a similar prohibition, is found
among other castes or tribes of the Central Provinces, such
as the Agharias, Andhs, Bahnas, Kaikaris, Kharias, Kohlis,
Chandnahe Kurmis, Mahars, and Marathas.^ Taken to-
1 After noticing some cases in wliicli
the marriage with a mother's brother's
daughter is allowed, and other cases in
which the marriage with a father's
sister's daughter is allowed, Dr. Rivers
observes, " Much more frequently
marriage is allowed with the daughter
either of the maternal uncle or of tlie
paternal aunt, though, as we have seen,
there is sometimes in these cases a pre-
ference for the former." See W. H.
R. Rivers, "The Marriage of Cousins
in InAiA," Journal of (he Royal Asiatic
Society, July 1907, p. 627.
- R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes
of the Central Provinces of India, iii. 160
sq., 162. As to the Ahirs, see R. V.
Russell, op. cit. ii. 18 sqq.
3 R. V. Russell, op. cit. ii. 10, 39,
71, iii. 298, 447 sq., 495, iv. 60, 133,
203.
cHAi'. VI THE MARRIAGE OE COUSINS IN INDIA 127
gather witli the foregoing evidence, this seems to indicate
that in the Central Provinces the balance of opinion in-
clines decidedly in favour of marrying a mother's brother's
daughter rather than a father's sister's daughter.
However, the Gonds appear not to be the only people of But the
these provinces among whom the balance of opinion is appar- ^°"^g°f^^,
ently swinging in the opposite direction, namely, in favour Provinces
of marriage with a father's sister's daughter. The Gollas or P'?'^^'' „„
Golars are the great shepherd caste of the Telugu country, with a
numbering a million and a half of persons in Madras and stste^r's^
Hyderabad.^ We have seen that in Mysore they allow daughter.
marriage either with the daughter of the mother's brother or
with the daughter of the father's sister.^ There are some
thousands of them in the Central Provinces, where they still
follow their ancestral vocation, living as nomadic herdsmen
in the large pasture lands of the Balaghat district. Here
they seem, like the Gonds, to tend towards a preference for
marriage with the father's sister's daughter ; at least this is
suggested by Mr. Russell's account of cousin marriage among
them. He says, " The children of brothers and sisters are
allowed to marry, but not those of two sisters, the reason
stated for this prohibition being that during the absence of
the mother her sister nurses her children ; the children of
sisters are therefore often foster brothers and sisters, and
this is considered as equivalent to the real relationship. But
the marriage of a brother's son to a sister's daughter is held,
as among the Gonds, to be a most suitable union." ^ In this
account the reason assigned for prohibiting the marriage
between cousins who are the children of sisters is no doubt
an afterthought ; the original motive for the prohibition, as
we shall see presently, lies much deeper.
The Kotvalias, a dark non- Aryan tribe of Baroda, allow cross-
marriaee with the dauc^hter either of a mother's brother or of cousin
•^ ° marriiige
a father's sister, but forbid marriage with the daughter either among the
of a mother's sister or of a father's brother.* Among the ^^f°j7^^rodl
' R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 35. of the Central Provinces of hidia, iii.
Compare E. Thurston, Castes and 35 sq.
Tribes of Southern India, \\. 2%^ sgq. * Censzes of India, igoi, vol. xviii.
2 ., Baroda, Part i. Report, by Jamshedji
' "' ^* Ardeshir Dalai (Bombay, 1902), p.
' R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes 508.
128
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross-
cousin
marriage
among
Dravidian
tribes of
Mirzapur.
Mohammedans, Parsees, and Christians of Baroda there is no
prejudice against marriages between first cousins, indeed,
an orthodox Parsee deems it a duty to bring about such
marriages in his household ; but a Hindoo looks upon such .
connexions with horror.^
Passing still farther north, we find the marriage of cross-
cousins allowed, if not favoured, among a few castes or tribes
of Mirzapur, which appear to be mostly of Dravidian origin.
Thus, among the Ghasiyas, a Dravidian tribe in the hill
country of Mirzapur, a man may marry the daughter either
of his mother's brother or of his father's sister.^ On the
other hand, the Cheros, a Dravidian race of labourers and
cultivators in the hill country of Mirzapur, according to
one account seem to allow of marriage with the daughter
of a mother's brother, but forbid marriage with the daughter
of a father's sister.^ The same permission and the same
prohibition are recorded of the Irakis and Kunjras, two
other castes of Mirzapur.* Among the Manjhis, or Majh-
wars, an aboriginal tribe of Dravidian origin in the hill
country of South Mirzapur, the more primitive members
of the community " adhere to the old Gond rule by which
first cousins, provided they are not the offspring of two
sisters, by preference intermarry." ^ This statement is,
perhaps, to be corrected, so as to run, " first cousins, pro-
vided they are not the offspring of two sisters or of tzuo
brothers" ; since the prohibition for cousins, the children of
two brothers, to marry each other commonly goes with the
prohibition for cousins, the children of two sisters, to marry
each other. If the statement thus corrected be accepted, it
will follow that the more primitive members of this Dravidian
^ Census of India, igoi, vol. xviii.
Baroda, Part i. Report, by Jamshedji
Ardeshir Dalai (Bombay, 1902), p.
490.
- W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of
the North- Western Provinces and Oudh
(Calcutta, 1896), ii. 412.
3 W. Crooke, op. cit. ii. 217. Mr.
Crooke's statement is not clear. He
says, " Their custom of exogamy
even is uncertain. By one account
first cousins on the father's side cannot
intermarry, while marriage of cousins
on the mother's side is permitted, and
a paternal uncle's son can marry a
maternal uncle's daughter, but not vice
versa." Here "a paternal uncle's
son" seems to be a mistake for "a
paternal aunt's son." Dr. Rivers
understands the passnge as I do (" The
Marriage of Cousins in India, "_/<77/r«a^
of the Royal Asiatic Society, July 1907,
p. 626).
* W. Crooke, op. cit. iii. 2, 345.
* W. Crooke, op. cit. iii. 417.
cHAr. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 129
tribe follow the old custom which allows, or rather recom-
mends and enjoins, a man to marry his cross-cousin, the
daughter either of his mother's brother or of his father's
sister. Further inquiry in the tribe might perhaps elicit a
preference for one or other of these two forms of cross-cousin
marriage.
The practice of cross-cousin marriage is in vogue among Cross-
the Bhotiyas, who inhabit the Almora district of the United m^'iao^e
Provinces, not far from the borders of Nepaul and Tibet, among the
These people speak a language allied to Tibetan, and the cast the°Afmora
of their countenances is plainly Mongolian ; but though they District in
, , ,, c ^M • • .1 u . the United
are undoubtedly ot libetan origm, they have to a great Provinces,
extent adopted Brahman customs and the Brahman religion.
They draw a sharp distinction between ortho-cousins (the
children of two brothers or of two sisters) and cross-cousins
(the children of a brother and a sister respectively), and they
apply quite different names to them. A man regards his
brother's children as his own and calls them his sons and
daughters ; and a woman regards her sister's children as her
own and calls them her sons and daughters. Consistently
with this view and this nomenclature the sons of two
brothers call each other, not cousins, but brothers ; and
the sons of two sisters call each other, not cousins, but
brothers. Hence the children of two brothers may not
marry each other, since they are related to each other as
brothers and sisters ; and the children of two sisters may
not marry each other, since in like manner they are related
to each other as brothers and sisters. But cross-cousins, the
children of a brother and a sister respectively, stand on quite
a different footing : a man does not look on his sister's
children as his own, nor call them his sons and daughters ;
a woman does not look on her brother's children as her own,
nor call them her sons and daughters ; and these cousins,
the children of a brother and a sister respectively, are quite
free to marry each other, indeed such marriages are the rule
among the Bhotiyas of the Almora district.-^
In the Punjab cases of cousin marriage seem to be few
^ Panna Lall, "An enquiry into the xl. (1911) pp. 191, 193-196. As to
Birth and Marriage customs of the the Bhotiyas, see further, W. Crooke,
Khasiyas and the Bhottiyas of Almora Tribes and Castes of the North-
district, U. P.," The Indian Antiquary, VVesterii Provinces and Oudh, ii. 61 sqq.
VOL. II K
130
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross-
cousin
marriage
in the
Punjab.
Cousin -
marriage
among the
Moham-
medans of
the North-
west
Frontier
Province.
and far between ; nor is this to be wondered at, when we
remember that the Punjab was in all probability the part
of India which the immigrant Aryans first occupied,
and from which they expelled most thoroughly those
aboriginal tribes who observed the custom of cousin
marriage. However, the custom of marrying either the
daughter of a mother's brother or the daughter of a father's
sister is very common in Kulu, a Himalayan district of the
Punjab.^ Among the Orakzais, who are Pathans by race and
Mohammedans by religion, " it is a common practice for a
man to marry his first cousin, in which case an exchange of
betrothals is generally effected."^ Again, among the Khands,
an agricultural clan in Shahpur, who are Mohammedans,
marriage " is permissible between cousins german." ^ How-
ever, in these latter cases it may well be that the marriage of
cousins is a recent institution, due to Mohammedan influence
rather than an ancient custom which has survived from a
time before the invasion of India by the Aryans. In the
North-West Frontier Province, which borders the Punjab
on the north-west, and in which Mohammedans are in a
great majority and Hindoos in a small minority, " the Moham-
medan Law provides a wide field for selection among rela-
tions, and close marriages are very common. Throughout
the Province marriages are usually determined by considera-
tions of family convenience. For instance, a man wanting
to marry his son arranges to take for him the daughter of his
brother or his cousin, agreeing to give his own daughter in
exchange after a year or two." * Among the Brahuis of
Baluchistan marriage with a cousin, the daughter of a father's
> W. H. R. Rivers, " The Marriage
of Cousins in India," Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society, July 1907, p.
628 (referring to Ibbetson, Rep. Pan-
jab Census, 1881, vol. i. p. 366);
Census of India, igii, vol. i. India,
Part i. Report, by (Sir) E. A. Gait (Cal-
cutta, 1913), p. 256.
2 H. A. Rose, Glossary of the Tribes
and Castes of the Punjab and North-
West Frontier Province, iii. (Lahore,
1914) p 180.
^ H. A. Rose, op. cit. ii. (Laliore,
I9li)p. 492.
* Census of India, igi i, vol. xiii.
North- West Frontier Province, by C.
Latimer (Peshawar, 1912), p. 141.
" The Hindus in the Province (and in
speaking of Hindus I refer also to
Silvhs) forma small community, isolated,
though to a less degree than in the
past, from the great body of their co-
religionists to the East and South " {op.
cit. p. 143). Marriage with all cousins
is permitted by the Koran (chapter iv.
vol. i. pp. 75 sg. of E. H. Palmer's
translation, Oxford, 1880, Sacred Books
of the East, vol. vi.). As to cousin
rharriage among the Arabs, see below,
pp. 253 sqq.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 131
brother, is deemed the best of all.^ And among the Mc ham-
medans of India in general the marriage of first cousins,
whether they are the children of two brothers or of two
sisters, or of a brother and a sister, is considered very suit-
able ; in default of a cousin, an alliance is preferred with
some family with which there have already been marriage
relations." On the contrary, in the North-West Frontier
Province, " with the Hindus the objection to close marriages
seems to be particularly strong. Among Mohammedans
such marriages, as we have seen, are very common ; but the
Hindu speaks with the greatest contempt of their practice in
this respect. One may conjecture, therefore, that the objec-
tion is something racial, something too deep-seated to be
affected by accidents of environment." ^
When we leave the north-west of India, the earliest seat Cross-
of the Aryan race in the peninsula, and move eastward to ^°"^'."
•' '^ ' marriage
Bengal, we again find the practice of cross-cousin marriage among the
surviving among some of the aboriginal tribes. For example, ^ribes^oT
among the Khoras, a small caste of Chota Nagpur, who, BengaL
though Hindoos by religion, appear to be Gonds, and there-
fore Dravidians by blood, a man is free to marry the
daughter either of his mother's brother or of his father's
sister, a custom which Sir Herbert Risley, contrasting it with
the ordinary Hindoo usage, describes as "a departure from
the ordinary rules which strikes one as curious." ^ Again,
the Kaurs of Chota Nagpur, whose dark complexion, broad
noses, wide mouths, and thick lips appear to betray
their Dravidian origin, observe much the same prohibited
degrees as the Hindoos, but nevertheless allow a man
to marry the daughter of his mother's brother." Further,
among the Karans, an indigenous caste of writers in
Orissa, " prohibited degrees are reckoned by the method
in vogue among the higher Hindu castes, with the
curious exception that a man is permitted to marry his
' Denys Bray, The Life-History of North-West Frontier Provitice, by C.
a 5ra//??j( London, 1913), p. 34- The Latimer (Peshawar, 1912), p. 145.
reason assigned by the writer for the 4 /c- \ tj u r>- 1 -r -i j
. ,"/,., * (bir) H. \\. Risley, Ti-ibes and
custom IS that so the stock IS kept pure. ^ . > „ 1 (r- \ \, .c \ •
, „ ^ ^ ,. '^ \ . Castes of Bengal (Calcutta, 1592), 1.
- Census of India, igii, vol. 1. •^ \ j /■>
India, Part i. Report, by (Sir) E. A. ^^''
Gait (Calcutta, 1913), p. 252. * (Sir) H. H. Risley, Tribes jxnd
^ Census of India, igii, vol. xiii. Castes of Bengal, i. 435, 436. ■•"
J^i
132 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part n
maternal uncle's daughter, an alliance distinctly forbidden
by the ordinary rules." ^ The Rabhas, of the Goalpara
district in Eastern Bengal, allow a man to marry the daughter
either of his mother's brother or of his father's sister.' These
instances suggest that the old custom of cross-cousin marriage,
especially the marriage with the daughter of a mother's
brother, was too firmly implanted in the blood of the abori-
ginal tribes to be at once extirpated by the influence of an
alien race, whose matrimonial customs in other respects they
adopted.
Cross- Passing still eastward we leave the Dravidian race behind,
marria<^e ^'^^ approaching the eastern borders of India, we come to
among the the outlying tribes of the great Mongolian family, which on
tribef of" this side have effected a lodgment on the hills within the
Chittagong Indian frontier, without being able to penetrate into the heart
of the country or to descend into the sweltering plains of
the Ganges. Thus, among the Maghs of the Hill Tracts of
Chittagong, whose physical features stamp them unmistake-
ably as Mongolians, the ordinary Hindoo rules as to prohibited
degrees are observed, with the exception that " a man may
marry the daughters of his father's sister and of his mother's
brother — a connexion which would not ordinarily be allowed."^
Among the Mikirs, one of the most numerous and homo-
geneous of the many Tibeto-Burman tribes inhabiting Assam,
a man is free to marry his mother's brother's daughter ;
indeed, in former days he was compelled to marry her, and
his maternal uncle might beat him to his heart's content if
the young scapegrace was ungallant enough to refuse the
hand of his fair first cousin.* Again, among the Garos of
Assam, another tribe of Mongolian origin ^ " there is an
exception to the rule that a girl may choose her husband.
This exception occurs when one daughter of a family is
given in marriage to the son of her father's sister. Should
she not have such a cousin, she must marry a man of her
father's * motherhood,' who is chosen for a substitute." ^ In
' (Sir) H. H. Risley, Tribes and * 77iiJ i^?/J/'\f, from the papers of the
Castes of Bengal, i. 425. late Edward Stack, edited, arranged,
2 Census of India, igii, vol. i. and supplemented by Sir Charles Lyall
India, Part i. Report, by (Sir) E. A. (London, 1908), pp. i, 17, 18.
Gait (Calcutta, 1913), p. 256. ° See above, vol. i. p. 462.
3 (Sir) H. H. Risley, Tribes and ^ Major A. Playfair, The Garos
Castes of Be7igal, ii. 29 sq.- (London, 1909), p. 68.
CHAP. VI r//E MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN INDIA 133
this tribe a man is expected to marry his mother's brother's
daughter.^ Here again, therefore, as among the Mikirs, a
decided preference seems to be given to the marriage of a
woman with the son of her father's sister, or, in other words,
to the marriage of a man with the daughter of his mother's
brother. Again, among the Nagas of Assam, " marriage is
contracted with near relatives, such as cousins, in preference to
other women," and among his cousins a young man generally
chooses as his wife the daughter of his mother's brother.'
Among the Khasis of Assam a man may marry either Cross-
the daughter of his mother's brother or the daughter of his '^o^sm
° .... marriage
father's sister, but on one curious condition, which we have among the
not yet met with in our investigation of cousin marriages, ^jlerm^^s
A man may not marry his mother's brother's daughter while ofNorth-
her father is alive ; he may not marry his father's sister's j^^dia™
daughter while his own father is alive. However, even when
a man's father is dead, the marriage with the father's sister's
daughter, though permitted, is looked on with disfavour by
the Khasis ; whereas there seems to be no objection to
marriage with the daughter of a mother's brother, always
provided that her father is dead.^ Here, again, therefore, as
in so many cases, it would appear that marriage with a
mother's brother's daughter is preferred to marriage with
a father's sister's daughter. But while among the Khasis a
man may marry either of his cross-cousins, that is, either
the daughter of his mother's brother or the daughter of his
father's sister, he is forbidden to marry his ortho-cousin, the
daughter of his father's brother, for she is called his " birth
sister " {para kJid).^ We may conjecture that for a similar
reason he is forbidden to marry his other ortho-cousin, the
daughter of his mother's sister. Among the Paihtes or
Vuites, a clan in south-western Manipur and the adjoining
portions of the Lushai Hills, " the marriages of paternal
first cousins are allowed ; in fact, among chiefs they are the
rule " '^ The expression " paternal cousins " is ambiguous,
1 Major A. Playfair, op. cit. p. 72. The Khasis, Second Edition (London,
2 A Sketch of Assam, ■with some 1914), p- 78.
accou7!t of the. Hill Tribes, by an Officer ■* P. R. T. Gurdon, I.e.
[John Butler] (London, 1847), pp. 165, ^ Lt. -Colonel J. Shakespear, T/ie
167. Lushei Ktiki Clans (London, 1912),
3 Lieut. -Colonel P. R. T. Gurdon, p. 143.
134
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross-
cousin
marriage
generally
favoured in
India.
since it includes the children of two brothers as well as the
children of a brother and a sister, in other words, it
includes both ortho - cousins and cross - cousins ; but the
statement probably means that among the Paihtes a man
is allowed or encouraged to marry the daughter of his
father's sister. " The Tibetans and Lepchas forbid cousins-
german to marry, but the Bhotias confine the prohibition to
cousins on the father's side, and more particularly to the
children of the father's brother. The reason given is that
bone descends from the father's side, and the flesh from the
mother's, and should cousins on the father's side marry,
the bone is pierced, resulting in course of time in various
infirmities." ^ Here the expression " cousins on the father's
side," like the equivalent expression " paternal cousins," is
ambiguous, since it includes the children of two brothers as
well as the children of a brother and a sister, in other words,
it includes both ortho-cousins and cross-cousins. But from
the statement which I have quoted we may probably infer
that, while the Bhotias positively forbid a man to marry
the daughter of his father's brother, and also forbid him,
though less decidedly, to marry the daughter of his father's
sister, they allow him freely to marry the daughter of his
mother's brother. Here again, therefore, as in many other
tribes, marriage with a mother's brother's daughter is the
solitary exception to the rule which forbids cousins to
marry each other.
To sum up, we may say broadly that in India marriage
with a first cousin, the daughter either of a mother's brother
or of a father's sister, but especially with the daughter of a
mother's brother, has been, as a rule, permitted and even
favoured among all races except the Aryan.
S 4. TJie Marriage of Cousins in other Parts of Asia
Cousin The custom of cousin marriage is also practised by
marriage m ^-j-jbeg jn other parts of Asia, though details concerning the
other parts ^ > t> o
of Asia. custom are generally wanting, the writers who record it being
for the most part apparently unaware of the important dis-
' Ce/isus of India, 1911, vol. i. India, Part i. Report, by (Sir) E. A. Gait
(Calcutta, 1913), pp. 252 sg.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN ASIA 135
tinctions which many peoples draw between those different
classes of relations whom Europeans confound under the
general name of cousins.
Among the Burmese the marriage of cousins of all kinds Cross-
is very common.^ The Chins, a hill tribe of the Tibeto-Bur- carriage
man stock, who are scattered widely over the wild mountains of among the
... ... r -r\ 11- 11 Chins of
Arakan and the adjommg districts of Burma, habitually marry Burma,
their cousins and tell a legend to account for the origin of the
custom. They say that in the beginning the earth produced
a woman called Hlee-neu, who laid a hundred eggs, from
which sprang the various races of men. One ^%%., which
failed to hatch with the rest, she threw away ; but a bird
found it and sat on it and hatched it, and from the &g% were
born a boy and a girl. These two were separated before
they grew up ; and the boy, having no mate, took a bitch to
wife. After a time, however, he met the girl and wished to
marry her ; but as they were brother and sister, they went
and consulted their great mother Hlee-neu, who is believed
to be the author of all Chin laws and customs. " She
ordered that the bitch which the man had married should
be killed, and then they should marry, and that among their
descendants in all time brothers' sons should intermarry with
brothers' daughters. This they give as the origin of two of
their peculiar customs — the sacrificing of dogs to the spirits
(and eating them afterwards), and the right a man has to
claim his cousin on the father's side as a wife." " The
expression " his cousin on the father's side," is ambiguous,
since it includes the father's sister's daughter as well as the
father's brother's daughter ; but from the preceding sentence,
" in all time brothers' sons should intermarry with brothers'
daughters," we naturally infer that the cousin whom a Chin
man has the right to claim in marriage is the daughter of
his father's brother. But as that woman is his ortho-cousin,
it is contrary to general usage that he should be allowed to
marry her. Accordingly we may conjecture that the cousin
whom a Chin man has a right to marry is the daughter, not
of his father's brother but of his father's sister ; and this
1 Census of India, igii, vol. i. - Captain C. J. F. S. Forbes,
India, I'art i. Report, l)y (Sir) E. A. Brilish Burma (London, 1878), p.
Gait (Calcutta, 1913), p. 252. 254.
136 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
conjecture is rendered highly probable by another statement
of the same writer on the next page, that " another fixed
rule is that the eldest son must marry the youngest
daughter of his father's eldest sister." ^ Hence we may
suppose that the sentence, " in all time brothers' sons should
intermarry with brothers' daughters " is a mistake for, " in
all time brothers' sons should intermarry with sisters'
daughters " ; and consequently that the Chins conform to
the usual practice of allowing, or rather enjoining, the
marriage of cross-cousins and forbidding the marriage of
ortho-cousins. Thus interpreted, the Chin custom of
cousin marriage agrees better with the story told to account
for its origin, since according to that not wholly con-
vincing narrative mankind are descended from the offspring
of a brother and a sister, not from the offspring of two
brothers.
Cross- Among the Singphos or Kachins of Upper Burma " it
cousin seems to be a general rule, that a man should marry a first
marriage ^ _ ■ ■'
among the cousin on the female side, or more precisely the daughter of
or^K^cH ^ mother's brother. He may not, however, marry his
of Upper father's sister's child, who is regarded as closely related.
Blood connection is generally traced through the female,
which may or may not be a reminiscence of polyandry.
~^ This rule seems much relaxed among the Southern Kachins,
but it is said that farther north, if there is a marriageable first
cousin whom a man does not want to marr}', he can marry
elsewhere only after paying a fine to the injured parents of
the damsel. The parents are injured because they are
robbed of a certainty in the price of the girl. The forbidden
degrees of consanguinity are — (i) Parents and grand-parents ;
(2) children and grand-children ; (3) father's sister's child ;
(4) father's brother's child (because of the same name) ; (5)
mother's sister's child." ^ According to this account all
marriages of cousins are barred among the Singphos or
Kachins, with the single exception of marriage with a
mother's brother's daughter, which is so far from being
prohibited that, at least among the Northern Kachins, a
^ C. J. F. S. Forbes, British Ilardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma
Btirma, p. 255. and the Shan States (Rangoon, 1900-
2 (Sir) J. George Scott and J. P. 1901), Parti, vol. i. p. 404.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN ASIA 137
man who refuses to marry that particular cousin must pay
a fine to her parents. On the other hand Sir Edward Gait
tells us that "in Burma the Khyengs and Kachins regard a
woman's daughters as the most suitable brides for her
brothers' sons " ; ^ in other words, a man's proper wife is the
daughter of his father's sister, which contradicts Sir George
Scott's statement that a man is forbidden to marry his
father's sister's daughter. In this conflict of authorities Sir
George Scott seems to be supported by the testimony of
Major C. R. Macgregor, who, writing from personal observa-
tion, says, " The marriage customs of the Singphos are
simple. A youth should marry his cousin, his mother's niece
if possible. Should a cousin not be available, the maternal
uncle should arrange for a girl of his class. Should he be
unable to procure one, the uncle goes to another family and
says, ' If you give me a girl for my nephew, I will pay you
back in kind when one of your family requires a bride.'
The father of the youth then gives a feast and presents to
the girl's family. Should the bridegroom's father not be in
a position to give presents, he gives or sells one of his
daughters to the other family in lieu of presents." " In this
account the expression "his mother's niece" is ambiguous,
as it might mean either his mother's brother's daughter or
his mother's sister's daughter ; but the reference to the
maternal uncle makes it practically certain that according to
Major Macgregor the cousin whom a Kachin ought to marry
is the daughter of his mother's brother and not the daughter
of his father's sister. As Sir George Scott had the best
opportunities for informing himself as to the usages of the
Kachins, we may perhaps accept this confirmation of his
evidence as conclusive ; unless indeed we prefer to suppose,
as is quite possible, that the custom varies in different parts
of the tribe, some of the Kachins recommending marriage
with the mother's brother's daughter, and others preferring
marriage with the father's sister's daughter. In any case,
our authorities agree that among the Kachins cross-cousin
1 Census of India, igii, vol i. Woodthorpe, R.E., from Upper Assam
India, Part i., Report by (Sir) E. A. to the Irawadi and return over the
Gait (Calcutta, 1913), p. 256. Patkoi Range," Proceedings of the
2 Major C. R. Macgregor, "Journey Royal Geographical Society, N.S. ix.
of the Expedition under Colonel (1887) p. 23.
138
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cousin
marriage
among the
Karens of
Burma.
Cousin
marriage in
Southern
( hina and
the Malay
Peninsula.
marriage, in one form or another, is the favourite sort of
matrimonial union.
With regard to the Zayeins or Sawng-tung Karens,
of Upper Burma, we are told that " the marriage customs
of the race are very singular, and are so strictly adhered
to that it seems certain that the race must in process
of time become extinct. There are many grey - haired
bachelors in the haws, and many aged spinsters in the
villages, whom Sawng - tung custom has prevented from
marrying. Marriages are only permitted between near
relations, such as cousins, and then only when the union is
approved by the elders. . . . This limitation of marriage to
near relations only, results frequently in unions where husband
and wife are very unequal in age — the husband fifteen and
the wife seventy, or the reverse." ^ Among the Bghais, a tribe
of Karens in Burma, marriages "ought to be always con-
tracted among relatives. First cousins marry, but that rela-
tion is considered undesirably near. Second cousins are
deemed most suitable for marriage. Third cousins may
marry without impropriety, though that relation is considered
as undesirably remote. Beyond third cousins marriages are
prohibited." "' Among the Miaos, an aboriginal race of
Southern China, it is said that girls are compelled to marry
their first cousins, the sons of their mother's brothers ; ^ in
other words, a man has a right to marry the daughter of
his father's sister. Among the Sabimba, an aboriginal tribe
of the Orang Laut stock in the Malay Peninsula, first
cousins who were the children of two brothers might not
marry each other ; but, on the other hand, marriage was
allowed between first cousins who were the children either
of two sisters or of a brother and a sister.^
Among the Gilyaks, who inhabit the lower valley of the
1 (Sir) J. George Scott and J. P.
Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma
and the Shan States, Part i. vol. i. p.
540, compare p. 547.
2 F. Mason, D.D., "Physical
Character of the Karens," Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New
Series, No. cxxxi. (1866) pp. 185^.
^ J. Kohler, "Kleinere Skizzen aus
der ethnolog. Jurisprudenz," Zeitschrift
filr vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft,
vi. (Stuttgart, 1 886) p. 406, referring
to Neumann, Asiatische Sludien, i. 74,
whose information is drawn from a
Chinese work.
* T- R- Logan, "The Orang Sa-
bimba, "y(77<;-«fl/(7/'Mis Indian Archipel-
ago, i. (Singapore, 1847), p. 297 ; W.
W. Skeat and Ch. O. Blagden, Pagan
Races of the Malay Peninsula (London,
1906), ii. 84.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN ASIA 139
Amoor and the northern part of the island of Saghalien, the Cross-
most proper marriage which a man can contract is with his marriage
first cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother ; and such among the
• 11 1 • .1 -1 A Gilyaks.
marriages are still the commonest in the tribe. A man
applies to all such cousins the name of wife, and he has the
right to marry any of them. If any of them is given in
marriage to another man, her first cousin, the son of her
father's sister, still retains his marital rights over her. On
the other hand a man is forbidden to marry his first cousin,
the daughter of his father's sister.^ Thus our information
concerning the Gilyaks is precise ; they strongly favour
marriage with the daughter of a mother's brother, and posi-
tively forbid marriage with the daughter of a father's sister.
But when we pass to the other tribes of North-Eastern Cousin
Siberia, we have to put up with vague statements as to the ^^^0"^^^},^
marriage of cousins in general, without any indication of the tribes of
particular sort of cousins to which the statements apply. E^'terii
The Ainos of Japan " marry their cousins very often, and in Siberia,
some cases their nieces even." ^ Among the Kamchadales
we are told by a writer of the eighteenth century that " the
nearest cousins commonly marry each other." ^ The Chuk-
chee, who inhabit the north-eastern extremity of Siberia,
" have several methods of securing brides and concluding
marriages. One of these is through marriage between
relatives, if possible in the same family, or at least in the
same camp, or in the neighboring camp, where families of
the same blood reside. Most frequent are marriages be-
tween cousins. Marriage between uncle and niece is con-
sidered incestuous."^ On the other hand, marriage with
cousins is reported to be forbidden at the present day among
the Koryaks, the neighbours of the Chukchee ; ^ though a
writer of the eighteenth century tells us that the Koryaks
1 Miss M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal ^ Stephan Krascheninnikow, Be-
Siberia (Oxford, 1914), p. 99 ; Leo schreibung des Laiides Katiitschatka
Sternberg, "The Turano-Ganowanian (Lemgo, 1766), p. 259.
System and the Nations of North-East * Waldemar Bogoras, The Chukchee
Asia," P7-oceedings of the Eighteenth (Leyden and New York, 1904-1909),
Ititerttatiofial Congress of Americanists, p. e^'j6 (The Jesup North Pacific Ex-
p. 324. Miss Czaplicka's authority pedition, vol. vii. ).
appears to be L. Sternberg, The Gilyak * W. Jochelson, The Koryak (Ley-
(1905), a work which I have not seen. den and New York, 1908), p. 736
2 J. Batchelor, The Ainu and their {The Jesup North Pacific Expedition,
Folk-lore (London, 1901), p. 228. vol. vi.).
140
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
generally married relations, and that a man might take to
wife any woman except his mother and his sister/ Among
the Yukaghirs of Siberia marriages between first cousins
were prohibited, but marriages between second cousins were
allowed, and they seem to be still occasionally contracted,
though such unions are forbidden by the statutes of the
Greek Church, to which the miserable remnant of the tribe
professes its conversion.- Among the Ostiaks it is said to
be lawful for a man to marry his first cousin, the daughter
of his father's sister, provided that his wife's mother (his
father's sister) has been married into a tribe or family
different from her own. In that case, her brother is also
allowed to marry her daughter, his niece.^
It is to be hoped that future researches among the
Asiatic tribes outside of India may elicit fuller and more
exact information on the subject of cousin marriage, which
is of great importance for the history of marriage in general.
Cousin
marriage
probably
once
common,
though
little
recorded,
among the
aborigines
ofAmerica.
% 5. The Marriage of Cousins in America
Among the aborigines of America the custom of cousin
marriage appears to be very seldom recorded ; but from the
silence of the record it would be rash to infer the absence of
the institution, since the custom may be widespread without
attracting the attention of observers unfamiliar with primi-
tive systems of kinship, and in particular with the funda-
mental distinction which many of these systems draw
between different classes of cousins in respect of marriage-
ability. However, a few indications allow us to conjecture
that the custom, though almost unrecorded, was once
common among the aboriginal races, both Indian and
Eskimo, of America, and that inquiries conducted at an
earlier time, when the tribes were as yet but little influenced
by an alien civilization, might have brought ample evidence
of it to licfht.
' S. Krascheninnikow, Beschreibung
Jes Laitdes Kamtschatka, p. 280.
2 W. Jochelson, The Yukaghir and
the Yukaghirized Tungtis {Leyden and
New York, 1910), pp. 79 sq., 82, 84
( The Jesitp North Pacific Expedition,
vol. ix. Part i.).
•^ P. S. Pallas, Reise durch verschie-
dene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs
(St. Petersburg, 1 771-1776), iii. 51.
Compare Miss M. A. Czaplicka, Abori-
ginal Siberia, p. 126.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AMERICA 141
The Atkha Aleuts, who inhabit the Andreianof, Rat, Cousin
and Bering islands, between Alaska and Kamtchatka, a"mong^1ie
" allowed intermarriage between all relatives, with the ex- Aleuts.
ception of a brother to a sister, father with his daughter,
and a son with his mother ; and in the case of the death of
one brother, the other was obliged to marry the widow." ^
This information was communicated by Father Yakoff to
Father Innocentius Veniaminoff, our principal authority on
the old customs of the Aleutian Islanders, as these were
observed in the days before intercourse with Europeans had
profoundly modified the natives. Of Father Veniaminoff,
afterwards Bishop of Kamtchatka, we are told that " he
alone of the Greek missionaries to Alaska has left behind
him an undying record of devotion, self-sacrifice, and love,
both to God and man, combined with the true missionary
fire. To him also we owe the first detailed account of the
modern Aleutian character and mode of life." ^ Now, Father
Veniaminoff " mentions that among the x^leut the daughter
of one's uncle was most frequently elected for one's bride." ^
Here the expression uncle is, as usual, ambiguous, since it
covers both the father's brother and the mother's brother ;
but judging by the analogy of cousin marriage in India and
elsewhere, we may conclude, with a fair degree of prob-
ability, that the marriage which the Aleutians preferred to all
others was marriage with a first cousin, the daughter of a
mother's brother.
The statements of our authorities as to the marriage of Cousin
cousins among the Eskimo are contradictory. With regard JJIJIong^fhe
to the Eskimo about Bering Strait, one of our best authori- Eskimo
ties, Mr. E. W. Nelson, tells us that they "frequently marry \y^^l,^
first cousins or remote blood relatives with the idea that in writers,
such a case a wife is nearer to her husband. One man said
that in case of famine, if a man's wife was from another
family she would steal food from him to save her own life,
while the husband would die of starvation ; but should a
' Ivan Petroff, Report on the Popula- ^ Notes on the Islands of Unalashka
tion, Industries and Resottrces of Alaska, District, Part iii. p. 76, quoted by W.
p. 158. Bogoras, The Chukchee (Leyden and
New York, 1904-1909), p. 576 note'
2 William H. Dall, Alaska and its {The Jesup North Pacific Expedition^
Resoin-ces {\.o\\^oxi, 1870), p. 385. vol. vii.).
14:
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cousin
marriage
among the
Eskimo
denied by
other
writers.
Perhaps the
Eskimo
forbid the
marriage
of ortho-
cousins and
allow the
marriage
of cross-
cousins.
woman be of his own blood, she would share fairly with him.
The wife is considered to become more a part of the hus-
band's family than he of hers. However, brothers and
sisters, and step-brothers and step-sisters, do not inter-
marry." ^ Again, of the Eskimo who live between Igloolik
on the north and Noowook on the south we are told by
Captain G. F. Lyon, who resided among them, that " cousins
are allowed to marry, but a man will not wed two sisters." ^
On the other hand, the Danish writer H. Rink, a high
authority on the Eskimo, says that " the Eskimo disapprove
of marriages between cousins," ^ and speaking of the Central
Eskimo, the eminent American ethnologist Dr. Franz Boas
affirms that " marriages between relatives are forbidden :
cousins, nephew and niece, aunt and uncle are not allowed to
intermarry. There is, however, no law to prevent a man from
marrying two sisters. It is remarkable that Lyon states
just the reverse. I am sure, however, that my statements
are correct in reference to the Davis Straits tribes." ^ Again,
Hans Egede, who was a missionary for twenty-five years
among the Eskimo of Greenland, affirms that " they refrain
from marrying their next relations, even in the third degree,
taking such matches to be unwarrantable and quite un-
natural." ^ However, another high authority on the Green-
landers is by no means so categorical in his denial of the
marriage of near relatives among them. He says, " They
seldom marry first cousins, or even persons that are no
relations, if they have been bred up together in one house
as adopted children." "
Perhaps we may reconcile these apparent discrepancies
by supposing that, while the Eskimo strictly forbid marriage
between first cousins, the children either of two brothers or
of two sisters, they permit the marriage of first cousins the
1 E. W. Nelson, "The Eskimo
about Bering Strait," Eighteenth
Annual Report of the Bureatc of
American Ethnology, Part i. (Wash-
ington, 1899) p. 291.
2 Captain G. F. Lyon, Private
fonrnal during the recent Voyage of
Discovery tinder Captain Parry (Lon-
don, 1824), p. 353.
3 H. Rink, The Eskimo Tribe:,
their Distribution and Characteristics
(Copenhagen, 1887), p. 23.
4 Franz Boas, "The Central Es-
kimo," Sixth Annual Report of the
Bureaji of Ethnology (Washington,
1888), p. 579-
^ Hans Egede, A Description of
Greenland (London, 1818), p. 143.
'' David Crantz, History of Green-
/aw^ ( London, 1767),!. 159.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AMERICA 143
children of a brother and of a sister respectively ; and that
the writers who deny the practice of cousin marriage among
the Eskimo have been misled by attending only to the
instances of it which are forbidden and overlooking the
instances of it which are permitted. The extremely hard
conditions of life in the Arctic regions necessitate the dis-
persion of a scanty population over a wide extent of
territory ; hence the local groups are inevitably small, and
it is difficult to imagine how they could continue to exist
without a considerable degree of comparatively close in-
breeding.^ Under these circumstances, and with this im-
portant limitation, the witnesses who affirm the practice of
cousin m.arriages among the Eskimo seem entitled to more
credence than those who deny it.^
Among the Western Tinnehs, a branch of the great cvoss-
Tinneh stock, which occupies a large part of North-Western '-'""^'."
' ^ or marriage
America, the marriage of certain first cousins was common anions; the
and in some cases almost obligatory ; and the particular Tinnehs
form of cousin marriage which was allowed or even enforced
appears to have been the one with the daughter of the
mother's brother. This may be inferred from the following
account of the marriage customs of the Western Tinnehs,
written by an experienced Catholic missionary who lived in
the tribe for many years and made an accurate study of its
customs. His account deserves to be read with attention,
because it shows how a strong aversion to consanguineous
marriages in general may coexist in the same tribe with an
exceptional permission of, and even preference for, a par-
ticular form of cousin marriage ; and from this again we
may gather how easy it would be, even for an intelligent
1 Compare V. Stefansson, My Life be observed that, according to the
with the Eskimo (London, 1913), p. writer, these terms of relationship
401, "As Eskimo communities are refer to spiritual, not physical, affinity,
small and the people are necessarily - I am thus compelled to differ from
usually related in one way or another, my friend M. Marcel Mauss, who in
it is common to find a child addressed his study of Eskimo society accepts the
as a relative by every person in the denials, and rejects the affirmations, of
village. It is one of the child's cousin marriage among the Eskimo,
earliest tasks to learn to recognize all See M. Mauss, " Essai sur les Varia-
these people and« to address them by tions Saisonnieres des Societes Es-
the proper terms of relationship, deal- kimos, Etude de Morphologic Sociale,"
ing with them in this matter entirely L' A nnt'e Sociolo<^ique,'i:ic\i\ihme Annee
with reference to their relation to his (1904-1905) (Paris, 1906), pp. 107
guardian spirit." However, it is to sqq.
144
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
PART II
Fathrr A.
G. Moricc
on the
avei'sion
of the
Western
Tinnehs to
consan-
guineous
marriages.
Marriage
with a
mother's
brother's
daughter
favoured
by the
Western
Tinnehs.
inquirer, to observe the general rule without noting the
exception, and hence to affirm, quite erroneously, that all
marriages of cousins in a certain tribe are prohibited.
After explaining that the Western Tinnehs or, as he
calls them, Denes, are divided into a number of totemic
clans, Father A. G. Morice proceeds as follows : " Now from
time immemorial, a fundamental law in their social constitu-
tion has been for individuals of the same clan never to inter-
marry. So it is that endogamy is looked upon with horror
among them. Indeed, I think I am warranted in affirming
that marriage with a consanguine, unless a very close one,
was preferred to matrimonial union with a co-clansman. As
it is, agnation and consanguinity in the direct or collateral
line on the paternal side were considered powerful barriers
to sexual relations, males and females descended from the
same stock being always regarded as brothers and sisters.
But at what particular point the offspring of a common or
collateral (on the father's side) branch would be deemed
sufficiently distant to admit of matrimonial union is more
than I can say, none among the natives themselves being
able to satisfactorily solve that question. All I can say is
that as long as the common ancestors of two individuals were
remembered, the latter were easily dissuaded from contract-
ing marriage together, even to the fourth and perhaps the
fifth degree of consanguinity, especially if in the direct line.
I do not mean to say that there never were tacitly allowed
deviations from this law, nor absolutely any intermarriage in
the same clan. But the repugnance which such unions
inspired only goes to show that in this case, as in others, the
exception confirms or proves the rule.
" Such was not the case, however, with consanguinity in
collateral lines by the mother's side, cousins of that class,
even as near as the first degree, being by a time-honored
custom almost bound to intermarry. And here it is as well
to state at once that, in common with nearly all primitive
people, mother-right is the supreme law regulating succession
among the Western Denes, and I may add that here (at
Stuart's Lake) it admits of no exception whatever. On the
other hand, another ordinance of their social code forbids
titles as well as landed property to pass by heredity into a
brother's
daughter.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AMERICA 145
different clan. Therefore children of a notable among them
belonging to their mother's clan, could never inherit from
their father. But if the latter had nephews by a sister, one
of them was de jure his successor, this nephew belonging
through his mother to his uncle's clan. Now, by way of
compensation, and to permit the notable's children, who could
not otherwise inherit from him, to enjoy at least as much as
was lawful of their father's succession, one of his daughters
would be united in marriage with her inheriting maternal
first cousin." ^
From this account we learn that under the rule of Economic
mother-kin, which the Tinnehs or D^n^s observe, a man's ^^^^^^
heir is not his own son but his sister's son, and hence that induces the
in order to give his- own children some share of his property favour
after his death, a man seeks to marry his daughter to his marriage
.... with a
sister's son, who is his heir. Thus through marriage with mother":
her first cousin, the son of her father's sister, a woman enjoys
to some extent the paternal estate which descends from her
father to her husband. On these grounds every Tinneh
Indian who has property to bequeath and desires that his
children should benefit by it, has a direct interest in promot-
ing the marriage of his daughter with her first cousin, the son
of her father's sister. So far, therefore, the proper marriage
for a Tinneh woman is with the son of her father's sister ; and
the proper marriage for a Tinneh man is with the daughter
of his mother's brother. It is, therefore, apparently to
these cousins that Father Morice refers when he says that
they are, " by a time-honored custom, almost bound to inter-
marry," and it is this form of cousin marriage that Father
Morice has in mind when in another passage he writes that
" marriage between even first cousins, if on the mother's side,
was quite common, and, in some cases, almost obligatory." "
' Rev. Father A. G. Morice, Canada for the year i8g2, x. (Ottawa,
O.M.I., Stuart's Lake, B.C., "The 1893), Transactions, Section ii. p^
Westera Denes, their Manners and 112. In the light of* the foregoing
Cwstoms" Proceedings of the Cattadiaii passages we must interpret another of
Institute, Toronto, Third Series, vol. Father Morice's statements concerning
vii. Fasciculus No. 1 (October 1889), cousin marriages which at first sight
pp. 118 5(/. seems to contradict the statement last
2 Father A. G. Morice, " Are the quoted. He says, " First cousins mar-
Carrier Sociology and Mythology in- ried each other without any scruple if
digenous or exotic?" Proceedings and related only through the father's side"
Transactions of the Royal Society of (" The Canadian Denes," Annual
VOL. II L
146
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The same
marriage is
favoured
for like
reasons by
some
Dravidian
tribes
of India.
Cross-
cousin
marriage
probabl)'
is or was
commoner
among the
American
Indians
than
appears
from the
recprd.
It is interesting and instructive to observe Indians of
Western Canada desiring and promoting the marriage of a
man with his first cousin, the daughter of his mother's
brother, for the same economic reasons which have appar-
ently led some Dravidian tribes of Central India to favour,
though probably not to originate, the very same kind of
marriage between cousins.^ To suppose that in preferring
such a marriage the red Indian has copied from the black
Dravidian, or the black Dravidian from the red Indian, would
be absurd ; both act independently in obedience to similar
economic motives operating similarly on men in distant
countries who live under similar social institutions. To say
this, however, is not to prejudge the question whether these
social institutions themselves have or have not -a common
origin.
So far as I am aware, this is the only clear case of pre-
ference for marriage with a first cousin, the daughter of a
mother's brother, which has been recorded in the whole of
North America.- But the case is so typical and it fits in so
Archaeological Report, igO^, Toronto,
1906, p. 201). Here Father Morice
seems to have been thinking of the
marriage from the side of the woman,
who marries her paternal aunt's
son. But the expressions "cousin on
the fatlier's side" and "cousin on
the mother's side " are both ambiguous
and apt to lead to confusion. In exact
discussions of marriage customs they
should, therefore, be strictly avoided.
Compare Toteniisin and Exogamy, iii.
349 sq. Mr. C. Hill -Tout under-
stands Father Morice's meaning as I do
{^British North America, the Far West,
the Home of the Salish atid Dbii, Lon-
don, 1907, pp. 145 sq.).
1 See above, pp. 123 sq.
^ Speaking of the marriage of cross-
cousins in America, Dr. W. H. R.
Rivers observes, " So far as I am
aware, the only people among whom
it has been recorded are the Haidahs
of Queen Charlotte Island" {Kinship
and Social Organisation, London, 1914,
pp. 54 sq.). He seems to have over-
looked the case of the Western Tinnehs,
to which I had called attention in
Totemism and Exogamy (London,
1 9 10), iii. 348 sq. For the marriage
of cross-cousins among the Haidas he
refers to J. R. Swanton, Contribtitions
to the Ethnology of the Haida (Leyden
and New York, 1905), p. 62 {The
Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. v. ).
But in that passage Mr. Swanton
clearly uses the terms "fathers' sisters'
daughters" and "mothers' brothers'
daughters " in the classificatory sense,
so that there is no necessary implica-
tion of marriage between cousins in
our sense of the term. Dr. Rivers
adds, " Miss Freire-Marreco tells me
that the cross-cousin marriage occurs
among some of the Hopi Indians."
Though he does not say whether the
marriage is with a mother's brother's
daughter or with a father's sister's
daughter, the statement is very im-
portant, since it proves the occurrence
of the cross-cousin marriage among the
Southern Indians. Finding such mar-
riages in the far South and the far
North of North America, we may con-
fidently conjecture that it was once
widespread in the intermediate area.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AMERICA 147
well, as we shall see presently, with the classificatory system
of relationship which appears to be universally observed by
the American Indians, that it is hardly rash to conjecture
that such marriages are or were formerly very much com-
moner among the Indian tribes of America than appears
from such a meagre record, and that they have only escaped
observation because inquirers have not attended to the
fundamental distinction between the classes of marriageable
and not-marriageable cousins. Hence we may legitimately
receive with distrust the statements even of otherwise com-
petent observers as to the general prohibition of marriage
between cousins in certain tribes. Thus, for example, with
regard to the Thompson Indians of British Columbia, Mr.
James Teit, to whom we are indebted for a very valuable
account of their customs, observes, " Cousins were forbidden
to marry, because they were of one blood, similar to sister
and brother ; and the union of distant blood relations was
discountenanced. Even if second -cousins married, they
were laughed at and talked about." ^ Similarly we are told
that the Cherokees " do not marry their first or second
cousins." ^ We may accept these statements as to first
cousins, the children of two brothers or of two sisters, who
are commonly regarded as brothers and sisters even by
people who permit and encourage the marriage of other
first cousins, the children of a brother and a sister respect-
ively : on the other hand, we may doubt the statements in
their application to cross-cousins, the children of a brother
and a sister respectively.
Again, with regard to the Shuswaps, another Indian .mi general
tribe of British Columbia, Mr. Teit tells us that " blood- ffj^'T"'^
a.S to lllC
relations did not marry, not even second-cousins." Yet absence of
another high authority, Dr. Franz Boas, speaking of the- JiJ'ai'iacre
same tribe, affirms that " marriages between cousins were not ^mong the
forbidden." * On the hypothesis here suggested both these i,"d|!^n^s^"
1 ]?im(isTt\\., The Thompson Indians Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vol. J^"^. ^
of British Cohwibia{'H&yiYoxk, i^oo), ii. Part vii.). ^-^^^
p. 325 [The Jesnp North Pacific Ex- * Franz Boas, in "Sixth Report of caution
pedition). the Committee on the North-Western
"^ ]zxa&% k^2\r. History of the A in eri- Tribes of Canada," p. 91 (separate
can Indians (London, I77S), p- 190. reprint from Report of the British
' James Teit, The Shuswap (Leyden Association for the Advancement of
and New York, 1909), p. 591 {The Science, Leeds Meeting, iSgo).
148
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
eminent anthropologists were right and both were wrong ;
for the affirmation and the denial of cousin marriage were
both ahke true as to one class of cousins and false as to
another. Both would have escaped the error into which, on
my supposition, they fell, if only they had attended to the
fundamental distinction between cousins who are marriageable
and cousins who are not. If that is so, it follows that all
general statements as to the absolute prohibition of cousin
marriages among the Indians of America^ are to be received
with doubt, if not with scepticism. How well founded is that
doubt or that scepticism, will appear more clearly when we
have considered the classificatory system of relationship, on
which the whole marriage system of the American Indians
is built up.
There is some ground for thinking that the marriage of
1 See, for example, VV. M. Dall,
Alaska and its Resources (London,
1870), p. 196, " Cousins do not marry
among the Ingaliks " ; G. M. Sproat,
Scenes and Studies of Savage Life
(London, 1868), p. 99, "By the old
custom of the Aht tribes, no marriage
was permitted within the degree of
second - cousin " ; L. Farrand, in
"Twelfth Report of the Committee on
the North-Western Tribes of Canada,"
Report of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, Bristol
Meeting, iSgS, p. 645, among the
Chilcotin Indians of British Columbia
" recognised blood relationship was and
is always an absolute bar to marriage,
and at present this recognition seems
to extend no further than first cousins " ;
A. F. Chamberlain, in " Eighth Report
of the Committee on the North-Western
Tribes of Canada," Report of the
British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, Edinburgh Meeting,
iSg2, p. 13 (of the separate re-
print), among the Kootenay Indians
of British Columbia " intermarriage
of first cousins appears not to have
been allowed " ; H. R. Schoolcraft,
The Indian Tribes of the United
States (Philadelphia, 1853-1856), v.
655, the Indians of Oregon " never will
(or but rarely) marry a cousin ; thus
that mode of degeneration is avoided " ;
W. H. Keating, A'a>7-ative of an Ex-
pedition to the Source of St. Peter''s
River (London, 1825), ii. 167, among
the Chippewas, " cousins german are
considered in the same light as brothers
and held to be bound by the same
rules ; relationship is not felt beyond
this degree " ; Stephen Powers, Ti-ibes
of California (Washington, 1877), p.
192, with regard to the Gualalas of
California, " in marriage they observe
strictly the Mosaic table of prohibited
affinities, accounting it ' poison,' as
they say, for a person to marry a cousin,
or an avuncular relative " ; W. M.
(jabb, " On the Indian Tribes and
Languages of Costa Rica," Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society
held at Philadelphia, xiv. (Philadelphia,
1876), pp. 496 sq., "Cousins, even to
a remote degree, are called brother
and sister, and are .most strictly pro-
hibited from intermarriage. The law,
or custom, is not an introduced one,
but one handed down from remote
times. The penalty for its violation
was originally very severe ; nothing
less than the burial alive of both
parties " ; E. Westermarck, History of
Human l\Iarriage (London, 1 89 1), p.
299, among the Yahgans of Tierra del
Fuego, " no marriage, no intercourse
ever takes place among blood-relations,
even to second cousins" (on the author-
ity of Mr. Bridges).
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AFRICA 149
cross-cousins was in full vogue among the Caribs of the Cousm
Antilles, for we read that " when our savages desire to '"'^'"'''''^s^
^ among the
marry they have the right to take all their female cousins- Indians of
german ; they have nothing to do but to say that they take and^f^'^'^^
them to wife, whereupon the women are naturally acquired South
by them, and they may carry them off to their houses with- "^^''"^^•
out ceremony, and thenceforth the women are looked upon
as their legitimate wives." ^ Another old writer tells us
that among the Caribs a man's female cousins-german on
the mother's side are his " born wives," and that the Caribs
" are born married, so to say, in virtue of the rule laid down
by their law and of the right which male cousins have over
their female cousins-german." ^ Among the Arawaks of
Guiana it is reported to be the rule that cousins " on the
father's side " may marry each other, but that cousins " on
the mother's side " may not. On the other hand among the
Caribs cousins, both on the paternal and on the maternal
side, are free to marry each other.^ The expressions " on
the father's side " and " on the mother's side " are ambiguous.
Perhaps the writer who reports these rules meant to say
that among the Arawaks a man may marry his first cousin
the daughter of his father's sister, but not his first cousin
the daughter of his mother's brother, and that among the
Caribs marriage with both these cousins was permitted.
Again, with regard to the Indians of the Isanna River, a
tributary of the Rio Negro in North-Western Brazil, we are
told that " they marry one, two, or three wives, and prefer
relations, marrying with cousins, uncles with nieces, and
nephews with aunts, so that in a village all are connected." *
^ 6. The Marriage of Cousins in Africa
Among the black races of Africa, including both the Cross-
Bantus and the pure negroes, the marriage of a man with n°^rria<Te
his first cousin, the daughter either of his mother's brother common in
Africa.
^ De Rochefort, Histoire Naturelle LandenVolkvan Suriname," T^z/V/ro^i???
ct Morale des Iks Antilles (Rotterdam, tot de I'aal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
1665), p. 544. Nederlandsch- Indie, Iv. (1903) p. 503.
- J. F. Lafitau, Moeic7-s des Salvages
Amciiquains (Paris, 1724), i. 557, * A. R. Wallace, Narrative of
560. Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro
3 C. van Coll, " (iegevens over (London, 1889), p. 353.
ISO
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross-
cousin
marriage
among the
Herero of
South-
west
Africa.
Cousin
marriage
among the
Bantu
tribes of
South-East
Africa.
or of his father's sister, is frequently permitted and some-
times preferred, while on the contrary the marriage of a man
with his first cousin, the daughter either of his father's brother
or of his mother's sister, is generally prohibited. In short, as
a rule, the marriage of cross-cousins is allowed, and the
marriage of ortho-cousins is disallowed. However, there
are exceptions to the rule. In some tribes, as we shall see,
all marriages of first cousins are absolutely prohibited.
Thus, to begin with the Bantu tribes of South Africa,
among the Herero of South-West Africa " marriages be-
tween relations are so much preferred that marriages between
persons who are not related to each other are actually a
rarity. Again, among relations marriages between cousins
are especially preferred, but only between children of a brother
and a sister, not between the children of two brothers or of
two sisters, because the Herero assert that children of such
blood relations are weak and die. . . . Such a marriage is
not only improper, but is actually regarded as a horror,
because the children of two brothers or of two sisters are
themselves brothers and sisters according to Herero law,
and sexual intercourse between them is viewed as incest
and even subjects the culprits to the consequences of the
blood-feud." However, the custom which directs a man to
marry his cousin, the daughter either of his mother's brother
or of his father's sister, is often broken through, but even
then the wife is still sought among the kinsfolk of her
husband.^
Again, " the Bechuanas and the Caffres acknowledge and
respect the same degrees of consanguinity as we do. They
do not reckon relationship beyond the degree of second
cousin. Marriages between brothers and sisters, uncles and
nieces, nephews and aunts are disapproved of. Those
between cousins frequently take place, but there are some
tribes who condemn them as incestuous." ^ Speaking of the
Bantu tribes of South-East Africa. Dr. G. McCall Theal
1 E. Dannert, Zimi Rechte der
Herero (Berlin, 1906), pp. 33 sq., 37.
Compare H. Schinz, Detiisch-Sudwest-
Afrika (Oldenburg and Leipsic, preface
dated 1S91), p. 177 ; Bensen, quoted
by Prof. J. Kohler, " Das Recht der
Herero," Zeitschrift fur vergleichende
Rechtswtssenschaft, xiv. (1900) pp.
300 sq.
- Rev. E. Casalis, The Basntos
(London, 1S61), p. 191.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AFRICA 131
observes, " Every man of a coast tribe regarded himself as
the protector of those females whom we would call his
cousins, second cousins, third cousins, and so forth, on the
father's side, while some had a similar feeling towards the
same relatives on the mother's side as well, and classified
them all as sisters. Immorality with one of them would
have been considered incestuous, something horrible, some-
thing unutterably disgraceful. Of old it was- punished by
the death of the male, and even now a heavy fine is inflicted
upon him, while the guilt of the female must be atoned by
a sacrifice performed with due ceremony by the tribal
priest, or it is believed a curse will rest upon her and her
issue. ... In contrast to this prohibition the native of the
interior almost as a rule married the daughter of his father's
brother, in order, as he said, to keep property from being
lost to his family. This custom more than anything else
created a disgust and contempt for them by the people of
the coast, who term such intermarriages the union of dogs,
and attribute to them the insanity and idiocy which in
recent times has become prevalent among the inland tribes." ^
This preference for marriage with a first cousin, the
daughter of the father's brother, is rare ; however, we shall
meet it again in Madagascar and among the Arabs. Among
the Hlubis and others commonly called Fingos, in this part
of Africa, a man is free to marry his mother's brother's
daughter,^ which we have seen reason to regard as the most
popular form of cousin marriage, the one of which Jacob's
marriage with Leah and Rachel is the type.
Among the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoni-
land, in North-Eastern Rhodesia, including the Achewa and
1 G. McCall Theal, Records of South- on that side, but not on father's side.
Eastern Africa, vii. (1901) pp. 431, " Basuto, Batlaro, Batiapin, and
432. In a note (p. 432) the writer Barolong: veiy frequently marry cousins
adds, "Among the tribes within the on father's side, and know of no re-
Cape Colony at the present time the strictions beyond actual sisters."
differences are as follows : — As I have already remarked, the
" Xosas, Tembus, and Pondos : expressions " cousins on the father's
marry no relative by blood, however side" and "cousins on the mother's
distant, on either father's or mother's side " are ambiguous and should be
side. avoided.
" Hlubis and others commonly
called Fingos : may marry the daughter 2 See G. McCall Theal, quoted in
of mother's brother and other relatives the preceding note.
152
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cousin
marriage
among the
Nyanja-
speaking
tribes of
North-
Eastern
Rhodesia.
Permission
to marry
ortho-
Angoni tribes, it appears that a man is everywhere free to
marry his cross-cousin, the daughter either of his mother's
brother or of his father's sister. Further, he may, under
certain conditions, marry his ortho-cousin, the daughter of
his mother's sister ; and he may, under certain other con-
ditions, marry his ortho-cousin, the daughter of his father's
brother. The permission and the prohibition of marriage
between ortho- cousins, the children of two sisters or of
cousins, the j;vvo brothers, vary according as the descent of the totem is
daughters , , • i i • i it t -i
of a reckoned m the paternal or m the maternal Ime. In tribes,
mother's ^\xc\\ as the Angonis, which reckon the descent of the
sister or of , i. i m i
a father's totem in the paternal hne, the children of two brothers can
brother, never marry each other, because they necessarily have, like
intermarry- their fathers, the same totem. But in these tribes the
have'^°"^'"^ children of two sisters may marry each other, if the two
different sistcrs married men of different totems ; for in that case
° ^^^^' the cousins would have, like their fathers, different totems.
In tribes, such as the Achewas, which reckon the descent of
the' totem in the maternal line, the rule is just the converse.
In such tribes the children of two sisters can never marry
each other, because they necessarily have, like their mothers,
the same totem. But in these tribes the children of two
brothers may marry each other, if the two brothers married
"~^ women of different totems ; for in that case the cousins
would have, like their mothers, different totems.^ In
totemic society it is a general rule that identity of totems is
a bar to marriage. Accordingly among these tribes of
British Central Africa the marriage of cousins is barred
when it conflicts, but is permitted when it does not conflict,
with that general rule. But the marriage with a cross-
cousin, the daughter either of a mother's brother or of a
father's sister, never conflicts with that general rule, since
the cross - cousins have always different totems, whether
descent of the totem be reckoned in the paternal or in the
1 R. Sutherland Rattray, Some Folk-
lore Stories and Songs in Chinyanja
(London, 1907), p. 202. Compare
Totemisin and Exogamy, ii. 399 517. ;
J. C. C. Coxhead, Tlie h^ative Tribes
of North - Eastern Rhodesia (London,
1914), pp. 19 note' ("Succession
amongst the Ansjoni is in the male
line, amongst the Achevva in the female
line "), 29. As to the Tumbuka of
this region we are told that "people
of the same clan name were not sup-
posed to marry, but cousins who were
children of a brother and sister might."
See D. Fiaser, Winning a Primitive
People (London, 1914), p. 153
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OE COUSINS IN AERICA 153
maternal line ; hence in these tribes cross-cousin marriages
are always lawful.^
The principles which regulate the marriage of cousins, Cross
allowing some and prohibiting others, are similar among the Ij^^^riage
Awemba, another Bantu tribe of North-Eastern Rhodesia, among the
T .1 , .. •! 1 • • 1.1- Awemba of
In that tribe, a man may marry his cross -cousm, the ^^j.^-^.
daughter either of his mother's brother or of his father's Eastern
sister, because her totem is always different from his ; but
he is forbidden to marry his ortho-cousin, the daughter
either of his mother's sister or of his father's brother, because
she is regarded as his sister. This is the gist of the
marriage regulations set forth by Messrs. Gouldsbury and
Sheane in the following instructive passage : —
" Among the Awemba we find two main principles Messrs.
regulating the laws of marriage affinities. The first is that ^^°f'^^'
a man may not marry a woman of his mother's totem ; for andsheane
instance an ' Elephant ' man may not marry an ' Elephant ' cousir^
girl. The Awemba, it is true, are known by both the marriage
totems of their father and mother; but, in marriage, the Aweml^a.^
totem of the father is not considered, that of the mother F'pt
being the determining factor. Thus, female cousins, who marrmge
bear the totem of his mother, are taboo to the young suitor, ■"'^^ ^
woman of
Though the marriage of cousms is of common occurrence, the same
vet we cannot assert that marriages are made within the *°'^"V. ^
J ^ prohibited.
totem. A man may, for instance, marry the daughter of
his maternal uncle, or the children of his paternal aunt,
because the totems of their respective mothers are alien to
his own, which he derived from the distaff side. The
Wemba elders say that even marriages of cousins were
prohibited in the olden days, and deprecate the present
universal system of cousin marriage. It is, undoubtedly,
one of the main reasons which render the Wemba women
less prolific than the wives of the Wiwa and other tribes
where such close unions are prohibited.
" The second principle is that a man may not marry
1 What is here said of the marriage maternal line, and in which, moreover,
rules of these totemic tribes of Central the marriage of all first cousins is
Africa would not apply to certain barred by a curious social machinery,
totemic tribes of Central Australia, in which appears to have been specially
which the totems do not descend devised for the purpose. See below,
either in the paternal or in the pp. 237 sq.
154
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Second
principle :
marriage
with the
daughter
of a
"potential"
father or
mother
prohibited.
Cousin
marriage
forbidden
among the
Winam-
vvanga.
The father's
brother is
ranked as
father,
and the
mother's
sister is
ranked as
mother ;
hence
marriage
with the
daughter of
the father's
brother or
of the
mother's
sister is
forbidden.
the daughter of his ' potential ' mother or father. On his
father's decease the uncle [father's brother] inherits, and,
owing to the generic system of nomenclature, takes the title
of ' father.' The daughters of this paternal uncle are, there-
fore, always taboo to the prospective suitor, who is called
their 'brother.' In the same way, since his aunt on the
mother's side, in the event of the latter's death, assumes the
title of ' mother,' he cannot marry any of the children of
his maternal aunt, who are called his ' sisters.'
" We may here contrast the marriage laws of the
neighbouring Winamwanga, where descent is reckoned on
the father's side, and where the son can inherit in default of
a brother. They absolutely prohibit marriage with first
cousins on either the father's or the mother's side. Yet the
son takes over*his father's wives as a matter of course. . . .
To give a concrete instance : a man Kafyume, a polygamist,
has a male child Kachinga. On his father's death, Kachinga
will inherit and live with his father's wives, with the natural
exception of his own mother, who is pensioned off. The
Awemba express their disgust at a man marrying his
father's wives, while the Winamwanga retaliate by asserting
that the Awemba are so shameless in wedding their cousins
that they would, no doubt, like to espouse their own
sisters ! " ^
In this account the reasons assigned for barring the
marriage of ortho-cousins, the children of two brothers or of
two sisters, deserve to be noted. It is not that the two
cousins have the same totem, as, with maternal descent of
the totem, would necessarily happen if they were children
of two sisters, and as would happen also, wnth the
same descent of the totem, if they were children of two
brothers, provided that the brothers had married women
of the same totem, for in that case their children would
also have the same totem and therefore could not
marry each other. Yet though the usual rule of totemic
exogamy supplies a sufficient rule for prohibiting in this
tribe all marriages between the children of sisters, and
some marriages between the children of brothers, it is
1 Cullen Gouldsbury and Hubert Sheane, The Great Plateau of Northern
Rhodesia (London, 191 1), pp. \']'2sq.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AFRICA 155
not adduced as a reason for banning these unions. The
reason alleged is quite different : it is that in the case of
the children of two brothers, both the brothers are called
" father " by the children, who therefore are related to each
other as brothers and sisters and cannot intermarry ; and
that in the case of the children of two sisters, both the
sisters are called " mother " by the children, who therefore
are related to each other as brothers and sisters and cannot
intermarry. Later on we shall see that this nomenclature
for a father's brother and a mother's sister is characteristic
of the classificatory or group system of relationship, with
which the whole practice of cousin marriage is intimately
bound up.
From the account which Messrs. Gouldsbury and Sheane Cousin
give we learn that among the Winamwanga all marriages ^soiutety
of first cousins are absolutely prohibited. Their testimony forbidden
is confirmed in less explicit terms by other witnesses. l^ib^™of
Thus Dr. J. A. Chisholm tells us that in this tribe " a man North-
cannot marry into his own family, however distant the Rhodesia,
relationship. Marriage with a cousin would be looked on
as marriage with a sister," ^ and Mr. J. C. C. Coxhead
reports that "a man is prohibited from marrying any female
of his own family of the same totem, and cousin marriages
(allowed amongst the Wemba) are strictly forbidden.
Within the totem no sexual intercourse is allowed. If a
brother and sister, or two cousins descended from males of
the same totem, had intercourse, they were burnt to death
in the olden time."^ A prohibition, more or less complete,
of cousin marriage is reported of other Bantu tribes in
North-Eastern Rhodesia. Thus among the Awisa, who are
divided into totemic clans with descent of the totem in the
maternal line, " this is the main rule of relationship and
marriage, and it is strictly observed. It is also considered
wrong for near relations on the male side (half-brother and
half-sister, or even cousins) to marry." ^ Again, among the
1 Dr. James A. Chisholm, "Notes Tribes of North-Eastern Rhodesia
on the Manners and Customs of the (London, 1914), p. 51 (Royal Anth?o-
Winamwanga and Wiwa," Journal of pological Institute, Occasional Papers^
the African Society, No. 36 (July No. 5).
rgio), p. 383.
2 J. C. C. Coxhead, The Native ^ J. C. C. Coxhead, op. cit. p. 34.
156
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross-
cousin
marriage
in East
Africa.
Alungu, " the prohibition from marriage with blood relations
is stronger than that which exists amongst the Awemba,
cousins not being allowed to marry until the fourth genera-
tion. The totem prohibition was never knowingly over-
ridden, though a man could expiate his fault by throwing
some small present on to the mat when he married a woman
of his own totem in ignorance. If the woman accepted the
present, there was no bar to the validity of the marriage."^
However, in these latter cases the reports of the custom are
too indefinite to allow us to decide whether among the
Awisa and the Alungu all marriages of first cousins without
exception are barred, or whether the prohibition applies
only to marriages between the children of two brothers or
of two sisters.
Among the Wahehe, a tribe of German East Africa, a
man may not marry his first cousin, the daughter either of
his mother's sister or of his father's brother ; but he is free
to marry his first cousin, the daughter of his mother's
brother or of his father's sister, indeed such marriages are
very common ; in short, he is allowed to marry his cross-
cousin, but forbidden to marry his ortho-cousin.^ So with
the Wagogo, another tribe of German East Africa, marriage
is forbidden between ortho-cousins, the children of two
brothers or of two sisters, but it is permitted between cross-
cousins, the children of a brother and a sister respectively.
But at the weddings of such cousins it is customary for the
father of the bride to kill a sheep and put on a leathern
armlet, otherwise the marriage, it is believed, would prove
unfruitful.^ Similarly, among the Sangos, another tribe of
the same region, the marriage of ortho-cousins is for-
bidden and the marriage of cross-cousins is permitted, but
1 J. C. C. Coxhead, The Native
Tribes of North-Eastcrn Rhodesia, p.
41.
2 E. Nigmann, Die Wahehe (Berlin,
1908), p. 60; O. Dempwolff, " Bei-
trage zur Volksbeschreibung der Hehe,"
Baessler-Archiv, iv. Heft 3 (Leipsic
and Berlin, 19 13), p. 103. The latter
writer mentions the prohibition to
marry an ortho-cousin, but not the
permission to marry a cross-cousin.
3 Heinrich Claus, Die IVagogo (Leip-
sic and Berlin, 1911), p. 58 [Baessler-
Archiv, Beiheft ii. ). The leathern
armlet is probably made from the skin
of the slaughtered sheep, though this
is not mentioned by the writer. See
above, pp. 6 sgq. We should expect
the armlet to be worn by the bride
rather than by her father ; but the
writer's words (" isi es iiblich, class
der Vater der Frau ein Schaf schlachtet
7111(1 ein I.ederayiuband anlegi ") seem
not to admit of this interpretation.
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AFRICA 157
not favoured, the people preferring to take their wives from
famiUes witli whicli they are not related.^ Among the Ba- Cross-
fioti, a l^antu people of West Africa, in the lower valley of the |i°"rHajTe
Congo, a man may not marry his ortho-cousin, the daughter in West
of his father's brother; but he may marry his cross-cousin,
the daughter of his father's sister. Apparently he is for-
bidden to marry his other cross-cousin, the daughter of
his mother's brother, for we are told that " a man may not
marry any of his mother's family or relations whom he terms
Mama." ' Among the Ewe-speaking people of West Africa,
who are pure negroes and do not belong to the Bantu race,
marriage is forbidden between first cousins, the children
either of two brothers or of two sisters ; but it is allowed
between two first cousins who are the children of a brother
and a sister respectively. In other words, a man is free to
marry the daughter either of his mother's brother or of his
father's sister ; in short, the marriage of cross-cousins is
allowed, and the marriage of ortho-cousins is forbidden.^
Among the Yan Gido, a Hausa clan in Katsina (Northern
Nigeria) the rule as to the marriage of cousins is precisely
similar.'^ Among the Susu of Sierra Leone cross-cousin
marriage is the rule.^
Marriages with the daughter either of a father's brother Cousin
or of a mother's brother are especially popular in modern "^^'y^s^
in Iigypt.
Egypt. This preference for marriage with the daughter of a
father's brother has met us already among some Bantu tribes
of South Africa.^ It occurs also among the Malagasy who, Cousin
while they prefer the marriage of first cousins who arc the
children of two brothers, on the other hand regard with horror gascar.
the marriage of first cousins who are the children of two sisters.
On this subject Mr. James Sibree, one of our best authori-
^ Missionar Heese, " Silte und from infornialion kindly supplied by
Brauch der Sango," Archiv fiir An- Mr. H. R. Palmer, Resident in Charge
thropologie, N.F. xii. (1913) p. 134. of Katsina.
/i^- ,^-A^?""/,"'.^' ^t ^a^/fc y 5 Northcote W. Thomas, Anthro-
the Black Man^s Mind (London, 1 906), p^i,^,^i j^.p,,.^ ,,, sierra Leone, Part
p. 36.
3 G. Ziindel, " Land und Leute der
Eweer auf der .Sclavenkiiste in West-
marriage in
Mada-'
i. Law and Custom (London, 1916),
p. lOI.
afrika," Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fiir ^ W. H. R. Rivers, Kinship and
Erdkunde zu Berlin, xii. (1877) p. ^^"^^ Organisation^ (London, 1914),
390.
p. 79. See further below, p. 25^).
■• Totetnisin and Exogamy, ii. 607, ^ Above, p. 151.
158 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
Marriage tics Oil Madagascar, writes as follows : " Marriage between
between brothers' children is exceedingly common, and is looked upon
cousins, the ° ■' '■
children of as the most proper kind of connection, as keeping property
brothers, together in the same family (the marriage of two persons
nearly related to each other is called Ibva-tsi-miflndra, i.e.
* inheritance not removing ') ; and there does not seem to
result from such marriages any of those consequences in
idiocy and mental disorder of the offspring which are fre-
quently seen in European nations as arising from the
marriages of first cousins. It is possible, however, that to
this marrying in and amongst tribes and families is due, in
part at least, the sterility so frequent in Malagasy women.
. . . Marriage between brothers' and sisters' children is
also allowable on the performance of a slight prescribed
ceremony, supposed to remove any impediment from con-
sanguinity ; but that of sisters' children, when the sisters
have the same mother, is regarded with horror as incest,
being emphatically fady or tabooed, and not allowable
down to the fifth generation, that is, to the great-
great-great-grandchildren of such two sisters." ^ To the
same effect Messrs. Alfred and Guillaume Grandidier,
in their authoritative work on Madagascar, report as
follows : " We shall insist on the fact, to which we have
-V already called attention, that if marriage between children
and descendants of two sisters, that is, between uterine
cousins who are collaterals on the mother's side, was
fadibe (formally forbidden, incestuous in the highest
degree), mandokd (a crime against nature), marriage between
children and descendants of two brothers, that is, between
consanguine cousins who are collaterals on the father's side,
was considered desirable, especially among the Merina, and
was often contracted after a sort of exorcism to viaiiala
ondrand, to remove the obstacles presented by consan-
guinity or, as is said in the South, to vianafaka tonony, to
avert the misfortunes which such an union might entail." ^
1 Rev. James Sibree, The Great Anthropological Institute, ix. (1880)
Afncan Island, Chapters on Madagascar p. 39. Compare A. van Gennep,
(London), 1880, pp. 248 sq.; id., Tabou et Tothnisme a Madagascar
" Relationships and the names used for (Paris, 1904), pp. 162 sq.
them among the peoples of Madagascar, ^ Alfred Grandidier et Guillaume
chiefly the lio\3iS," Journal of the Grandidier, Ethnographie de Madagas-
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AFRICA 159
Elsewhere the same writers inform us that among the Expiation
Malagasy marriage between cousins, the children of a brother ^!|rria„e
and of a sister respectively, as well as between cousins, the between
children of two brothers, was permissible on the performance
of a sacrifice intended to remove the impediment to such
unions. The sacrifice took place in the village of the
bride's parents, and the victim was an ox, a sheep, or a
fowl, according to the degree of relationship between the
bridal pair and their wealth or poverty ; for blood is deemed
necessary to ensure the blessing of God and of the ancestors
on a marriage of this sort. In some of the northern clans
the newly wedded couple are sprinkled with cow's dung,
mixed with boiled rice, as a means of removing the impedi-
ment to their union ; and they believe that, if they did not
undergo this aspersion, they would die young or would fall
innocent victims to the poison ordeal, whenever a false
charge should be brought against them.^
But while the custom of marriage with certain first cousins in some
is widespread among the aborigines of Africa, especially among tribeT"
those of the Bantu stock, it is not universal ; on the contrary especially
there are some tribes which prohibit more or less strictly all stock, the
marriages whatsoever between cousins. Some prohibitions, marriage of
apparently universal, of cousin marriages in Africa have cousins is
already been recorded ; ^ but, as I have indicated, in these absolutely
• . 1 , , , 1 -, • • ,1 prohibited.
cases it IS not clear whether the prohibitions are really
universal or only apply to certain cases of cousin marriage,
particularly to marriages between the children of brothers or
the children of sisters. However, there are a certain number
of Bantu tribes in which all marriages between cousins,
without distinction, appear to have been positively forbidden.
Thus in the Uganda Protectorate there is a compact group The
of four tribes, the Baganda, the Banyoro, the Basoga, and ^^fij-st^^
the Bateso, in which the marriage of all first cousins was cousins
unlawful. At the same time all four tribes allowed marriage among the
between second cousins in certain cases, namely, when the Baganda,
Bajiyoro,
■ ■ Basoga,
car, ii. (Paris, 1914), p. 167 [Histoire SocUii d' Anthropologic de Paris, vi.
Physique, Nattirelle et Poliiique de Serie iv. (1913), p. 23.
Madagascar, vol. iv. ) Compare G. ^ A. et G. Grandidier, j£'//^;/^^rrt//^/>
Grandidier, " Le Mariage a Mada- de Madagascar, ii. 149 j^.
gascar," Bulletins et M^moires de la ^ See above, pp. 151, 154, 155 sg.
i6o
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
PART II
Cross-
cousins
obliged
to avoid
each other
among the
Baganda.
second cousins were the grandchildren of a brother and sister
respectively, and when, moreover, the father of one of the
second cousins was a son of that brother, and the mother of
the other second cousin was a daughter of that sister. In
short, a man's children might not marry his sister's children,
but a man's son's children might marry his sister's daughter's
children.^ Amongst the Baganda so stringent was the pro-
hibition of marriage between cross-cousins, the children of a
brother and a sister respectively, that the punishment for a
breach of it was death.^ This certainly is a striking contrast
to the usage of other Bantu tribes, who regularly permit or
even specially favour such unions between cousins. But
among the Baganda cross-cousins were not only forbidden
to marry each other under pain of death ; they might not
even enter the same house nor eat out of the same dish ; a
man's first cousin, the daughter either of his mother's brother
or of his father's sister, was not allowed to approach him or
to hand him anything. If the cousins failed to observe these
restrictions, it was believed that they would fall ill, so that
their hands would tremble and they would be unfit for any
work. But these rules of avoidance did not apply to ortho-
cousins, the children either of two brothers or of two sisters ;
these cousins were regarded as brothers and sisters and might
intermingle freely with each other.^
This distinction between the behaviour to each other of
different classes of cousins is very significant. The custom of
mutual avoidance between persons of opposite sexes is almost
certainly in origin a precaution intended to prevent improper
' Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 460
sq.^ 463, 508, 522, from information
furnished by the Rev. John Roscoe ;
J. Roscoe, The Baganda (London,
191 1), pp. 128 sq., 131, 132; id..
The Northern Bantu (Cambridge,
1915), pp. 38 (the Banyoro), 209
(the Basoga), p. 263 (the Bateso).
The general prohibition of marriage
between first cousins is mentioned by
Sir Harry Johnston, The Uganda Pro-
tectorate (London, 1904), ii. 688, 695.
2 J. Roscoe, The Baganda, pp. 129,
131, 132.
' Sir Harry Johnston, The Uganda
Protectorate, ii. 695 ; J. Roscoe, The
Baganda, pp. 128 sq. Sir Harry
Johnston mentions the rules of avoid-
ance between cousins in general, without
noticing that these rules apply only to
cross -cousins. Mr. Roscoe does not
expressly say .that cousinsi who are, the
children of two brothers might inter-
mingle freely with each other, but he
apparently implies it by saying (p. 129)
that the father's brothers' childien
"were brothers and sisters to his
children," and that "the mother's
sisters' children were brothers and
sisters to her own children, and might
intermingle freely with them."
CHAP. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AFRICA i6i
relations between persons who might conceivably be betrayed
into them.^ Accordingly when we find that among the
Baganda such rules of avoidance are observed between cross- Thcmutuai
cousins (children of a brother and a sister respectively), but of°ross-*^^
not between ortho-cousins (children of two brothers or of two cousins
sisters), the inference to be drawn from the distinction is that eTgaifda^
sexual intercourse is thought to be possible, though very seems to
1-111 • 1 • -1 1 1 i^ show that
undesirable, between cross-cousms, but impossible between the
ortho- cousins, who are put on a level with brothers and P'ohibition
. . of marriage
sisters. From this again we may infer that the distinction between
between cross-cousins and ortho-cousins is extremely ancient, '^^ni isof
•' much more
and that the prohibition of sexual intercourse between ortho- recent
cousins had been so long in force that the observance of it °^!fn"he
had grown into an instinct which, like the similar prohibition prohibition
of sexual intercourse between brothers and sisters, needed no beuv^n^^^
extraneous safeguard among normal persons ; but that, on ortho-
the other hand, the prohibition of sexual intercourse between who are not
cross-cousins was so comparatively recent that it had not yet subject to
acquired the force of a long-established custom, and therefore restrictions
needed to be guarded by the special precaution of a strict '" '^'^"'
mutual avoidance between the cross-cousins. If this inference intercourse
is correct, it will follow that among the Baganda, as among ^^'^^ ^^^'^
many other Bantu tribes of Africa, the marriage of cross-
cousins had continued to be lawful, and perhaps popular,
long after the marriage of ortho-cousins had been strictly
forbidden. Later on we shall find a precisely similar rule
of avoidance observed for similar reasons among the aborigines
of New Ireland.^
The Akiku)u of British East Africa appear to carry the Among the
prohibition of cousin marriage still further than the Baganda, the' "^"
for they are reported to bar the marriage of second cousins marriage
111 • re • 1 1 T-i both of
as well as the marriage of first cousins ; whereas the Baganda, first and
as we have seen, allow the marriage of second cousins in of second
T-1 ■ r /- cousins is
certain cases. The marriage of first and second cousins, forbidden,
the children and grandchildren of brothers and sisters, is
regarded by the Akikuyu as a grave sin, and they believe
that, if it has been knowingly contracted, the children
begotten of such an unhallowed union will surely die ;
' Totemism and Exogamy^ iv. lo8 (London, 1913), pp. 88 sqq.
sqq. ; Psyche's Task, Second Edition ^ gee below, p. 183.
VOL. II M
l62
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Expiation
for the
marriage
of cousins.
Marriage
of cousins
prohibited
among the
Thonga.
Expiation
for the
marriage
of cousins
•' killing
the rela-
tionship."
for in their judgment the sin is visited on the innocent
offspring and not on the guilty parents, and no blood
of sheep or other ceremonial detergent can wash out the
deep stain {thaJiii) that rests on the misbegotten brats.
On the other hand, if the sin of the parents has been
committed unwittingly, that is in ignorance of the relation-
ship between them, the defilement {thahii), which would
otherwise prove fatal to the children, can be removed as
follows. The elders take a sheep, place it on the shoulders
of the guilty wife, and there and tlien butcher the animal.
While its warm blood gushes over her body, the elders
draw out the guts from the carcass, and solemnly sever
them with a sharp splinter of wood cut from a bush of a
particular kind, while they announce that they are severing
the bond of blood relationship which exists between the
pair.^
Again, among the Thonga, a Bantu tribe of Portuguese
East Africa, the marriage of cousins, even in the fourth, sixth,
eighth, and tenth degrees, is prohibited ; indeed two persons
are forbidden to marry each other if it can be shown that
they have a single common ancestor, however remote. The
prohibition is particularly stringent when the relationship is
traced through males ; it is sometimes relaxed after four
generations when the relationship is traced through women.
In such cases the husband has to pay a sum in addition to
the customary bride -price for the purpose, as they say, of
" killing the relationship " {dlaya shilongo), after which the
tie of consanguinity is supposed to be severed.^ But in
^ C. W. Hobley, " Kikuyu Customs
and 'BcWiik," Journal of the Royal An-
thropological Institute, xl. (1910) p.
438.
- Henri A. Janod, les /^a-Ronga
(Neuchatel, 1898), pp. 84-86; com-
pare id. , Life oj a South African Tribe
(Neuchatel, 1912-1913), i. 241 sqq.
The Ba-Ronga are the portion of the
Thonga tribe who are settled about
Delagoa Bay. Mr. Jtinod's exposition
of the subject in his earlier work is
clearer than that in his later work, and
I have followed it in the text. It seems
to apply particularly to the Ba-Ronga
branch of the Thonga tribe. In his
later work (life of a South African
Tribe, i. 241) he says, -'Amongst the
Ba-Ronga, it is taboo for a boy to marry
a girl when both can lay claim to a
common ancestor in the paternal line.
It seems that the rule is not so stringent
in the Northern clans. According to
Mankhelu, marriage is absolutely pro-
hibited between all the descendants of a
grandfather, viz. between first cousins.
Between second cousins it is permitted
conditionally, ' by killing the family
tie,' and between third cousins it is
allowed. . . . On the mother's side,
this absolute prohibition extends to
first cousins when mothers are sisters."
CHAi'. VI THE MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AFRICA 163
order to sever the bond of blood and so permit the cousins
to marry, it is not enough to pay a ransom, an expiatory
sacrifice must be offered ; otherwise tlie marriage would be
unlucky and the wife could not bear children. To avert
these evils a goat is sacrificed, and the couple, sitting on the
same mat, are anointed with the green liquid extracted from
the half-digested grass in the animal's stomach. Then the
goat's skin is taken and put on the heads of the two cousins,
and through a hole cut in the middle of the skin the raw
liver of the animal is handed down to them ; they must tear
it out with their teeth and swallow it ; they may not use a
knife to cut the liver. The word for liver {sJiibindji) means
also *' patience, determination." So they say to the pair,
" You have acted with strong determination. Eat tiic liver
now. It will be an offering to the gods." Then the priest
of the family prays, saying, " You, our gods, so and so, look !
We have done it in the daylight. It has not been done by
stealth. Bless them, give them children." When the priest
has done praying, the assistants take all the half-digested
grass from the animal's stomach and place it on the wife's
head, saying, " Go and bear children." ^
This ceremony and the accompanying prayer prove that The
in the opinion of the Thonga the marriage of near relations, '"^■"'''^f^
>■ r> s> ) or cousins
including cousins, is apt to be infertile, unless means are thought to
taken to sever the tie of kinship between the parties, and so ^ '" ^'^"'^'
to place them in the position of unrelated persons. The
bond of kinship is clearly conceived in a concrete, material The bond
sense, since it is represented by the goat's liver, which the °*^^"\^h'P
' ^ J ^ ^ conceived
couple sever with their teetli. Similarly, as we saw, the as physical.
Akikuyu identify the bond of relationship with sheep's guts,
and think that by cutting the guts they simultaneously sever
the tie of blood which unites the cousins. And as the
1 Henri A. Junod, Life of a South ship" {dlaya shilongo) is somewhat
African Tribe, i. 243-245. This de- different ; in Mr. Junod's description
scription applies to the ceremony as of it nothing is said about the use of
it is performed by the northern clans the goat's skin in the ritual. He
of the Thonga tribe, among whom the tells us that the aim of the ceremony
prohibition of cousin marriage is appar- "is to lawfully kill one kind of rela-
ently not so stringent as among the tionship and to replace it by another,
Ba-Ronga to the south (see the preccd- because the two are not compatible."
ing note). Among the Ronga clans See Henri A. Junod, Life of a South
the ceremony of " killing the relation- African Tribe, i. 245 sq.
i64
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Marriage
of cousins
barred
among the
Wabemba
and Wa-
horohoro.
Marriage
of cousins
barred
among the
Masai.
Thonga imagine that, without the performance of the
expiatory rite, the marriage of the cousins would prove
infertile, so the Akikuyu believe that, without a similar
atonement, the offspring of the cousins could not live. So,
too, the Wagogo hold that the marriage of cousins would
be unfruitful, unless a sheep were killed and apparently
an armlet made from its skin to be worn by the bride's
father.i
Among the Wabemba and the Wahorohoro, two tribes,
apparently Bantu, to the west of Lake Tanganyika, even the
most distant cousinship forms a bar to marriage. More than
that, among the Wahorohoro a man is bound to avoid his
female cousin. He may not speak to her nor remain in her
company. If she enters a house where he happens to be,
he will at once depart.^ We have seen that among the
Baganda cousins have to observe similar rules of mutual
avoidance.^
Another African people who bar all marriages both of
first and of second cousins are the Masai, the well-known
tribe of herdsmen and warriors, who were long the terror
of their neighbours in East Africa. They do not belong
to the Bantu stock, but are members of the family to
which the name Nilotic is now commonly given, because
many of the tribes included in it have their seats in the
upper valley of the Nile.* Among the Masai, " first
cousins and second cousins may not marry, but there
is no objection to third cousins marrying if the relation-
ship is no nearer than ol-le 'sdtiva (or en-e- 'sotwa).
Thus a man's son's son's son may not marry the man's
brother's son's son's daughter, nor may a man's son's son's
son marry the sister's son's son's daughter, but there would
be no objection to a man's son's son's son marrying the
brother's daughter's daughter's daughter or the sister's
daughter's daughter's daughter. Likewise though a man's
son's son may not marry the man's maternal uncle's son's
son's daughter, he may marry the maternal uncle's son's
' Above, p. 156. ^ Above, p. 160.
- Charles Delhaise, Notes Ethno-
p-aphiqties stir quelques peiiplades dii '' Sir Charles Eliot's " Introduction "
Tanganika (Brussels, 1905), pp. 10, to A. C. Hollis's The Masai (Oxford,
35. 1905), pp. xi sqq.
ciiAi'. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE IN INDONESIA 165
daughter's daughter. These unions are ahvays contingent
on the two parties not belonging to the same sub-clan." ^
If a Masai man knowingly commits incest by marrying a Expiation
cousin whom he ought not to marry, he is punished by his n°ariiage
relations, who flog him and slaughter some of his cattle. If of cousins:
the crime has been committed unwittingly, as may easily the'reia^
happen, for example, when distant cousins live in different tionship."
districts, the man must present a cow to the girl's kinsfolk
in order to " kill the relationship " {a-ar eng-anyit)} On the
analogy of the Kikuyu and Thonga parallels, we may con-
jecture that the "killing of the relationship" is effected
by killing the cow and severing its guts or other internal
organs with which the bond of blood uniting the two
cousins is assumed, for the purpose of the ceremony, to be
identified.
Among the Yorubas, a large and important race of pure Marriage
negroes in West Africa, marriage with blood relations is for- ^Jred^'"^
bidden, both on the father's and on the mother's side, so far among the
as the relationship can be traced ; but in practice the pro-
hibition appears not to be extended beyond second cousins.^
S 7. The Marriage of Cousins in the Indian Archipelago
Among the peoples of the 'Indian Archipelago, who may Cousin
be designated by the general name of Indonesians, there "I^^Jng^J^g
are some who permit or even encourage marriage with a indo-
first cousin, particularly with the daughter of a mother's ""'^"^•
brother, while there are others who strictly forbid such
unions as incestuous.
Thus, among the Bataks or Battas of Central Sumatra a Cross-
man is not allowed to marry his first cousin, the daughter of ^J^g^
his father's sister, but on the other hand he is under a moral among the
obligation to marry his first cousin, the daughter of his suniafr^.
mother's brother. Such marriages of men with the daughters
of their mothers' brothers, or, in other words, of women with
1 A. C. Mollis, "A Note on the Masai System of Relationship, "y^w^^^
Masai System of Relationship and of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
other matters connected therewith," xl. (1910) p. 480.
Jotirnal of tlie Royal Anthropological ^ (Sir) A. B. Ellis, The Yoruba-
Instittde, xl. (1910) p. 479. speaking peoples of the Slave Coast of
A. C. Hollis, "A Note on the I'Fest Ayr ica (London, 1894), p. 18S.
1 66
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
the sons of their fathers' sisters, are so interwoven, we are
told, into the Batak ideas of family life, on which the whole
fabric of their social life is based, that a girl seldom seeks to
evade the union which custom assigns to her. A damsel
has been known to refuse several good offers and to accept
the hand of her cousin, the son of her father's sister, though
the young man had nothing to recommend him and was in
fact inferior both in person and in wealth to the suitors
whom she had rejected. Asked why she had chosen such
an undesirable bridegroom, when she might have made a
much better match, she simply answered, " It is our custom.
What else would you do?" On the other hand, if a young
man were so ungallant as to jilt his cousin, the daughter of
his mother's brother, in favour of another girl, there might
be bad blood between him and his uncle, the father of the
rejected damsel ; indeed, some people say that the gods
themselves would be angry at such a breach of traditionary
usage. Thus among the Bataks the union of a man with
his first cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother, is the
normal and most orthodox form of marriage. On the other
hand, marriage with a first cousin, the daughter of a father's
sister, is not only forbidden but punishable. Of such a
marriage the Bataks say, " How is it possible that water can
flow up to its source?" Only in the third generation may
the descendants of such cousins marry each other ; in other
words, the great-grandchildren of such cousins can contract
a lawful marriage, being themselves fourth cousins.^ So
sharp a distinction do the Bataks draw between a mother's
brother's daughter and a father's sister's daughter.
Similarly among the Looboos, a primitive tribe of unknown
origin in Mandailing, a western district of Sumatra, custom
marriage e> o>
among the requires that a man should by preference marry a daughter
Loo oos ^^ j^jg mother's brother. The formalities attending the
and o
Rejangs of wedding of these first cousins are very small. The people
..umara. j-gg^j-^j such a marriage as a matter of course, and they say
Cross-
cousin
1 J. B. Neumann, " Het Pane- en
Bila-stroomgebied op het eiland Su-
matra," Tijdsclirift van het Neder-
iandsch Aaiiirijkskiindig Genoofscka/',
Tweede Serie, iii. Afdeeling, Meer
uitgebreide Artikelen, No. 2 (Amster-
dam, 1 886), p. 243, No. 3, p. 492 ;
M. Jouslra, " Het leven, de zeden en
gewoonten der Bataks," Mededeelitigen
van wege het Nederlandsche Zende-
linggetiootschap, xlvi. (1902) p. 390.
CHAP. VI COUSJiV MARRIAGE IN INDONESIA 167
of it that " the leech rolls towards the open wound." ' In-
deed this preference for marriage with such a cousin seems
to be general in Mandailing, for we are told that in this part
of Sumatra marriage with the daughter of a mother's brother
is deemed very desirable, whereas marriage with the daughter
of a father's sister is forbidden,^ Similarly among the
Rejangs of Sumatra the rule is that " of two brothers, the
children may not intermarry. A sister's son may marry a
brother's daughter ; but a brother's son may not marry a
sister's daughter." ^
Again, in the Kei Islands a youth of a rich family is Cross-
bound to marry a girl of his mother's family, by preference n^^rriage
a first cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother, to whom, in the Kei
indeed, he has usually been betrothed since childhood. If
his mother's brother has no daughter, he must adopt one and
give her to his sister's son to wife. If he has a daughter,
but she is still too young to wed, her cousin must wait for
her till she is nubile. If he fails to carry out his obligation
to marry his first cousin, the daughter of his mother's
brother, he or his family has to pay a heavy fine. On the
other hand, a similar fine would be inflicted on him if he
were to marry a girl of his father's family, say a first cousin,
a daughter of his father's sister, for such a marriage is re-
garded as incest.* Again, in the islands of Saparua, Haruku, Cross-
and Nussa Laut, and on part of the southern coast of Ceram, '^""s'"
. . marriage
a man's daughters and his sister's sons are marriageable ; in the
indeed marriages between such first cousins would seem to l^f" ^
o between
be customary. Even before marriage these cousins may take New
all sorts of liberties with each other, laughing, joking, romping, Celebes.^"
and so forth, without being checked for it by their parents.
And should a man marry another woman, he may still after
' T- Kreetner, "De Loebocs in Batang- natal," Tijdschrift vati het
Mandailing," Bijdrageii tot de I'aal- Nederlandsch Aardrijksktindig Genoot-
Land- en Volkenkunde van Neder- schap, Tweede Serie, xiv. (1897) pp.
landsch- Indie, Ixvi. (1912) p. 321. 245 sq., 257.
- H. Ris, " Deonderafdeeling Klein ^ ,„ n,r 1 zj- , j: c
-,,.,.'„, 1, T "• Marsden, JJis/ory of iitiinaira
Mandailing Oeloe en Fahantan en ,, , ,o..\ » o
,,?',. ... (London, loll), p. 225.
hare bevolking met uitzondering van ^ ' ^
de Oeloes," Bijdrdgai tot de Taal- ^ C. M. Pleyte, " Ethnogrnphische
Land- en Volkenkunde van Neder- beschrijving der Kei-Eilanden," Iljd-
landsch- Indie, xlvi. (1896) p. 508; schrift van het Nederlandsch Aardrijks-
Th. A. L. Hey ting, " Heschrijving der ktaidig Genoot schap, Tweede Serie, x,
Ondeiafdeeling Groot- Mandailing en (1893) p. 808.
1 68 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part n
marriage use the same freedom with his first cousin, the
daughter of his mother's brother, and his wife ought not to
take it ill, nay, she should encourage him so to do. Such
cousins have a special name {anakh makaien) ; and a man
usually calls such a cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother,
" my wife." On the other hand, a man's sons and his sister's
daughters are thought to stand in a near relationship to each
other, like brothers and sisters, and they may not intermarry ;
in other words, a man is forbidden to take to wife his first
Cross- cousin, the daughter of his father's sister.^ Similarly the
^?o"^';'!„»;r, Alfoors of Nusawele in the island of Ceram forbid marriag-e
Ceram. between the children of two brothers, between the children
of two sisters, and between a man's son and his sister's
daughter, but they allow a man's daughter to marry his
sister's son ; in other words, they bar the marriage of all
first cousins except the marriage of a man with the daughter
of his mother's brother ; indeed marriages of this last sort
are much favoured. On the other hand, in the neighbouring
district of Mansela, marriage is allowed between the children
of brothers and also between the children of sisters, but
this permission appears to be an innovation on ancient
custom ; at least we are told that formerly in Mansela the
rule seems to have been different and to have conformed
Cross- to the present practice of Nusawele.^ Again, in Endeh,
cousin ^ district of the island of Flores, the marriap'e of cross-
marnage in ...
Flores. cousins is very common, and is permissible in both forms ;
that is, a man may marry either the daughter of his mother's
brother or the daughter of his father's sister. On the other
hand, ortho-cousins, the children of two brothers or of two
sisters, are not marriageable ; in other words, a man may
not marry the daughter of his father's brother or the daughter
of his mother's sister.^ In Central Manggarai, a district of
1 Van Schmid, " Aanteekeningen 2 m_ q^ Schadee, " Heirats und
nopens de zeden, gewoonten en ge- andere Gebrauche bei den Mansela und
bruiken, benevens de voorooideelen en Nasawele Alfuren in der Unterabteilung
bijgeloovigheden der bevolking van de Wahasi der Insel Seram (Ceram)," /«-
eilanden Saparoea, Haroekoe, Noessa ternationales A7xhivjur Ethnographic,
Laut, en van een gedeelte van de zuid- xxii. (1915) p. 134.
kust van Ceram, in vroegeren en
lateren tijd," Tijdschrift voor Neir- ^ S." Roos, "lets over Endeh,"
lands Indie, Vijfde Jaargang, Tweede 7'ijdschrifi voor Indische Taal- Laiid-
Deel (Batavia, 1843), PP- 59^ ^9- ^" Vol/cenkunde, xxiv. (1878) p. 523.
CHAP. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE IN INDONESIA i6g
Western Flores, we are told that people, so far as possible,
should marry within the family, that is cousin with cousin ;^
but though no distinction of cousins is mentioned, we may
conjecture that the rule in Central Manggarai is subject to
the same limitation as in Endeh, cross-cousins being allowed,
or rather expected, to marry each other, while ortho-cousins
are forbidden to do so. Again, in the island of Keisar or Cross-
Makisar, cross-cousins, the children of a brother and a sister yardage
respectively, are allowed to marry ; indeed, they are betrothed in Keisar.
in their childhood, between the ages of five and seven, and islands,
the brother and sister seal this compact of marriage between etc
their children by drinking arrack out of the same glass.
Should either of them afterwards break the covenant, he or
she must pay a fine. But on the other hand, ortho-cousins,
the children either of two brothers or of two sisters, are
forbidden to marry each other ; in other words, a man may
not marry the daughter of his father's brother or of his
mother's sister.^ In the Aru Islands first cousins, the
children of a brother and a sister respectively, are free to
marry each other, but first cousins, the children of two
brothers, are not.^ Again, in the islands of Leti, Moa, and
Lakor first cousins, the children of a brother and a sister
respectively, are at liberty to marry each other, but this
privilege is denied to first cousins, the children of two
sisters.*
The Macassars and Bugineeze of Southern Celebes Cousin
permit marriage between full cousins.^ So, too, among the jn^ceiebes.
Bar^'e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes marriage between
cousins of all grades is unconditionally allowed ; but a male
cousin may not marry his female cousin once removed, who
^ J. W. Meerburg, " Proeve einer of two brothers) are allowed to marr\'
beschrijving van land en volk van each other.
Midden - Manggarai (West Flores), ^ , ^ p p, j^^^^j^ ^.^_ g^
Afdeeling Bima » Tijdschriftvoor In- ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^
dische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, ^^^,, .^ ^j^^^ j^ ^^^^^ j^,^^^^
xxxiv (1891) p. 466. the -children of two broihers (though
- T. G. F. Riedel, De sbak- en ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^j^^^^^^ ^^.^ ^^^^^^ ^^
Mange rassen it'ssckm Selebes en ^^^^ ^^^^^
Papua (The Hague, 1886), pp. 416, ■'
474. 6 Q_ A. Wilken, "Over de ver-
^ J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. p. 250. wantschap en het huwelijks- en erfrecht
From a note on p. 474 of the same bij de volken van het maleische ras,"
work it appears that in these islands De verspreide Geschriften (The Hague,
the children of two sisters (though not 19 12), i. 360.
I70 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
Expiation necessarily belongs to the generation below his own. If,
maria<^e howcver, such a marriage has been contracted and has been
with a detected, the culprits are obliged to separate from each other
removeT'^^ and to atone for their guilt by a sacrifice. For that purpose
they are conducted by the elders, along with the sacrificial
victims, to the bank of a brook. There one of the elders
prays to the gods to remove the guilt that has been incurred
by the marriage, and to cause the rice and all the other
products of the fields to thrive. Then the victims, consisting
of a buffalo, a pig, a goat, and a fowl, are slain, and small
pieces of the animals, together with a fowl's ^%g, betel,
tobacco, and one or two doits, are put into a miniature ship.
Moreover, a garment of each of the guilty persons, sprinkled
with the blood of the sacrificial victims, is also laid in the
tiny vessel ; however, in some places the blood-stained
garments are not put into the little ship, but buried in the
ground. Then the company sits down to feast on the flesh
of the sacrificial victims ; all the meat must be consumed on
the spot, nothing may be taken home. If they cannot eat
the whole at one sitting, they hang the remnant on the
boughs of neighbouring trees, and come next day to finish it
off. After the meal the two culprits stand up and receive
a symbolic castigation, which consists in seven strokes with
"^ branches of the Rubus pungens and stalks of the Scleria
so-obiculata. The former plant, the native raspberry, is
plentifully provided with prickles, the latter is a sharp-edged
grass ; both therefore are calculated to make a painful
impression on the backs of the sinners. The demands of
justice being thus satisfied, the little ship, with the offerings
and the blood-stained clothes, is allowed to drift down with
the current ; after which the whole company sprinkle water
on each other and then scamper home, not by the road they
came, but through fresh untrodden ways in the wilderness,
in order to give the slip to the avenging spirits, who, refusing
to make any compromise with sin, will give chase to the
culprits, but in the innocence of their heart will pursue them
along the old familiar path that leads to the village. This
expiatory ceremony is performed not only to wipe out the
guilt of a marriage of a male cousin with his female cousin
once removed, but also to atone for graver cases of incest,
CHAP. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE IN INDONESIA 171
sucli as that of a grandfather with his granddaughter, of a
father with his daughter, or of a brother with his sister. All
these crimes are believed to blight the rice crops and would
be punished with death, if the sinners did not humbly confess
their sin, atone for it with the blood of buffaloes, pigs, goats,
and fowls, and submit their persons to chastisement with the
sharp-edged grass and the prickly raspberries.^
But while the Toradjas of Central Celebes appear to The
permit marriages between cousins of all grades, provided the "f^cousfns
cousins belong to the same generation, other peoples of the barred by
• I 1 1 • t • T'l some
same great island are more scrupulous m this respect. 1 hus peoples of
in the Palu, Dolo, Sigi, and Beromaru districts of Central Celebes.
Celebes marriage between first cousins, the children of two
sisters, is forbidden ; the people believe that such a marriage
would anger the spirits, and that the rice and maize harvests
would fail in consequence. When such a crime has been
detected, the guilty cousins are theoretically tied together. Expiation
weighted with stones, and thrown into the water. Practi- n°[rriage
cally, however, they are let off with their lives, and a buffalo of cousins
or a goat dies as a vicarious sacrifice. Its blood, mixed
with water, is sprinkled on the rice-fields and the maize-
fields,^ no doubt to restore to them the fertility of which
otherwise the marriage of the cousins would, in popular
opinion, unquestionably bereave them. Again, in Minahassa,
a province in the north-eastern extremity of Celebes, all
marriages between cousins are prohibited or tabooed (posan),
on the alleged ground that such unions would make the
parents of the cousins ashamed.^ However, in Bolaang
Mongondou, a kingdom of Minahassa, if a marriage between
cousins should take place, the parents on both sides must
^ N. Adriani en A. C. Kruijt, De ^ Hissink, " Nota van toelichting,
Bare^e-sprekende Toradja^svan Islidden- betreffende de zelbesturende landschap-
Celebes (Batavia, 1912-1914), ii. 8-1 1, pen Paloe, Dolo, Sigi en Beromaroe,"
246-248. It is remarkable that vs'hile, I'ijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land-
according to the authors, marriage is en Volkenkiinde, liv. (1912) p. 1 1 5.
freely permitted between cousins of all ^ De C[lercq], " lets over het bij-
grades, provided they belong to the geloof in de Minahasa," I'ijdschrift
same generation, nevertheless all cousins voor Nederlandsch /ndte, ]u\y 1870, p.
call each other elder or younger brothers 3. Compare G. A. \Vilken, "Over
or sisters {op. cit. ii. 8 sq.). Such de- de verwantschap en het huwelijks- en
signations commonly exclude the right erfrecht bij de volken van het maleische
of marriage between the persons who ras," De verspreide Geschriften (The
apply these terms to each other. Hague, 19 12), i. 310.
i;:
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
marriage
of cousins
barred in
British
Borneo.
kill a goat and smear blood from its ears on the house-
ladders of the king and the headman, no doubt as an expia-
tion for the crime.^ Marriages between cousins are forbidden
by the Javanese.^
Among the native tribes of Borneo there seems to be a
general objection to the marriage of first cousins, though in
some places such marriages are tolerated on condition of the
payment of a fine or the performance of an expiatory cere-
mony. Thus with regard to the Land Dyaks of Sarawak,
Sir Spenser St. John tells us that among them " the pro-
hibited degrees seem to be the same as adopted among
ourselves : marriage with a deceased wife's sister, it is said,
is prohibited, as well as that between first cousins ; and
second cousins are only permitted after the exchange of a
fine of a jar, the woman paying it to the relations of her
lover, and he to her relations." ^ And with regard to the
Sea Dyaks of Sarawak he says, " It is contrary to custom
for a man to marry a first cousin, who is looked upon as a
sister." * To the same effect Sir Charles Brooke, Rajah of
Sarawak, writes as follows : " On the subject of marrying in
and in, it is to be observed that Dyak customs prohibit any
near consanguineous nuptials, and they are more particular
in this respect than Europeans. They consider first cousins
in the light of brothers and sisters, and a further removal
only entitles a customary marriage. Nieces are not allowed
to marry their uncles, nor nephews their aunts. They are
particular in these points, and the person who disregards
them is harshly reproached and heavily mulcted." ^ Simi-
larly Messrs. Hose and McDougall report that among these
tribes " incest is regarded very seriously, and the forbidden
1 N. P. Wilken en J. A. Schwartz,
*' Allerlei over het land en volk van
Bolaang Mongondou," Alededcelingen
van wege het Nederlandsche Zendeling-
genootschap, xi. (1867) p. 318.
2 G. A. Wilken, " Huwelijken tus-
schen bleed verwanten," De versp7'cide
Geschriften (The Hague, 191 2), ii.
351-
^ (Sir) Spenser St. John, Life in the
Forests of the Far East, Second
Edition (London, 1S63), i. 208 sq.
* (Sir) Spenser St. John, op. cit. i.
85. Compare Hugh Low, Sarawak
(London, 1848), p. 300, "Incest is
held in abhorrence, and even the mar-
riage of cousins is not allowed " ; E. H.
Gomes, Seventeen Years among the Sea
Dyaks of Borneo (London, 191 1), p.
128, "The Dyaks are very particular
as to their prohibitive degrees, and are
opposed to the marriage of relatives.
The prohibitive degrees are much the
same as among Christians."
^ (Sir) Charles Brooke, Ten Years
in Sarawak (London, 1866), ii. 336 sq.
CHAP. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE IN INDONESIA 173
degrees of kinship are clearly defined. They are very
similar to those recognised among ourselves. . . . First
cousins may marry, but such marriages are not regarded
with favour, and certain special ceremonies are necessitated ;
and it seems to be the general opinion that such marriages
are not likely to prove happy." ^ What the ceremonies are Expiation
which custom requires in order to render the marriage of n^^rriage
first cousins legitimate, these writers do not tell us, but they 01 cousins
have been described by another authority. " The Sea
Dyaks," he tells us, " are very particular as to their pro-
hibited degrees of marriage, and are opposed in principle to
the inter-marriage of relatives. This is one reason for the
fertility of their women as compared with other tribes who
are fast vanishing around them." Among them, the same
writer goes on, a man " may not marry his first cousin,
except he perform a special act called bergaput to avert evil
consequences to the land. The couple adjourn to the water-
side and fill a small earthenware jar with their personal
ornaments ; this they sink in the river, or instead of a jar
they fling a duku (chopper) and a plate into the river. A
pig is then sacrificed on the bank, and its carcase, drained
of its blood, is flung in after the jar. The pair are then
pushed into the water by their friends and ordered to bathe
together. A joint of bamboo is then filled with pig's blood,
and they have to perambulate the country, scattering it upon
the ground and in the villages round about. They are then
free to marry." ^ Another witness, who records a similar
expiation for the marriage of first cousins among the Undup
Dyaks, was told by the people that the ceremony was not
performed in honour of any evil spirit, but in order that their
rice might not be blasted.^ Thus the atonement for the
marriage of cousins among the Sea Dj'aks of Sarawak re-
sembles the atonement for a similar enormity among various
peoples of Celebes,'* In both islands the idea seems to be
that the marriage of first cousins is a crime which, either in
itself or through the divine wrath it excites, threatens to
^ Charles Hose and Willi.nm British North Borneo (London, 1896),
McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Bor- i. 122 sq.
iieo (London, 1912), i. 73 sq. ^ Crossland, quoted by H. Ling
- Brooke Low, quoted by H. Ling Roth, op. cit. i. 123.
Rcth, The Natives 0/ Sarawak and * See above, pp. 170-172.
174
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
marriage
of cousins
barred in
Dutch
Borneo.
blight all the fruits of the earth, and that fertility can only be
restored to the ground by libations of blood, particularly of
pig's blood, which, in the opinion of not a few peoples,
possesses a singular efficacy for the atonement of moral
guilt, above all the guilt of incest.^
So far the evidence for the aversion to cousin marriage
in Borneo has been drawn from those portions of that great
island which are under British rule ; but the same dislike of
the marriage of near relations appears also on the whole to
prevail among the tribes of Dutch Borneo. Thus, in the
districts of Landak and Tajan the penalty for incest between
brothers and sisters, parents and children, uncles and nieces,
aunts and nephews, is death. " Further, in Landak and
Tajan the marriage between the children of brothers, the
children of sisters, and between the children of brothers and
sisters, in other words, between full cousins, is absolutely
prohibited. However, among the Segelam, Tjempedi, and
Bekat Dyaks of Tajan such a marriage is permissible on the
payment of a fine. Among the Melian Dyaks there is abso-
lutely no prohibition of such marriages." ^ Among the cases
of incest which the tribes of Dutch Borneo punish with death
by drowning, another writer mentions the marriage or sexual
intercourse of parents with children, of brothers with sisters,
and of uncles and aunts with nieces and nephews, but he says
nothing about the marriage of cousins, and from his silence on
the subject we may perhaps infer that in the tribes with which
he was acquainted such marriages were permitted, or at least
winked at, possibly in consideration of the payment of a fine
and the usual effusion of pig's blood.^ Among the Kayans
of Dutch Borneo, " not only are marriages between blood
relations forbidden, but marriages between persons connected
by marriage, as brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, are also pro-
hibited. Hence the few chiefs on the Mendalam River who,
1 For evidence see The Magic Art
and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 107
sqq. {The Golden Bough, Third Edition,
Part i.) ; Psyche's Task, Second Edi-
tion, pp. 44 sqq.
- M. C. Schadee, "Het familienleven
en familierecht der Dajaks van Landak
en Tajan," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land-
en Volkenkundevan Nede7-landsch- Indie,
Ixiii. (1 910) p. 438-
2 M. T. H. Perelaer, Ethnographische
Beschrijving der Dajaks (Zalt-Bommel,
1870), pp. 59 sq. The statement no
doubt refers to the Dyaks of those parts
of Eastern and Southern Borneo in
which the writer occupied an official
post. •
ciiAi. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE IN NEW GUINEA 175
for political reasons, have to marry relations, must at marriage
pay a fine for this breach of customary law (ac/at)." ^
S 8. The Marriage of Cousins in Nezu Guinea and the
Torres Straits Islands
There seems to be no evidence that the marriage of first The
cousins is permitted, much less favoured, in any part of New oJ-'^cousfns
Guinea; but we- possess so little exact information as to the apparently
social system of the tribes which inhabit that vast island, nanced in
that it would be unsafe to infer the absence of the custom New
from the silence of our authorities. Among the Yabim, a The
tribe who speak a Melanesian language and inhabit the question of
° , - . _, ^^ cousin
country at the entrance to Huon Gulf m German New marriage
Guinea, marriage may not take place between the children '" ^Rrman
of brothers and sisters, nor between the children of these Guinea,
children ; in other words, marriages between first cousins and
between second cousins are prohibited.^ However, according
to another good authority on this tribe, the German mis-
sionary, Konrad Vetter, " the only bars to marriage among
near kin are the relationships between the children of brothers
and sisters, and between uncles and nieces " ; ^ which seems
to imply that, while the marriage of first cousins is forbidden,
the marriage of second cousins is not.
Among the natives of the Mekeo district, in British New The
Guinea, " marriage by a man with any girl related to him in ™f^j^|^g^^^
the male line is forbidden, however distant her relationship cousins
to him may be. But he may marry a girl whose relationship ^^^^ \\^^'^'
with him is in the female line, provided that his and her marriage
parents are sufficiently removed in relationship from each remote
other. For example, marriage between the children of two cousins
._ ... 11 1 1 • permitted,
sisters (first cousms) is not allowed, and even marriage i^ some
between the children of those children (second cousins) is not *'''^*^^ °f
111 British
strictly regular, though as regards the latter they constantly New-
shut their eyes to the irregularity and permit it."* Among Guinea
' A. W. Nieuvvenhuis, Qtier durch Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land wid den Bis-
Borneo (Leyden, 1904-1907), i. 86. tnarck-Archipel, iSgy (Berlin), p. 89.
o TT rx , ,, x^- T i_- >j • T. * R- W. Williamson, "Some un-
^ H. Zahn, " Die Tabim, in R. j 1 . r^u at 1 1
-T , ,^ , , ,r /- ■ /Ti .• recorded customs ot the Mekeo people
...' * ot BnUsh 1^ cw (jumea, /ou ma/ of ^ie
" " ■ ^"' Royal Anthropological Institute, xliii.
3 K. Vetter, in Nachri(hten iiber (1913) p. 275.
176 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
the Koiari, a Melanesian tribe near Port Moresby, in British
New Guinea, " relatives do not marry, as they say it is one
blood. Cousins of several degrees are called brothers and
sisters." ^ Again, among the Koita, a neighbouring tribe
who also belong to the Melanesian stock, " the regulation of
marriage depends on the avoidance of marriage within the
forbidden degrees, which extend to third cousins." ^ The
Mafulus, an inland tribe of the Mekeo district, " have their
prohibitive rules of consanguinity ; but these are based
merely upon the number of generations between either party
and the common ancestor. The number of degrees within
which prohibition applies in this way is two, thus taking it
to the grandparent ; and the result is that no man or woman
may properly marry any descendant of his or her paternal
or maternal grandfather or grandmother, however distant the
actual relationship of the persons concerned may be. Mar-
riages within the prohibited degree do in fact occur ; but
they are discountenanced, and are rare." Thus among the
Mafulus the blood-relationship which serves as a bar to
marriage " only extends, as between people of the same
generation, to first cousins. But a Mafulu native who was
grandson of the common ancestor would be prohibited from
marrying his first cousin once removed (great-granddaughter
of that ancestor), or his first cousin twice removed (great-
great-granddaughter of that ancestor)." ^ These Mafulus
appear to belong neither to the Melanesian nor to the Papuan
stock, which between them inhabit the greater part of New
Guinea. They are believed to be a pygmy or Negrito people,
who have been modified by Papuan and perhaps Melanesian
influence.'^ In the island of Tubetube, which lies off the
south-eastern e.xtremity of New Guinea, and is inhabited by
people of the same stock as their neighbours on the main-
land, " the nearest consanguineous marriage permitted is
between the children of Nubaili (the third generation), and
1 Rev. James Chalmers, " Report of British Neiu Guittea (Cambridge,
on New Guinea, Toaripi and Koiari 1910), p. 82.
K.x'ihQs,,^'' Report of the Second Meeting of ^ Robert W. Williamson, The
the Australasian Association for the Ad- Afafulu, Mountain People of British
vaticeiiient of Science field at Melbourne, New Guinea {London, 1912), p. 169.
Victoria, in Ja)U(ary i8go (Sydney), * A. C. Haddon, "Introduction"
p. 320. to R. W. Willi?mison, The Mafulu,
^ C. G. Seligmann, The Melanesians p. xxiii,
CHAP. VI MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN MELANESIA 177
even then the grandchildren of two sisters, their Tubuli
(grandmothers), cannot intermarry. But the grandchildren
of two brothers can marry the grandchildren of two sisters if
they do not belong to the same totem." ^ From this we
gather that in Tubetube no marriage between first cousins
is permissible, but that second cousins may marry each other,
provided that they are the grandchildren of a brother and a
sister respectively ; whereas they might not marry each other
if they were the grandchildren of two sisters.
The inhabitants of the western islands of Torres Straits, Similar
immediately to the south of New Guinea, appear to share [q'^^J^
the aversion to marriages between near relations. On this marriage of
subject the statements of the natives and the results of a ^he western
genealogical record taken among them are in agreement, islands of
and seem to show that in these islands marriages between straits,
first cousins never, or very rarely, occur, while marriages
between distant cousins, such as third cousins or second
cousins once removed, are permitted, and not infrequent ;
nevertheless " in nearly all these marriages the relationship
is either very remote (third cousins or second cousins once
removed) or there are extenuating circumstances."^ On Cross
the other hand in the Trobriand Islands, to the east of New ^?"l';" „
Guinea, the marriage of cross-cousins is fairly frequent and '" the
is considered distinctly desirable.^ Islands.
§ 9. The Marriage of Cousms in Melanesia
Among the Melanesians, the swarthy race of the Pacific, Cross-
who inhabit the long chain of archipelagoes stretching from marrbgeiu
the Admiralty Islands on the north to New Caledonia on the Melanesia,
south, and to Fiji on the east, the preference for marriage with
a first cousin, the daughter cither of a mother's brother or of
a father's sister, meets us in several islands far distant from
each other. Thus, among the natives of New Caledonia, in
the extreme south, first cousins who are the children of a
' C. G. Seligmann, The Melan- 1904) p. 239.
esians of British Ne^v Guinea, p. 508, ■* Bronislaw Malinowski, " Bal-
quoting the Rev. J. T. Field. oma ; the Spirits of the Dead in the
2 Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, in Repoitsof Trobriand Islands," Jouinal of the
the Canibi-idge Anthropological Expedi- Royal Anthropological Institute, xlvi,
tion to Torres Straits, v. (Cambridge, (19 16) p. 389 note 2.
VOL. II N
178
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
marriage of
cross-
cousins
favoured
and the
marriage
of ortho-
cousins
forbidden
in New-
Caledonia.
The
marriage
of cross-
cousins
favoured
and the
marriage
of ortho-
cousins
forbidden
in Futuna,
one of tlie
New
Hebrides.
brother and sister respectively are free to marry each
other ; indeed, such a relationship is thought to form a
special reason why the cousins should wed. But, on the
contrary, first cousins who are the children of two sisters or
of two brothers are regarded as themselves brothers and
sisters, and therefore they are forbidden to intermarry ; more
than that, they must avoid each other in ordinary life ; they
may not even look at each other, and if the two meet by
chance, the girl will throw herself into the bushes or the
water or anywhere else, to avoid her male cousin, and he
will pass by without turning his head.'^
In Futuna, one of the Southern New Hebrides, " male
and female children of two or more brothers, or of two or
more sisters, were, in native language, called brothers and
sisters. It was, accordingly, against native law for them
to intermarry. The children called their father's brothers
' father,' and the sisters of their mother they called ' mother ' ;
while the so-called parents called the children ' my son ' or
' my daughter.' This relationship — and consequently the
prohibition to intermarry — extended even to the grand-
children or great-grandchildren of brothers or sisters. . . .
Male and female children of brothers and sisters were cousins
and eligible by native law for marriage with each other.
The children called the brothers of their mother ' uncle,'
and the sisters of their father ' aunt,' as with us ; while the
uncle and aunt called the children ' my nephew ' or ' my
niece.' The cousins of opposite sex were betrothed from
birth ; and a male, while yet a child, called his female cousin
' my wife,' while she called him ' my husband.' If, however,
the boy on growing up did not care for his betrothed, his
friends sought him another wife. But no one could take
his first betrothed without his sanction or without paying
him for her in full." ^ Here the distinction drawn between
^ Le Pere Lambert, Mceurs et Super-
stitions des N^o-Caledoniens (Noumea,
1900), pp. 114 sq.
2 William Gunn, The Gospel in
Futuna (London, 1914), pp. 205 S(].
But the vkriter adds, "There were ex-
ceptions to these general rules. For
example, in Aneityum [another island
of the Southern New Hebrides], one
calls his father's sister ' mother,' not
'aunt.' In Erromanga the sons and
daughters of a brother and sister are
not 'cousins,' but 'brothers' and
'sisters,' in the same way as if they
were the children of brothers or of
sisters ; and therefore marriage between
those brothers and sisters was ' tapu,'
or improper" {op, cit. pp. 206 sq.).
CHAP. VI MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN MELANESIA 179
ortho-cousins (the children of brothers or the children of
sisters) and cross-cousins (the children of a brother and of
a sister respectively) is very marked : the former call each
other " brother " and " sister," and may never marry, the
latter call each other " husband " and " wife " and are
betrothed to each other from birth.
In Tanna, a neighbouring island of the Southern The
New Hebrides, the custom is precisely similar : " the law oJ-^^'^^.f ^f
of marriaee is that the children of two brothers or two cousins
sisters do not marry ; they are counted as brothers and ^^''^^l
sisters. But the children of brothers and sisters marry. The maniage
children are' betrothed in infancy, and are expected to wed cousins°
when grown up sufficiently." ^ In other words, a man may forbidden
not marry his first cousin, the daughter either of his mother's one of the
sister or of his father's brother, for he regards such a cousin as ^'^w
' 1 • r • Hebrides.
his sister. But he may, and should marry his hrst cousm, the
daughter either of his mother's brother or of his father's sister;
for he regards such a cousin as his proper wife, and the two
have been betrothed from infancy. In short, cross-cousins
are expected to marry each other, and ortho-cousins are
forbidden to do so.
In Hiw, one of the Torres Islands, marriage with a in Hiw
mother's brother's daughter appears to be particularly favoured ;
the father of the girl desires specially to have his nephew, islands
the son of his sister, for his son-in-law, and if he gets him, he w^h^hT
will not look for any payment from him. Thus, by wedding mothers
his first cousin, the daughter of his mother's brother, a man daughter is
gets a wife for nothing, which is naturally a strong induce- favoured,
ment to marry in the family. Further, in this island a man marriage
may also marry his first cousin, the daughter of his father's ^^'"?'/^'^
sister ; but curiously enough this marriage with his cousin sister's
seems to be regarded as a sort of imperfect substitute for fjlo^.g^'^^'^
marriage with his aunt, the girl's mother, custom or public a substitute
opinion favouring the union of a nephew with his aunt, his n"!|,.,.iage
father's sister, always provided that his venerable bride is not with the
too aged and decrepit. Should she, however, be so far gone aunT"the
in the sere and yellow leaf that he is compelled reluctantly g'ri's
mother.
^ Rev. Wm. Gray, " Some notes on for the Advancement of Science , held at
the Tannese," Report of the Fourth Hobart, Tasmania, in January i8g2
Meeting of the Australasian Association (Sydney), p. 677.
one of the
Torres
i8o
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross-
cousin
marriage
in Loh.
In Fiji the
marriage
of ortho-
consins is
forbidden,
but cross-
cousins are
regarded as
each other's
proper
mates.
to relinquish her faded charms and wed her blooming daughter,
he will thenceforth strictly avoid the old lady, his mother-in-
law, whom he had refused to lead to the altar ; he will not
speak to her nor even come near her, although before his
marriage with her daughter he had been under no such
restrictions in his relations with the ancient dame. Similarly,
if a man has married his other first cousin, the daughter of
his mother's brother, custom requires that after the marriage
he should adopt a like cold and distant demeanour, not to
his mother-in-law, but to his father-in-law, his maternal uncle.
In Loh, another of the Torres Islands, marriage with the
daughter either of a mother's brother or of a father's sister,
also takes place, though probably it is far less habitual than
in Hiw. Moreover, in Loh such marriages are subject to
certain restrictions. It is said that a man will only marry
such a cousin if she has two elder sisters. In other words,
if a man has only two daughters, they will not marry their
cross-cousins ; but if he has more than two daughters, the
third daughter may marry either the son of her father's sister
or the son of her mother's brother.^
In Fiji the distinction between cross-cousins (the children
of a brother and of a sister respectively) and ortho-cousins
(the children of two brothers or of two sisters) is very sharply
marked ; and whereas ortho-cousins are regarded as brothers
and sisters, and are therefore not marriageable with each
other, cross-cousins are not only marriageable with each
other, but are regarded as each other's proper mates. Accord-
ingly, the two classes of cousins, which we confound under that
general name, are distinguished among the Fijians by epithets
signifying that the one class (cross-cousins) is marriageable,
and that the other class (ortho-cousins) is not marriageable.
The epithet applied to cross-cousins is veindavolani, which
means " marriageable," literally " concubitants " ; the epithet
applied to ortho-cousins is veinganeni, which means " not
marriageable," literally "those who shun each other." ^ "The
1 W. H. R. Ri\ers, The History of
Melanesian 6'(?«e/j' (Cambridge, 19 14),
i. 184 sq.
2 L. Fison and Basil H. Thomson,
" The Classificatory System ot" Rela-
tionship," Jouriial of the Atithi-opolo-
gical Institute, xxiv. (1895) pp. 360
sq., 371-373 ; Basil Thomson, Ilie
Fijians (London, 1908), pp. 182 sqq.
Compare Totemism and Exogamy, ii,
141 5^17.
CHAP. VI MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN MELANESIA i8i
young Fijian is from his birth regarded as the natural
husband of the daughters of his father's sister and of his
mother's brother. The girls can exercise no choice. They
were born the property of their male concubitant if he desire
to take them." ^ Cross-cousins, called veindavolani^ or " con-
cubitants," " are born husband and wife, and the system
assumes that no individual preference could hereafter destroy
that relationship ; but the obligation does no more than limit
the choice of a mate to one or the other of the females who
are concubitants with the man who desires to marry. It is
thus true that in theory the field of choice is very large, for
the concubitant relationship might include third or even fifth
cousins, but in practice the tendency is to marry the con-
cubitant who is next in degree — generally a first cousin —
the daughter of a maternal uncle." ^ This last statement
seems to imply that, while a man is free to marry either the
daughter of his mother's brother or the daughter of his father's
sister, marriage with the mother's brother's daughter is
generally preferred.
But whereas a Fijian has thus the right, if not the i» Fiji a
obligation, to marry any of his cross-cousins, the daughters ^Jt q„i
either of his mother's brother or of his father's sister, all of forbidden
1 1 11 1 • (, 1 • » 1 11- 1 to rnarrv,
whom he calls his concubitants, he regards his ortho- but is '
cousins, the daughters either of his mother's sister or of his bound to
. 1 1 • 1 shun his
fathers brother, as his sisters, and as such he is bound to ortho-
shun every one of them as scrupulously as if she were in cousms.
truth his very sister, the daughter of his own father and
mother. " He will ngaiiena (avoid) her as carefully as if she
were the daughter of his own mother. If she enter a house
in which he is sitting with his legs extended, he will draw
up his feet and look away from her. If he meets her in
the path he wnll ignore her existence. It would be indecent
for him to be alone with her, to touch her, or even to speak
to her. If he must speak of her, he will not use the term
of relationship between them ; he will not say ' my iigane '
(my sister) — he will refer to her as ' one of my kinsfolk.'
1 Basil H. Thomson, " Concubit- ^ Basil Thomson, T/ie F/jia/is, pp.
ancy in the Classilicatory System of i86 j^. ; t'ci., " Concubitancy in the
Relationship, "y(?z<;-«a/ of the Afitkfo- Classilicatory System of Relationship,"
pological Institute, xxiv. (1895) P- 373 • Jotu-nal of the Anthi-opological Institute,
id.. The Fijians, p. 184. xxiv. (1895) p. 375.
1 82
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
But in some
parts of Fiji
there is a
tendency to
discounte-
nance the
marriage
of cross-
All
marriages
of first
cousins
forbidden
in the
Banks'
Islands.
In short, he makes no distinction between her and his own
sister, the daughter of his own father and mother." ^ It
would hardly be possible to draw the line of demarcation
between cross-cousins and ortho-cousins more broadly and
deeply than it is drawn in Fiji.
But if cross-cousins, the children of a brother and of a
sister respectively, are generally regarded in Fiji as the
proper mates for each other, " in Lau, Thakaundrove, and
in the greater portion of Vanualevu, the offspring of a
brother and sister respectively do not become concubitant
until the second generation. In the first generation they
are called tabu, but marriage is not actually prohibited." ^
Thus in these parts of Fiji there appears to be a growing
aversion to the marriage of first cousins, and a tendency,
not yet fully developed, to forbid such unions and only to
permit of marriage between second or still more remote
cousins. In some Australian tribes, as we shall see pres-
ently, this tendency has been carried out to its logical
conclusion by prohibiting all marriages of first cousins
and even devising a special and somewhat cumbrous
piece of social machinery for the purpose of preventing
them.
In parts of Melanesia itself the aversion to cousin mar-
riages has been carried to the pitch of prohibiting them all
indiscriminately. Thus, in the Banks' Islands cross-cousins,
the children of a brother and a sister respectively, are for-
bidden by custom to marry each other, because they are
considered to be too nearly related by blood ; if they
married, they would be said to " go wrong." ^ And as in
these islands a man is debarred from marrying his ortho-
cousins, the daughters of his mother's sister or of his father's
brother because, in virtue of the bisection of the community
into two exogamous classes with descent of the class in the
maternal line, all these female cousins belong to the same
1 Lorimer Fison, " The Classifica-
tory System of Relationship, "_/o?<r«a/
of the Anthropological Institute, xxiv.
(1895) p. 363. Mr. Fison is here
speaking of second cousins, but the
rule would apply a fortiori to first
cousins who are veinganeni (not mar-
riageable) to each other.
- Basil Thomson, The Fijian s,
pp. 190 sg. ; id., " Concubitancy in
the Classificatory System of Relation-
ship," Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, xxiv. (1895) p. 379.
3 R. H. Codrington, The Afelan-
esians (Oxford, 1891), pp. 29. Com-
pare Totemism and Exogamy, ii. "J^ sg
CHAP. VI MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN MELANESIA 183
exogamous class as himself/ it follows that in the Banks'
Islands no man may marry his first cousin, whether she be
his mother's brother's daughter, his father's sister's daughter,
his mother's sister's daughter, or his father's brother's
daughter. In short, all marriages between first cousins
without distinction are barred.
In the central districts of New Ireland, one of the ah
largest of the Melanesian islands, the rules which forbid the "f^first^^^
marriage of all first cousins are exactly similar to those cousins
which prevail in the Banks' Islands. There, too, the com- ;„ j^g^
munity is divided into two exogamous classes with descent Ireland,
of the class in the maternal line. This of itself suffices to
exclude the marriage of all ortho-cousins, the children
either of two sisters or of two brothers, since it ensures that
all such cousins belong to the same exogamous class and
are therefore forbidden to marry each other, in virtue of the
law of exogamy which prohibits all matrimonial unions
between persons of the same class. But, on the other hand,
cross-cousins, the children of a brother and of a sister re-
spectively, necessarily belong to different exogamous classes,
and are therefore so far marriageable. Yet custom forbids Mutual
such cousins to marry each other; more than that, just as ofcross-
among the Baganda,^ such cousins are bound scrupulously cousins in
, , New
to avoid each other in the ordinary intercourse of daily life ; Ireland,
they may not approach each other, they may not shake
hands or even touch each other, they may not give each
other presents, they may not mention each other's names.
But they are allowed to speak to each other at a distance
of several paces.^ Here, as elsewhere, these rules of mutual
avoidance observed between persons of the opposite sex are
clearly precautions to prevent them from entering into sexual
relations which are condemned by public opinion, though
they are not barred by the law of exogamy.
1 As to exogamy in these islands see ^ P. G. Peckel, "Die Verwant-
R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians, schaftsnamen des mittleren Neumeck-
pp. 21 sqq.\ Totemism and Exogamy, lenburg," Anthropos, iii. (1908) pp.
ii. 67 sqq. 467, 470 sq. Compare Totemism and
2 See above, pp. 160 sq. Exogamy, ii. 127 sq.
iS4
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
marriage
of cousins
generally
discounte-
nanced in
Polynesia.
Trace of
the custom
of cross-
cousin
marriage
m Tonga.
§ I O. The Marriage of Cousins in Polynesia
While the custom of marriage with a first cousin, the
daughter either of a mother's brother or of a father's sister,
is permitted and even favoured in some parts of Melanesia,
though forbidden in others, it seems to have found little
or no favour among the Polynesians, who, akin to the
Melanesians in language and perhaps in blood, occupy the
numerous small islands scattered broadcast over the Pacific
to the east of Melanesia, together with the large islands of
New Zealand to the south. On this subject, Mr. Basil
Thomson, who has carefully investigated the custom of
cousin marriage in P'iji, reports as follows : " Inquiries that
have been made among the natives of Samoa, Futuna,
Rotuma, Uea, and Malanta (Solomon Group),^ have satisfied
me that the practice of concubitant marriage is unknown in
those islands ; indeed, in Samoa and Rotuma, not only is
the marriage of cousins-german forbidden, but the descend-
ants of a brother and sister respectively, who in Fiji would
be expected to marry, are there regarded as being within
the forbidden degrees as long as their common origin can
be remembered. This rule is also recognised throughout
the Gilbert Islands, with the exception of Apemama and
Makin, and is there only violated by the high chiefs. In
Tonga, it is true, a trace of the custom can be detected.
The union of the grandchildren (and occasionally even of
the children) of a brother and sister is there regarded as a
fit and proper custom for the superior chiefs, but not for the
common people. In Tonga, other things being equal, a
sister's children rank above a brother's, and therefore the
concubitant rights were vested in the sister's grandchild,
more especiall)' if a female. Her parents might send for
her male cousin to be her takaifala {lit., 'bedmaker') or
consort. The practice was never, however, sufficiently
general to be called a national custom. So startling a
variation from the practice of the other Polynesian races
may be accounted for by the suggestion that the chiefs,
more autocratic in Tonga than elsewhere, having founded
^ Of these islands, Futuna and Malanta belong to Melanesia ; the rest are
Polynesian.
CHAP. VI MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN POLYNESIA 185
their authority upon the fiction of their descent from the
gods, were driven to keep it by intermarriage among them-
selves, lest in contaminating their blood by alliance with
their subjects their divine rights should be impaired. A
similar infringement of forbidden degrees by chiefs has been
noted in Hawaii, where the chief of Mau'i was, for reasons
of state, required to marry his half-sister. It is matter of
common knowledge that for the same reason the Incas of
Peru married their full-sister, and that the kings of Siam
marry their half-sisters at the present day." ^
The testimony of other well-informed writers confirms Second
the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Basil Thomson. Thus in l^rand-^' ^
regard to Rotuma we are told by Professor J. Stanley children of
Gardiner that " a grandchild of a man and wife might and sister,
marry his or her hoisasiga, second cousin, if he or she was allowed to
1 7 ■ 1 > ■ 1 marry in
descended from the seghoni, the man s sister, or the segvevene, Rotuma.
the woman's brother, but not, it was distinctly stated, if the
descent was from the man's brother or the woman's sister,
both of which relationships are expressed by the term sosoghi.
The same terms I understand to have been used of first
cousins to one another, in accordance with the relationships
of their parents." ^ In other words, second cousins were
allowed to marry each other, if they were the grandchildren
of a brother and a sister respectively, but not if they were
the grandchildren of two brothers or of two sisters. Nothing
is expressly said as to the marriage of first cousins, the
children of two brothers or of two sisters ; but as we are
told that even second cousins, the children of such first
cousins, are forbidden to intermarry, we may safely assume,
that the same prohibition applies a fortiori to their parents,
the first cousins.
Again, with regard to the natives of Mangaia, one of the The
Hervey Islands, we are informed by the Rev. W. Wyatt "'.'^[['0^
Gill, who knows these people intimately, that among them distant
" distant cousins sometimes (though rarely) marry ; but r°rTin^
must be of the same generation, i.e. descended in the same Mangaia.
degree (fourth or fifth or even more remotely) from the
1 Basil Thomson, The Fijimts (Lon- pological I}istitute,x\\\. (1895) p. 379,
don, 1908), p. 191; id., " Concubit- ^ J. Stanley Gardiner, " The Natives
ancy in the Classificatory System of of Rotuma," Journal of the Anthro-
Relationsliip,"y^?^;-«a/ of the Anthro- pologzcal Institute, xxvii. (1898) p. 478.
i86 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
common ancestor. That the male branch should thus
invade the female is a far more pardonable offence than the
converse, but even then, should misfortune or disease over-
take these related couples, the elders of the tribe would
declare it to be the anger of the clan-god." ^ What the
writer here means by the male branch invading the female,
or the female branch invading the male, is far from clear ;
perhaps the meaning may be that when, let us say, third
cousins, the great-grandchildren of a brother and sister respect-
ively, marry each other, it is more usual for a great-grandson of
the brother to marry a great-granddaughter of the sister, than
for a great-grandson of the sister to marry a great-grand-
daughter of the brother. Be that as it may, we may infer
from Mr. Gill's statement that in Mangaia first cousins never
marry each other ; that even remote cousins, such as fourth
or fifth, rarely do so ; and that a cousin never marries a
cousin who is in a different generation from his own, reckon-
ing their descent from their common ancestors ; for example,
a third cousin might not marry his third cousin once re-
moved, though he might marry his third cousin herself
We have found the same objection to overstepping the limit
of a generation in cousin marriages among the Toradjas of
Central Celebes," and the Mafulus of New Guinea,^
§11. The Marriage of Cousins in A ustralia
inAustraiia Amoug the aborigines of Australia, the lowest savages as
prSferThe^^ to whose social organization we possess comparatively full
marriage and accurate information, we find the same striking contrast
cominrto i" regard to cousin marriages which has met us in other
any other raccs ; for while in some Australian tribes the marriage of
marriage ; . . . r i j. 1 1 i • • i
other tribes certam cousms IS preferred to all other marriages, m others
prohibit all q,-, ^-j^g contrary all marriages of cousins without exception
marriages . ,
between are prohibited, and an elaborate social machinery has been
cousms. devised apparently for the express purpose of barring those
very forms of cousin marriage which other tribes regard as
the most desirable of all matrimonial unions. An examina-
1 Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, "Mangaia Melbourne, Victoria, in January i8go
(yizx\'ey\s\aLnAs)," Report oj the Second (Sj'dney), p. 330.
Meeiin<^of the AuUralasiati Association ^ See above, pp. i6g s^.
for the Advancement oj Science, held at ^ See above, p. 176.
CHAr. VI MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AUSTRALIA 187
tion of the Australian practice in this respect is particularly
important and instructive, because, occupying the lowest rung
on the social ladder, the Australian aborigines appear to retain
more completely than elsewhere those primitive usages out of
which the widespread custom of cousin marriage has been
evolved, but which in more advanced communities have been
partially or wholly obliterated by the progress of civilization.
Among the Urabunna, a tribe of Central Australia who in the
are divided into two exogamous classes with descent of the tVibe^of "^
class from the mother, not from the father, to the children, a Central
man's proper wife is always one of those women whom we amM iT
should call his first cousins, being the daughter either of his expected to
mother's brother or of his father's sister. In other words, he ^oss^
is expected and enjoined to marry one of his cross-cousins, cousin, the
On the other hand, he is strictly forbidden to marry certain either of his
other first cousins, whom I have called ortho-cousins, namely, niothers
elder
the daughter of his mother's sister and the daughter of his brother
father's brother ; and the reason why both these cousins are "'"^^ ^'^
^ fathers
prohibited to him is that they belong to the same exogamous eider sister.
class as himself, and are therefore barred to him by the
fundamental law which forbids a man to marry a woman of
his own exogamous class. But even among his cross-cousins,
the daughters either of his mother's brothers or of his father's
sisters, the choice of an Urabunna man is not unlimited ; for
he may only take to wife a daughter of his mother's elder
brother or a daughter of his father's elder sister ; the daughters
of his mother's younger brothers and the daughters of his
father's younger sisters are forbidden to him in marriage.
Thus a man's wife must always belong to the senior side of
the house, so far as he is concerned ; and a woman's husband
must always belong to the junior side of the house, so far as
she is concerned.^ This is the first time that such a limitation
of choice between cross-cousins has met us in our survey of
cousin marriage ; an explanation of it will be suggested
later on.^
Again, among the Ya-itma-thang and the Ngarigo, two
tribes on the borders of Victoria and New South Wales,
^ (Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Australia (London, 1904), pp. 73 sq.;
Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Totetnisni and Exogamy, i. 177 sqq.
Australia (London, 1899), pp. 61-65;
id., The Northern Tribes of Central ^ Below, pp. 337 sq.
i88
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Cross -
cousin
marriage
in tribes of
Victoria
and New
South
Wales.
Cross-
cousin
marriage
among the
Kabi of
Queens-
land and
the Kariera
of North-
Western
Australia.
who, like the Urabunna, were divided into two exogamous
classes with descent of the class in the maternal line, a man's
proper wife was his cross-cousin, the daughter of his mother's
brother ;^ but he might not marry any of his ortho-cousins,
the daughters either of his mother's sisters or of his father's
brothers, because they belonged to the same exogamous class
as himself, and were therefore barred to him by the funda-
mental law which forbade a man to marry a woman of his
own exogamous class.^ Among the Yuin, a tribe on the
southern coast of New South Wales, who traced descent in
the male line, a man was free to marry the daughter either
of his mother's brother or of his father's sister ; but we are
not told that, as among the Urabunna, he was expected to
do so.^ Again, among the Wolgal, a tribe which inhabited
the tablelands of the highest Australian Alps, a man's proper
wife was the daughter of his mother's brother. The rule was
the same in the Omeo tribe.*
In the Kabi tribe of South- Eastern Queensland, who
were divided into four exogamous classes, a man might
marry either the daughter of his mother's brother or the
daughter of his father's sister ; but apparently marriage with
the former was preferred.'' Again, in the Kariera tribe of
North- Western Australia, who are divided into four exogam-
ous classes, " a man may marry the daughter of his own
mother's brother, or of his own father's sister. Such mar-
riages of the children of a brother with those of his sister are
common in this tribe. Indeed we may say that the proper
person for a man to marry, if it be possible, is his- own first
cousin. In the genealogies collected by me I found that in
nearly every case where such a marriage was possibl.e, it had
taken place. . . . Consequently the woman who is pre-eminently
a man's nuba ^ is the daughter of his own mother's brother, or
1 A. W. Howilt, The Native Tribes
of South - East Australia (London,
1904), pp. 77, loi, 196, 197, 198;
Totemisiii and Exogamy, i. 39*2 sq.
2 This prohibition of marriage with
ortho-cousins in the Ya-itma-thang tribe
is not expressly mentioned by Dr.
Howitt (lice), but it follows necessarily
from the organization of the tribe in
two exogamous classes.
•* A. W. Howitt, Xative Tribes of
South-East Australia, p. 262, "Mar-
riage was permitted between the father's
sister's child and the mother's brother's
child" ; Totemism and Exogatny, i. 491.
■* A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of
South-East Australia, p. 197; Totem-
ism and Exogamy, i. 395.
^ John Mathew, Teo /Representative
Tribes of Queensland (London and
Leipsic, 1910), pp. 156 sq.
" Potential wife.
CHAP. VI MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AUSTRALIA 189
failing this, of his own father's sister. It is this woman to
whom he has the first right as a wife." ^ Ikit in this tribe on
the other hand a man is, as usual, prohibited from marrying
his first cousin, the daughter either of his mother's sister or
of his father's brother," because all such cousins belong to the
same exogamous class as himself and are therefore barred to
him by the law of exogamy. In short, among the Kariera a
man ought to marrj^ his cross-cousin, but he may not marry
his ortho-cousin.
Again, with regard to the tribes of the East Pilbara Cross-
district, in North-Western Australia, who are also divided ^^^"^"^
marriage
into four exogamous classes, we are told that "cross-cousin intheEas
(first cousin) marriages are permitted in the above tribes, djsj'rtaof
own mother's brothers' sons and own father's sisters' daughters North-
being betrothed to each other." ^ Strictly speaking, this state- Ausiraiki.
ment only implies that one form of cross-cousin marriage is
permitted, namely, that in which a man marries the daughter
of his father's sister. But we may conjecture that the writer
intended to include the other form of cross-cousin marriage
also, namely that in which a man marries the daughter of
his mother's brother ; for it would be contrary to all Aus-
tralian analogy to find in the same tribe the first of these
marriages permitted and the second barred.
But while the marriage of certain cousins is permitted or The Dieri
even preferred in some Australian tribes, it is absolutely pro- ""^ ^^"[■"'''i
^ ^ Austraha
hibited in others. For example, among the Dieri, a tribe of forbade
Central Australia, who were divided into two exogamous cou^s^ns
classes with descent of the class in the maternal line, cross- to niarrj-,
cousins, the children of a brother and a sister respectively, th"ecWidren
were expressly forbidden to marry each other, although the of cross-
cousins to
1 A. R. Brown, "Three Tribes of the children of a brother and a sister, ^„,.,"L'"
Western Australia," Journal of the to marry each other, is mentioned by
Royal Anthropological Institute, xliii. Mr. Clement {I.e.), but he does not
(1913) PP- 155 •s''/- indicate that decided preference for
'^ E. Clement, " Ethnographical such marriages which is recorded by
Notes on the Western Australian ab- Mr. A. R. Brown.
origines," Internationales Archiv fiir ^ Mrs. D. M. Bates, "Social organ-
Ethnographie. xvi. (1904) p. 12. One i/ation of some Western Australian
of the tribes here described by Mr. \.x\hz^," Report of the Fourteenth Meet-
Clement is what he calls the Kaieira, in g of the Australasian Association for
which seems to be identical with the the Advanicment of Science, held at
Kaiit-ra described by Mr. A. R. Brown, Melbourne, igij (Melbourne, 19 14),
The permission given to cross-cousins, p. 391.
certain
cases.
IQO
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Re.iiark-
able
contrast
between the
customs of
the Dieri
and the
Urabunna
in regard
to the
marriage
of cioss-
cousins.
rule of class exogamy interposed no barrier to their union.
But the children of such first cousins were permitted, at least
in certain cases, to marry each other ; indeed they were
regarded as each other's proper mates. Thus among the
Dieri a man might not marry his first cousin, the daughter
either of his mother's brother or of his father's sister ; but he
was free to marry his second cousin, in the cases in which
she was his mother's mother's brother's daughter's daughter,
or his mother's father's sister's daughter's daughter ; indeed
such second cousins were the proper mates for each other.
In other words, husband and wife should always be second
cousins, descended through their mothers from a brother and
a sister respectively.'^ This rule of marriage presents a re-
markable contrast to the rule observed by the Urabunna, the
neighbours of the Dieri on the north-west ; and the contrast
is all the more striking because the social organization of the
two tribes is similar, consisting of two exogamous* classes
with descent of the class in the maternal line. Yet with
this similarity of social organization the two neighbouring
tribes observe quite different rules with regard to the marriage
of cousins ; for whereas the Urabunna permit or rather enjoin
the marriage of cross-cousins, the children of a brother and
of a sister respectively, the Dieri positively forbid the marriage
of such first cousins, and only permit or rather enjoin, mar-
riage between their children, that is, between second cousins
in the particular case in which the two are both descended
through their mothers from a brother and a sister. We
cannot doubt that of the two customs, the one which forbids
the marriage of first cousins is later than the one which per-
mits or rather enjoins it ; for an attentive examination of the
marriage systems of the Australian aborigines points unmis-
takeably to the conclusion that among these tribes there has
been a steady tendency to extend the list of forbidden degrees,
in other words, to prevent more and more the marriage of
near blood relations. Of this tendency the contrast between
the usages of the two neighbouring tribes, the Urabunna and
the Dieri, furnishes a conspicuous example ; for here we have
^ A. W. Hewitt, The Native Tribes pp. 172 sqq.
of South- East Australia, pp. 164 sq.. Exogamy, i.
189; id., in Folk-lore, xviii. (1907)
Compare Totemism and
546.
CHAP. VI MARRIAGE OF COUSINS IN AUSTRALIA 191
two tribes living side by side under precisely similar circum-
stances and under precisely similar social organizations ; yet
the one enjoins the marriage of certain cousins, and the other
positively forbids it. Of the two tribes, therefore, we may
say without hesitation that the Dieri, who forbid the marriage,
stand one rung higher up the social ladder than the Urabunna,
who enjoin it.^
When we speak of the express permission or the ex- The
press prohibition of cousin marriage in these two tribes, oTonho-
the reader must always bear in mind that the marriage in cousins
question is that between cross -cousins, the children of a ba^edin
brother and of a sister respectively. The marriage between '"^es with
ortho-cousms, the children of two brothers or ot two sisters, is gamous
barred by the system of exogamous classes, since these cousins classes,
necessarily belong to the same exogamous class and are there-
fore not marriageable with each other; consequently no special
prohibition is required to prevent their union. The regular
machinery of the social system suffices to keep them apart.
Among the Mardudhunera of North-Western Australia, Among the
who are divided into four exogamous classes, the rule as to ||J^^'^'^''^' f
the marriage of cousins agrees exactly with that of the Dieri ; North-
for among them also a man is bound to marry his second AuTtraiL
cousin, in the particular cases in which she is either his the rules in
mother's mother's brother's daughter's daughter, or his H^i^^
mother's father's sister's daughter's daughter ; indeed he is m«irriage
not allowed to marry any woman who does not stand in cousins are
one of these relations to him. But of the two relations it t'lesameas
• /-I 1 ) 1 > 1 1)1 1 1 among the
would seem as if the mothers mothers brothers daughters Dieri.
daughter were preferred to the mother's father's sister's
daughter's daughter. In short, among the Mardudhunera,
just as among the Dieri, husband and wife should always
be second cousins, descended through their mothers from a
brother and a sister respectively. Such second cousins are
betrothed to each other in infancy, or rather before they were
born, the match having been arranged in the families before
the birth or even the conception of the infants."
' This was the opinion of Dr. A. W. Auslralia, p. 189). Compare his obser
Howitt, who says, "The Dieri rule is vations in Folk-lore, xviii. (1907) pp.
evidently a development of that of the 173 sg.
Urabunna, and is therefore the later - A. R. Brown, "Three Tribes of
oxi^''^ {The Native Tribes of South-East Western Australia," Journal of the
192
J A COB'S MARRIA GE
The The Wotjobaluk tribe of Victoria, whose class s)-steni
"J-^^Ij'^^*^ was anomalous, carried the objection to cousin marriage still
cousins further than the Dieri and the Mardudhunera ; for not only
in some <^'<^ they Strictly forbid cross-cousins, the children of a brother
Australian and of a sister respectively, to marry each other, but they
forbade the descendants of these cousins, so far as the re-
lationship could be traced, to unite in marriage ; in short,
they prohibited the marriage of all cousins, both near and
distant. On this prohibition they laid great stress, saying
that such persons " could not mix their flesh, because their
flesh {yaueri?i) was too near." ^ Again, in the Kulin tribes
of Victoria, which were divided into two exogamous classes
with descent of the class in the paternal line, " marriages not
only between the children of two brothers, or of two sisters,
but also between those of a brother on one side and of a
sister on the other side, were absolutely prohibited, it being
held that they were too near to each other." ^ The Banger-
ang, a tribe at the junction of the Goulburn and Murray
Rivers, who were divided into two exogamous classes with
paternal descent of the class, went still further ; for among
them " not only was it forbidden to the children of a brother
on the one side, and a sister on the other, to marry, but their
descendants, as far as they could be reckoned, were equally
debarred. It was held that they were 'too near,' and only a
little removed from ' brother and sister.' " ^ The Narrinyeri,
a tribe of South Australia, who were divided into exogamous
totem clans with paternal descent of the totem, were equally
scrupulous with regard to the marriage of near kin. Of them
Royal Anthropological Institute, xliii.
(19 1 3) pp. 184 sq. After mentioninsr
a man's marriage with his mother's
mother's brother's daughter's daughter,
Mr. Brown adds (p. 184), "He may
not marry any woman who does not
bear this relation to him." Yet he
goes on to say (p. 185) that a man, A,
and his wife may ask the woman's
father's sister to promise her daughter
to be the wife's mother of the man A's
still unborn son. In this latter case,
when the children are born and marry,
the man's wife is his mother's father's
sister's daughter's daughter. From this
I infer that, while the latter relationship
(mother's father's sister's daughter's
daughter) is allowed, the former re-
lationship (TOOther's mother's brother's
daughter's daughter) is preferred.
' A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of
South-East Australia, pp. 241, 243.
Yauerin means flesh, but is also applied
to the exogamous class and to the totem
(Howitt, op. cit. p. 241).
2 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of
South-East Australia, p. 254.
3 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of
South-East Australia, p. 257.
CHAP. V I IV HV CROSS- CO USIiVS MA RRV 1 93
we are told by an observer who knew them intimately that
" the aversion of the natives to even second cousins marrying
is very great. They are extremely strict in this matter. The
first inquiry with regard to a proposed marriage is, whether
there is any tie of kindred between the parties, and if there
be it prevents the match, and if the couple should cohabit
afterwards they will be always looked upon with dishonour."^
Again, throughout North- Western Queensland generally, " a
man cannot marry his father's sister's daughter, his mother's
brother's daughter, or his daughter's daughter, while a woman
must carnally avoid her mother's brother's son, her father's
sister's son, or her son's son, etc., notwithstanding the fact
that these particular relationships are necessarily located in
the same exogamous groups which otherwise would be allowed
to join in permanent sexual partnership." ^
Thus, while some Australian tribes prefer the marriage Thus
of cross-cousins to any other form of matrimonial union, ^"^°"s th'^
■' _ ' aboriginal
many others disapprove of and forbid it. Indeed so wide- tribes of
spread is this disapprobation of cousin marriage in aboriginal ^^erg'js'a
Australia, that Mr. E. I\I. Curr, who did much for the study difference
of the Australian natives, could even affirm in general that and^of'°"
among them " the union of blood-relations is forbidden, and practice in
held in abhorrence ; so that a man may not marry his the
mother, sister, half-sister, daughter, grand -daughter, aunt, marriage
- 1 . ,)^ T. • 1 1- , r of cousins.
niece, first or second cousm. But m the light of some
of the foregoing facts this statement is seen to be an
exaggeration.
S 12. Why is the Marriage of Cross-Cousins favoured?
We have now traced the practice of cousin marriage Why is the
through a considerable part of the lower races of mankind "rcross-^
and found it in full vogue among some of the aboriginal cousins so
tribes of Australia, who rank at or near the bottom of the favoured?
social scale. But we have still to ask, Why is the marriage Why is the
marriage
^ Rev. Geo. Taplin, "The Narrin- logical Studies of the A'orth- IVest- of ortho-
yeri," in J. D. Woods' Native Tribes of Central Queensland Aborigines (Bris- cousins so
South Attstra!ia[AAe\A\<\s,i^TQ),X>. 12. bane and London, 1897), p. 182. generally
2 Walter E. Roth, "Marriage Cere- forbidden?
monies and Infant Life, "yV(?r/'A ^Kew7.r- ^ E. M. Curr, The Australian Race
land Ethnog7-aphy, Bulletiti N'o. lO (Melbourne and London, 1 886-1 887),
(1908), p. 2. Compare id., Ethno- i. 106.
VOL. II O
194 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
The of cross-cousins so often favoured ? Why is the marriage of
preference Qj-tho-cousins SO uniformly prohibited ? The comparatively
for cross- . . . .
cousin primitive condition of society in aboriginal Australia holds
to^be fi^st °^'*^ ^ hope that there, if anywhere, we may detect the motives
considered, which first led men to favour the one form of marriage and
to forbid the other. It will be convenient to consider the
two questions separately. We shall begin with the question,
Why is the marriage of cross-cousins so often favoured ?
In In aboriginal Australia the primary motive which led to
aboriginal ^ preference for cousin marriage appears to have been an
Australia ^ t:> cr
the primary economic one. We must bear in mind that the Australian
™°*'?'^ savatjes neither till the ground nor rear cattle ; that for the
for the £> fc> >
preference most part they posscss no permanent abode, but roam
° ^"^r.?!!!!!! over the country in search of the wild animals and wild
appears plants on wliicli they subsist ; and that they own hardly any
economic personal property except a few simple tools and weapons,
one. On rudely fashioned out of wood and stone, for in their natural
account of ,, . . . i a
thee.Ktreme State they are totally ignorant of the metals. Among
poverty people Hving in this primitive fashion a man's most valuable
Australian possession is his wife ; for not only does she bear him
aborigmes chji^lren, who help him and are a source of gain to him in
a wife IS ' '^ ^
among various ways, but she also does most of the hard work for
them a ^inn carryinsr the baggage as well as the infants on the
man s most ' . ^ ^ ^° ^
valuable march, constructing the temporary shelter of branches in
possession, ^^j^j^j^ they pass the night, collecting firewood, fetching
water, and procuring the whole of the vegetable food of the
family ; for it is the woman's business to dig the roots and
gather the seeds and fruits which furnish these wandering
savages with a great, sometimes perhaps the greater, part of
their means of subsistence. " After marriage," says a writer
who knew the Australian aborigines well in the old days,
" the women are compelled to do all the hard work of erect-
ing habitations, collecting fuel and water, carrying burdens,
procuring roots and delicacies of various kinds, making
baskets for cooking roots and other purposes, preparing food,
and attending to the children. The only work the men do,
in time of peace, is to hunt for opossums and large animals
of various kinds, and to make rugs and weapons." ^ Accord-
1 James Dawson, Australian Abori- laide, 1881), pp. 36 j^. See further \V.
gines (Melbourne, Sydney, and Ade- E. Stanbridge, " Tribes in the Central
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 195
ingly we arc told that "as tlic women perform all the labour,
they are the most important part of the property of an
Australian native, who is rich in proportion to the number
of wives he possesses." ^
How then does an Australian native procure that most Having no
valuable of all his possessions, his wife ? He cannot, like f,^"property
people at' a somewhat higher stage of social evolution, pur- to give for
chase her from her parents by giving them an equivalent in Australian
property of some kind, whether it be goods, or cattle, or aboriginal
money. Accordingly he is generally reduced to bartering obtiged to
one woman for another ; in order to get a wife for himself s^' ^^^ '"
1 • 1 • 11 1 • "11 • exchange
or his son, he is compelled to give a daughter, a sister, or for a female
some other female relative to the man from whom he obtains relative,
. , T,, usually a
his bride or his daughter-m-law. The voluntary interchange sister or
of women, especially of daughters or of sisters, appears to be daughter.
the ordinary way of supplying the demand for wives in the
matrimonial market of aboriginal Australia. " It may be
safely laid down as a broad and general proposition," says
the late Dr. A. W. Howitt, one of our best authorities on
the natives of Australia, " that among these savages a wife
was obtained by the exchange of a female relative, with
the alternative possibility of obtaining one by inheritance
{Levirate), by elopement, or by capture. ... It seems to
me that the most common practice is the exchange of girls
by their respective parents as wives for each other's sons, or
in some tribes the exchange of sisters, or of some female
relatives by the young men themselves." " Again, we are
told that " the Australian male almost invariably obtains his
wife or wives, either as the survivor of a married brother, or
in exchange for his sisters, or later on in life for his daughters.
Occasionally also an aged widow whom the rightful heir does
not claim is taken possession of by some bachelor ; but for
Part of Victoria," Transcutions of the lected by B. Malinowski, The Family
Ethnological Society of London, New amoiig the Australian Aborigines [Y^on-
Series, i. (1861) pp. 290 sq. ; R. don, 1913), pp. 275 sqq.
Broutih Smyth, The Aborinnes of i r- t u u y ,^ -i ,
TT- ■ ,-Kr 11 1 T J <^- Lumholtz, A»/07!"- Cannibals,
Victoria (Melbourne and London, ,^
18S1), i. 85 ; E. M. Curr, The Aus- ^'
tralian Race (Melbourne and London, ^ A. W. Howitt, " On the Organ-
1886- 1887), i. 99; C. Lumhollz, isation of Australian Tribes," Trans-
Among Caujiibals (London, 1S89), pp. actions of the Royal Society of Victoria,
160; and the copious evidence col- 1889, pp. 115, 116.
196
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Wives
procured in
exchange
for sisters or
daughters
among the
tribes of
South
Australia.
the most part those who have no female relatives to give in
exchange have to go without wives." ^ " It is not uncommon
for an Australian to inherit a wife ; the custom being that a
widow falls to the lot of the brother of the deceased husband.
But the commonest way of getting a wife is by giving a
sister or a daughter in exchange." ^
In the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia, the
marriage ceremony " is very simple, and with great propriety
may be considered an exchange, for no man can obtain a
wife unless he can promise to give his sister or other relative
in exchange. . . . Should the father be living he may give
his daughter away, but generally she is the gift of the
brother."^ In this tribe, " if a man has several girls at his
disposal, he speedily obtains several wives, who, however,
very seldom agree well with each other, but are continually
quarrelling, each endeavouring to be the favourite. The
man, regarding them more as slaves than in any other light,
employs them in every possible way to his own advantage.
They are obliged to get him shell-fish, roots, and eatable
plants. If one from another tribe should arrive having
anything which he desires to purchase, he perhaps makes a
bargain to pay by letting him have one of his wives for a
longer or shorter period." * Among the Narrinyeri, another
tribe of South Australia, " it is regarded by the females as
very disgraceful not to be given atvay in exchange for
another. A young woman who goes away with a man and
lives with him as his wife without the consent of her relatives
is regarded as very little better than a prostitute. She is
always open to the taunt that she had nothing given for her.
When a man has a sister or daughter whom it is his right
to give away, he will often sell that right to a man who
wants a wife for either money, clothes, or weapons, and then
the purchaser will give the woman away in exchange for a
wife for himself" ^ However, in this tribe " in most instances
1 E. M. Curr, The Australian Race
(Melbourne and London, 18S6-1887),
i. 107.
2 C. Lumlioltz, Atnong Cannibals,
p. 164.
3 H. E. A. Meyer, " Manners and
Encounter Bay Tribe," in J. D.
Woods, IVie Native Tribes of South
Australia (Adelaide, 1879), p. 190.
* H. E. A. Meyer, op. cit. p. igi.
^ Rev. George Taplin, " The Nar-
rinyeri," in J- D- Woods, The Amative
Customs of the Aborigines of the Tribes of South Australia, pp. 1 1 sq.
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 197
a brother or first cousin gives a girl away in exchange for a
wife for himself." ^
Among the tribes which occupy, or rather used to occupy, wives
the great flat lands of the Lower Murray, Lower Lachlan, exchange"
and Lower Darling Rivers in Victoria and New South forsistersor
Wales, " polygamy is allowed to any extent, and this law is among the
eenerallv taken advantage of by those who chance to be *'^''^'=^ °^
1 1 r 1 • • Victoria
rich in sisters, daughters, or female wards, to give in ex- and New
chansfe for wives. No man can get a wife unless he has a ri"""^
° ° . . Wales.
sister, ward, or daughter, whom he can give in exchange.
Fathers of grown-up sons frequently exchange their daughters
for wives, not for their sons, however, but for themselves, even
although they already have two or three. Cases of this
kind are indeed very hard for the sons, but being aboriginal
law they must bear it as best they can, and that too without
murmur ; and to make the matter harder still to bear, the
elders of a tribe will not allow the young men to go off to
other tribes to steal wives for themselves, as such measures
would be the certain means of entailing endless feuds with
their accompanying bloodshed, in the attempts that would
surely be made with the view of recovering the abducted
women. Young men, therefore, not having any female
relatives or wards under their control must, as a consequence
of the aboriginal law on the subject, live all their lives in
single blessedness, unless they choose to take up with some
withered old hags whom nobody owns, merely for the pur-
pose of having their fires cared for, their water-vessels filled,
and their baggage carried from camp to camp." ^ To the
same effect another writer observes that " a man who has no
female relations that can be exchanged for a young woman
of another tribe leads an unhappy life. Not only must he
attend to his own wants, and share the discomforts of the
bachelors' quarters, but he is an object of suspicion to the
older men, who have perhaps two or three young wives to
watch. There is the fear also that he may violently seize a
girl of a neighbouring tribe, and thus provoke a war. There
' Rev. George Taplin, in E. M. Murray, Lower Murrumbidgee, Lower
Curr, The Australian Race, ii. 245. Lachlan, and Lower Darling, "y^^/r-^a/
^ P. Beveridge, " Of the Aborigines and Proceedings of the Royal Society
inhabiting the Great Lacustrine and of New South Wales, xvii. (1883) p.
Riverine Depression of the Lower 23.
198
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
PART n
Since
among the
Australian
aborigines
women had
a high
economic
and
commercial
value, a
man who
had many
sisters or
daughters
was rich,
and a man
who had
none was
poor and
might be
unable to
procure a
wife at all.
is the discontent and unrest of such a Hfe, which makes him
a dull companion, a quarrelsome friend, and a bitter enemy.
Sometimes a wife is given to him by some old man who is
tired of keeping her ; but most often a warrior will steal a
woman from another tribe, if he cannot inspire an affection
and lead her to elope with him. Any such act brings about
a conflict. As soon as the girl is missed, a search is insti-
tuted, and the guilty pair are invariably tracked to their
hiding-place. When the discovery is made, the tribe to
which the man belongs is informed of it, and there is a
gathering of the old men of both tribes, and much talk and
wrangling follows ; but the main questions to be decided
are these : Can a girl of the man's tribe be given in ex-
change for the woman that has been stolen ? Is the man's
tribe willing that the thief shall stand a form of trial some-
what resembling the ordeal of the ancient rude nations of
Europe ? If the first question is not settled satisfactorily by
some generous creature offering a female relative in ex-
change, the second question is debated, but always on the
understanding that the solemn obligation cannot be avoided." ^
Thus it appears that among the Australian aborigines a
woman is prized not merely as a breeder of children, a nurse,
a labourer, and a porter, but also as an article of barter ; for
in this last capacity she possesses a high commercial value,
being exchangeable, either temporarily or permanently, for
another woman or for other valuable commodities such as
rugs and boomerangs. Hence a man who is rich in
daughters or sisters is rich indeed. In truth, among these
savages the female sex answers in some measure the purpose
of a medium of exchange ; they are the nearest native repre-
sentative of the coin of the realm. So a man who has no
daughters, sisters, or other exchangeable ' females at his
command, is reduced to the lowest depth of penury ; and
if he would supply his deficiency, he can as a rule only do
so by fraud or violence, in other words, either by inducing \\
somebody else's wife, sister, or daughter to elope with him,
or by forcibly carrying off a woman from a neighbouring
tribe. Like a rogue elephant, banned from female society,
he puts himself outside the pale of the law ; he becomes a
1 R. Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria, i. 79.
CHAP. VI ^F//K CROSS-COUS/NS MARRY I99
criminal and a robber, and as such he is punished by the
persons he has wronijcd, whether they be of his own or of a
neighbouring;- tribe, unless indeed some generous man, who
has a superfluity of wives, consents to sacrifice one of them
to meet the demands of justice. Hence it seems probable The rape
that the rape of women from neic^hbourins^ tribes, which of women
^ fc> fc> ' from other
some writers have apparently regarded as the normal way tribes was
of obtaining a wife in aboriginal Australia, was in fact an |^°^yrare
exceptional proceeding, a crime committed for the most and was
part by poor and desperate bachelors, who, having no sisters nanced
to barter, were compelled to resort to this irregular mode of because of
■,-, , 1 1 J its tendency
procurmg a consort. But such rapes were condemned and to embroil
punished even by the members of the criminal's own tribe, fhe tnbes
. . in war.
because they were likely to embroil them in war with their
neighbours, " On rare occasions," says Mr. E. M. Curr, " a
'wife is captured from another tribe, and carried off. There
are strong reasons for believing, that when the continent was
only partially occupied, elopements from within the tribe
were frequent, and that those who eloped proceeded into the
unpeopled wilds, and there established themselves. I have
no doubt the Darling Blacks and the Narrinyeri owe their
origin to proceedings of this sort, and also the Bangerang tribes.
At present, as the stealing of a woman from a neighbouring
tribe would involve the whole tribe of the thief in war for
his sole benefit, and as the possession of the woman would
lead to constant attacks, tribes set themselves very generally
against the practice. As a consequence, women surprised
by strange Blacks are always abused and often massacred ;
for murder may be atoned for, but unauthorized possession
cannot be acquiesced in. Within the tribe, lovers occasion-
ally abscond to some corner of the tribal territory, but they
are soon overtaken, and the female cruelly beaten, or
wounded with a spear, the man in most tribes remaining
unpunished. Very seldom are men allowed to retain as
wives their partners in these escapades." ^ " Marriage by
capture," say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, " is again, at the
present day, whatever it may have been in the past, by no
means the rule in Australian tribes, and too much stress has
been laid upon this method. It is only comparatively rarely
1 E. M. Curr, 77ie Australian Race, i. loS.
200
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
practice of
elopement
within a
tribe was
not
uncommon
among the
Australian
aborigines.
Among the
Australian
aborigines
the old men
availed
themselves
of the
system of
exchange
in order
to procure
a number
that a native goes and seizes upon some lubra in a neigh-
bouring tribe ; by far the most common method of getting a
wife is by means of an arrangement made between brothers
or fathers of the respective men and women, whereby a
particular woman is assigned to a particular man. Marriage
by capture may indeed be regarded as one of the most
exceptional methods of obtaining a wife amongst the natives
at the present day." ^
On the other hand, the practice of elopement within the
tribe, as distinguished from capture from without the tribe,
would seem to have been fairly common, and to have been
due to the difficulty which some }'oung men had in obtain-
ing wives by the normal and legal methods of betrothal or
exchange. Marriage by elopement, according to Dr. A. W.
Howitt, " obtains in all tribes in which infant betrothal
occurs, and where the young men, or some of them, find
more or less difficulty through this practice, or by there
being no female relative available for exchange, or indeed
wherever a couple fall in love with each other and cannot
obtain consent to their marriage. Marriage by elopement
occurs so frequently, that although it is always regarded as
a breach of the law and custom, yet, as it is under certain
circumstances a valid union, it may be considered a recog-
nised form of marriage." ^
The scarcity of women available as wives for young
men was caused in large measure by the selfish action of
the older men, who, availing themselves of the system of
exchange, used their daughters and other female relatives to
purchase wives for themselves instead of for their sons and
nephews. The result was a very unequal distribution of
wives between the males of the community, the old men
often possessing many spouses, while the young men had to
1 (Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J.
Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Aus-
tralia {l^onAon, 1899), p. 104; compare
id., pp. 554 sq., "Indeed the method of
capture, which has been so frequently
described as characteristic of Australian
tribes, is the very rarest way in which
a Central Australian secures a wife."
Compare E. Palmer, " Notes on some
Australian Tribes," Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, xiii. (18S4)
p. 301, "Seldom was a woman taken
by violence, or knocked on the head
and dragged away, as has been said
very often."
2 A. W. Howitt, " On the Organi-
sation of Australian Tribes," Trans-
actions of the Royal Society of Victoria,
1889, pp. 118 sq.
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 20I
go without any, or to put up with the cast-off wives of their of wives for
elders. Among the tribes of Western Victoria, for example, jvom^^^"
" a young man, who belongs to the chief's family, very among
reluctantly seeks the consent of the head of the family to women!
his marriage, for it frequently ends in the old chief taking while the
^t- 1 • ir T- 1 .. 4. • 4.U- young men
the young woman huTiseH. io such an extent is this having no
tyrannical system of polygamy carried on by the old chiefs, women to
that many young men are compelled to remain bachelors, exchange,
the native word for which means ' to look out,' while an old ^^[.^ ^l^'*^"
obliged to
warrior may have five or six of the finest young women of remain
other tribes for his wives." ^ " Polygamy," says another ^^^^ °y;|^
writer on the Australian aborigines, "is universal ; but it is the cast-off
generally the old men of the tribe who have the greatest tTiJi^eiders
number of wives. The reason of this is that they exchange
their young daughters for young wives for themselves.
Many of the young men are consequently without any, and
the result is perpetual fights and quarrels about the
women."" In South Australia "the females, and especially
the young ones are kept principally among the old men,
who barter away their daughters, sisters, or nieces, in ex-
change for wives for themselves or their sons. Wives are
considered the absolute property of the husband, and can
be given away, or exchanged, or lent, according to his
caprice. A husband is denominated in the Adelaide
dialect, Yongarra martanya (the owner or proprietor of a
wife.)" ^ In Western Australia "the old men manage to
keep the females a good deal amongst themselves, giving
their daughters to one another, and the more female children
they have, the greater chance have they of getting another
wife, by this sort of exchange ; but the women have
generally some favourite amongst the young men, always
looking forward to be his wife at the death of her husband."*
In Queensland " it is, as a rule, difficult for young men to
' James Dawson, Australian Ab- * {^\\)Q&ox'ge.<^\^y , Journals of Tvjc
orig-ines, p. 35. Expeditions of Discovery in North- West
2 Albert A. C. Le Souef, "Notes and Western Australia{'LoT\don,i%^\),
on the Natives of Australia," in R. ii. 230. Compare to the same effect
Brough Smyth, The Aborigines of E. M. Curr, The Australian Race, i.
Victoria, ii. 291. 298, ii. 332, iii. 163 ; John Mathew,
^ ^.'^. 'Eyre, Journal of Expeditions Two Representative Tribes of Queens-
of Discovery into Central Australia land (London and Leipsic, 19 1 o), p.
(London, 1845), ii. 318 sq. 162.
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Among the
Australian
aborigines
the women
whom men
gave in
exchange
for wives
were
usually
either their
sisters or
their
daughters.
marry before they are thirty years old. The oldest men
have the youngest and best-looking wives, while a young
man must consider himself fortunate if he can get an old
woman." ^
The two commonest forms of barter in the Australian
matrimonial market were the exchange of daughters and
the exchange of sisters, and it is not clear which of the two
forms was the more prevalent, for our authorities differ on
the subject, some of them assigning the palm in point of
popularity to the one form, and some to the other.^ Prob-
ably the usage varied somewhat in different tribes. In
general it seems likely that in the rivalry between the older
and the younger men for the possession of wives the older
men would favour the exchange of daughters, because it
gave them the chance of adding to their own harem, while
the younger men would as naturally prefer the exchange of
sisters, because it placed their matrimonial destiny in their
own hands instead of in the hands of their venerable
parents, the old bucks, whose personal designs on the
youthful brides they had in many cases only too good
reason to suspect. In some tribes, for example, in those of
Western Victoria, " the rule is that a father alone can give
away his daughter. If the father is dead the son can dis-
pose of the daughter, with the consent of the uncle." ^
Similarly among some tribes of South Australia " brothers
^ C. Lumholtz, Among Cannibals,
p. 163.
- We have seen (p. 195) that accord-
ing to Dr. Howitt "the most common
practice is the exchange of girls by
their respective parents as wives for
each other's sons " : and this con-
clusion seems on the whole to be borne
out by the particular cases enumerated
by Dr. Howitt in his Native Tribes of
South-East Australia (pp. 177, 178,
217, 222, 242, 243,244,249,253),
though he also mentions cases of the
exchange of sisters by their brothers
{^op. cit. pp. 211, 243, 252, 260, 262,
263). On the other hand the exchange
of sisters by their brothers is some-
times mentioned as if it were the
ordinary practice. See R. Brough
Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 77
note * (John Bulmer quoted), 84 ; F.
H. Wells, " The Habits, Customs, and
Ceremonies of the Aboriginals on the
Diamentina, Herbert, and Eleanor
Rivers, in East Central Queensland,"
Report of the Fifth Meeting of the Aus-
tralasian Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, held at Adelaide, South
Australia, September i8g^, p. 515 ;
Walter E. Roth, Ethnological Studies
among the North- West- Central Queens-
land Aborigines, p. \?>\ ; id. " Mar-
riage Ceremonies and Infant Life,"
North Queensland Ethnography, Bulle-
tin No. 10, p. II. Other writers men-
tion the exchange both of daughters
and of sisters as if they occurred in-
differently. See above, pp. 195, 196,
197 ; and further E. M. Curr, The Aus-
tralian Race, ii. 401, 474, iii. 122, 139.
2 James Dawson, Austialian Ab-
origines, p. 34.
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-CO irsiNS MARRY 203
often barter their sisters for wives for tliemsclvcs, but it
can only be done with the parents' consent, or after their
death." ^ On the other hand among the Narrinyeri, a tribe
of South Australia, " a girl was given in marriage, usually
at an early age, sometimes by her father, but generally by
her brother, and there was always an exchange of a sister,
or other female relative, of the man to whom she was
promised," " So common, indeed, among the Australian
aborigines was this custom of bartering sisters at marriage
that in some tribes of Southern Queensland men who had
no sisters to offer in exchange had hardly any chance of
being married at all."^
Of the two forms of barter, the exchange of sisters by Of the two
their brothers was probably older than the exchange of b™er°the
daughters by their fathers, since the latter implies the exchange
recognition not only of paternity but of a father's right to probably'^
dispose of his offspring, and there are strong grounds for older
believing that in aboriginal Australia and probably else- ex'changeof
where the relations between the sexes were at one time so daughters,
1 , • 1 M 1 5\ncQ the
loose and vague that no man knew his own children or exchangeof
possessed any authority over them. On the other hand, daughters
. imphes the
even under such conditions, the relationship between brothers recognition
and sisters, the children of the same mother, must have been ofpatermty
' _ ' _ _ and a
well known, and the recognition of that relationship prob- father's
ably conferred on brothers a degree of authority which j°pose°
enabled them to exchange their sisters or their sisters' of his
daughters for other women, whom they either married whereas"
themselves or gave in marriage to their sisters' sons. Thus there is
in Australia, and perhaps in many other places, the right of think
disposing of a woman's "hand in marriage may have been that m
aboriginal
enjoyed by her brother or her mother's brother long before Australia
it devolved on her father. But as society progressed from Paternity
group marriage, or from still laxer forms of commerce formerly
between the sexes,^ to individual marriage, in other words, ^|J^"°^"
father had
* Y^.'^.'E.yie., Journals of Expeditions Australia, p. 10, "Should the father po author-
of Discovery into Central Australia be living he may give his daughter 7?1^^ '^
(London, 1845), ii. 319. away, but generally she is the gift of
2 A. W. Howitt, Native Tribes of her lirother."
South-East Australia, p. 260. Simi- •* E. M. Curr, The Australian
larly G. Taplin, "The Narrinyeri," in Race, iii. 272.
J. D. Woods, Native Tribes of South * See below, pp. 229 sqq.
204
J A COB-' S MARRIAGE
as sexual relations were more and more narrowed and
confined to the cohabitation of single pairs, a man would
gradually acquire an interest in, and an authority over, his
wife's children, even before he became aware of the share he
had had in begetting them ; for the social position which he
occupied as the husband, protector, and in some sense the
owner of their mother, would give him rights over her off-
spring analogous to those which the owner of a cow pos-
sesses over her calves. Indeed to this day the very fact
of physical paternity is unknown to many Australian tribes,^
but their ignorance on that point does not prevent these
savages from recognizing the mutual rights and duties of
fathers and children, since these social rights and duties are
both in theory and in practice perfectly distinct from, and
independent of, the bond of blood between the persons.
Hence to a superficial observer the position of a father to
his children in these tribes might well appear not to differ
materially from the corresponding position of a father to
his children in Europe, although in point of fact the
physical relationship between them, on which alone, to our
thinking, the social relationship is based, has not so much
as entered into the mind of the aborigines." For these
reasons we may fairly suppose that, with the progressive
2 Similarly in regard to the natives
of the Trobriand Islands, to the east
of New Guinea, an acute observer
tells us that they " are entirely ignor-
ant of the existence of physiolo-
gical impregnation," and that *' in
the native mind, the intimate rela-
^ To the evidence collected by me
elsewhere [Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Third
Edition, i. 99 sqq.) I may add Mrs.
D. M. Bates, "Social Organization of
some Western Australian Tribes,"
Report of the Fourteenth Meeting of
the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Scietue, held at Mel-
bourne, 1913, pp. 389 sq. ; (Sir) Baldwin
Spencer, Native Tribes of the Northern
Territory of Australia (London, 1914),
pp. 263 sqq. " This belief in rein-
carnation, and in procreation not being
actually the result of sexual intercourse,
has been shown to be prevalent over
the whole of the Central and Northern
part of the continent — that is, over an
area four and a half times the size of
Great Britain — amongst many Queens-
land tribes and in a large part of West
Australia . . . and I have little doubt
but that at one time it was universally
held amongst Australian tribes " (Sir
Baldwin Spencer, op. cit. pp. 263 sq.).
tionship between husband and wife,
and not any idea, however slight or
remote, of physical fatherhood, is the
reason for all that the father does for
his children. It must be clearly under-
stood that social and psychological
fatherhood (the sum of all the ties,
emotional, legal, economic) is the
result of the man's obligations to his
wife, and physiological fatherhood
does not exist in the mind of the
natives." See Bronislaw Malinowski,
" Baloma ; the Spirits of the Dead in
the Trobriand IslznAs," Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, xlvi.
(1916) pp. 406, 410.
CHAi. VI IVHV CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 205
substitution of individual for group marriage, the right of
disposing of a woman in marriage was gradually transferred
from her brother or her maternal uncle to her father.
But in whichever way the exchange of women in Thecustom
marriage was originally effected, whether by the brothers or cous°f^"
by the fathers of the women, it is certain that the custom marriage
has been exceedingly common among the aborigines of ^ natural
Australia, and from it the custom of cross-cousin marriage conse-
• 1 -1 • T- 1 ^ 1 1 ,1 quenceand
might very easily arise, ror when two men had thus effect of the
married each other's sisters, their children would be cross- exchange
1111 • of sisters in
cousms, and what more natural than that these cross-cousms marriage,
should in their turn marry each other when they came to
maturity, as their parents had done before them? It is to
be observed that such cross-cousins are related to each other
by a twofold tie of consanguinity, since they are connected
not, like ordinary cross-cousins, through one father and one
mother only, but through both fathers and both mothers.
For the father of each cousin is the brother of the other
cousin's mother, and the mother of each cousin is the sister
of the other cousin's father. In fact, the cousins are cross-
cousins twice over, or what we may call double-cross cousins.
It follows from this double-cross relationship that the female
cousin stands to her male cousin in the relation both of
mother's brother's daughter and of father's sister's daughter ;
hence their marriage combines the two forms of cross-cousin
marriage which are usually distinguished, namely the mar-
riage with a mother's brother's daughter and the marriage
with a father's sister's daughter. Such a marriage is therefore
a very close form of consanguineons union.
But if the custom of exchanging sisters in marriage if cousin
11 It • • /- 1 • 1 -1 marriage is
preceded not only the recognition of physical paternity but an effect
even the establishment of permanent social relations between °f \he
. '■ exchange
a man and his offspring, it seems probable that the custom of sisters in
of marrying cousins, as a direct consequence of the inter- "'f"""age >t
Jot ~i IS probably
change of sisters in marriage, also preceded both the re- older than
cognition of paternity and the exercise of any authority by n^fiJ^'^of'
a father over his children. For if a man had the right of paternity
exchanging a sister for a wife, there seems to be no reason father's
why he should not have effected the exchange as readily rights over
with a cousin as with any other man. Hence we need not, children.
2o6
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The origin
of cross-
cousin
marriage
in the in-
terchange
of sisters is
confirmed
by the
present
practice
of the
Kariera
tribe.
with Dr. Rivers,^ suppose that the authority of a father over
his children was estabhshed before the practice of marrying
cousins arose.
The view that the custom of cross-cousin marriage
originated in the interchange of sisters is supported by the
present practice of the Kariera tribe, whose marriage system
has been accurately observed and described by Mr. A. R.
Brown. For in that tribe not only do men commonly
exchange sisters in marriage, but the double-cross-cousins
who result from such unions are also allowed and even
encouraged to marry each other. The Kariera custom of
cross-cousin marriage has already been noticed;^ their
custom of exchanging sisters in marriage, with its natural
effect, the marriage of double-cross-cousins, may be best
described in the words of Mr. A. R. Brown.^ He says, " A
common custom in this as in most Australian tribes is the
exchange of sisters. A man. A, having one or more sisters
finds a man, B, standing to him in the relation of kumbali^
who also possesses a sister. These men each take a sister
of the other as wife. As a result of this practice it often
happens that a man's father's sister is at the same time the
wife of his mother's brother. If these two have a daughter
she will in the ordinary course of events become the man's
wife. As the natives themselves put it to me, a man must
look to his kaga ^ to provide him with a wife by giving him
one or more of his daughters. The relative who is most
particularly his kaga^ in the same sense that his own father
is most particularly his mama^ is his mother's brother, who
may or may not be at the same time the husband of his
1 W. H. R. Rivers, The History of
Melanesian Society (Cambridge, 1915),
ii. 327, "The cross-cousin marriage
arises through a man giving his daughter
to his sister's son in place of his wife,
and this implies the presence, not only
of individual marriage, but of the
definite right of the father over his
daughter which would thus enable him
to bestow her upon his sister's son."
^ See above, pp. 188 sq.
3 A. R. Brown, " Three Tribes of
Western Australia," Jozirnal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, xliii.
(I9i3)p. 156,
* That is, his mother's brother's son,
father's sister's son, sister's husband, or
wife's brother. See A. R. Brown, op.
cit. p. 149. This and the following
native terms of relationship are used in
the wide classificatory or group sense.
See below, pp. 227 sq.
^ That is, his mother's brother,
father's sister's husband, or wife's
father. See A. R. Brown, op. cit. p.
149.
** That is, his father, father's brother,
mother's sister's husband, or wife's
mother's brother. See A. R. Brown,
op. cit. p. 149.
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 207
father's sister. It is to this man that he looks first for his
wife. If his own mother's brother has no daughter, or if
she is already disposed of, he must apply to other persons
who stand to him in the relation of kaga} to the husband
of his father's sister, for example. He may have to go
much farther afield and apply to some distant kaga} but
this is only the case when there are available no nearer
relatives. Thus we may say that the man who is pre-
eminently kaga ^ (as his own father is pre-eminently mama) ^
is his mother's brother ; the woman who is pre-eminently
toa^ is his own father's sister, who should be the wife of the
kaga \^ consequently the woman who is pre-eminently a
man's fiuba * is the daughter of his own mother's brother, or
failing this, of his own father's sister. It is this woman to
.whom he has the first right as a wife."
From this account we learn that among the Kariera the When two
most proper marriage that can be contracted is that between ^^^^} '^^^^,
first cousins who are doubly related to each other by blood, sisters in
that is, both through the father and through the mother, Sle'cSs-
since the husband's father is the wife's mother's brother, and cousins
the husband's mother is the wife's father's sister. In other marriages
words, a man marries a woman who is at the same time the =»«^ doubly
daughter of his father's sister and of his mother's brother ; each other
and a woman marries a man who is at the same time the ^^'^^^
son of her mother's brother and of her father's sister ; in short, their "^
husband and wife in such cases are double-cross-cousins. This ^^^'^^'^^^ ^"^
through
double relationship by blood between the pair arises from the their
interchange of sisters as wives between their two fathers. "^°^'^^''s;
° _ the man s
In the cases, which sometimes occur, when an inter- wife is the
change of sisters did not take place between the parents bmh o'/his
of the intermarrying cousins, the husband and wife are niother's
related to each other only through the mother or through of his '^^"
the father, not through both parents ; the wife may stand f^^ther's
to her husband in the relationship either of mother's brother's the
daughter or of father's sister's daughter ; but she does ^^on^^n's
1 1 • • 1 1 1 • " 1 • -1 1 husband
not stand to hnii m both relationships simultaneously ; is the son
both of her
1 See note", p. 206. A. R. Brown, op. cii. p. 149. father's
2 c .6 006 * That is, his mother's brother's sister and
' ' daughter, father's sister's daughter, of her
3 That is, his father's sister, mother's wife, or wife's sister. See A. R. mother's
brother's wife, or wife's mother. See Brown, op. cit. p. 149. brother.
2o8
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
In such
marriages
a man's
father-in-
law is at
once his
mother's
brother
and the
husband
of his
father's
sister, and
his mother-
in-law is at
once his
father's
sister and
the wife
of his
mother's
brother.
When an
inter-
change of
sisters has
not taken
in short, husband and wife in such cases are single-cross-
cousins instead of double-cross-cousins. When the relation-
ship of mother's brother's daughter is thus disjoined from
the relationship of father's sister's daughter, the former
is preferred by the Kariera as the ground of marriage ; in
other words, a man marries his mother's brother's daughter
in preference to his father's sister's daughter. But if neither
his mother's brother nor his father's sister has a daughter
available as a wife for him, he is compelled to wed a more
distant kinswoman, to whom, however, under the classifica-
tory or group system of relationship he applies the same
kinship term which he applies to his full cousin, the daughter
either of his mother's brother or of his father's sister, or of
both his mother's brother and his father's sister.
Lastly, it may be observed that in the case in which an
interchange of sisters has taken place between the fathers
of the intermarrying cousins, a man's father-in-law is at
once his mother's brother and the husband of his father's
sister ; and his mother-in-law is at once his father's sister
and the wife of his mother's brother. Conversely, under
the same circumstances, a woman's father-in-law is at once
her mother's brother and the husband of her father's sister ;
and her mother-in-law is at once her father's sister and the wife
of her mother's brother. On the other hand, when no such
interchange of sisters has taken place between the fathers of
the intermarrying cousins, and the relationship between the
cousins is consequently single, not double, namely either
through the father or through the mother, but not through
both parents simultaneously, then in that case a man's father-
in-law is either his mother's brother or the husband of his
father's sister, and his mother-in-law is either his father's
sister or the wife of his mother's brother ; and conversely
a woman's father - in - law is either her mother's brother
or the husband of her father's sister, and her mother-in-
law is either her father's sister or the wife of her mother's
brother.
In the Kariera tribe, as in many other Australian tribes,
marriages are arranged by the older people while the future
spouses are still small children. Thus, when a boy is grow-
ing up, he learns what girl is to be his wife. To the father
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-CO US/NS MARRY 209
of the girl he owes certain duties, of which the chief is that place
he must make him presents from time to time.^ This man, [^'^thp^rro?^
the boy's future father-in-law, ought to be in strictness, as the inter-
we have just seen, both his mother's brother and his father's "ous'ins"^
sister's husband rolled into one, though, in the imperfect t^e mans
state of things which is characteristic of this sublunary law is
world, a young man may have to put up with a father-in- ^'^^^^'^ ^is
law who is either his mother's brother or his father's sister's brother
husband, but not both at the same time ; while he has to °'" \'^'^ , ,
. husband of
make shift with a mother-in-law who is in like manner his father's
either his father's sister or the wife of his mother's brother, ^'^l^!"' '^"'
' not both at
but not both at the same time. He may sigh for the once,
double relationship, but he takes up his cross and bears the
single relationship as best he can.
Thus in the Kariera tribe the marriage of cross-cousins in all
flows directly and simply, in the ordinary course of events, (^Ij^^gg'^''^"
from the interchange of sisters in marriage. Given that which
interchange and the intermarriage of the resulting offspring, orfrvoured
and we have cross-cousin marriage in its fullest form, namely the
the marriage of first cousins who are doubly related to each orjross-^
other both through their fathers and through their mothers ; cousins,
in short, we have the marriage of double-cross-cousins. But marriages
the interchange of sisters in marriage was common, we may ^^'^'"'^
^ probably
almost say universal, in aboriginal Australia, while the the direct
marriage of cross-cousins was permitted or specially favoured '^°"^^"
° . "^ sr J quence
in some tribes. It seems reasonable to suppose that in all of the
Australian tribes which permitted or favoured the marriage ^•^'^'?^"se
^ t> of sisters in
of cross-cousins, such marriages were the direct consequence marriage.
of the interchange of sisters in marriage and of nothing else.
And that interchange of sisters flowed directly from the
economic necessity of paying for a wife in kind, in other
words of giving a woman in return for the woman whom
a man received in marriage.
Having found in aboriginal Australia what appears to The
be a simple and natural explanation of cousin marriage, we si^stcrTP°'
are next led to inquire whether the same cause may not marriage
have had the same effect elsewhere ; in other words, whether ^v^iir'and
in other regions, where the marriage of cross-cousins is maybe
1 A. R. Brown, "Three Tribes of Royal Anthropological Institute, xliii.
Western Australia," Joitrnal of the (1913) p. 156.
VOL. II P
210 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
the cause permitted or fa\TDured, such unions may not flow directly
of, cross- fj-om the interchanfje of sisters in marriage. There is some
cousin '=' "
marriage in reason to think that it has been so. At all events we can
besfdeT^he show that the custom of interchanging sisters in marriage
Australian, occurs in some of those regions where the custom of cross-
cousin marriage prevails ; and since in Australia these two
customs appear to be related to each other as cause and
• . effect, it is natural to suppose that the same causal relation
obtains between the two customs when they are found con-
joined elsewhere.
Thus the Let US turn to what may be called the classic land
exchange ^^ cousin marriage, Southern India, from which our first
oi sisters in t> > '
marriage and most uumerous instances of the custom were drawn.
\\dthTross- Among the Madigas of Mysore, a Dravidian caste who are
cousin believed to represent " the earliest stratum among the
Southern inhabitants of this country who have settled in towns
India. ^nd villages," " exchange of daughters fin marriagel is not
Case of the & ' o o u ^ & j
Madigas. Only practised but is most commonly in use, the reason
being the saving of the bride price by both parties." ^
Further, the Madigas, as we have already seen,^ not only
permit but favour the marriage of cross-cousins, thinking
that a man's most suitable wife is his first cousin, the
daughter of his mother's brother or of his father's sister,
/ though at the same time they deem a marriage with his
niece, the daughter of his elder sister, equally appropriate.
Finding the custom of the exchange of daughters in marriage
thus practised along with the custom of the marriage of
cross-cousins, we may reasonably infer that here, as in
Australia, the practice of exchanging daughters in marriage
is the direct source of the practice of uniting cross-cousins
in marriage. And with the Madigas we are positively told
Economic that the motive for exchanging daughters in marriage is the
advantage purely economic one of saving the bride price, one woman i
exchange being simply bartered for another instead of being paid for I
of sisters in j^^ c2A\i OX Other Valuable equivalent. Thus in India as in t
marriage : ^ _ _ I ^
a man gets Australia the interchange of daughters in marriage, together \'.
without w^th '"^^^ natural sequel, the interchange of these daughters' |i
payment, daughters in marriage, in other words, the marriage of cross- I
1 H. V. Nanjundayya, The Elhno- yl/i/Vi^frt Crtj/^ (Bangalore, 1909), p. il.
graphical Survey of Mysore, xvii. 2 Above, pp. 114 sq.
CHAP. VI IV//V CJiOSS- CO USINS MARK Y 211
cousins, appears to originate in the simplest of economic
motives, the wish and the necessity to pay for a woman in kind.
Similarly, among the Idigas, another Dravidian caste of Exchange
Mysore, " exchange of daughters [in marriage] is allowed and dL-Tiuers
practised. When two families exchange daughters, the ta-a '" marriage
or bride price is not, as a rule, paid by either party." ^ In Dravidian"
other words, each of the two men gets a bride for nothing, ^^^^^ of
for whom otherwise he would have had to pay a price. The ^^°'^'
cheapness of such a wedding cannot but constitute its great
charm for poor or frugally -minded bridegrooms. Among
the Dravidian castes of Mysore in general, who commonly
permit or positively encourage the marriage of cross-cousins,
the rule apparently is, that the interchange of daughters is
also permitted but not much favoured ; indeed, some castes
positively discourage it on the ground that one of the two
marriages which are thus contracted will prove unhappy.^
The reason for this unfortunate result of the marriage is not
alleged. We may conjecture that the objection is based on
a fear of bringing together in marriage persons too near akin
in blood, and therefore that, strictly speaking, the objection
should only hold good against the interchange of daughters
who are first cousins ; for in that case each wife would stand
1 H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno- Vadda Caste, p. 4 (not considered ob-
graphical Survey of My sore, y.v\\\. Idiga jectionable, though only rarely prac-
Caste (Bangalore, 1910), p. 6. We tised on account of the superstition that
are not told that the Idigas practise one of the married couples meets with
cousin marriage, but we may perhaps bad luck) ; id. xii. Nayinda Caslc, p. 6
infer it from the statement {I.e.) that (allowed, but it is believed that one of
"they observe the usual rules about the two marriages will be unhappy);
the prohibited degrees of marriage." id. xiii. Dombar Caste, p. 5 (no objcc-
Apart from that, the marriage of cross- tion) ; id. xiv. Kadu-GoUas, p. 5 (per-
cousins is so general among the Dra- mitted, but not encouraged, from the
vidian castes of Southern India, that in belief that one of the wives will not
the absence of indications to the con- prosper); id.xw. Morasu Okkahi, p. 13
trary it may with a high degree of (permitted, but some think it unlucky);
probability be assumed for any one of id. xxi. Uppara Caste, p. 4 (no objec-
them. tion) ; id. xxiv. Kumbdras Caste, p. 4
2 H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno- (allowed, but not common) ; id. xxv.
graphical Survey of Mysore, i. Kuruba Banjaras Caste, p. 1 1 (allowed, but not
Caste, p. 8 (exchange of daughters per- much favoured ; six months should
mitted but not common, the belief being elapse between the two marriages) ;
that one or the other of the couples will id. xxvi. Helavas, p. 2 (allowed) ; id.
not prosper) ; id. ii. Holeya Caste, p. 7 xxvii. Gangadikara Okkalu, p. 3
(allowable) ; id. iv. Agasa Caste, p. 6 (allowed, but not much favoured) ; id.
(permitted); id.y'ui. Bili Magga, p. 2 xxxiii. Gdnigds, p. 4 (permissible, but
(allowed); id. ix. Tigali Caste, p. 3 rarely takes place) ;/(/. xxxiv. Z'Avwj-aj',
(recognized but discouraged) ; id. xi. p. 5 (allowed and practised).
Ex'changc
of sisters
and cross -
cousin
marriage
among the
Bhotiyas.
212 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
to her husband in the relation both of mother's brother's
daughter and of father's sister's daughter, and conversely her
husband would stand to her in the relation both of mother's
brother's son and of father's sister's son. In short, husband
and wife would be double-cross-cousins to each other, each
of them being related to the other through both father and
mother ; and though the Dravidians undoubtedly, as a rule,
think that the marriage of single-cross-cousins is a very good
thing, since they commonly prefer it, they may have scruples
at the marriage of double-cross-cousins. Of course, in cases
where daughters are interchanged between families which are
unrelated to each other, there is no possible objection to the
match on the ground of nearness of kin between the parties
and if my explanation of the Dravidian disinclination to the
exchange of daughters is correct, the Dravidians should, in
strict logic, have no scruple to such an exchange whenever
the women are unrelated by blood. Perhaps, if we had fuller
information as to the marriage customs of the Dravidians
we might find that it is so ; in other words, that they only
boggle at the exchange of daughters who are first cousins to
each other, and that they feel no scruple at the exchange of
daughters who are not so related. But since among the
Dravidians the marriage of unrelated persons is the exception
rather than the rule, it would be easy even for a careful and
accurate observer to record the rule without noticing the
exception.^
Again, among the Bhotiyas of the Almora district in
the United Provinces, who practise the marriage of cross
cousins, the exchange of sisters in marriage is said to bf
the rule ; but the custom is not confined to them, it exist
all over the district, and is not unknown even among th(
Khas Rajputs and Brahmans, though it is repugnant to th<
higher Hindoos of the plains of India.^
1 Exchange of daughters is practised
also among some tribes of the Central
Indian Agency. See Captain C. E.
Luard, The Ethnographical Survey of
the Central India Agency, Monograph
No. II. The Jungle Tribes of Makva
(Lucknow, 1909), p. 70 (llie Mankar
Bhils of ]5arwani), p. 71 (the Tarvi
Bhils of Baiwani) ; id.. Monograph
IV. Miscellaneous Castes (Luckno«
1909), p. 9 (the Jatsof Barvvani), p.
(the Khalpia Chamars of Barwani).
^ Panna Lall, "An enquiry into 1
Birth and Marriage Customs of ■
Khasiyas and the Bhottiyas of Mm
District, U.P.," The Indian Antiquw^^
xl. (191 1) PP- 193 ^l-
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 213
Another Indian people among whom we find the custom Exchange
of the interchange of daughters in marriage coexisting with °nd cros^s-
the custom of cross-cousin marriage are the Garos. As we cousin
have seen/ the Garos belong to a totally different ethnical "mong^lie
stock from the Dravidians ; it is, therefore, all the more Garos.
important to note the coexistence of the two customs among
them. The rule of marriage among them is that " a man's
sister should marry a son of the house of which his wife is
daughter, his son may marry a daughter of that sister, and
his daughter may marry his sister's son, who, in such case,
comes to reside with his father-in-law and succeeds to
the property in right of his wife and her mother," ^ since
among the Garos, as we saw, property descends through
women instead of through men. From this clear and
definite statement of a good authority we learn that among
the Garos, as among the Australian aborigines, it is not
only permissible but customary for a man to give his sister
in marriage to the man whose sister he himself takes to
wife ; and further, that the double-cross-cousins born of
these two pairs are free to marry each other, the male cousin
marrying a girl who is the daughter both of his mother's
brother and of his father's sister ; while conversely the
female cousin marries a young man who is the son both of
her mother's brother and of her father's sister. Here again
is it not natural to regard the marriage of the cousins as the
direct effect of the interchange of sisters in marriage ?
Again, among the tribes of Baluchistan, who favour the Exchange
marriage of cousins, the practice of exchanging daughters in ^^ j,j(.,.3
marriage is much in vogue. Though among them the in marriage
commonest, or at least the most characteristic, mode of ^"^istan.'
procuring a wife is to pay for her, nevertheless " a much
older form of marriage in Baluchistan, I fancy, is marriage
by exchange, which under many names . . . flourishes in
one form or another among all races to this day. . . . Even
nowadays the family that has the least bother in finding
brides for its sons is the family with an equal number of
daughters to give in exchange." ^
1 Alxjve, vol. i. p. 462. Assam, by (Sir) E. A. Gait, vol. i.
2 E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- Report (Shillong, 1892), p. 229.
logy of Betigal {Q.2\cw\.\.?i, 1872), p. 63. ^ Census of India, jgii, vol. iv.
Compare Ce^isus of India, iSgi, Bahuhistan, by Denis Bray (Calcutta,
214
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
But the
exchange
of sisters or
daughters
in marriage
need not
necessarily
lead to a
practice of
cross-
cousin
marriage.
Case of the
Western
Islanders
in Torres
Straits.
Exchange
of sisters in
marriage
at Mawatta
in British
New
Guinea.
But while the marriage of cross-cousins is a natural, it is
not a necessary consequence of the interchange of daughters
or sisters in marriage. That interchange may be customary
even among tribes which discourage or forbid the marriage
of all first cousins. For example, among the natives of the
Western Islands in Torres Straits, as we have seen, marriages
between first cousins rarely or never took place. Yet with
these people the usual mode of obtaining a wife was to give
a sister in exchange for her, and a man who happened to
have no exchangeable sister might remain celibate all his
life, unless he were rich enough to buy a wife, or unless his
father were both rich and liberal enough to purchase one for
him. If, however, a man had no sister whom he could
barter, his mother's brother might come forward and give his
nephew one of his daughters to exchange for a wife ; indeed,
it seems to have been the duty of the maternal uncle thus to
step into the breach when a man's own father could do
nothing for him. The price paid for a wife in these islands
was heavy, hence a man had a strong pecuniary motive for
procuring a bride by giving or promising a sister in exchange
to the man whose sister he married ; for in this way he got
a wife practically for nothing. The natives whom Dr.
Rivers questioned as to the practice of exchanging sisters in
marriage " seemed to think that the custom was connected
with that of payment for the bride " ; and they were probably
right in so thinking.^
At Mawatta or Mowat, in British New Guinea, the
regular mode of obtaining wives was in like manner by the
exchange of sisters, and here also the economic advantage of
getting a wife for nothing apparently helped to maintain, if
it did not originate, the practice. We are told that in this
district " it is a fixed law that the bridegroom's sister, if he
has one unmarried, should go to the bride's brother or nearest
male relative ; she has no option. . . . Except in cases
where the bridegroom has no sister no payment is made to
I9I3)> P- loi- The cousins whose
marriage the native of Baluchistan speci
ally favours are not cross-cousins but
ortho-cousins, the children of two
brotliers. See above, pp. 130 j'17. How-
ever, the principle of exchange is not
affected by the particular kind of cousin-
ship existing between the spwuses.
' Reports of the Cambridge Anthro-
pological Expedition to Torres Straits,
V. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 231 sq.,
241 sq.
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 215
the parents of the bride until a child is born, when the
husband presents his wife's father with a canoe or arm-shells,
tomahawks, etc. ... In these comparatively civilized days at
Mawatta and elsewhere, it is becoming customary for men
and women to marry without the exchange of sisters or pay-
ment. The customs above stated, however, generally prevail
in the district." ^ From this account we gather that if a
man gave a sister in exchange to his brother-in-law, he got
his wife for nothing, though afterwards he had to make a
present to his parents-in-law on the birth of his first child.
On the other hand, if he had no sister to barter, he had to
pay for his wife. Another and somewhat earlier account of
the marriage customs at Mawatta confirms this inference and
adds a few fresh details. " I cannot find out for a certainty,"
says the writer, " what are the forbidden degrees of consan-
guinity in relation to marriage, but, as far as practicable, the
members of one family or descendants of one forefather,
however remote, may not intermarry. Polygamy, but not
polyandry, is practised ; their reason for this custom is
that the women do the principal part of the work in pro-
curing vegetable or fish food. Marriage is arranged by the
respective parents w'hen the children are growing up, or in
infancy and by exchange, thus : if a man has sisters and no
brother, he can exchange a sister for a wife, but in the case
of both brothers and sisters in a family, the eldest brother
exchanges the eldest sister, and the brothers as they are
old enough, share equally, but if the numbers are unequal,
the elder takes the preference. It sometimes happens that
a man has no sister and he cannot obtain a wife. Some-
times a wife is procured by purchase." ^ Here, again, it
^ B. A. Hely, " Native Habits and as he grows up will exchange a sister
Customs in the Western Division," for a wife in order of seniority ; but
Atintial Report on British Neiv Gi/inea, that if there are more brothers than
i8g2-i8gj (Brisbane, 1894), p. 57. sisters, the elder brothers will give the
sisters in exchange for wives, and the
2 E. Beardmore, " The Natives of younger brothers, having no sisters to
Mowat, Daudai, New Guinea, "yi^z^rwa/ give in exchange, will have to go with-
of the Anthropological Institute, xix. out wives, or perhaps to get them by
(1890) pp. 460 i-^. The writer's state- purchase. He cannot mean, as his
ment as to the exchange of sisters in words might seem to imply, that in
the case of a family in which there are such a case the younger brothers share
several brothers is not clear. He seems the wives of their elder brothers, since
to mean that if there are as many sisters he expressly affirms that polyandry is
as brothers in a family, each brother not practised in the district.
2l6
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
appears that, as in aboriginal Australia, a man who has no
sister to give in exchange may have to go without a wife,
and here, too, as in aboriginal Australia, a wife has a high
economic value as a labourer and a food purv^eyor. It seems
reasonable, therefore, to conclude that here, as apparently in
aboriginal Australia, the primary motive for the exchange of
daughters or sisters in marriage is an economic one, the
desire to get a valuable article at the cheapest possible rate.
But apparently at Mawatta, as in the Western Islands of
Torres Straits, the exchange of daughters or sisters in
marriage has not as a necessary consequence the exchange
of these women's children in marriage ; in other words, it
does not lead to the marriage of cross-cousins, since we are
told that all consanguineous marriages are, as far as possible,
avoided.
In the Pededarimu tribe of Kiwai, an island off the coast
of British New Guinea, the practice of exchanging women as
Kiwai, off wives also prevails, but a different motive is assigned for it.
A woman at marriage takes her husband's totem, and " for
this reason a man when he marries has to give to the brother,
or nearest male relative to the bride, his sister, foster-sister,
or a female relative, to keep up the strength of the sept from
which he takes his wife." ^ No doubt the practice of
exchanging women in marriage may be observed from a
variety of motives, one of which in certain cases may well be
the desire to keep up a sept at full strength by only parting
with women on condition of receiving an equal number of
women in exchange. But such a motive of public policy
seems less simple and primitive than the purely economic
motive which I take to be at the base of the custom ; for
while the economic motive appeals directly to every man in
his individual capacity, the public motive appeals to men
in their collective capacity as members of a community, and
therefore is likely to affect only that enlightened minority
who are capable of subordinating their private interest to the
public good.
Whatever the causes which have contributed to its
popularity, the practice of exchanging daughters in marriage
Exchange
of women
as wives in
the coast
of New
Guinea.
^ Reports of the Cambridge Anthro-
pological Expedition to Torres Straits,
V. (Cambridge, 1904)
B. A. Hely.
quoting
I
CHAP. VI Jl'l/y CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 217
would seem to be widespread in New Guinea. Thus among Exchange
the Banaros, who inhabit the middle course of the Keram daughters
River in German New Guinea, the custom is in full opera- in marriage
tion and is elaborately worked out in every detail. When 1001116^^
a girl has reached the age of puberty and has passed through Pf ts of
the initiation ceremonies, she consults with her mother as Guinea.
to which of the marriageable youths suits her best. Her
mother discusses the matter with her husband, and if they
agree, she prepares a pot of boiled sago, which they then
carry in a basket to the parents of the chosen bridegroom.
The families concerned confer with each other and come to
a formal agreement. But as compensation for the girl who
is given to be the bride of a young man of the one family,
a sister of the bridegroom must be married to the bride's
brother.^ Again, the natives of the northern coast of Dutch
New Guinea are said to regard their marriageable daughters
as wares which they can sell without consulting the wishes
of the girls themselves ; and similarly a man is reported to
look on his wife as a piece of property which has been
bought and paid for, and adultery is thought equivalent to
theft, because it infringes the proprietary rights of the
husband. But on Djamma and the surrounding islands a
mode of contracting marriage is in vogue which allows the
parties, in the language of the writer who reports it, " to
pay each other without opening their purses." When a man
has a nubile daughter, and another man asks the hand of the
damsel for his son, the father of the bridegroom must give
a daughter to be the wife of the bride's brother ; and if he
has no daughter, he must give a niece instead. But should
it happen that he has neither daughter nor niece to provide
as an equivalent, the projected marriage falls through.-
The economic motive for such marriages, here implied Exchange-
rather than expressed, is stated without ambiguity in an daughters
account of the connubial customs of the Santals, a primitive in marriage
tribe of Bengal, among whom the commonest and most santafs of^
^ Richard Thiirnwald, " Banaro regeling voor de Papoesche Chris-
Society," Memoirs of the American tenen, op Noord - Nieuw - Guinea,"
Anthropological Association, vol. iii. Alededeelingen van wege het Nedcr-
No. 4, Oct. -Dec. 1 916 (Lancaster, landsche Zendelinggenootschap, Iviii.
Pa., U.S.A.), pp. 258 sq. (Rotterdam, 1914) P- 215.
2 F.J. F. vanHasselt, "Dehuwelijks-
Bengal.
2i8 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
honourable way to get a wife is to buy her. " A man who
has a son and a daughter of marriageable age, and who is
not in a position to pay the pon or price for a wife for his
son, calls in a go-between and commissions him to look out
for a family in a like position, so that they may exchange
daughters for wives to their sons. In such cases the sister
must be younger than her brother, otherwise a marriage of
this sort cannot take place. As there is a fair exchange of
one daughter for another, there is no pon or compulsory
Exchange giving of presents." ^ Again, in the French Sudan by far
dau<Jhters ^^ Commonest way of getting a wife is by paying for her ;
in marriage " but among the Scnoufos the price of purchase is often
tribes^f replaced by a woman ; this is what is called ' marriage by
the French exchange.' Instead of a ' dowry ' the bride's brother receives
a wife, who is generally the own sister of the bridegroom ;
in certain provinces this custom has disappeared, but it is
understood that when once the son-in-law is married and
has become a father, he will give his parents-in-law the
first daughter born of the marriage." ^ So, too, among the
Mossis of the French Sudan the usual way of obtaining a
bride is to give presents to her parents, but they also practise
the exchange of daughters. A family will promise one of
its girls to another family as a bride for one of their sons,
and the family who receives her provides in return a daughter
to marry a son of the other family. But if a young man
gets a girl to wife without paying for her, and without giving
a sister or other woman in exchange, the father of the girl
has the right to dispose of the first daughter born of the
marriage ; he may take her to his house as soon as she is
weaned and may marry her to whom he likes afterwards.^
The strictly mercantile, not to say mercenary, character of
these connubial transactions lies on the surface.
Exchange The economic motive which prompts the exchange of
d'^u ht women, and particularly of sisters, in marriage is put clearly
n marriage forward by Marsdcn, the historian of Sumatra, in the account
which he eives of marriage customs in that sfreat island.
among the
natives of
Sumatra.
1 Hon. and Rev. A. Campbell, D.D., - Maurice Delafosse, Haut-Sincgal-
" Santal Marriage Customs," /iJ«r«a/ N'iger, Premiere Serie, iii. Zisj C/z'zVzm-
of the Bihar and Orissa Research //s«^ (Paris, 1912), pp. 68 j^., 70 note^.
Society, ii. (Bankipore, 1916) pp. 306. ^ Louis Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan
331. (Paris, 191 2), pp. 544 sq.
CHAP. VI WHY CROSS-COUSINS MARRY 219
He tells us that among the Suinatrans there are three modes
of contracting marriage, of which one is by jnjur : " The
jiijnr is a certain sum of money, given by one man to
another, as a consideration for the person of his daughter,
whose situation, in this case, differs not much from that of a
slave to the man she marries, and to his family. ... In lieu
of paying the jujitr, a barter transaction, called libei, some-
times takes place, where one gadis (virgin) is given in
exchange for another ; and it is not unusual to borrow a
girl for this purpose, from a friend or relation, the borrower
binding himself to replace her, or pay her j'uj'ur, when
required. A man who has a son and daughter, gives the
latter in exchange for a wife to the former. The person
who receives her, disposes of her as his own child, or marries
her himself. A brother will give his sister in exchange for
a wife, or, in default of such, procure a cousin for the pur-
pose." ^ Here the giving of a daughter or a sister in ex-
change for a wife is definitely described as a form of barter
which is substituted for the payment of a bride price.
Among the peasantry of Palestine to this day the ex- Exchange
chanfje of sisters as wives is practised for the same simple °} ,
° ^ '^ '■ daughters
economic reason which has everywhere recommended that in marriage
form of marriage to indigent or niggardly suitors. " In most ^^^a^t^^^
cases," we are informed, " the girls are virtually sold by their of
parents, the dowry going to the father, and it is this which -''-^^""^
makes the birth of a girl so much more welcome among the
Fellahin than among the townspeople, where the dowry does
not go to the parents. Considerable sums are paid for
girls who are good-looking, well-connected, or clever at any
of the Fellahin industries. ... In cases where a man has
little or no money, or his credit is not good enough to enable
him to borrow sufficient to pay the dowry of an unmarried
girl, he will marry a widow, as a much smaller sum
is required in such cases, especially if she have children.
Another device is not unfrequently resorted to by poor
people. Yakub, for instance, wants to marry, but has no
prospect whatever of raising even a moderate sum of money.
He has, however, an unmarried sister, Latifeh, so he looks
about for a family similarly circumstanced to his own, and
1 William Marsden, The History of Stiviatra (I-ondon, 181 1), pp. 257, 259.
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
PART II
The custom
of exchang-
ing sisters
or
daughters
in marriage
might
easily and
naturally-
lead to the
custom of
cross-
cousin
marriage.
finds another man, Salameh, who is also desirous of enter-
ing the married state, but who, like Yakub, is too poor to do
so. He, too, has an unmarried sister, Zarifeh, and so an
exchange is arranged between the two families, Yakub
marrying Zarifeh, and Salameh Latifeh, no dowry being paid
on either side." ^
On the whole, then, it seems probable that the practice
of exchanging daughters or sisters in marriage was every-
where at first a simple case of barter, and that it originated
in a low state of savagery where women had a high economic
value as labourers, but where private property was as yet at
so rudimentary a stage that a man had practically no equi-
valent to give for a wife except another woman. The same
economic motive might lead the offspring of such unions,
who would be cross-cousins, to marry each other, and thus
in the easiest and most natural manner the custom of cross-
cousin marriage would arise and be perpetuated. If the
history of the custom could be followed in the many different
parts of the world where it has prevailed, it might be possible
everywhere to trace it back to this simple origin ; for under
the surface alike of savagery and of civilization the economic
forces are as constant and uniform in their operation as
the forces of nature, of which, indeed, they are merely a
peculiarly complex manifestation.^
1 Rev. C. T. Wilson, Peasant Life
in the Holy Land (London, 1906), pp.
109 sq. As an exception to the general
rule I note that in the Buin district of
Bougainville, one of the Solomon
Islands, the exchange of women, which
is considered the regular form of
marriage, appears not to supersede the
need of paying for them. " In the
ideal case the brother of the bride
takes the sister of the bridegroom.
On such an occasion the buying is not
eliminated, but the payment of an
equal amount of money and wares is
carefully executed, so that the price
for the brides is evenly exchanged."
See R. Thurnwald, " Banaro Society,"
Me?noirs of the Atnerican Anthropo-
logical Association, iii. No. 4, Oct.-
Dec. 1916 (Lancaster, Pa., U.S.A.),
pp. 285 sq. But since we are told
that "the price of the brides is evenly
exchanged," it follows that the excep-
tion to the rule is more apparent than
real. If two men pay each other
half-a-crown, the net result is precisely
the same as if they had neither paid
nor received anything.
2 A different explanation of cross-
cousin marriage, though one that is also
based on economic considerations, has
been suggested by Mr. F. J. Richards.
He supposes that the custom arose
under a system of mother-kin, which
prevented a man from transmitting his
property to his own children, and
obliged him to transmit it to his sister's
son, his legal heir. Under Such a
system, when paternity came to be
recognized, a man would naturally
wish to make some provision for his
own children, and this he could do for
his daughter by marrying her to his
legal heir, his sister's son ; for thus the
I
CHAP. VI IVl/y OR THO-CO US INS MA Y NOT MA RR Y 221
^13. WJiy is tJie Marriage of Ortlio-Consitis forbidden ?
But if we have found an answer to the question, Why is
the marriage of cross -cousins so commonly favoured? we
have still to find an answer to the question, Why is the
marriage of ortho-cousins so commonly forbidden ? On the
theory which I have suggested for the marriage of cross-
cousins, there is no apparent reason for prohibiting the
marriage of ortho-cousins. If a man marries the daughter
of his mother's brother or of his father's sister in preference
to any other woman because he can get her for nothing, why
should he not marry the daughter of his mother's sister or
of his father's brother for precisely the same reason ? Re-
garded from the purely economic point of view there seems
to be no difference between the women.
A partial or preliminary answer to the question has
incidentally been given in describing the rules as to the
marriage of cousins in some parts of Melanesia and Aus-
tralia. We have seen that when a community is divided
into two exogamous classes, ortho-cousins, the children of
two brothers or of two sisters, necessarily belong to the same
exogamous class and are therefore forbidden to marry each
But we
have still
to ask,
why is the
marriage
of ortho-
cousins
forbidden ?
The
marriage
of ortho-
cousins is
prevented
by the dual
organiza-
tion or
system of
two exo-
gamous
girl would enjoy a share of her father's
inheritance through marriage with her
cross-cousin, the son of her father's
sister. In this way, on Mr. Richards'
hypothesis, the custom of the cross-
cousin marriage arose ; it was an
attempt to combine the conflicting
claims of mother-kin and father-kin ;
or, as Mr. Richards puts it with special
reference to Southern India, it was "a
sort of compromise between matrilineal
succession and Brahmjinic law." See
F. J. Richards, " Cross Cousin Marriage
in South India," Man, xiv. (1914) pp.
194-19S. But this view is open to
serious objections. In the first place,
while it might explain why a man
should wish to marry his daughter to
his sister's son, it does not explain why
he should wish to marry his son to his
sister's daughter ; thus, though it might
account for the one form of the cross-
cousin marriage, namely, the marriage
of a man vsith his mother's brother's
daughter, it does not account for the
other form, namely, the marriage of a
man with his father's sister's daughter.
In fact, while it shows how under a
system of mother -kin a man might
provide for his daughter, it omits to
show how he might provide for his
son, which he would probably be at
least as anxious to do. In the second
place, assuming as it does the practical,
though not the legal, recognition of
paternity, and the accumulation of
heritable property, the theory appears
to place the origin of the cross-cousin
marriage far too late in the history
of society ; for, as I have already
indicated, the custom of marriage
between cross-cousins probably dates
from a time when physical paternity and
the accumulation of heritable property
were both alike unknown ; in short, it
originated in extreme ignorance and
extreme poverty, if not in absolute
destitution.
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
classes,
which
prevails
among the
aborigines
of Australia
and to a
less extent
in Melan-
esia.
The dual
organiza-
tion has
probably
existed and
created the
custom of
cross-
cousin
marriage
wherever
that custom
is found.
The
evidence
for the
prevalence
of the dual
Other by the fundamental law which prohibits all members
of the same exogamous class to unite in marriage with each
other. As the division into two or more exogamous classes
is practically universal among the aborigines of Australia, it
follows that in these tribes the marriage of ortho-cousins, the
children of two sisters or of two brothers, is everywhere
barred. On the other hand under the system of two.
exogamous classes or, as it may be called for short, the dual
organization, cross-cousins, the children of a brother and a
sister respectively, always belong to different exogamous
classes and are therefore so far marriageable, although some
tribes, such as the Dieri, forbid the union of such relatives
by a special law superadded to the exogamous prohibitions.
In Melanesia the division of society into two or more
exogamous classes is by no means so uniform and regular as
it is in Australia, but it is sufficiently prevalent to render it
probable that the dual organization, that is, the division of
the community into two exogamous classes, once prevailed
universally in this region,^ and that the prohibition of the
marriage of ortho-cousins among the Melanesians is a direct
consequence of that social system.
But we have found the same prohibition enforced in
many other parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, and
America. Are we to suppose that among all these widely
scattered peoples the prohibition of the marriage of ortho-
cousins is everywhere a relic of a dual organization, that
is, of the division of society into two exogamous and
intermarrying classes ? At first sight the answer to this
question might be in the negative ; for with the ex-
ception of a few tribes in North America, and of a
few doubtiful traces in India,^ the dual organization is
not positively known to have prevailed anywhere outside
1 This is the view of Dr. W. H. R. pose of marriage rather than the effect
Rivers, than whom no one is more
competent to express an opinion on
the subject. See his History of Mela-
nesian Society (Cambridge, 19 15), ii.
314. I differ, however, from Dr.
Rivers in thinking that in Melanesia,
as to all appearance in Australia, the
dual organization was probably the
result of a voluntary and deliberate
bisection of the community for the pur-
of an accidental fusion of two different
peoples. For Dr. Rivers's arguments
in favour of the production of the dual
organization by fusion rather than by
fission, see his History of Melanesian
Society, ii. 556 sqq.
2 See R. V. Russell, The Tribes
and Castes of the Central Provinces of
India (London, 1916), i. 144, "In
one part of Bastar all the Gond clans
CHAP. VI PF//V ORTHO-COUSINS MA Y NOT MARRY 223
Australia and Melanesia. Yet there are strong reasons organiza-
for believing that it was at one time universal through- !'°"f'f^
° & twofold,
out these vast regions, in fact that it once overspread first,
a half or more than a half of the habitable globe. The InSlTnd
grounds for thinking so are mainly two : first, the existence the cia^si- '
of totemism throughout a large part of the area in question ; fysTem^of
and, second, the existence of what is called the classificatory reiation-
or, as I should prefer to call it, the group system of relation- ^ ^^'
ship throughout the whole of the area. Let us look at
these grounds separately.
First, with regard to totemism. In totemic society, if First, in
we leave out of account a large group of tribes in Central ""^^^ ^°
o o r- totemism as
Australia, the rule of exogamy is nearly universal ; ^ in other evidence of
words, no man is allowed to marry a woman of his own ^^^^°''"'^'"
' _ •' prevalence
totemic clan. This fundamental law of course prohibits the of the dual
marriage of brothers and sisters, because they necessarily uo^^^'xhe
belong to the same hereditary clan, whether they take it exogamy of
from their mother or from their father. But as a woman's clans' ^^^^
children always belong to a different totemic clan from that prevents
of her brother's children, it follows that these children, who marriage
are cross-cousins, are always marriageable with each other, ofortho-
^ , , ^ . cousins in
SO tar as the law of exogamy is concerned. On the other certain
hand, the children of two brothers commonly belong to the P^^^' ^"'
Jo It does not,
same exogamous clan and are therefore not marriageable liketheduai
with each other ; and the children of two sisters commonly ^0^'^'^'^"
belong to the same exogamous clan, and are therefore not system of
marriageable with each other. Thus it follows directly from l^ogamy,
the law of totemic exogamy that the marriage of cross- prevent it
cousins is universally permitted and the marriage of ortho-
cousins is commonly barred. So far there might seem to be
little or no difference between the law of totemic exogamy
and the law of class exogamy in their effect on the permis-
sion or the prohibition of marriage between cousins. Yet
there is an important difference between the two. For
whereas under the dual organization a community is divided
are divided into two classes without six-god and seven-god worshippers
names, and a man cannot marry a among whom the same rule obtains."
woman belonging to any clan of his Compare id. iii. 64 sqq.
own class, but must take one from a ' There are a few exceptions to the
clan of the other class. Elsewhere the rule. See Toternis/n and Exogamy,
Gonds are divided into two groups of iv. 8 sqq.
224 . JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
into two exogamous sections only, under totemism a com-
munity is commonly divided into a much larger number of
exogamous sections or totemic clans, and as a rule a man,
instead of being restricted in his choice of a wife to a single
clan, is free to choose his wife from several clans. From
this it follows that under the normal totemic system two
brothers may marry women of two different totemic clans,
and if descent of the totemic clan is in the female line, the
children of the one brother will in that case belong to a
different totemic clan from the children of the other brother,
and thus the children of these two brothers will be marriage-
able with each other. Similarly, under the normal totemic
system two sisters may marry men of two different totemic
clans, and if descent of the totem is in the male line, the
children of the one sister will in that case belong to a
different totemic clan from the children of the other sister,
and thus the children of these two sisters will be marriage-
able with each other. Hence totemism of the usual heredi-
tary type, by giving a considerable range of choice of wives,
renders it possible for ortho-cousins, the children of two
brothers or of two sisters, to be marriageable with each
other ; only it must be observed that both classes of ortho-
cousins cannot under any circumstances be marriageable in
the same totemic community ; and in any particular com-
munity it will depend on the mode of reckoning descent
whether the children of two brothers or the children of two
sisters can become marriageable with each other. If descent
is traced in the female line, the children of two sisters can
never be marriageable, because they must necessarily have
the same totem, namely, the totem of their mothers ; but
the children of two brothers will be marriageable, if the
brothers had married women of two different totemic clans,
because in that case the children will have different totems,
namely, the totems of their mothers. Conversely, if descent
is traced in the male line, the children of two brothers can
never be marriageable, because they must necessarily have
the same totem, namely, the totem of their fathers ; but the
children of two sisters will be marriageable, if the sisters had
married men of two different totemic clans, because in that
case the children will have different totems, namely, the
CHAP. VI WHY ORTHO-COUSINS MA V NOT MARRY 225
totems of their fathers. Thus, totemism of the normal type
opens the door to the marriage of one sort of ortho-cousins,
but not to the marriage of both sorts of ortho-cousins simul-
taneously. With female descent of the totem, the door is
opened to the marriage of the children of two brothers, but
not to the marriage of the children of two sisters ; with male
descent, conversely, the door is opened to the marriage of the
children of two sisters, but not to the marriage of the chil-
dren of two brothers. On the other hand, under the dual
organization or two-class system of exogamy, all marriages
of ortho-cousins, the children alike ot two brothers and of
two sisters, are universally barred.
Thus, the system of totemic exogamy is far less com- The system
prehensive than the system of two-class exogamy : for when °'^^°^<^f"'c
° ^ ' exogamy
once the two exogamous classes are broken up into a much less
number of exogamous fragments or clans, each independent "^"^ ^"'^
of the other, opportunities are afforded for evading some of hensive
the prohibitions which were enforced under the dual organi- l^stlm of
zation. In fact, whereas under totemism, compared with the two-class
dual organization, the law of exogamy might seem to be ^^°^'^'^^-
tightened through the multiplication of the exogamous
sections, it is in reality relaxed, except in the very rare cases
in which a man is limited in the choice of his wife to the
women of a single totemic clan. Such a limitation, which
prevailed in the Urabunna tribe of Central Australia,^ un-
doubtedly stretches the prohibitions of marriage far beyond
the limits which they reach under the dual organization,
since it confines a man to the women of a small fraction of
the community instead of allowing him one- half of the
women to pick and choose from ; but as a general rule
totemism, when it has once shaken off the trammels of the
exogamous classes, opens up to every man a much larger
matrimonial field than he commanded under the dual organi-
zation ; the totemic clans, instead of serving as fresh bars to
shut him up in the exogamous prison, are really so many
doors thrown open to facilitate his escape from it. Thus,
the broad principle of exogamy, which stands out with a
1 (Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Northern Tribes of Central Attstralia^
Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Aus- (London, 1904), p. 71. •"*'
tralia (London, 1899), p. 61 ; id.,
VOL. II
226 J A COB ' 5 MA RRIA GE pa rt i i
sort of massive grandeur in the dual organization, is frittered
away, as it were, into small pieces under totemism of the
normal type. Of this process of detrition the new licence
granted in certain cases to the marriage of ortho-cousins is a
conspicuous instance.
It seems I havc spokcn of two-class exogamy or the dual organi-
probabie nation as if it preceded totem ic exogamy in order of time
that the ^ s> -
exogamy of and was afterwards superseded by it. The evidence in
thetotemic i^^^^y^^ Qf ^\^^^ couclusiou I bclieve to be strong. In fact,
clans every- t> '
where totcmic exogamy would seem to have been a parasitic
in'the^'^ Organism which fastened upon and finally killed its host,
system of namely, class exogamy. If we may judge from the totemic
exogamy, s}'stem and traditions of Central Australia, where totemism
whichithas jg found in its most primitive form, what happened was this.^
survived in ^-^ ..,,,, r i • i
a great part Origmally the rule oi exogamy v/as unknown m the totemic
of the clans ; indeed, far from being forbidden to marry women of
area now . . , , , -
occupiedby his own totcmic clan, men married them by preference.
totemism. Afterwards the growing aversion to the marriage of near kin
resulted in a practical reform, which divided the whole tribe
into two exogamous classes, with a rule, as the name exo-
gamous implies, that no man might marry a woman of his
own class but that every man might marry a woman of the
other class only. In pursuance of this division of the tribe
^ some of the totemic clans were placed in the one exogamous
class and some in the other, with the necessary result that
all of them became thenceforth exogamous, which they had
not been before. In time the exogamous rule of the two
classes was found to be burdensome, since it cut off every
man in the tribe, roughly speaking, from half the women of
the community. Hence it came more and more to be
neglected, and men were content to observe the exogamous
rule of their own particular totemic clan, which, if there were
many totemic clans, only cut them off from a comparatively
small fraction of the women. Thus the yoke of the exo-
gamous prohibitions was immensely lightened by substituting
the rule of totemic exogamy for the rule of class exogamy,
in fact by gradually dropping the exogamous classes alto-
gether. Thus it has come about that while totemism, with
1 With what follows compare sq., 162 sq., 165 sqq., 256 sqq., iv.
Totemism and Exogamy, i, 103, 123 127 sqq.
c H A p. V I WH Y OR THO- CO US INS MA Y NOT MARRY 227
its rule of exogamy applied to the totcmic clans, has con-
tinued to survive down to modern times over a considerable
part of the world, the two-class system of exogamy, which was
the parent of totemic exogamy, has totally disappeared over a
great portion of that vast area, having been eaten up by its
unnatural offspring. But wherever we find totemism with its
characteristic rule of exogamy applied to the totemic clans, we
may strongly suspect that there was once the two-class system
of exogam}% in other words, the dual organization of society.
Thus totemism, wherever it exists, affords a presumption second,
of the former existence of the dual organization or the '" 'egard
•^ ^ to the
division of a community into two exogamous and inter- ciassifi-
marrying classes. But I have said that a second argument group °^
in favour of the former existence of the dual organization system of
is afforded by the classificatory or group system of relation- a^s evki'ence
ship, wherever that system of relationship is found. To a of^ie
consideration of that system we must now turn for a short prevalence
time. The system is well worthy of attention, for it of the dual
.,,. - 1-1 organiza-
forms one of the great landmarks m the history 01 mankmd. tion.
The distinction between the classificatory and the descriptive Coiiec-
systems of relationship, or as I should prefer to put it, the ''^'^"^ ^""^
distinction between the system of group relationship and versus indi-
the system of individual relationship, coincides, broadly a'nd"^'^"^
speaking, with the distinction between savagery and civiliza- civilization,
tion ; the boundary between the lower and the higher strata
of humanity runs approximately on the line between the
two different modes of counting kin, the one mode counting
it by groups, the other by individuals.^ Reduced to its
most general terms, the line of cleavage is between collectivism
and individualism : savagery stands on the side of collect-
ivism, civilization stands on the side of individualism.
The classificatory or group system of relationship, which The ciassi-
the evidence tends more and more to prove to be practically ^"^^^^''y
^ ^ ■' system of
universal among savages and even among some peoples who relation-
have advanced considerably beyond the stage of savagery, s-.g^gni of
is essentially a system of relationship between groups.^ relation-
ship
* Compare Totemism and Exogamy , xxiv. (1895) p. 367; (Sir) Baldwin between
iv. 151 sq. Spencer and F. J. Gillen, N^orthern groups of
^ Compare Lorimer Fison, "The Tribes of Central Australia (London, People
Classificatory System of Relationship," 1904), p. 95 ; Totemism and Exogamy, rather than
Journal of the Anthropological Institiete, i. 286 sqq., 289 sqq. . ^,"^j" ,
228 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
Under it every man applies the term father to a whole
group of men, only one of whom begat him ; he applies the
term mother to a whole group of women, only one of whom
bore him ; he applies the term brother to a whole group of
men with most or even all of whom he may have no blood
relationship ; he applies the term sister to a whole group of
women with most or even all of whom he may in like
manner have no blood relationship ; he applies the name
wife to a whole group of women, with none of whom he
need have marital relations, since he applies the term to all
of them even before it is physically possible for him to
marry any one of them ; he applies the term son to a whole
group of men, not one of whom he may have begotten, and
many of whom may be much older than himself; and he
applies the name daughter in like manner to a whole group
of women, not one of whom he may have begotten, and
many of whom may be much older not only than himself
but than his mother. And similarly with the terms express-
ive of more distant relationships ; they too are stretched so
as to include whole groups of persons of both sexes with
whom the speaker need not have a drop of blood in common.
This extraordinary elasticity in the use of terms of relation-
ship is at first very bewildering to a European, accustomed
to the rigidity of his own system of individual relationship,
and he is apt to mistake the elasticity for vagueness and
confusion. But that is not so. On the contrary, where
the system exists in full force, as among the aborigines of
Australia, it is much more precise and definite than ours ;
under it every man knows to a hair's breadth the exact
relationship in which he stands to all the other men and all
the women of the community. More than that, when a
stranger comes into an Australian tribe, the first thing his
hosts do is to ascertain precisely the various degrees of kin-
ship which can be traced between him and them all ; and
if he cannot furnish the necessary particulars he stands a
very fair chance of being summarily knocked on the head.^
^ Compare A. R. Brown, " Three to a camp that he has never visited
Tribes of Western hMsXxvXx^" Jotirrial before, he does not enter the camp,
of the Royal Anthropological Jttstitute, but remains at some distance. A
xHii. (1913) pp. 150 -f^-j who says few of the older men, after a while,
(p. 151), "When a stranger comes approach him, and the first thing they
CHAP. VI W//V ORTHO-COUSINS MA Y NOT MARRY
229
This extremely elastic system of relationship possesses
at least one conspicuous advantage in that, by greatly ex-
tending the group of women in which a man is compelled
to seek a wife, it relieves him to some extent from the
limitations imposed on his matrimonial freedom by the
numerous and often burdensome rules which he deems him-
self bound to observe in choosing a mate, and which, but
for the relief thus afforded him, might frequently doom him
to a life of celibacy for want of any woman whom he might
legitimately marry. For example, when it is prescribed
that a man ought to marry a particular sort of first or
second cousin, it may often happen that he has no woman
who stands to him in that relationship by blood, and that
consequently he might, on our European system of kinship,
be reduced to the alternative of breaking the law or remain-
ing a bachelor for the rest of his days. In this painful
dilemma the classificatory or group system of relationship
comes to his rescue by pointing out to him that he need not
confine his young affections to the narrow circle of his
blood cousins, which indeed, in the case supposed, has con-
tracted to the vanishing point, but that he may extend them
to a very much larger circle of classificatory or group cousins,
to any one of whom, nay to all of them, he is at perfect
liberty to offer his heart and his hand. In this way the
shrewd savage contrives to slip through the meshes of the
matrimonial net which his elaborate system of marriage
restrictions casts about his feet. While he lays a burden on
his back with one hand, he manages to lighten it consider-
ably with the other.
What is the origin of this remarkable system of classi-
ficatory or group relationship, which appears from one point
of view so rigid, and from another point of view so elastic,
The classi-
ficatory
or group
system of
relation-
ship greatly
extends the
number of
women
whom a
man is free
to marry.
proceed to do is to find out who the
stranger is. The commonest question
that is put to him is, ' Who is your
niaeli ? ' (father's father). The discus-
sion proceeds on genealogical lines until
all parties are satisfied of the exact rela-
tion of the stranger to each of the
natives present in the camp. When this
point is reached, the stranger can be
admitted to the camp, and the different
men and women are pointed out to him
and their relation to him defined. . . .
If I am a blackfellow and meet another
black fellow, that other must be either
my relative or my enemy. If he is
my enemy I shall take the first oppor-
tunity of killing him, for fear he will
kill me. This, before the white man
came, was the aboriginal view of one's
duty towards one's neighbour."
230
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The classi-
ficatory
or group
system of
relation-
ship reflects
exactly the
system
of group
marriage in
which it
probably
originated.
at once so exacting and so accommodating? It appears to
have originated in, and to reflect as in a mirror, a system of
group marriage, that is, the marital rights exercised by a
definite group of men over a definite group of women at a
time when individual marriage, or the appropriation of one
woman by one man, was still unknown,^ The relations
constituted by the rights of the groups of men over the
groups of women are expressed and, as it were, crystallized
in the system of group relationship, which has survived in
many parts of the world long after the system of group
marriage has disappeared. The system of group relation-
ship may be compared to a cast taken of the living system
of group marriage : that cast represents the original in all
the minute details of its organic structure, and continues to
record it for the instruction of posterity long after the
organism itself is dead and mouldered into dust. In Central
Australia the system of group marriage persisted, along with
the system of group relationship, down to our own time ; '
1 Compare Lorimer Fison, " The
Classificatory System of Relationship,"
fotwnal of the Anthropological htstitiite,
xxiv. (1895) pp. 3601^^.; (Sir) Baldwin
Spencer and F. J. Gillen, Native Tribes
of Cetttral Australia, pp. 55 sqq. ; iid..
Northern Tribes of Cetttral Australia,
pp. 95, 140 sqq. ; A. W. Howitt,
Native Tribes of South- East Australia,
pp. 156 sqq. ; id., "Australian Group-
Relationships, ■''Journal of the Royal An-
thropological Institute, xxxvii. (1907)
p. 284 ; W. H. R. Rivers, " On the
Origin of the Classificatory System of
Relationship," Anthropological Essays
presented to E. B. Tylor (Oxford,
1907), pp. 309 sqq. ; Totemism and
Exogamy, i. 303 sqq., iv. 121 sqq.
" The features of the classificatory
system of relationship as we find them
at the present time have arisen out of
a state of group-marriage. . . . The
kind of society which most readily
accounts for its chief features is one
characterized by a form of marriage in
which definite groups of men are the
husbands of definite groups of women "
(Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, op. cit. p. 323).
This relation of a definite group of
husbands to a definite group of wives
is concisely and accurately described
by the term "group marriage," which
implies, first, the limitation of sexual
relations to groups, and second, the
recognition of these relations as legi-
timate. Yet Dr. Rivers has since
discarded it for the clumsier and less
definite phrase " organized sexual com-
munism " {Kinship atid Social Organi-
sation, London, 19 14, p. 86), which
fails to indicate that very limitation of
sexual relations to definite groups on
which Dr. Rivers himself justly lays
emphasis, and which is clearly indicated
by the term " group marriage." Hence
it seems to me that the state of things
in which, with Dr. Rivers, I believe
the classificatory system of relationship
to have originated, is both more exactly
and more conveniently described by
the term "group marriage" than by
the phrase " organized sexual com-
munism."
2 Particularly in the Dieri and Ura-
bunna tribes. See A. W. Howitt,
" The Dieri and other kindred tribes
of Central Australia," Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, xx. (189O
PP- 53 ^i'J- ' ^-f Native Tribes of
South- East Australia, pp. 175 ^^l- >
(Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen,
Native Tribes of Central Australia,
f
CHAi'. VI IVHV ORTHO-COUSINS MA Y NOT MARRY 231
and it is perhaps the only part of the world where the
original and the cast have been found together, the one still
superposed, as it were, on the other and fitting it to some
extent, though not with perfect exactness ; for even here
the living system of group marriage had shrunk and was
probably wasting away.
From a study of the Australian tribes, which have pre- in
served both the cast and something of the original, in other AuTt'raha
words, both the system of group relationship and the system '^^^ ciassi-
• r , , 1 1 ficatory
of group marriage, more perfectly than any other known or group
race of men, we can define with some approach to exactness system of
... relation-
the nature and extent of the intermarrying groups on which ship is
the terms of group relationship were modelled. Among the ^t^^t ?"
" ^ _ '^ _ ° the division
Australian aborigines, these intermarrying groups are regu- of the
larly two, four, or eight in number, according to the tribe ; [°t'oTwo"^
for some tribes have two such exogamous groups, others exogamous
have four, and others again have eight.'' Where the system niarrying'
is in full working order and has not fallen into obvious decay, groups or
the number of the exogamous classes is invariably two or a The
multiple of two, never an odd number. This suggests, what division
all the evidence tends to confirm, that these various groups Australian
have been produced by the deliberate and repeated bisection community
^ ^ "' . , ^ into two,
of a community, first into two, then into four, and finally four, or
into eight exogamous and intermarrying groups or classes ; ^'^^^
o o y t> t> f ' exogamous
for no one, so far as I know, has yet ventured to maintain classes
that society is subject to a physical law, in virtue of which ^ITe been
communities, like crystals, tend automatically and uncon- deliberate
sciously to integrate or disintegrate, along rigid mathematical purposeful
lines, into exactly symmetrical units. The effect of these suc-
cessive dichotomies is of course to limit more and more the
number of M'omen with whom a man may lawfully have
sexual relations. By the division of the community into
two groups or classes, he is restricted in his choice, roughly
speaking, to one half of the women ; by the division into
four he is restricted to one fourth of the women ; and by
the division into eight he is restricted to one eighth. It is
not of course implied that a man has now, or indeed ever
pp. 62 sq. ; Hd., Northern Tribes of 363-373.
Central Australia, pp. 72 sq. ; Totem- ' On this subject see Toteinism and
ism and Exogatiiy, i. 155, 308 sqq., Exogamy, i. 272 sqq., iv. 112 sqq.
232
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The classi-
ficatory
system of
relation-
ship seems
not to be
affected
by those
divisions
of the
community
into four
and eight
exogamous
classes
which
occur in
Australia.
The
successive
division
of the
community
into two,
four, and
eight
exogamous
classes
seems to
have been
intended
to bar the
marriage
of various
degrees of
kin.
had, sexual relations with all the women of the group into
which he is allowed to marry ; but he calls all these women
his wives, and while he now regularly has one or more
women with whom he cohabits to the practical exclusion of
others, it seems probable that this limitation has resulted
from the same gradual shrinkage of the intermarrying groups
which appears most conspicuously in the successive divisions
of the community into two, four, and eight intermarrying
classes. To put it otherwise, we may suppose that formerly
the sexual relations between groups of men and women
were much looser than they are now, that in fact men of one
group much oftener exercised those marital rights over the
women of the corresponding group which in theory they
still possess, though practically they have to a great extent
allowed them to fall into abeyance.
It is important to observe that the classificatory or group
system of relationship appears to be based on the first of
these successive bisections, and on it alone.^ There is no
sign, so far as I know, that the system of relationship has
been modified by the later subdivisions of the community
into four and eight classes ; and this conclusion is confirmed
by the observation that, while the classificatory or group
system of relationship is found diffused over a large part
of the world, the system of four or eight exogamous classes
has been discovered nowhere but in Australia.
If we seek to ascertain more definitely what marriages
between persons of near kin these successive subdivisions
of the community were intended to bar, it will appear on
examination highly probable that the first division into two
exogamous classes was intended primarily to bar the marriage
of brothers with sisters ; that the second division into four
exogamous classes was intended primarily to bar the
marriage of parents with children ; and that the third
division into eight exogamous classes was intended primarily
to bar the marriage of cross-cousins, the children of a brother
and of a sister respectively.^ At least these were certainly
amongst the effects produced by the successive divisions,
^ Compare Lorimer Fison, "The Exogamy, iv. 122 sqq.
Classificatory System of Relationship," - On this and what follows, compare
Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Totemism and Exogamy, i. 271 sqq.,
xxiv. (1895) p. 364; Totemism and iv. \\2 sqq.
1
i
CHAP. VI W//y ORTHO-COUSINS MA Y NOT MARRY 233
and from the effects it is legitimate to argue back to the
intentions.
To take the first of these divisions, the evidence The
points to the conclusion that the dual organization, or ^y^?^'^
, , , , fc> > fJivision
division of a community into two exogamous and inter- of the
marrying classes, was introduced for the purpose of prevent- I'nto'two"^
ing the marriage of brothers with sisters, which presumably exogamous
had hitherto been lawful, though no doubt the feeling seemrto
against it had been growing long before it took definite ^ave been
1 -^111 - • '7^1 . . , . , intended
shape m the dual organization. Ihat organization, which to bar the
may perhaps be described as the first (jreat moral rcforma- carriage
. . , . , , , , of brothers
tion of which we have any record, absolutely prevented with sisters,
these objectionable unions for the future by the very simple ^hich had
expedient of assigning all the brothers and sisters of a been
family to the same exogamous class and prohibiting all ^J-q™^'^
marriages between members of the same exogamous class.
Henceforth, instead of marrying their own sisters, as men Henceforth
had probably often, if not regularly, done before, they now ™^"'
exchanged them in marriage for the sisters of men who marrying
belonged to the other exogamous class : the exchange of slTt'ers^^"
sisters between the two exogamous and intermarrying exchanged
classes became the regular mode of obtaining wives under ,„al^ia"e
the new dual organization of society. No doubt the sister '^^'^ 'he
, . , ^ .- . sisters of
whom a man gave m exchange for a wife was sometimes nien of
not his own sister, but his sister in the classificatory or ''^^ "*''*-■'■
1 -1 • 1 1 . 1 , ,, exogamous
group sense, who might sometimes ba what .we should call class.
his first cousin, the daughter either of his mother's sister or of
his father's brother ; for these women would always belong
to his own exogamous class, he would call them all sisters,
and while he could not marry them, he was free to give
them in exchange for wives, provided he obtained the con-
sent of their blood relations, particularly of their own
brothers, own fathers, or own mothers' brothers. But
naturally a man who had sisters of his own to give away
would exchange them rather than cousins or more distant
relatives, since as a brother he could dispose of them with-
out asking the leave of anybody, at all events when his
father and mother's brother were dead. When the exchange
of women in marriage was effected by their betrothal in
infancy, it would usually be the girl's own father or own
234 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
mother's brother who would arrange to give her away and to
get in return a girl of the other exogamous class as a wife
for his son or his nephew ; for though under the classifi-
catory system a man would apply the name of daughter to
all the women of the generation below his own either in his
own or in his wife's exogamous class, according as descent
was traced in the male or the female line, he would
naturally have more power over his own daughters or over
his own sister's daughters than over women who were more
distantly related to him. Hence even under the classifi-
catory system, which extends the notions of brothers and
sisters, of fathers and daughters, far beyond those limits
of consanguinity within which we confine them, it would
generally be the own brother or the own father who
would give his sister or daughter in exchange for a
girl to be his own or his son's or his sister's son's wife.
But even when the exchange is regularly arranged by a
girl's father or mother's brother rather than by her own
brother, the resulting matches are still in effect based on an
exchange of sisters ; since each of the two men who gets a
wife resigns a sister to be the wife of the other man.
From the Thus the exchange of sisters, whether sisters in the full
exchange ^^ j^^ ^^ grouD scusc of the word, appears to have been
of sisters in . . ' rr-
marriage, the vcry pivot on wliicli turned the great reform initiated
formed the ^^ "^^^ dual Organization of society. Instead of marrying
pivot of the their sisters, as they had often, perhaps regularly, done
systenfo^r before, men now gave them away to other men, and received
dual the sisters of these men as wives in return. But I have given
tio'n of reasons for thinking that the preference for the marriage of
society, cross-cousins flowed directly from the custom of exchanging
probably . . . .
flowed Sisters m marriage. It that is so, the preference may well date
directly the fj-Qi-^ if ft did not precede, the remote time when the custom
custom of - .
cross- of exchange was first systematized as the fundamental base
cousin Q^ ^^ j^g^y organization of society in two exogamous classes.
marriage. ■=" . .
The nearness of blood between the married cousins was,
perhaps, regarded at first rather as an advantage than other-
wise ; it continued in a mitigated form that fusion of
kindred blood which had been effected in a far stronger
form by the old marriage of brothers with sisters ; it was a
compromise between the views of the conservatives, who
CHAP. VI JV//V ORTHO-COUSINS MA V NOT MARRY 235
preferred the old marriage with sisters, and the views of the
liberals, who preferred the new marriage with cousins. But On the
it was only the marriage of cross-cousins which the new ^and^the
system permitted ; the marriage of ortho-cousins was barred marriage
from the very foundation of that system by the rule which eousins°
placed the children of brothers in the same exogamous class, ^^as barred
and the children of sisters in the same exogamous class, and beginning
therefore forbade the children of one brother to marry the t>y '^^
two-class
children of another brother, and the children of one sister to system
marry the children of another sister. Thus the preference o'"'^'"^'
•' . ^ organiza-
for some marriages of cousins and the prohibition of others tion.
are probably at least as old as the first institution of a marri-
age system based upon prohibited degrees of consanguinity.
But here a distinction must be drawn between the The
preference and the prohibition ; for while the prohibition is Preference
perhaps not older than the dual organization, it is possible marriage
and indeed probable that the practice of cousin marriage °'^<^''oss-
^ ^ '■ ° cousms IS
and the preference for it long preceded the two - class probably
system of exogamy. For doubtless it would be a mistake to °heTwo^"
imagine that the formal introduction of that system made a class
great and sudden break in the marriage customs of the exo"!^y
people who adopted it ; that the day before the new code which
became law, everybody had married his sister, and that the "ancdoned
day after it became law, everybody married his cross-cousin ^ custom
instead. That is not the way in which legislative changes long been
are effected either in savage or in civilized society. Every- growing in
1-111 1 favour, and
where a new^ law, which has been passed, not by the arbitrary forbade a
fiat of a despot, but with the general consent of the people, custom (the
^ ° I ir ' marriage
merely expresses, defines, and prescribes a certain course of of brothers
action which has long been voluntarily pursued by many ^vhlchtiad^
individuals and which is in harmony with the general senti- long been
ments of the community. The new law simply renders Jis/afour'^
obligatory and universal a practice which before had been '^nd disuse.
optional and partial or even general : it converts the usage
of many into a rule for all, and in doing so it punishes as a
crime what till then had been only a fault or indiscretion,
condemned by public opinion but not repressed by public
authority. Hence, to take the particular case with which
we are here concerned, we must suppose that the prohibition
of the marriage of brothers with sisters, which the two-class
236
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The view
that the
dual or-
ganization,
or two-
class
system of
exogani}',
sprang
from an
aversion
to the
marriage of
near kin, is
strength-
ened by
the rules in
regard to
cross-
cousin
marriage
observed
by three
neighbour-
ing
Australian
tribes, the
Urabunna,
Dicri, and
Arunta.
system of exogamy involves, merely followed instead of
leading the general current of popular sentiment which had
long been running against these close consanguineous unions.
Such marriages, we may assume, had for generations excited
the reprobation of the community and had been gradually
falling more and more into desuetude before they were finally
abolished by the dual organization. And just as, in the
ages which preceded that great era in the history of society,
the marriage of brothers with sisters had been steadily
growing rarer and rarer, so on the other hand it is reason-
able to suppose that the exchange of sisters in marriage
and its natural sequence, the marriage of cross-cousins, had
been becoming commoner and commoner, till at last with
the institution of two-class exogamy the marriage with
sisters was absolutely prohibited and the marriage with cross-
cousins was raised to the preferential position which it still
occupies among many races.
The view that the dual organization or division of a
community into two exogamous and intermarrying classes
sprang from an aversion to the marriages of brothers with
sisters and a deliberate attempt to prevent them, is
strengthened by a consideration of the customs with regard
to cousin marriages in Australia, the country where, on
account of the backward state of the aborigines, the ancient
dual organization survived in its fullest form down to our
own time, and where consequently the early history of
marriage can be studied to the best advantage. We have
seen that in two tribes, the Urabunna and Dieri, who live
side by side under entirely similar physical conditions and
with precisely the same form of social organization, the rule
as to the marriage of cousins is very different ; for while the
one tribe (the Urabunna) enjoins a man to marry his cross-
cousin, the other tribe (the Dieri) absolutely forbids him to
marry her, but enjoins him to marry his second cousin, or
rather one particular kind of second cousin. In comparing
this remarkable difference of usage between the two tribes,
I said that the Dieri custom of prohibiting the marriages of
cross-cousins was doubtless later than the Urabunna custom
of encouraging them, and that it marked a step upward on
the ladder of social progress. It may have occurred to some
CHAP. VI WHY ORTHO-COUSINS MA V NOT MARRY lyi
of my readers to question that statement, and to ask whether For the
the change may not have taken place in the opposite direc- cnjoin"such
tion. Why, it may be asked, should not the Dieri custom marriages,
of prohibiting the marriage of first cousins be the original forbid
practice, and the Urabunna custom of encouraging it be a them, and
: , . r ■, ■ 1 , 1 .. TT^i 111 , .1 theArunta
later relaxation of the strict old rule ? W hy should not the have
Urabunna have taken a step down the ladder in the direc- devised an
. . . elabcrate
tion of encouraging consanguineous marriages, instead of the system of
Dieri taking a step up the ladder in the direction of for- '^'g'^'
° r f- ^ exogamoiis
bidding such marriages ? I think that a very good reason classes to
can be given for holding that the Dieri rule is the later and fi^^^^*^"'
more advanced, the Urabunna the earlier and more primiti\'e.
It is to be observed, in the first place, that the marriage of
cross-cousins is not barred by the class system of the Dieri,
which is identical with that of the Urabunna ; the prohibi-
tion of such unions is a fresh restriction on the freedom of
marriage superadded by the Dieri to the restrictions of their
class system but not yet incorporated in that system. But
in a large group of tribes in Central Australia, of whom the
Arunta may be regarded as typical, this scruple as to the
marriage of cross-cousins is carried much further, for it is
actually incorporated in their system of exogamous classes,
which have been multiplied to eight in number, apparently
for the purpose, as I have already indicated, of preventing
the marriage of cross-cousins. This purpose is effected by
the division of the community into eight exogajnous and
intermarrying classes, combined with rules of descent which
ensure that cross-cousins never fall into classes that are
marriageable with each other. Now it is as certain as any-
thing of the kind can be that the elaborate system of eight
exogamous classes, with its intricate rules of descent, is later
in origin than the simple two-class system and has been
developed out of it through an intermediate system of four
classes, which is still found in many Australian tribes. Hence
if, as seems probable, this complicated system of eight exo-
gamous classes was ingeniously devised for the special
purpose of prohibiting those marriages of cross - cousins
which it unquestionably prevents, we may fairly infer that
the Arunta and all the other tribes, who have adopted the
eight-class system, represent a further advance from cor\-.
238
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
PART II
Thus in the
Urabunna,
the Dieri,
and the
Arunta we
see three
successive
stages in the
evolution of
social laws
forbidding
the
marriage of
near kin.
The four-
class
system of
exogamy,
which is
inter-
mediate
between the
two-class
system
and the
eight-class
system in
certain
Australian
tribes,
appears to
have been
devised
sanguineous marriage than the Dieri, who, adhering to the
old two-class system, are content simply to prohibit the
marriage of cross-cousins without incorporating tne prohibi-
tion in their exogamous system, which would have had to
be completely recast to receive it. Thus in the Urabunna,
the Dieri, and the Arunta, three neighbouring tribes of Central
Australia, we can discern three distinct and successive
stages in the evolution of the social laws discountenancing
and forbidding the marriage of near kin. In the Urabunna
the marriage of brothers and sisters is prevented by their
class system, but the marriage of cross-cousins is left open
by their system and positively encouraged by custom. In
the Dieri, the marriage of cross-cousins is still left open by
the class system, but is prohibited by custom. In the Arunta
the marriage of cross-cousins is prohibited not only by
custom but by the class system, which has been profoundly
modified and elaborated in order to include the prohibition.
Thus the three tribes form a series in which the successive
stages of social and moral progress are clearly marked.
And as the system of eight exogamous classes extends
among the Australian tribes from the Arunta in the south
to the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north, we may infer that
the objection to the marriage of cross-cousins is strongly felt
by all the aborigines over that wide area.
Having said so much about the two-class system and
the eight-class system of exogamy in Australian tribes, I
may add a few words about the intermediate system of four
classes, though it is not immediately connected with the
marriage of cousins. As the two-class system seems to have
been introduced primarily to prevent the marriage of
brothers with • sisters, so the four-class system seems to
have been introduced primarily to prevent the marriage
of parents with children.^ The two-class system, while it was
apparently directed in the first place against the marriage of
brothers with sisters, incidentally prevented the marriage of
a child with one parent, but not with both ; it prevented the
marriage of a mother with her son when descent was traced
' This was clearly pointed out long
ago by the late Dr. A. W. Howitt, in
his important paper, "Notes on the
Australian Class Systems," Jotirmxl
of the Anthropological Institute, xii.
(1883) pp. 496 sqq.
\
i
CHAP. VI IVHV ORTHO-COUSINS MA V NOT MARRY 239
in the female line, because the son thus belonged to his for the
mother's exorramous class, and therefore the two, as members Purpose ot
^ ' ' _ _ completely
of one and the same exogamous group, could not unite in preventing
marriasfe. But the two- class system with descent in the 1^^ •„„„
o ' nitirriagc
female line presented no obstacle to the marriage of a father of parents
with his daughter, since she belonged to her mother's class, children,
which was the very one into which he might and must marry, which had
On the other hand, when descent was traced in the male line, pankny^
the effects were just the converse. A father was prevented prevented
from marrying his daughter, because she belonged to his own two-class
exogamous class, and the two were therefore not marriageable, system.
But the mother was free to marry her son, since he belonged
to his father's class, which was the very one into which she
might and must marry. It seems probable, therefore, that
cases of marriage between parents and children, in the one
form or the other, may have occurred not infrequently even
after the introduction of the two-class system, which, whethei
combined with male or with female descent of the class, could
only bar one half of such incestuous unions. The introduction
of the four-class system barred all such marriages. The
fundamental defect of the two -class system was that by
always placing children in the exogamous class into which
one of the parents was bound to marry, it left the door open
to marriage either of a father with his daughter or of a
mother with her son, according as descent of the class was
reckoned in the female or in the male line. This door to
incest the four-class system closed neatly and effectively by
ordaining that children should never belong to the class
either of their father or of their mother, but that they should
always belong to a class into which neither their father nor
their mother might marry. Henceforward, so long as the class
laws were observed, incest between parents and children, either
in the one form or in the other, was rendered impossible. g^^ ^^^
But the four-class system, while it barred all marriages four-class
between parents and children, did not bar the marriage of no^t'bar the
cross-cousins. Hence to stop that form of union, to which marriage
, , . f , . ^ , of cross-
the growing scruple as to the marriage of near kin created cousins ; to
a serious objection, it was necessary to subdivide the class effect that
r <-r-i 1 ' 1 • r 1 purpose the
system still further. The result was the creation ot the eight-class
eieht-class system, the most elaborate form of social organiza- system was
o ' ' ■ ° created m
some tribes
240
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
If the dual
organiza-
tion was
the source
of the
systematic
distinction
between
cross-
cousins
and ortho-
cousins
in respect
of
marriage,
we should
expect to
find traces
of it, in the
form either
of totemic
exogamy
or of the
classifica-
tory
system,
wherever
that dis-
tion is
recog-
nized.
The facts
conform
to this
expecta-
tion.
tion known in aboriginal Australia and, perhaps, in the world.
The whole complicated structure was produced, we can hardly
doubt, by a series of successive divisions and subdivisions
into two, four, and eight exogamous classes, with rules of
descent of increasing intricacy, in order to meet the growing
demands of popular opinion by suppressing, one after another,
forms of marriage which, in the earlier stages, had been
allowed or even expressly encouraged and enjoined. In its
higher developments of the four-class and eight-class systems
this remarkable institution seems to be, as I have said,
peculiar to aboriginal Australia ; at least it has not so far
been discovered elsewhere in any part of the world. On the
other hand the comparatively simple dual organization or
two-class system has probably, as we saw, prevailed over
at least half the globe.
From the foregoing discussion we conclude that wherever
totemic exogamy and the classificatory or group system of
relationship are found, either separately or in conjunction, they
point to the former existence of the dual organization or two-
class system of exogamy in the people who possess one or both
of these institutions. But the dual organization, if I am right,
was the source both of the systematic preference for the marri-
age of cross-cousins and of the systematic prohibition of the
marriage of ortho-cousins. Hence wherever the dual organiza-
tion exists or has formerly existed, we may expect to find the
preference for the marriage of cross-cousins and the prohibi-
tion of the marriage of ortho-cousins. At the beginning of our
inquiry we mapped out roughly the geographical and racial
area in which such marriages are preferred or prohibited. It
remains to compare that area with the area in which, to judge
from the presence either of totemic exogamy or of the classifi-
catory system of relationship, the dual organization may be
supposed to have formerly prevailed. If the area of cousin
marriage should be found to coincide more or less closely with
the area of the dual organization, it will furnish a strong addi-
tional reason for believing that the two institutions are vitally
connected. Accordingly I shall briefly compare the two
areas ; and to anticipate the result of the comparison I may
say that, so far as the imperfect evidence at our disposal per-
mits us toj'udge, the two areas appear to coincide exactly.
CHAP. VI J!7/y ORTHO-COUSINS MA Y NOT MARRY 241
In the first place we found the marriage of cross-cousins Cousin
regularly favoured, and the marriage of ortho-cousins regularly |^J^J^^^^'
prohibited among the indigenous races of Southern and exogamy.
Central India, particularly among the peoples of the Dravidian ciassifica-
stock. Now the Dravidians are in possession of a complete tory system
and typical system of the classificatory or group system of Dravidians
relationship;^ and totemism, in its ordinary exogamous form, of India,
is recorded of so many of their tribes and castes^ that it may
safely be regarded as characteristic of the race. Here, then,
the areas of cousin marriage and of the dual organization, as
attested both by totemism and by the classificatory system
of relationship, absolutely coincide.
Further, we saw that the marriage of cross-cousins is Cousin
favoured above all other forms of marriage by the Singhalese [J^t^emL^^'
and Veddas of Ceylon, and by the Todas of Southern India,^ exogamy,
and all these three peoples possess the classificatory or group ciassifica-
system of relationship, though not totemism.* Again, we tory system
have seen that the marriage of cross-cousins is allowed, or races of
even preferred, among some of the Mongoloid tribes of -^^'^ ^^^
Assam, such as the Mikirs, -the Garos, and the Khasis. Of
these tribes the Khasis and the Garos exhibit some traces of
totemism,^ and the Mikirs show some traces of the classifi-
catory or group system of relationship.^ But if one of these
tribes possesses the classificatory or group system of relation-
ship, it is probable that all of them do so, though demonstra-
tion on this important point is still lacking." Again, we have
1 L. H. Morgan, Systems of Con- and B. Seligmann, The Veddas (Cam-
sangiiinity and Affinity of the Hti/nan bridge, 1911), pp. 63 sqq.
Family (Washington City, 1871), pp. ^ Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 321
385 sqq. {Smithsonian Contributions to sq., 323 sq.
Knoivledge, tio. 218); Totemism and ^ 77/^ i1///&zVj, from the papers of the
Exoga>ny, ii. ^^O sqq. late Edward Stack, edited by Sir Charles
2 Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 218 Lyall (London, 1908), pp. 20 sq.
sqq. More evidence is to be found in Among the traces are separate names
the late R. V. Rus-eirs valuable Tides for elder brother and younger brother,
and Castes of the Central Provinces of for elder sister and younger sister. The
hidia (London, 19 16), which has pro- same term {osa) is applied to a sister's
vided us with much evidence as to the son and a son-in-law, which points to
prevalence of cousin marriage among the popularity of marriages between
the same tribes (above, pp. 1 20 sqq.). cross-cousins.
3 Above, pp. 102, 103. 7 In order to ascertain the systems
* Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 266 of relationship among the hill tribes
sqq. (Todas), 333 sq. (Singhalese) ; W. of Assam, Sir Charles Lyall was so
H. R. Rivers, The Todas (London, good as to write for me to Colonel
1906), pp. 483-494 ; C. G. Seligmann P. R. T. Gurdon, Commissioner of the
VOL. II R
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
seen that the marriage of cousins is very common among the
Burmese and almost compulsory among the Karens.^ Now
both these peoples possess the classificatory or group system
of relationship,^ though not totemism. Further, we found
that the marriage of cousins, particularly of cross-cousins,
flourishes, or has flourished, among the tribes of North-
Eastern Asia, such as the Gilyaks, Kamchadales, Chukchee,
and Koryaks ; ^ and among these tribes the classificatory
or group system of relationship appears to be universally
prevalent.^ Among the aboriginal races of North America,
both of the Eskimo and of the Indian stock, we found some
evidence of the custom of cousin marriage, but I gave reasons
for thinking that the custom has probably been much
commoner among these peoples than appears from the very
scanty information we possess on the subject.'^ Now both
the Eskimo and the Indians possess the classificatory or
group system of relationship, and among the Indians totemism
is very general, though not universal. *"
In Africa we found the custom of marriage between first
or second cousins widely spread among the black races both
of the Bantu and of the true negro stock. Now among
classinca- .11
tory system Bantu tribes at the present time both totemism and the
in Africa, classificatoiy or group system of relationship are so prevalent
Cousin
marriage,
totemism,
and the
Assam Valley Districts, who promptly
instituted inquiries accordingly. As a
result the terms of relationship in use
among many of the tribes have been
recorded and will soon, I hope, be pub-
lished. In the meantime Colonel
Gurdon has generously placed his manu-
script collections in my hands, with
permission to use them. From a
cursory inspection I gather some indi-
cations of the classificatory system of
relationship in several of the tribes.
Thus there are distinct terms for elder
and younger brother, and for elder and
younger sister in the Khasi, Garo,
Synteng, and Kachari languages, as
well as in the Mikir ; and a father's
elder and younger brothers are called
great fathers and little fathers re-
spectively in the Khasi and Synteng
languages.
1 Above, pp. 135 sqq.
- Lewis H. Morgan, Systems of Con-
sanguitiity and Affinity of the Htunan
Family (Washington City, 1 871), pp.
517 sqq.
2 Above, pp. 138 sqq.
* Leo Sternberg, " The Turano-
Ganowanian System and the nations
of North-East Asia," pp. 328 sqq. (re-
printed from the Proceedings of the
£ighteenth hiternational Congress of
Americanists).
" Above, pp. 140 sqq.
^ As to totemism and the classifica-
tory or group system of relationship
among the Indians of North America,
see Totemism and Exogamy, iii. I sqq.
As to the American Indian system of
relationship, see Lewis H. Morgan,
Systems of Consaiiguinity and Affinity
of the Human Family, pp. 131 sqq.;
as to the Eskimo system of relationship,
see id., pp. 275 sqq.
CHAP. VI WHY ORTHO-COUSINS MA Y NOT MARRY
243
that they may safely be regarded as characteristic of the
Bantu family.^ Among the true negroes totemism is
very common, but there is very Httle evidence that any of
them have the classificatory or group system of relationship.^
Again, we found the marriage of cross-cousins permitted
or enjoined in various parts of Indonesia. One of the peoples
who particularly encourage that form of marriage are the
Bataks of Sumatra ; and they certainly have totemism, and
apparently the classificatory or group system of relationship
also.^ Traces more or less clear of the same two institu-
1 For the evidence, see Totemism ana
Exogamy, ii. 354 sqq. The evidence
for the prevalence of totemism among
the Bantus could now be considerably
increased. See Henri A. Junod, The
Life of a South African Tribe (Neu-
chatel, 191 2- 19 1 3), i. 335 sq. ; H. S.
Stannus, "Notes on some tribes of
British East Africa," Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, xl.
(19 10) pp. 307 sq, ; J. A. Chisholm,
" Notes on the manners and customs
of the Winamwanga and Wiwa,"
Journal of the African Society, No.
xxxvi. (July 19 10) pp. 383 sq. ; C.
Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, The Great
Plateau of Northern Rhodesia (London,
19 1 1), pp. 93 ^^1--> 172 sq.; Mgr.
Lechaptois, Aux Rives du Tangaytika
(Algiers, 1913). PP- ^31 ^qq. ; H.
Rehse, Kiziba, Land und Leute (Stutt-
gart, 1910), pp. 4-7 ; H. Claus, Die
Wagogo (Leipsic and Berlin, 191 1),
pp. 48 sq. \Baessler-Archiv) ; Otto
Dempwolff, " Beitrage zur Volks-
beschreibung der Hehe," Baessler-
Archiv, iv. (1914) pp. lOO sqq. ; C.
W. Hobley, Ethnology of A-Kamba
(Cambridge, 19 10), pp. 4 sqq., 102,
157, 161, 170; M. W. H. Beech, The
Stik, their Language and Folklore
(Oxford, 1911), p. 5 ; A. C. Cham-
pion, " The Atharaka,"y^?<;';/tf/ of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, xlii.
(1912) pp. 88 sq. ; Hon. Kenneth R.
Dundas, "The Wawanga and other
tribes of the Elgon District, British
East Africa," Journal of the Royal
Atithropological Institute, xliii. (19 1 3)
pp. 30 sq., S9 sqq- ; John Roscoe, 7'he
Northern Bantu (Cambridge, 19 1 5),
pp. 27 sqq., 116 sq., 148, 204^4'^.,
261 sq. ; M. A. Condon, "Contri-
butions to the Ethnography of the
Basoga-Batamba, Uganda Protector-
ate," Anthropos, vi. (191 1 ) pp. 380
sq. ; Rev. J. H. Weeks, ".Notes on
the Bangala of the Upper Congo
IL\\ei-,"Jot(rnalqfthe Royal Anthropo-
logical Institute, xl. (1910) pp. 365
sq. ; id., Among Congo Cannibals
(London, 1913), pp. 131 sq., 2<)j^sqq. ;
H. Trilies, Le Totimisme chez les Fdh
(Miinster-i.-W., 1912). For further
evidence of the prevalence of the classi-
ficatory system of relationship among
Bantu tribes, see Rev. Herbert Barnes,
Nyanja-English Vocabuhoy (London,
1902), pp. 86 sq. ; Otto Dempwolff,
"Beitrage zur Volksbeschreibung der
Hehe," Baessler-Archiv, iv. (19 14)
pp. 103 sq. ; John H. Weeks, Among
the Primitive Bakongo (London, 1914),
pp. 306 sq. ; John Roscoe, The North-
ern Bantu, pp. 32 sqq., 1 18, 273 sq.,
292 sq.
^ As to totemism among the negroes,
see Totemism attd Exogamy, ii. 543
sqq. For more evidence, see H,
Bazin, " Les Bambara et leur langue,"
Anthropos, i. (1906) p. 688 ; J. Brun,
" Le Totemisme chez quelques peuples
du Soudan Occidental," Anthropos,
V. (19 10) pp. 843-869 ; Fr. Wolf,
" Totemismus, soziale Gliederung und
Rechtspflege bei einigen Stammen
Togos (Westafrika)," Anthropos, vi.
(191 1 ) pp. 449-462; A. J. N. Tre-
mearne, The Ban of the Z>'or? (London,
N.D. ), pp. 32 sqq. For traces of the
classificatory or group system of rela-
tionship among the negroes, see Totem-
ism and Exogamy, ii. 575 sq.
2 Tote/nism and Exogamy, ii. iS^ sqq.
Cousin
marriage,
totemism,
and the
classifica-
tory system
in the
Indian
Archi-
pelago,
Melanesia,
Polynesia,
and
Australia.
244
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
tions meet us in other parts of Sumatra and elsewhere in the
Indian Archipelago.^ Further, we saw that in various parts
of Melanesia, including Fiji, cross-cousins are allowed or
even expected to marry each other. Now throughout
Melanesia the classificatory or group system of relationship
appears to be universally prevalent ; the system is known to
flourish in a very characteristic form in Fiji, and traces more
or less distinct of totemism have been discovered in Fiji
and other Melanesian islands.^ In Polynesia, on the other
hand, we saw that the marriage of all first cousins is gener-
ally prohibited, and only in very exceptional cases permitted.
Yet, when we consider the example of Australia, where the
marriage of cross-cousins is encouraged by some tribes and
absolutely forbidden by others, we may reasonably conjecture
that among the Polynesians also the marriage of cross-cousins
was formerly regarded as very suitable, and that it was only
barred at a later time in consequence of that growing aversion
to consanguineous marriages which is so clearly traceable
among the aborigines of Australia. With this hypothesis it
is entirely consistent that the classificatory or group system
of relationship appears to be universally prevalent in Poly-
nesia, and that more or less distinct traces of totemism can be
detected among some branches of the widely scattered Poly-
nesian race, particularly among the Samoans.^ Lastly,
among the Australian aborigines, some of whom encourage
1 Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 190' Report of the Eleventh Meeting of the
Atistralasian Association for the Ad-
vancetne7it of Science, held at Adelaide,
1907, pp. 209 sqq. ; Rev. W. E.
Bromilow, "Some Manners and Cus-
toms of the Dobuans of Soutli-East
Papua," Report of the Twelfth Meeting
oj- the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, held at Bris-
bane, igog, p. 475 ; George Brown,
D.D., Melanesians attd Polynesians
(London, 1 9 10), pp. 27 sgq. ; W. H.
R. Rivers, The History of Melanesian
Society (Cambridge, 1914), ii. 75 sijq.
As to the classificatory or group system
of relationship in Melanesia, see further,
W. H. R. Rivers, The History of
Melanesian Society, \\. ^sqq., ly^sqq.
sqq. As to the classificatory or group
system of relationship in Indonesia,
see F. D. E. van Ossenbruggen's note
in G. A. Wilken, De verspreide Ge-
schriften (The Hague, 1912), i. 14 1
note ^
2 Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 6t,
sqq. For more evidence of totemism
in Melanesia, see R. Thurnwald, " Im
Bismarckarchipel und auf den Salomo-
Inseln," Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic,
xlii. (19 10) p. 124; id., Forschuugen
auf den Salomo-Inseln und dem Bis-
marckarchipel, iii. (Berlin, 1912) pp.
61 sq.; C. E. Fox and F. H. Drew,
" Beliefs and Tales of San Cristoval
(Solomon Islands)," Journal of the
Royal Anthropological Institute, xlv.
(191 5) pp. 132 sq., 161 sqq. ; R.
Parkinson, " Totemism in Melanesia,"
2 Totemism and Exogamy, ii. 151
sqq.
cuAP. VI nv/y ORTHO-COUSINS MA Y NOT MARRY 245
and others forbid the marriai^c of cross-cousins, the institu-
tions of totemism and the classificatory or group system of
relationship appear to have been universally prevalent.^
Thus, finding the preference for cross-cousin marriage and Thus the
the prohibition of ortho-cousin marriage almost everywhere foTcross^^
associated either with totemic exogamy, or with the classi- cousin
ficatory system of relationship, or with both of them together, !^^"hf^
we may infer with some probability that the three institutions prohibition
are vitally connected with each other ; and if I am right in cousin
thinkincf that totemic exogamy and the classificatory system mamage
r, • r 1 . . r • ^eem to
of relationship now duectly from the organization of society flow
in two exosjamous classes,^ it will follow that the preference directly
^ ' . from
for cross-cousin marriage and the prohibition of ortho-cousin the dual
marriage are also vitally connected with the dual organiza- °''ga"'^.^-
o ^ o tion, witii
tion. What the exact nature of that connexion was, I have which, or
endeavoured to indicate. If I am right, the preference for of whTch!^^
the marriage of cross-cousins was a direct consequence of they are
that interchange of sisters in marriage which formed the alsoaateT
corner-stone of the dual organization of society in two
exogamous and intermarrying classes ; and the interchange,
first of sisters and afterwards of cross-cousins in marriage,
was prompted by the simplest of economic motives, the need of
bartering one woman for another, since in the general poverty
characteristic of low savagery a man had practically no other
lawful mode of obtaining a wife. Finally, the marriage of
ortho-cousins, who, regarded from the purely economic point
of view, do not differ at all from cross-cousins, was barred by
the dual organization from the very moment of its institution,
because under that organization all such cousins necessarily
fall into the same exogamous class, and are, therefore,
prohibited from marrying each other.
The general cause which I have assumed for the sue- The
cessive changes in marriage customs which we have now passedin
passed under. review is a growing aversion to the marriage review
of persons nearly related to each other by blood. Into the growing^
aversion
1 Totemism and Exogamy, i. 175 tion. In my view, totemism existed to the
sqq. ' before, probably long before, the intro- marriage of
2 I would ask the reader to observe duction of exogamy in the form of the near kin.
that it is only totemic exogamy, and not two-class system. See Totemism and
totemism itself, which I believe to be a Exogamy, i.162 sqq., 251 sg., 2^6 sqq.,
direct consequence of the dual organiza- iv. 8 sq., 74 sq., 127 sqq.
246
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
origin of that aversion I shall not here inquire ; the problem
is one of the darkest and most difficult in the whole history
of society. I shall merely point out that, so far as the
custom of cousin marriage is concerned, this explanation is
confirmed by the theory and practice of some of the peoples
who object to such unions. Thus we have seen that several
Australian tribes forbid the marriage of certain cousins for
the express reason that these relatives are " too near " in
flesh to marry.^ Still more striking is the evidence furnished
by some African tribes which, as we saw, expiate the mar-
riage of certain cousins by severing the entrails of a sacrificial
victim, in the belief that thereby they sever the tie of blood
between the cousins." Such practices prove that these
people conceive the relationship between the cousins in the
most concrete form as a bond of actual flesh and blood,
which must be cut before the two persons may lawfully
cohabit as husband and wife.
In some
places the
custom of
the cross-
cousin
marriage
may have
resulted
from cause;
other than
the
exchange
of sisters
as wives.
S 14. An alternative Explanatio7i of Cross-Cousin Marriage
Thus far we have found what seems to be a simple and
probable explanation of cross-cousin marriage in the custom
of exchanging sisters as wives. But in this as in all in-
quiries into the origin of institutions we must bear in mind
that the simplest and most obvious explanations are by no
means always the truest ; the evolution of custom and belief
has often been extremely complex, and we may fall into
serious error if we seek to unravel the tangled skein by a
single clue. In particular, it is well to remember that
customs which appear or are really alike may have had
very different origins, since dissimilar causes may and often
do produce similar effects. Hence it does not follow that,
because the explanation which I have suggested of cross-
cousin marriage is simple, it is necessarily true, nor even if
it is true for some places, does it follow that it is true for all.
We should be prepared to admit, in fact, that people may
have arrived at the custom of marrying their cross-cousins
by quite other roads than by the exchange of sisters.
One such possible road has been pointed out by Dr.
1 Above, pp. 192 sq. - See above, pp. 162 sq., 165.
CHAP. VI A THEORY OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 247
W. H. R. Rivers for Melanesia, in some parts of which, as A different
we saw, the custom of cross - cousin marriage is much [h^°o^ °^
favoured.^ The authority with which Dr. Rivers writes not of cross-
only on Melanesia but on all questions of primitive marriage nwri^„ein
and relationship entitles his opinion to the most respectful Melanesia
consideration. He was led to his explanation of cross- suggested
cousin marriage in Melanesia by an examination of certain by^'"-
, ^ -.,.,. , . , . . , Rivers on
anomalous terms ot relationship which point, with great the ground
probability, to correspondingly anomalous forms of marriage : of 'certain
• 1- / r 1 1. . 1 , , '^.^' anomalous
Since we have good reason for believing that the classifi- forms of
catory system of relationship, to which the Melanesian '"^I'^^ges
■' •' ^^ which exist
systems conform, reflects accurately a system of marriage, in that
whether present or past. The anomalous forms of marriage o^^are
thus indicated for Melanesia are marriage with a grand- traceable
daughter, marriage with a grandmother, and marriage with o'frehidon-^
the wife of a mother's brother.^ In speaking of marriage ship.
with a grandmother or a granddaughter we must remember
that these terms are here used in the classificatory or group
sense, and therefore do not necessarily denote the blood
relations whom we should designate by them. Hence, the
woman whom a man calls his granddaughter and whom he
marries, need not be his actual granddaughter ; she may be,
for example, his brother's granddaughter, in other words, his
own grandniece. Similarly, the woman whom a man calls
his grandmother and whom he marries, need not be his
actual grandmother ; she may be, for example, another wife
of his grandfather, in other words, his own step-grandmother.
Nor are we left to infer the former prevalence of these Marriage
anomalous marriages in Melanesia merely from the corre- g^and-
sponding terms of relationship ; strange as such unions mother, a
appear to us, they are said to survive to some extent in laughter,
... and a
* Above, pp. 177 sqq. mother. For marriage with either a mother's
2 W. H. R. Rivers, The History of son's daughter or with a mother's mother brother's
Melanesian ^'ipaV^ (Cambridge, 1914), is excluded by the two-class system of wife in
i. 48, 185, 196 sqq., ii. 38, 46 sqq., exogamy with female descent, which Melanesia
104, 326 ; id. " Melanesian Geronto- at present prevails in some parts of
cracy," ^a«, XV. (1915) pp. 145-147. Melanesia, and probably prevailed there
To be exact, the marriage with a grand- universally at the time when these
daughter is the marriage with a marriages were in vogue. Under that
daughter's daughter, not with a son's system a son's daughter and a mother's
daughter ; and the marriage with a mother always belong to a man's own
grandmother is the marriage with a exogamous class, and therefore he is
father's mother, not with a mother's prohibited from marrying them.
248 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
popular custom or at all events tradition. For example,
Dr. Rivers was definitely told that in the island of
Pentecost, one of the New Hebrides, a man may and
sometimes does marry the granddaughter of his brother,
who would be his own granddaughter in the classificatory
sense of the term, though not in ours.^ Again, in
several parts of Melanesia, particularly in the islands of
Ambrym and Malo and at least two places in Espiritu Santo,
Dr. Rivers found that a man marries the widow of his father's
father, whom under the classificatory system of relationship
he calls his grandmother, whether she is his actual grand-
mother or not.^ Finally, the custom of marriage with the
widow of a mother's brother is still observed in various
parts of Melanesia, such as the Banks' Islands, Hiw (Torres
Islands), and several of the New Hebrides, including Pente-
cost, Sandwich Island (Efate), and Espiritu Santo ; indeed,
Dr. Rivers was informed that in more than one of these
places men give their wives to their sisters' sons in their
lifetime, in other words, a man sometimes marries his
mother's brother's wife in the lifetime of his maternal uncle.^
Thus there is good ground for believing that marriages with
a granddaughter, a grandmother, and the wife of a maternal
uncle either are or were formerly customary in some parts
of Melanesia, though we must remember that in saying so
we use the terms of relationship in the wide classificatory or
group sense, which includes many persons not really related
by blood.
Dr.Rivers's To explain these curious forms of marriage Dr. Rivers
expfana- suggcsts the following hypothesis. He supposes that in
tions of Melanesia, as in Australia, old men formerly contrived to
anomalous appropriate the women to a large extent, so that young men
marriages, had often to go without wivcs or to put up with the widows
or cast-off wives of their elders. The case is indeed not
purely hypothetical ; it is said to be a regular feature of
^ W. H. R. Rivers, The History of Rivers on the spot.
Melanesian Society, \.igg,20'^sq. The ^ w^ fj_ p>_ Rivers, " Melanesian
statement was made to Dr. Rivers by Gerontocracy," AJan, xv. (19 15) p.
John Pantutun, a native of the Banks 146.
Islands, who had lived for some time ^ W. H. R. Rivers, The History of
!T Pentecost. But it was not con- Alelanesian Society, i. 48, 185, 206 ;
liimed by the Rev. H. N. Drummond, id. " Melanesian Gerontocracy," A/an,
who inquired into the subject for Dr. xv. (1915) p. 146.
CHAP. VI A THEORY OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 249
society in many parts of the New Hebrides, where all young
women capable of work are bought up by the old men, and
a young man, if he marries at all, must mate with an old
widow.^ In such a state of things, his partiality for female
society, especially for the society of young women, might
often lead an old man to marry his own granddaughter or
his brother's granddaughter, instead of bestowing her hand
on a youthful lover. This would explain the first of the
anomalous forms of Melanesian marriage, namely, the mar-
riage of a man with his granddaughter or with a woman
whom under the classificatory system of relationship he
would call his granddaughter. But sometimes, we may
suppose, an old man so far yielded to the promptings of
nature or to the urgent solicitations of his grandson as to
resign one of his own numerous wives to the young man ; in
fact, he might exchange one of his wives for the young man's
sister. Thus the old man would be provided with a young
wife, and the young man with an old one, as often happens
in savage society. This would explain the second of the
anomalous forms of marriage in Melanesia, namely, the
marriage of a man with his grandmother, or at all events
with an old woman whom he called his grandmother in the
classificatory sense of the word. Lastly, since in primitive
society a man stands in a specially close relationship to his
sister's son, who indeed in some parts of Melanesia enjoys
extraordinary privileges as against his maternal uncle, it
would be natural for the uncle to pass on one of his super-
fluous wives to his nephew, the son of his sister, as indeed is
said to be done in some parts of the New Hebrides to this
day. The custom, still observed in some parts of Melanesia,
of marrying the widow of a mother's brother would thus be
derived from an older custom of marrying a maternal uncle's
wife in the lifetime of the uncle. This would explain the
third of the anomalous forms of marriage in Melanesia,
namely, the marriage of a man with the wife of his mother's
brother.^
It will be noticed that according to this theory, while the
1 W. H. R. Rivers, "Melanesian pp. 68, 81, 216.
Gerontocracy," Alan, xv. (191 5) p.
147, referring to Felix Speiser, Siidsee, '^ W. H. R. Rivers, The History of
Unuald, Kannibalen (Leipsic, 1913), Melanesian Society, ii. 46 sqq.
250
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
WTiy a
Melanesia!!
father may
not transfer
his wives
to his sons
or to his
daughter's
sons.
Dr. Rivers
would
deduce
cross-
cousin
marriage in
Melanesia
from
marriage
with a
mother's
brother's
wife.
obliging old man accommodates his grandson or his sister's son
with one of his cast-off wives, he makes no similar provision
for his own son. A sufficient reason for the omission is that
under the two-class system of exogamy with female descent,
which at one time was probably universal in Melanesia, a
man belongs to the same exogamous class as his mother and
all the other wives of his father ; hence by the fundamental
law of exogamy, which prohibits marriage between members of
the same exogamous class, the father is prohibited from passing
on any of these women to his son to be his wife. On the other
hand, under the same system, a son's son always belongs to
the same class as his paternal grandfather ; hence the two
take their wives from the same class, and, so far as the law of
exogamy is concerned, there is no objection to a grandfather
bestowing one of his wives on his son's son. But he could not
bestow her on his daughter's son, since that young man would
belong to the same exogamous class as his maternal grand-
mother and would therefore be debarred from the privilege
of marrying the old lady or any other wife of his maternal
grandfather. That is why in Melanesia a man might
transfer his wives to his son's sons or to his sister's sons, but
not to his own sons or to his daughter's sons.
It is from the third of these anomalous marriages, namely,
from the marriage with the wife of the mother's brother, that
Dr. Rivers proposes to deduce the custom of cross -cousin
marriage in Melanesia. He supposes that in course of time,
when a man's relationship to his own children was generally
recognized, and he had acquired the right of disposing of his
daughters in marriage, it occurred to him that instead of
passing on one of his own wives to his sister's son he might
give one of his daughters to that young man, the damsel's
cross-cousin. If the same idea occurred to many men and
were commonly acted upon, a custom of cross-cousin marriage
would be the result. Once started, the new custom would prob-
ably soon grow popular, since, compared with the preceding
practice, it offered an attraction both to uncle and nephew ;
the uncle was not obliged to sacrifice any of his wives, and
the nephew secured a young wife instead of an old one.^
1 W. H. R. Rivers, The History of Melanesiaii Society, ii. 57 sqq., Ill sqq.,
i2l sqq., 326 sqq.
CHAP. VI A THEORY OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 251
It cannot be denied that, given the conditions of society Objections
as they are or may be inferred to have formerly been in !P ^'^'^
, , , , ^ theory as
Melanesia, this ingenious hypothesis accounts for the origin a general
of cousin marriage in a plausible manner ; the facts and the t^n^^o/^"
inferences dovetail neatly into each other, and their corre- cross-
spondence so far lends a degree of probability to the theory, marriage.
The evolution of cousin marriage may have followed this
course in Melanesia, and Dr. Rivers is careful to point out
that his speculations only apply to the institutions of
Oceania, which includes Melanesia and Polynesia ; he leaves
entirely open the question of the origin of cross - cousin
marriage elsewhere, adding that in other parts of the world
the custom may have originated in some simpler fashion
than that which is suggested by his theory.^ Regarded as
a general explanation of cross-cousin marriage the theory
would be open to the objections, first, that it assumes as its
basis an anomalous form of marriage (the marriage with the
mother's brother's wife) which appears to have been rare and
exceptional in other parts of the world,^ and which is there-
fore unlikely to have been the source of a custom so common
^ W. H. R. Rivers, The History of 51). Thus the two cases are not
Melanesian Society, ii. 123. really parallel, since in the Australian
2 As to n-jarriage with the mothers case there is np question of a man
brother's widow among the Garos, see voluntarily resigning his wife to his
below, pp. 2^2 sqq. Among the tribes sister's son. There are traces of mar-
of the Northern Territory of Australia riage with the mother's brother's wife
" there is one method of allotment of among the Baronga and Baganda ol
wives which is, so far as I am aware, Africa, and among the Pawnees, Minne-
peculiar to this nation of tribes. I tarees, and Choctaws of North America,
have not met with it in any of the Among the Baronga a man seems still
Central tribes, nor does it seem to to possess marital rights over his
have been noted elsewhere in Aus- mother's brother's wife ; in the other
tralia. This method consists in the tribes the traces of such rights survive
allotment to a man of a woman who only in the terms of the classificatory
belongs to the generation immediately system. See Totemism and Exogamy,
senior to himself, and who stands to ii. 387, 510 sg., iii. 149, 175 sq. ; and
him in the relationship of Koiyu, that as to the American evidence, W. H. R.
is, father's wife, or Ngaila, mother's Rivers, Kinship and Social Organiza-
brothers wife. The Koiyu women, of tion (London, 1914), pp. 52 sq. In
course, include his own actual mother, Totemism and Exogamy (ii. 511) I
but that particular woman may not lie remarked that the terms for cousins in
allotted to him " (Sir Baldwin Spencer, the Mota form of the classificatory
Native Tribes of the Northern IWritory system suggest the exercise of marital
of Australia, London, 19 14, p. 47). rights by a man over his mother's
However, this allotment is not made, brother's wife, and that the suggestion
as in the case supposed by Dr. Rivers, is confirmed by the extraordinary privi-
by the woman's husband, but always leges which in Fiji a man enjoys as
by her mother's brothers {op. cit. p. against his mother's brother.
252
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Marriage
with the
mother's
brother's
wife regu-
larly occurs
among the
Garos, but
there it
appears
to be the
effect rather
than the
cause of
cross-
cousin
marriage.
and widespread as the marriage of cross -cousins ; second,
that it impHes a combination of conditions which we can
hardly suppose to have been independently repeated in
many distant lands ; and, third, that it assumes the marriage
of cross-cousins to have originated at a comparatively late
time when the power of a father to dispose of his daughters
had been fully established, whereas there is a good deal to
suggest, as I have attempted to show, that the marriage of
cross-cousins is exceedingly old, dating perhaps from a time
even before the establishment of the dual organization or
system of two exogamous and intermarrying classes.
Be that as it may, there appears to be some ground for
thinking that elsewhere than in Melanesia marriage with the
mother's brother's wife, which Dr. Rivers regards as the source
of the cross-cousin marriage, has been rather the consequence
than the cause of that institution. We have seen that the
cross-cousin marriage is in vogue among the Garos of Assam,
a man being regularly expected to marry the daughter of
•his mother's brother.^ If he does so, he takes up his abode
with his parents-in-law, and on the death of his father-in-law
he is obliged to marry his widowed mother-in-law, his mother's
brother's wife, who should also be his paternal aunt ; since
among the Garos it is not only allowed but expected that
men should exchange their sisters in marriage, and a neces-
sary effect of this exchange is, as we saw,^ that a man's
paternal aunt is at the same time the wife of his mother's
brother. Hence in this tribe a man is often the husband
simultaneously of his mother's brother's wife and of her
daughter, his cross-cousin ; but he marries his cross-cousin
first and her mother afterwards as a consequence of his
previous marriage with her daughter. In this case, there-
fore, marriage with the mother's brother's wife is not the
cause but the effect of marriage with the cross-cousin. And
the motive for marrying the mother's brother's wife, who is
at the same time the mother-in-law, is extremely simple.
It appears to be neither more nor less than a wish to enjoy
the old lady's property, which can only be got by marrj^ing
her: Among the Garos mother-kin prevails in one of its
most typical forms, and under it no man can legally inherit
* See above, pp. 132 sq. 2 Above, p. 208.
CUM. VI A THEORY OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 253
property under any circumstances whatever. All property
passes by inheritance from women to women ; but by a
merciful dispensation of Providence, which tempers the
wind to the shorn ram, a husband is permitted to enjoy,
though he cannot own, the family estate which, in the
eye of the law, belongs to his wife alone. Accordingly,
when the husband dies, the enjoyment, though not the legal
ownership, of the estate, passes to the man who is so fortunate
as to marry the widow, and under Garo law the lucky man
is her son-in-law, who is at the same time the son of her late
husband's sister and succeeds to her hand and to the enjoy-
ment of her property in virtue of his capacity of sister's son
to the deceased ; since under the system of mother-kin a
man's successor is not his own son but the son of his sister.
Only it is to be observed that in this system of mother-kin
pure and simple the sister's son is not, properly speaking, the
heir of his maternal uncle, because the uncle, as a mere man.
had nothing to leave, and the nephew, as a mere man, had
therefore nothing to inherit. That is why under Garo law
a man is regularly reduced to the painful necessity either of
marrying his mother-in-law or of forfeiting the enjoyment of
the estate. Most men apparently submit to their fate and
marry their mothers-in-law ; hence it is common enough to
see a young Garo introducing as his wife a woman who is
old enough to be his mother, and is in fact his mother-in-
law and his aunt, both in one. Occasionally, however, a
young man seems to think that the game is not worth the
candle and positively refuses to unite with his mother-in-law
in holy matrimony. In that case there is no help for it but
he must lose the estate. We read, for example, of a case in
which a recalcitrant son-in-law flatly declined to lead his aged
mother-in-law to the altar, whereupon the old lady in a huff
bestowed not only her own hand but that of her daughter to
boot on another man, thus depriving her ungallant son-in-law
of an estate and two wives at one fell swoop. In vain the un-
fortunate man appealed to the law to award him the goods,
if not the ladies ; the verdict ran that, having failed to do his
duty by his mother-in-law; he must abide by the consequences.^
^ E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Etkno- Hunter, Statistical Account of Assam
logy of Bengal, p. 63; (Sir) W. W. (London, 1879), ii. 154; Census of
254
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The simple
economic
motive at
the base
of the
cross-
cousin
marriage
conies
out very
clearly in
Garo
customary
law.
Distinction
between
marrying
the
mother's
brother's
wife before
and after
the death
of the
maternal
uncle.
Thus among the Garos marriage with a mother's brother's
widow appears to be a simple consequence of previous mar-
riage with her daughter ; in other words, it is the effect, not
the cause of the cross-cousin marriage, and is determined by
the purely economic, not to say mercenary, motive of obtain-
ing those material advantages which are inseparably attached
to the hand of the widow. Hence a study of Garo customary
law seems peculiarly well fitted to explain the origin and
meaning of cross-cousin marriage ; for it enjoins, first, the
exchange of sisters in marriage, second, the marriage of a
man with his cross -cousin, the daughter of his mother's
brother, and, third, marriage with the widow of the mother's
brother. If I am right, these three customs are related to
each other in a chain of cause and effect. The exchange of
sisters in marriage produced as its natural consequence the
marriage of cross-cousins ; and the marriage of cross-cousins
in its turn produced by a natural consequence the marriage
with the mother's brother's widow. All three customs arose
simply and naturally through economic motives. Men ex-
changed their sisters in marriage because that was the
cheapest way of getting a wife ; men married their cross-
cousins for a similar reason ; and men married their widowed
mothers-in-law because that was the only way of enjoying
the old ladies' property.
However, while this theory suggests an adequate reason
for a man's marriage with the widow of his mother's brother,
it does not account for a practice of marrying her in the
uncle's lifetime. Accordingly, if that practice has really
been widespread, a different explanation of it must be
looked for, and the one proposed by Dr. Rivers may possibly
be correct. Still I would remark, first, that the evidence
for the actual observance of such a custom is both scanty
and uncertain, amounting indeed to hardly more than
hearsay; and, second, that the inference to be drawn from
certain classificatory terms for cousins,^ which do unques-
India, iSgr, Assam, by (Sir) E. A.
Gait, vol. i. Report (Shillong, 1892),
p. 229 ; Major A. Playfair, The Garos
(London, 1909), pp. 68, 72 j-§'. Accord-
ing to Sir E. A. Gait, it is the husband
of the youngest daughter who is bound
to marry his widowed mother-in-law,
and this is natural enough, since it is
the youngest daughter who is her
mother's heir among the Garos. See
vol. i. pp. 464 sq.
^ See above, p. 251 note 2.
CHAP. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE AMONG THE ARABS 255
tionably point to marriage, or at all events to sexual rela-
tions, of a man with his mother's brother's wife, might perhaps
be equally valid if that marriage or those relations did not
take place till after the death of the mother's brother.
815. Cousin Marriage among the Arabs
Thus far we have found that many peoples in many Among
parts of the world draw a sharp distinction between the two ^^^pj^
classes of cousins which we have called cross-cousins and there is a
ortho-cousins respectively, and that among the peoples who p^^ '-'''^"'^'^
thus differentiate between cousins an immense majority allows marriage
or even enjoins marriage between cross-cousins, the children ^^^y^^.
of a brother ancl of a sister respectively, but forbids marriage cousin, the
• 11 r 1 1 r daughter of
between ortho-cousms, the children of two brothers or ot two ,^ fathers
sisters. But in the course of our inquiry a few exceptions to brother,
this general rule have been met with. We have seen that
among the Mohammedans of India marriage between the
children of two brothers or of two sisters, as well as between
the children of a brother and of a sister, respectively, is con-
sidered very suitable ; ^ that in some Bantu tribes of South
Africa marriage between the children of two brothers, in
other words, the marriage of a man with the daughter of his
father's brother, is not only allowed but preferred ; "" that
in other Bantu tribes the marriage with such a cousin is
permitted on condition that husband and wife have different
totems ; ^ and that in Madagascar marriage between cousins,
the children of brothers, is exceedingly common and is
looked upon as the most proper form of connubial union.*
Among the Arabs a similar preference for marriage with Preference
the daughter of the father's brother seems to be strong, general, ||^!jj.^i^„g
and ancient. It is said to be one of the most widespread with art
rules of Arabian law that a man has the first claim to the "^Jj"^"; ^^^
hand of his father's brother's daughter. In modern Arabian daughter of
custom a father cannot give his daughter to another if his bro^jher^
brother's son asks for her, and her cousin, the son of her among the
father's brother, can have her cheaper than any other wife.^
1 Above, p. 131. Marriage in Early Arabta,'iie'w'Ed\i\on
2 Above, p. 151. (London, 1903), p. 163. Compare
3 Above, p. 152. J. Wellhausen, " Die Ehe bei den Ara-
* Above, p. 158. bern," Nachrichten von dcr Kdnigl.
6 W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften undder
256 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part 11
" A cousin (the daughter of a paternal uncle) is often chosen
as a wife, on account of the tie of blood, which is likely to
attach her more strongly to her husband ; or on account of
an affection conceived in early years ; " ^ and " an Arab who
is married to his cousin, generally calls her by this appella-
tion rather than that of wife, as the tie of blood is, to him,
in every respect, stronger than that of matrimony." ^ Indeed,
so general is the custom of marriage with the daughter of
the father's brother among the Arabs that a man will apply
the name of " father's brother " (^anim) to his father-in-law,
even when his father-in-law is no kinsman of his, and he
will apply the term " father's brother's daughter " {bint- amnt)
to his beloved, even when she is not his cousin at all.^ Speak-
ing of the Bedouins of El-Hejaz, the region of western Arabia
which includes the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Burton
observes that " liere no evil results are anticipated from the
union of first cousins, and the experience of ages and of a
nation may be trusted. Every Bedouin has a right to marry
his father's brother's daughter before she is given to a
stranger ; hence 'cousin {bint AniDi) in polite phrase signifies
a wife.' " ^ " All Arabian Bedouins," says Burckhardt,
" acknowledge the first cousin's prior right to a girl ; whose
father cannot refuse to bestow her on him in marriage,
should he pay a reasonable price ; and that price is always
something less than would be demanded from a stranger.
The Arabs of Sinai, however, sometimes marry their daughters
to strangers in the absence of the cousins. This happened
to a guide whom I had taken from Suez. . . . To prevent
similar occurrences, a cousin, if he be determined to marry
Georg- Augusts- Uiiiversitcit zii Gottin- Nights Entertainment {London, 1839),
gen, aus dem Jahre i8gj (Gottingen, i. 62 note ", compare id., p. 320.
1893), pp. 436 sq.; Stanley A. Cook, 2 e. W. Lane, op. cit. i. 65 note ".
The Laws of Moses and the Code of
Ham„iHrabi(London, 1903), p. 99- By ^ G. A. Wilken, " Het matnarchaat
" cousin on the father's side » Mr. Cook ^^J ^e oude Arab.eren, ' De versfreide
no doubt means "daughter of the ^^^^-/«v>« (The Hague, 1912), n. 45.
father's brother " ; but, as I have I" Arabic the father's brother {amni)
already pointed out, the ambiguous ^^ distniguisiied from the mother's
expression "cousin on the father's brother (^//r?/). See G. A. Wilken,
side " would include the cross-cousin, °P- "^- "• 35-
the daughter of the father's sister, as * (Sir) Richard F. Burton, Personal
well as the ortho-cousin, the daughter Narrative of a Pilgrimage to F.l-
of the father's brother. Medinah atid Meeeah (hondon, 1S55-
1 EdwvLidWiWiam'Lane, The Jraiian 1856), iii. 40 sg.
CHAP. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE AMONG THE ARABS 257
his relation, pays down the price of her as a deposit into the
hands of some respectable member of the encampment, and
places the girl under the protection of four men belonging to
his own tribe. In this case she cannot marry another with-
out his permission, whether he be absent or present ; and he
may then marry her at his leisure, whenever he pleases. If,
however, he himself break off the match, the money that had
been deposited is paid into the hands of the girl's master.
This kind of betrothing takes place sometimes long before
the girl has attained the age of puberty." ^
It will be observed that in this passage Burckhardt Right to
indicates no preference for the father's brother's daughter as ^fj^g^j^e
a bride over any other first cousin. In regard to the Arabs father's
of Moab we are told that " every man can and ought to dluginer
claim for himself the hand of his paternal or maternal uncle's or the
daughter, to the exclusion of every other suitor. Seldom b!-other's
does he renounce the right voluntarily, and it is almost im- daughter
., , 1 11 1 • 1 o • -1 1 1 among the
possible to balk his hopes. Sometimes it happens that the Arabs of
father and daughter will not consent to this marriage, agree- Moab.
able though it is to custom. But her cousin will not give
up his right, and to enforce it he has recourse to the follow-
ing stratagem. He takes five camels and brings them before
the tent of the sheikh, who naturally has intervened in the
discussions. Then, in presence of some witnesses, he says,
' Behold the camels for my cousin ; I claim her.' The girl's
father says to him, 'Take back your property. We do not want
it.' The suitor goes home. Five days afterwards he returns,
but with four camels only, and says, ' Behold my four camels
for the'girl ; I want her.' ' Take back your camels,' says the
father to him, ' we do not want them.' Five days afterwards,
the suitor reappears before the sheikh's tent or before the
tent of the girl's father, but with three camels only ; he
makes the same demand and receives the same answer.
He makes two more attempts under similar conditions
without obtaining the least success. Lastly, he presents
himself either before the tent of the sheikh or before
the tent of the girl's father, and sacrifices a sheep or
a kid, saying, ' This is the sacrifice for (or of) the girl.'
^ John Lewis Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins mid IVahdbys (London,
1830), i. 272 sq.
VOL. II
258 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
Henceforth he has a right to his cousin, and in fact
carries her ofif to his home." This right to the hand of a
cousin in marriage is recognized even among the Cathoh'c
Bedouins, and dispensations for such marriages are granted
by the Church.-^
Marriage Thus we learn that among the Arabs of Moab a man
with the J ^^ right to marrv either his father's brother's daughter
lather s o ^ ja
brother's or his mother's brother's daughter. Similarly we read that
or'the'^'^ " marriages with the daughter of a father's brother or of a
mother's mother's brother are especially orthodox and popular in
brother's t- ^ » 2 u t^ • u t u ^t.
daucrhterin Egypt- it IS Very common, says Lane, among the
Egypt. Arabs of Egypt and of other countries, but less so in Cairo
than in other parts of Egypt, for a man to marry his first
cousin. In this case the husband and wife continue to call
each other ' cousin,' because the tie of blood is indissoluble,
but that of matrimony very precarious." ^ Though Lane
does not here specify any particular kind of cousin, we may
suppose that he had particularly in mind the marriage with
a father's brother's daughter, since elsewhere, as we have
seen,* he mentions the paternal uncle's daughter as the cousin
who is often chosen as a wife. The supposition is confirmed
by the usage of the Bisharin in the neighbourhood of Aswan,
for among them " marriage with the daughter of the father's
^ brother {bint 'ainni) is the best, and a man would consider
that he had prior right to the hand of his bint 'amm." ^ In
Upper Egypt " the search for a bride is generally quite un-
necessary, as in two-thirds of the cases it has been previously
settled that the young fellow is to marry his female cousin,
and if he has none, more distant relations are applied to,
and lastly strangers. If these marriages of cousins had really
such a prejudicial effect upon a race as they are usually
represented to have, it must have been long ago noticed in
Egypt ; its inhabitants, however, show no inferiority either
from a physical or an intellectual point of view." ^
1 Le P. Antonin Jaussen, Cotitumes Modo-n Egyptians (PaAsXeyzndljOTidLon,
des Arabes au pays de Moab (Paris, 1895), pp. 170 sg.
1908), pp. 45-47- * Above, p. 256.
^ W. H. R. Rivers, Kinship and . ^ „ „ ,. .- „.
Social Organization (London, 1914), ^ = C G. Seligmann, " Note on Bis-
harin," Man, XV. (19 1 5) p. 81
6 C. B. Klunzinger, M.D.
of the Manttei-s and Customs of the Egypt (London, 1S7S), p. 196
P- 79-
3 Edward William Lane, y^«^cc«<«/ ^ C. B. Klunzinger, M.D., Upper
CHAi'. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE AMONG THE ARABS 259
It seems that Arab influence is spreading this preference Marriage
for marriage with a first cousin, especially with a daughter J^t'her's*^
of the father's brother, throughout those African peoples brothers
who have been converted to Mohammedanism. " In Morocco.'"
Morocco marriages between cousins on the father's side
are common both among Arabs and Berbers. A man is
even held to have a certain right to his cousin's hand. In
Andjra I was told that he ought to be asked if he wants to
marry her, before she is given away to anybody else, and
that, if this is not done, he is entitled to prevent her
marriage even on the day of the wedding, by forcibly re-
moving her from the bridal box ; and among the Ulad Bu
'Aziz a man who has contracted marriage with another
man's paternal cousin can be compelled by the latter to
give her up if he is compensated for his expenses, but only
on condition that she has not yet settled down with him.
In the Rif instances are known in which an uncle who has
married his daughter to another man has been killed by
his nephew. The sdaq paid for a paternal cousin is often
smaller than usual, although it also happens that a man
tries to prevent his nephew from marrying his daughter by
making his claims excessive. Marriages between paternal
cousins are popular because they keep the property in the
family, and, especially in shereefian families, because they
preserve the blood pure. They are also said to be con-
ducive to domestic happiness. Li had bent 'dmmu 'dyyid
men gelinu, ' He who marries the daughter of his father's
brother celebrates his feast with a sheep from his own
flock ' — he knows the sheep he slaughters. ... It confers
religious merit on a man to marry his cousin — by doing so
he will not be punished on the day of the Resurrection ; and
at the same time it is a kind of duty." ^ The exact phrase
here translated from the Arabic seems to show that through-
out this passage the female cousin whom Dr. Westcrmarck
has in mind is the daughter of the father's brother, though the
ambiguous phrases which he uses (" cousins on the father's
side," " paternal cousins ") include the daughter of the father's
sister as well as the daughter of the father's brother.
' Edward Westermarck, Marriage Ceremotiies in Morocco (London, 1914),
pp. 53 sq.
26o
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Marriage
with the
father's
brother's
daughter
among the
Moham-
medan
Hausas.
Preference
for
marriage
with the
father's
brother's
daughter
among the
Arabs and
among the
people who
have
derived
their law
from them.
The '
preference
cannot be
derived
from
the dual
organiza-
tion, which
bars such
marriages.
Again, we are told that " a Mohammedan Hausa has
the right to marry the daughter of his father's brother, and
he will pay less for her, but not the daughter of his mother's
brother, of his father's sister, nor of his mother's sister,
though he may marry even the last of these if both parties
agree, at any rate in North Africa." ^ The statement is
not perfectly clear, but the writer seems to mean, that,
while a Mohammedan Hausa is free to marry any of his
first cousins, even the daughter of his mother's sister, the
only one of them whom he has the right to marry, and
whom he can buy cheaper than any other woman, is the
daughter of his father's brother.
Taken together, the foregoing testimonies appear to
evince among the Arabs and peoples who have derived
their law from them a decided preference for the marriage
of a man with his ortho-cousin, the daughter of his father's
brother ; the general rule seems to be that a man has a
prior right to the hand of his father's brother's daughter
and can obtain her in marriage for a smaller sum than he
would pay for any other wife. The question arises, what
is the origin of this preference for marriage with the father's
brother's daughter ? Why can she be had cheaper than any
other wife ?
One thing at least is plain : the preference cannot, like
the preference for marriage with a cross-cousin, be traced
directly to the dual organization of society, that is, to the
division of a community into two exogamous and inter-
marrying classes, since under such a system the children
of two brothers would always belong to the same exo-
gamous class, whether descent were traced in the paternal
or in the maternal line, and therefore they would not be
marriageable with each other. Hence if, as I have
endeavoured to show, the whole custom of exogamy sprang
from the dual organization, it seems to follow that the
preference for marriage with the father's brother's daughter,
which was barred by that primitive system, must have
originated later than the marriage with a cross-cousin, the
daughter either of a mother's brother or of a father's sister,
1 Major A. J. N. Tremearne, The Ban of the Bori (London, N.D., preface
dated 1914), p. 121.
CHAP. VI COUSIN MARRIAGE AMONG THE ARABS 261
since marriage with a cross-cousin, far from being barred,
was directly favoured by the dual organization. With
this inference it tallies that while the preference for
marriage with a cross-cousin is very general, the preference
for marriage with an ortho-cousin, the daughter of a father's
brother, is comparatively rare and exceptional.
What, then, is the ground of the preference for marriage Wiiken s
with the daughter of a father's brother ? How did it come ^'^°^\
° that the
about that some people should prefer a marriage which flatly preference
contradicted the fundamental principle of exogamy? It is n^ardT-r
not enough to say that the motive was an economic one, originated
the daughter of the father's brother costing less than any a"icf"oT
other wife ; for we have still to ask, why should she cost paternity,
less than any other wife ? and in particular why should she
cost less than a cross-cousin, the daughter of a mother's
brother or of a father's sister, marriage with whom, instead
of being forbidden, was directly encouraged by the funda-
mental principle of exogamy as embodied in the dual
organization ? I cannot see that any clear and satisfactory
answer to these questions has been given. The Dutch
ethnologist, G. A, Wiiken, thought that the preference for .
marriage with the father's brother's daughter dates from a
time when paternity, as a physical relation, was as yet un-
known, and when consequently the children of two brothers
were not recognized as blood relations to each other.^ The
explanation seems inadequate. It would explain why such
marriages were allowed, it does not explain why they were
preferred to any other. Indeed, closely regarded, the theory
is self-contradictory ; for if no relationship were recognized
between the children of two brothers, how could a preference
for the union of these children possibly have occurred to
anybody ? Surely, the mere fact of the preference is a
proof that a relation of some sort was known or believed
to exist between the persons whose marriage was deemed
desirable.
A different explanation of the preference for marriage Robertson
with the daughter of a father's brother was put forward by ^^^
W. Robertson Smith. He supposed that the preference that such
marriages
^ G. A. Wiiken, " Het Matriarchaat bij de oude Arabieren," De verspreide originated
Geschriften (The Hague, 1912), ii. 45 sq. '" fraternal
polyandry.
262
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Marriage
with the
father's
brother's
daughter is
apparently
much later
in origin
than
marriage
with a
cross-
cousin : it
probably
implies a
system of
father-kin,
and is
based on
a wish
to allow
daughters
to share
the family
inheritance.
originated in a system of fraternal polyandry, under which
several brothers are married to one wife, and the children
accordingly, unable to distinguish their individual fathers,
regard all the brothers indifferently as their common
fathers.^ But this answer also fails to meet the difficulty ;
for under such a system the children of the various brothers
naturally regard each other as brothers and sisters, as indeed
they all are on the mother's side and as some of them, may
be on the father's side also ; hence, as brothers and sisters,
they would not be marriageable with each other. And even
when the polyandrous family split up into several families,
each brother with a wife and children of his own, the old
view of the relation between the children of the several
brothers as themselves brothers and sisters would be likely
to persist and to form a bar to marriage between them. It
seems, therefore, difficult to understand how a preference for
marriage with the daughter of a father's brother could
originate in a system of fraternal polyandry.
On the whole it appears to be probable that, contrary
to the opinion both of Wilken and of Robertson Smith, the
preference for marriage with a father's brother's daughter
originated, not in the uncertainty, but in the certainty of
fatherhood, and therefore that, as I have already argued on
other grounds, it is of much later origin than the preference
for marriage with a cross-cousin, which, if I am right,
probably dates from a time when physical paternity was
as yet unknown. Further, the preference for marriage with
the father's brother's daughter probably everywhere, as with
the Arabs, coexists with and implies a system of father-
kin, that is, a system of relationship which traces descent
from the father instead of from the mother ; and that co-
existence and implication in turn furnish a fresh reason for
regarding the preference in question as a comparatively late
development, since as a general rule the system of father-
kin is later than the system of mother-kin, which it every-
where tends to replace.^ On the whole, these considerations
^ W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and
Marriage ift Early A^-abia, New Edi-
tion (London, 1903), pp. 163 sq.
^ On this subject see E. Sidney
Hartland. " Matrilineal Kinship, and
the Question of its Priority,'' Memoirs of
the American Anthropological Associa-
tion, vol. iv. No. I (Jan. -March,
1917).
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEV [RATE 263
point to the conclusion that the preference for marriage with
the father's brother's daughter arose at a time when the
relation of children to their father was not only re-
cognized but regarded as more important than the relation
to their mother, and when consequently, property descend-
ing in the male line, men had an economic motive for
marrying their daughters to their brothers' sons in order
to allow them to share the family inheritance. Under
such circumstances it would be natural that a father should
ask less for the hand of his daughter from his brother's son
than from a stranger or even from his sister's son, who,
under the system of father-kin, would inherit none of his
mother's brother's property and would not therefore have
any advantage to offer as a match to his mother's brother's
daughter. Thus we can perhaps understand how the sub-
stitution of father-kin for mother-kin should lead in time
to a corresponding substitution of marriage with an ortho-
cousin, the father's brother's daughter, for the old marriage
wuth a cross-cousin, the daughter either of a mother's brother
or of a father's sister. Among the Arabs, with whom the
system of father-kin has long been established, the preference
for marriage with the ortho-cousin, the father's brother's
daughter, is decided and is perhaps gaining ground ; but the
evidence I have adduced suffices to prove that even among
them this comparatively new form of marriage has not yet
entirely ousted that old marriage with a cross-cousin, the
daughter of a mother's brother, of which the classical in-
stance is Jacob's marriage with Leah and Rachel.
816. The Sororate and Levirate
We set out to explain why Jacob married his cousins, the Jacob's
, , , i- , marriage
daughters of his mothers brother, and we have found an ex- with his
planation which fits very well with his thrifty and frugal, not cousins,
to say grasping and avaricious, nature ; for it appears that
similar marriages with the daughter either of a mother's
brother or of a father's sister have been widely popular
throughout the world, and that they owe their popularity in
large measure to their cheapness, a man having a claim on
the hands of such cousins and getting them to wife, either
264
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Jacob's
marriage
with two
sisters in
their
lifetime.
Wide-
spread
custom of
marrying
several
sisters, one
after the
other, in
order of
seniority.
The
sororate
and the
levirate.
for nothing, or at a lower rate than he would have had to
pay for wives who were not so related to him.
But we have still to consider a remarkable feature in
Jacob's marriage. He married two sisters in their lifetime,
one after the other ; for having fallen in love with the
younger sister, he was told that he might not wed her unless
he first wedded her elder sister, since it was contrary to the
custom of the country for a younger sister to marry before
an elder. Accordingly, Jacob complied with the custom ;
he married the elder sister Leah first, and a week later he
married her younger sister Rachel also.'^
In these respects the marriage of Jacob corresponded
with customs which have been observed in many parts of
the world ; for many races have allowed a man to marry all
his wife's sisters and have even given him a prior claim to
their hands, provided that he marries them one after the
other in order of seniority, beginning with the eldest and
working his way down to the youngest. Accordingly we
may surmise that, in acting as he did, Jacob merely followed
an old well-established usage of his people, though in later
time Jewish law forbade a man to marry two sisters in their
lifetime.^ The prohibition implies that it was still lawful to
marry a deceased wife's sister, and it points to an earlier
practice of marrying two or more sisters in their lifetime
after the example of Jacob, whose conduct in this respect
was apparently deemed blameless by the sacred historian.
The surmise that marriage with two sisters in their lifetime
was an ancient Semitic custom is confirmed by Babylonian
practice, which is known to have sanctioned such unions.^
While many peoples allow or even encourage a man to
marry several sisters in their lifetime, others only permit him
to marry them successively, each after the death of her pre-
decessor ; but we may assume that this restriction is a later
modification of the older rule which sanctioned marriage with
several sisters simultaneously. In this later form the custom
is parallel to the common usage which allows or enjoins a
man to marrv the widow of his deceased brother. The
^ Genesis xxix. 15-30.
2 Leviticus xviii. 18.
^ C. H. W. Johns, Babylonian and
Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters
(Edinburgh, 1904), pp. 138 sqq. ; A.
Jeremias, Das Alte Testament i?n Lichie
des Alien Orients^ (Leipsic, 1 906), p.
358.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 265
practice of marriage with a deceased wife's sister is in a
sense the counterpart of the practice of marriage with a
deceased brother's wife ; the two are often observed by the
same people, and it is reasonable to suppose that they are
vitally connected and admit of a similar explanation. The
custom of marriage with a deceased brother's wife is commonly
called the levirate ; it is best known from the Hebrew usage,
which required that when a m.an died without sons, his brother
should marry the widow and beget a son, who was to be
counted the son of the dead man and not of his real father.^
The corresponding custom of marriage with a deceased wife's
sister has no generally recognized name ; hence for the sake
of convenience I have adopted the term sororate, from the
Latin soj-or, to designate all marriages with a wife's sister,
whether in the lifetime of the first wife or after her death.^
Thus the term sororate answers to the term levirate from the
Latin levir, " a husband's brother."
While the custom of marrying a deceased wife's sister Distinction
answers on the whole to the custom of marrying a deceased gororate*'^^
brother's wife, a remarkable distinction is nevertheless com- and the
monly made between them. For whereas a man is usually r^g^rrfio
allowed to marry only his deceased wife's younger sister, he seniority.
is generally permitted to marry only the widow of his de-
ceased elder brother. The reason for this distinction does
not lie on the surface ; perhaps it may emerge in the course
of our inquiry.
Of the two customs, the levirate has attracted much The
attention and been discussed at length by eminent writers,^ and"thl^
but the corresponding custom of the sororate has been almost levirate are
wholly overlooked and consequently has remained nameless, memary
Yet if the two customs are really complementary, it must customs.
obviously be futile to seek an explanation of the one without
taking account of the other. Accordingly, in what follows
I shall treat of the two together, dwelling, however, more
especially on the sororate, because it is less familiar and has
1 Genesis xxxviii. 8 sq. ; Deiiter- lion (London, 1886), pp. 108 sqq. ;
onomy xxv. 5-10. id.. The Patriarchal Theory (London,
, ^ . , -r, • 1885), pp. 156 j^fy. ; A. H. Post, 4)^r/:-
2 Totemism and Exogamy, iv. I ^9 , ■ 1 r • j. j irwA u j
* -" •'^ kainsche Jurtsprudetiz (Oldenburg and
^'H^- Leipsic, 1887), i. 419 sqq. ; E. Wester-
3 See, for example, J. F. McLennan, marck, The History of Hui»a7i Mar-
Studies in Ancient History, New Edi- riage (London, 1891), pp. 510 sqq.
266
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
sororate
and the
levirate
common
among the
Indian
tribes of
North
America.
The
sororate
among the
Osages.
The
sororate
and levirate
among the
Kansas.
been far less copiously illustrated than the twin custom of
the levirate.^
The custom of the sororate was widely prevalent among
the Indian tribes of North America, both in its original form
of marriage with several sisters in their lifetime and in its
later form of marriage with a deceased wife's sister ; and
the custom of the levirate was also common among the
Redskins. The great American ethnologist, Lewis H.
Morgan, who spent years of research among the Indians of
North America, informs us that the sororate in its full
original form was recognized in at least forty of their tribes.
" Where a man married the eldest daughter of a family he
became entitled by custom to all her sisters as wives when
they attained the marriageable age. It was a right seldom
enforced, from the difficulty on the part of the individual
of maintaining several families, although polygamy was re-
cognized universally as a privilege of the males." ^ Simi-
larly, another good authority writes that " with the plains
tribes, and perhaps with others, the man who marries the
eldest of several daughters has prior claim upon her un-
married sisters." ^ For example, among the Osages " poly-
gamy is usual ; for it is a custom that, when a savage asks
a girl in marriage and gets her to wife, not only she but all
her sisters belong to him and are regarded as his wives. It
is a great glory among them to have several." * Among
the Kansas, a tribe closely allied to the Osages in blood
and language, " when the eldest daughter marries, she com-
mands the lodge, the mother, and all the sisters ; the latter
are to be also the wives of the. same individual. . . . They
have:, in some instances, four or five wives ; but these are
1 The two customs have already
been discussed and explained by me
in Totemisin and Exogamy, iv. 139
sqq. As that work is probably in the
hands of few of my readers, I here re-
produce much of the evidence, adding
some fresh examples.
2 Lewis H. Morgan, Ancient Society
(London, 1877), p. 432% Compare id..
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity
of the Human Family (Washington
City, 187 1), pp. 477 sq., "When a
man marries the eldest daughter he
becomes by that act entitled to each
and all of her sisters as wives when
they severally attain the marriageable
age. The option rests with him, and
he may enforce the claim, or yield it
to another."
3 J. Mooney, ' ' Myths of the Chero-
kee," Nineteenth Annual Report of the
Bureau of American Ethnology, Part
i. (Washington, 1900) p. 491.
* Annalcs de P Association de ia
Pi'opagation de la Foi, No. v. (Mars,
1825) (Second Edition, Lyons and
Paris, 1829) p. 56.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEMRATE 267
mostly sisters ; if they many into two families the wives do
not harmonize well together, and give the husband much in-
quietude." Further, among the Kansas, " after the death of
the husband the widow scarifies herself, rubs her person
with clay, and becomes negligent of her dress, until the
expiration of a year, when the eldest brother of the deceased
takes her to wife without any ceremony, considers her
children as his own, and takes her and them to his house ;
if the deceased left no brother, she marries whom she
pleases." ^ Thus the Kansas observe the customs both of
the sororate and of the levirate. So, too, among the Omahas, The
a kindred tribe of the Missouri valley, "polygamy is extremely sororate
common, the individual who weds the eldest daughter, among the
espouses all the sisters successively, and receives them into O""^^^^.
his house when they arrive at a proper age." ^ And in this
tribe, upon the death of the husband, " if the deceased has
left a brother, he takes the widow to his lodge after a proper
interval, and considers her as his wife, without any prepara-
tory formality." ^ Thus the Omahas practise, or rather used
to practise, both the sororate and the levirate. Similarly
among the Hidatsas or Minnetarees, a tribe of the Upper The
Missouri valley, " polygamy is practised, but usually with ^^^^"[Jjfrate
certain restrictions. A man who marries the eldest of among the
several sisters has a claim to the others as they grow up ; Minne-^^'^'
and in most cases marries them, unless they, in the mean- tarees.
1 Edwin James, Account of an Ex- C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche,
pedition from Pittsburgh to the Kochy " The Omaha Tribe," Twenty-Seventh
Mountains under the Cominand of Anmial Report of the Bureau of Anieri-
Major S. H. Long (London, 1823), i. can Ethnology, igos-igo6^z.%)\vc\^^ox\,
115, 116. By "the eldest brother of 1911), p. 326. Both the sororate and
the deceased " is probably meant "the the levirate seem to have fallen into
eldest surviving brother," who may be decay when the Rev. J. Owen Dorsey
younger than the deceased. For the investigated the tribe in the second
usual rule is. as I have said, that only half of the nineteenth century. He
a younger brother may marry his tells us that a man sometimes married
deceased brother's widow. his deceased wife's sister at the express
2 Edwin James, op. at. i. 209. wish of the dying woman, and that a
Later observers, writing at a time man married his deceased brother's
when the old tribal customs had been widow in order to become the "little
modified or abolished, report that father " of his brother's children. See
among the Omahas " polygamy existed, J. Owen Dorsey, "Omaha Socio-
although it was not the rule ; in the logy," Third Annual Report of the
majority of families there was but one Bureau of Ethnology (Washington,
wife. A man rarely had more than 1884), p. 258.
two wives, and these were generally
sisters or aunt and niece." See Alice ^ Edwin James, op. cit. i. 222 sq.
268
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
sororate
and levirate
among the
Apaches.
The
sororate
and levirate
among the
Blackfoot
Indians.
time," form other attachments and refuse to live with him.
As certain female cousins are regarded as younger sisters, a
man has often much latitude in selecting wives under this
law. A man usually takes to wife the widow of a brother,
unless she expresses an unwillingness to the arrangement,
and he may adopt the orphans as his own children." ^
The extension of the term " sister " to certain cousins is an
effect of the classificatory or group system of relationship
which the Hidatsas or Minnetarees possess in common with
most, if not all, Indian tribes of North America. Under
the Minnetaree form of that system a woman calls her
female ortho-cousins (the daughters of her father's brother
and of her mother's sister) her " sisters " ; ^ and when we speak
of marriage with several sisters among peoples who observe
the classificatory or group system of relationship, we must
always allow for a similar latitude in the use of the term
" sisters."
Again, among the Apaches of Arizona polygamy is
customary, but it is subject to certain restrictions. A man
will marry his wife's younger sisters as fast as they grow to
maturity, or, if his first wife has no sisters, he will try to
marry a woman of the same clan, because " there will be
less danger of the women fighting," Further, an Apache
marries his deceased brother's widow ; but he must exercise
his right within a year of his brother's death, otherwise
the widow is free to marry whom she pleases.^ Thus the
Apaches observe the customs both of the sororate and of
the levirate. As to the Indians of these south - western
deserts, among whom the Apaches are included, we are
told that " in general, when an Indian wishes to have many
wives he chooses above all others, if he can, sisters, because
he thinks he can thus secure more domestic peace." *
Again, among the Blackfoot Indians of the "northern
plains all the younger sisters of a man's wife were re-
1 Washington Matthews, Ethno-
graphy and Philology of the Hidatsa
Indians (Washington, 1877), p. 53.
'^ Lewis H. Morgan, Systerns of Con-
sanguinity and Affinity of the Human
Family (Washington City, 187 1), pp.
188 sq., 316 sq.
'^ John G. Bouike, " Notes upon
the Gentile Organization of the
Apaches of Arizona," Journal of
American Folk-lore, iii. (1890) p. 1 1 8.
* E. Domenech, Seven Years'
Residence in the Great Deserts of
North America (London, i860), ii.
306.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 269
garded as his wives if he chose to take them, and they
could not be disposed of to any other man without his
consent. And when a man died, his widows became the
wives of his oldest brother, if he wished to marry them.^
Here, again, therefore, we find the sororate and the levirate
practised by the same tribe. The same combination The
meets us also in the large northern tribe of the Ojib- ^^^'j^l^Jfrate
ways or Chippewas. Among them a man might marry among the
as many wives as he could support, but they generally chose ■'' '^^^^'
sisters, " from an idea that they will be more likely to live
together in peace, and that the children of the one would
be loved and cared for by the other more than if the wives
were not related." ^ In this tribe " the relation of fraternity
is strongly marked ; a man is held to be bound to marry
the widow of his deceased brother, yet he ought not to do
it until after a year of widowhood. He is likewise con-
sidered as obliged to provide for his brother's offspring,
but this care not unfrequently devolves upon the grand-
father."^ As to the Pottawatamies, an Indian tribe in the The
region of the Great Lakes, we are told that " it was an'dlevfrate
usual for them, when an Indian married one of several among the
sisters, to consider him as wedded to all; and it became ^j^^ies
incumbent upon him to take them all as wives. The
marrying of a brother's widow was not interdicted, but was
always looked upon as a very improper connexion." ^ Thus
the Pottawatamies practised the sororate and discouraged,
though they did not forbid, the levirate. This divergence
in regard to the two forms of marriage appears to be rare
and exceptional. Speaking of the Indian tribes near the
Great Lakes, a writer of the eighteenth century observes that
"it is not uncommon for an Indian to marry two sisters;
sometimes, if there happen to be more, the whole number ;
and notwithstanding this (as it appears to civilized nations)
unnatural union, they all live in the greatest harmony."^
Amongst the Mandans, when a man married an eldest The
sororate
1 G. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's j^andans
Tales (London, 1893), PP' 217, 218. River (London, 1825), ii. 166 sq. and Crows,
2 Rev. Peter Jones, History of the * W. H. Keating, op. cit. i. iii.
Ojebway Indians (London, N.D.), p. ^ J. Carver, Travels through the
81. Interior Parts of North America,
* W. H. Keating, Narrative of an Third Edition (London, 1 781), p. 367.
270
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
sororate
andlevirate
among the
Arapahoes.
The
levitate
and the
sororate,
in the form
of marriage
with a
deceased
wife's
sister,
among the
Indians of
North
America.
daughter he had a right to all her sisters.^ Similarly
among the Crows, if a man married the eldest daughter of
a family he had a right to marry all her younger sisters
when they grew up, even in the lifetime of his first wife,
their eldest sister. He might waive his right, but if he
stood upon it, his superior claim would be acknowledged by
the woman's kinsfolk.^ Among the Arapahoes, an Algonquin
tribe inhabiting the country about the head waters of the
Arkansas and Platte rivers, " a wife's next younger sister,
if of marriageable age, is sometimes given to her husband
if his brother-in-law likes him. Sometimes the husband
asks and pays for his wife's younger sister. This may be
done several times if she has several sisters. If his wife
has no sister, a cousin (also called * sister ') is sometimes
given to him. When a woman dies, her husband marries
her sister. When a man dies, his brother sometimes
marries his wife. He is expected to do so. Sometimes
she marries another man." ^ From this account it seems
that among the Arapahoes both the sororate and the
levirate are falling into decay. A man can no longer
claim the hands of his wife's younger sisters as a right in
her lifetime, though apparently after her death he marries
one or more of them as a matter of course. Again, he is
expected to marry his deceased brother's widow, though he
has not an absolute right to do so.
In some tribes of American Indians the sororate appears
to survive only in its later form as a right or an obligation
to marry a deceased wife's sister. For example, among
the Assiniboins, a northern tribe, " polygamy was frequent.
The levirate was also commonly practised. A married
woman will still wait on her brothers-in-law as if they were
her husbands, though there is no sexual intercourse between
them. If a man's wife dies, he has a pre-emptive right to
her younger sister, and if the girl is still immature she
is kept for him until puberty."* Among the Iroquois
1 Maximilian Prinz zu Wied, Reise
in das Innere Nord-America (Coblenz,
1839-1841), ii. 130.
^ L. H. Morgan, Ancient Society,
p. 160.
3 Alfred L. Kroeber, The Arapaho
(New York, 1902), p. 14 {Bulletin of
the American Mtisetan of Natural
History, vol. xviii. Part i. ).
* Robert H. Lowie, The Assini-
boine (New York, 1909), p. 41 {An-
thropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History, vol. iv.
Part i.).
ciiAi'. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 271
polygamy was . forbidden and never became a practice ; '
hence with tlicm there was no question of a man marrying
several sisters in their lifetime. Nevertheless, when his
wife died, an Iroquois was rei;ularly obliged to marry her
sister, or, in default of a sister, such other woman as the
family of his deceased wife might provide for him. A man
who should refuse to wed his deceased wife's sister would,
we are told, expose himself to all the abuse and vitupera-
tion which the injured woman chose to heap on his devoted
head, and a sense of his moral delinquency compelled him
to submit to the torrent of invective in silence. Similarly,
a childless widow was compelled to marry one of her
deceased husband's brothers or other of his relations, in
order to bear a child to the dead man.^ Among the
Biloxi, a small tribe of the Siouan or Dacotan stock in
what is now the State of Mississippi, a man might marry
his deceased wife's sister, and a woman might marry her
deceased husband's brother ; ^ but it does not appear that
there was any obligation to contract either of these unions.
Among the Pima Indians of Arizona it was customary for
a widower to marry his deceased wife's sister.* However,
it seems probable that among these southern Indians the
sororate was once practised in its full form. An anonymous
French writer, who appears to have lived and written not
later than the early years of the eighteenth century, tells
us that among the tribes of the lower Mississippi valley
" a savage marries as many women as he wishes ; he
is even in some manner obliged to in certain cases. If
the father and mother of his wife die and if she has many
sisters, he marries them all, so that nothing is more
common than to see four or five sisters the wives of a single
husband." ^
^ Lewis H. Morgan, League of the 1897), p. 244.
/r^j'Mm (Rochester, 1851), p. 324. ■• Frank Russell, "The Pima
„ ^, , . TT- ^ ■ r r n' Indians," Twenty-sixth A7tftual Ke-
^ Charlevoix, Histoire ae la Jvou- ^ , r ^, r, j: a ■ t-^i
,, _ ,Ti • V port of the httreau of American Ethno-
velle France (Pans, 1744), v. 419; 1 o- , (\N h' crt 1Q08I 18
compare T. F. Lafitau, Mains des r, rs \ a X. 't u tj o .
' ^, ■ ■ ,V> • _ X Ouoted by lohn R. Swanton,
saKvai'es Ameriquams (Fans, 1724), j ,. „. ., -', •, ^ „,. . .'.
^■^ ^ * ; / T/j jndiati I Tjoes of the Lower Mtssisstppi
-" ' Valley and adjacent coast of the Gulf
" J. Owen Dorsey, "Siouan Socio- of Mexico (Washington, 191 1), p. 95
logy," Fifteenth Annual Report of the (Bureau of American Ethnology, Bul-
Bureau of Ethiiology (Washington, letin ^j).
272 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
The Thus far we have been deaHng with the Indian tribes
sororate j.^ ^j^g g^gj. q|- <^^ Rockv Mountains. But both the sororate
andlevirate •'
among the and the levirate are, or were, observed by many tribes on
tdbeTof ^^^ Pacific slopes of that great range. Perhaps the rudest
California of all the Indian tribes of North America were the
Oregon. aborigines of the Californian Peninsula, and among them,
" before they were baptized, each man took as many wives
as he liked, and if there were several sisters in a family he
married them all together." ^ Farther to the north, at
Monterey in California, it was likewise customary for a
man to marry all the sisters of one family.^ Still farther
to the north, among the Northern Maidus, another Cali-
fornian tribe, a man had a right to marry his wife's sisters,
and if he did not choose to exercise his right, it passed,
' very significantly, to his brother. The full meaning of this
transference of marital rights from one brother to another
will appear in the sequel. In this tribe, also, a man usually
married his deceased brother's widow ; in other words, the
levirate was customary but not obligatory.^ Passing still
farther northward, we come to the tribes of Oregon, the Flat-
heads, Nez Perces, Spokans, Walla-wallas, Cayuse, and Was-
kows, and " with all of them, marrying the eldest daughter
entitles a man to the rest of the family, as they grow up. If a
~>' wife dies, her sister or some of the connexion, if younger than
the deceased, is regarded as destined to marry him. Cases
occur in which, upon the death of a wife (after the period
of mourning referred to below expires), her younger sister,
though the wife of another man, is claimed, and she deserts
her husband and goes to the disconsolate widower. The
right of a man is recognised to put away his wife, and take
a new one, even the sister of the discarded one, if he thinks
proper. The parents do not seem to object to a man's
turning off one sister, and taking a younger one — the lordly
prerogative, as imperious as that of a sultan, being a custom
1 J. Baegert, "An Account of the America {l^oxvAon, 1875-1876), i. 38S,
Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Cali- note ''^^
fornian Peninsula," Annual Report of
the Smithsoma7t Institution for the ^ Roland E. Dixon, The Northern
year i86j, p. 368. Maidii (New York, 1 905), pp. 239,
^ La Perouse, Voyage, ii. 303, 241 {Bulletitt of the American Ahtseut/i
quoted by H. H. Bancroft, Native of Natural History, vol. xvii. Part
Races of the Pacific States of North iii.).
CHAP. VI THE SO RO RATE AND LEVI RATE 273
handed down from time immemorial." ^ The right to
marry a wife's sister must indeed be a strong one when it
can thus supersede the existing right of the husband in
possession. Further, we see that among these Indians of
Oregon the right to marry a deceased wife's sister is merely
a consequence of the right to marry them in the wife's
lifetime.
Still farther to the north the sororate occurs, in conjunc- The
tion with the levirate, in several tribes of British Columbia. and'ieviVate
Thus among the Lkungen, when a man's wife died, he -i"!"".? th^
T ^'
married her sister or cousin ; and when a woman's husband tribes of
died, she married his brother or cousin.^ Again, among the North-
£5 > & Western
Thompson Indians polygamy flourished, very many men America,
having from two to four wives, all of whom were sometimes
sisters. When a man's wife died, he w^as expected to seek
another wife among the sisters or relatives of the dead
woman. And correspondingly, when a husband died, the
widow became the property of the dead man's nearest
male kin, generally of the brother next in seniority. The
right of a man to the widow of his deceased brother was in-
contestable, and the widow had an equal right to demand
from him the privileges of a husband ; moreover, he was
bound to support her children.^ The marriage customs of
the neighbouring Shuswap were similar. When a man's
wife died, the period of mourning was no sooner over than
he was obliged to marry the sister or other nearest relative
of his departed spouse ; indeed, during the days of mourn-
ing he was kept a prisoner in the house of his brother-in-law,
so that even if he wished to shirk the obligation of marrying
his deceased wife's sister, his chances of succeeding in the
unmanly attempt were hardly worth considering. He was
only let out of the house of mourning to enter the house of
marriage. Similarly, when a man died, his widow married
1 Major B. Alvoid, " Concerning the Advancemetit of Science, Leeds
the manners and customs, the super- Meeting, iSgo, p. 24 (of the separate
stitions, etc., of the Indians in Oregon," reprint).
in H. R. Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes
of the United States (Philadelphia, ^ ]a.mesTe\\., The Tho>npso?t Indians
1 853-1 856), V. 654 i-^. of British Columbia, pp. 325, 326
^ Franz Boas, in "Sixth Report on (The Jesitp North Pacific Expedition,
the North-Western Tribes of Canada," Alemoir of the American Museum of
in Report of the British Association for Natural History, April, 1900).
VOL .IT T
74
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
sororate
andlevirate
among the
Indian
tribes of
South
America.
her deceased husband's brother or other nearest relative ;
and she, too, had to remain in the house of bondage as well
as of mourning with her brother-in-law till the time came
for her to doff her widow's weeds and don her bridal attire.^
However, it seems that her brother-in-law was not under the
same rigorous obligation to marry her ; for if he did not
care to take her to wife, he might call all the people together
and say, " I wish you all to know that I do not take my
brother's widow to wife, and I herewith give her to my
friend " (mentioning his name), " who will henceforth be the
same to me as my deceased brother was. Now it will be
the same as if my brother were alive. My friend " (men-
tioning his name) " and I will henceforth be the same as
brothers until one of us dies." The man then gave a feast
to the people, and the widow took her place with the husband
chosen for her. As a rule, the woman's consent to the
arrangement was asked beforehand.^ Among the Crees or
Knisteneaux, " when a man loses his wifjp, it is considered
as a duty to marry her sister, if she has one ; or he may, if
he pleases, have them both at the same time." ^ Again,
among the Northern Tinnehs, who border on the Eskimo in
the far North, men made no scruple of having two or three
sisters as wives at one time;* and similarly among the
Kaviaks of Alaska " two or three wives, often sisters, are
taken by those who can afford to support them." ^
The marriage customs of the Indians of South America
have never been accurately studied, but they appear to
include both the sororate and the levirate. Thus among the
Roucouyen Indians of French Guiana, when a man's wife
dies, he marries her sister or sisters ; and when a woman's
husband dies, she marries his eldest brother or, in default of
brothers, his father. The right of marriage in both cases is
1 Franz Boas, in " Sixth Report on
the North-Western Tribes of Canada,"
in Report of the Bntish Association for
the Advancement of Science, Leeds
Meeting, iSgo, p. 91 (of the separate
reprint).
2 James Teit, The Sh2is7aap (htyAtn
and New York, 1909), pp. 591 sq.
{The Jesup North Pacific Expedition,
Memoir of the American Museum of
Natural History, Nerjo York).
^ A. Mackenzie, Voyages from Mon-
treal through the Continent of No7-th
America (London, 1801), pp. xcvi sq.
* S. Heame, Journey from Pnnce
of Wales'' s Fort in Hudsoiis Bay to the
Northern Ocean (London, 1795), P-
130.
5 W. H. Dall, Alaska and its
Resou7xes (London, 1870), p. 138.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEV/RATE 275
undisputed, but it is sometimes renounced by the claimant.^
Among the Caribs " very often the same man will take to
wife three or four sisters, who will be his cousins-german or
his nieces. They maintain that, having been brought up
together, the women will love each other the more, will live
in a better understanding, will help each other more readily,
and, what is most advantageous for him, will serve him
better." ^ Among the Macusis of British Guiana polygamy
seems to be rare, but Sir Richard Schomburgk met with one
man who had three sisters to wife,^ Among the Onas and
Yahgans, two tribes of Tiei-ra del Fuego, both the sororate
and the levirate seem to be in vogue. In both tribes it is
said to be a common practice for a man to marry two
sisters, and in both tribes a man often marries his brother's
widow.* The custom of the levirate appears to be more
frequently reported than the custom of the sororate among
the Indian tribes of South America,^ and it is possible that
it may really be more commonly observed by them ; but
our knowledge of these aborigines is too meagre to warrant
us in laying down any general propositions on the subject.
In Africa the customs both of the sororate and of the The
levirate seem to be widely spread, especially amongf tribes ^^'^j'^'f
^ c ■! r J fc. 2Xia levirate
of the Bantu stock. Thus Kafir law permits a man to in Africa,
marry two sisters in their lifetime,^ and it is the ordinary The
custom for a man to marry his deceased brother's wife." and levirate
Among the Zulus, for example, marriages with two sisters among the
,.,.^. si,i, n Zulus and
m their lifetime are common ; and the brother or next of other Kafir
1 Henri Coudreau, Chez nos Indiens, Goajira Peninsula," Proceedings of the e ,u c- ^
Quatre Annees dans la Guyaiie Fran- Royal Geographical Society, 'Htw ?,tx\cs, Africa
frt/i-tf (Paris, 1895), p. 128. vii. (1885) p. 792), and by many
- Labat, Nouveau Voyage aitx Isles tribes of Brazil (C. F. Ph. von Martius,
a'lf /'^Wifrz'^«i?,Nouvelle Edition (Paris, Ziir Ethnographie Amerikd's ztitnal
1742), ii. 77 sq. Brasiliens, Leipsic, 1867, p. 117).
^ '^.'$sc!noxa\iv.x^,ReiseninBritisch- ^ Col. Maclean, Compendiutn of
Guiana (Leipsic, 1847-1848), ii. 318. Kafir Laivs and Customs {C^^e Town,
"• John M. Cooper, Analytical ^and 1866), pp. 61, 112, 159.
Critical Bibliography of the Tribes of '' J. Shooter, The Kafirs of A'atal
Tierra del Fuego and adjacent territory and the Zzihi Country (London, 1857),
(Washington, 1917), p. 165 (Smith- pp. 46, 86.
sonian Institution, Bureati of American ^ F. Speckmann, Die Hermantis-
Ethnology, Bulletin 6s)- burger Mission in .^'^^i/C-a (Hermanns-
•• It is practised by the Warraus of burg, 1876), p. 135. Compare J.
British Guiana (R. Schomburgk, op. cit. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal attd the
ii. 447), by the Goajiros (F. A. A. Zulu Country, p. 46, "A man, for
Simons, "An Exploration of the example, may marry two sisters."
276
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
kin cohabits with the widow in order to raise up seed to the
dead. The same custom of the levirate is observed also by
the Swazies and Pondos, two other Kafir tribes of South-
East Africa, but curiously enough it is utterly at variance
with the usages of the Tembus and Gaikas, two other Kafir
tribes of the same region.^ In regard to the levirate as
practised by the Zulus, we read that " when a man dies and
leaves wives, it is the custom that his younger brother goes
to the dead man's wives and begets children for him ; for
the children whom the wives get by the brother of the
deceased belong to the latter and not to the former. How-
ever, the custom seems not to be obligatory but simply
voluntary. If the younger brother dies, it is not at all
customary for the elder brother to go to the wives of the
• deceased ; it is only the younger who begets children
for the elder." - So, too, among the Fingoes it is a
, younger brother who marries his deceased elder brother's
The wife.^ The levirate is observed with the same limitation by
levirateand ^j^g Thonga, a Bantu tribe of Mozambique. Among them
sororate , 1
among the a man has a prior right to inherit his deceased elder brother's
Thonga of ^^,jfg even during her husband's life a woman is verv'' free
Mozam- .
bique. in her manners with her husband's younger brothers, and
they will play with her because they have the right of in-
heriting her, one after the other, when her first husband is
dead. On the other hand, a man may only inherit the wife
of his deceased younger brother if she is old and past the
age of child-bearing. To marry a younger brother's widow,
who might still give birth to a child, would be strongly
opposed to the feelings of the tribe, though in exceptional
cases it may be done, if no one else has a claim to her.
Hence a man carefully avoids the wives of his younger
brother, while his younger brother is still alive, which is
quite contrary to the freedom he uses with his elder brother's
wives in the lifetime of his elder brother.* A similar sharp
* Rev. J. Macdonald, " Manners,
Customs, Superstitions, and Religions
of South African Tr'ihts,'" Journal of
the Anthropological Institute, xix.
(1890) p. 272; Dudley Kidd, The
Essential Kafir (London, 1904), p.
226.
^ F. Speckmann, Die Hermanns-
hm-ger Mission in Afrika (Hermanns-
burg, 1876), pp. 135 sq.
3 Col. Maclean, Compendium of
Kafir Laws and Customs, p. 159.
* Henri A. Junod, The Life of a
South African Zz-z'/i^ (Neuchatel, 191 2-
1913), i. 236, 248.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 277
distinction is drawn for a similar reason by the Tlionga
between a wife's elder and younger sisters. A man may
play and romp with his wife's younger sisters, because they
are his presumptive wives ; he has a preferential right to
marry them either in his first wife's life or after her death.
But he may not play with his wife's elder sisters, because he
cannot marry them. With the Thonga, as with Laban's
kinsfolk, it is the law that an elder sister must always marry
before her younger sisters. A father would not consent to
give away the younger before the elder. There is a special
term {jihlantsci) applied to a younger sister married to
the same husband as her elder sister, while the elder sister
is still alive. The term is thought to come from a verb
" to wash " {klanisa), because the younger sister in such a
household washes the dishes for her elder sister and works
more or less as her servant.^
" Among the Bechuanas the daughter is considered to The
be the property of her father, and if he sells her, it is in and'Ievirate
order to procure an establishment for his male children, or among the
to provide for his future needs in old age, should he be
abandoned by his family. Like Laban and like the Hindoos,
a father does not give the second daughter in marriage
before the elder. If the elder dies without leaving children,
the husband has the right to demand her sister or to get
back the bride-price. If he dies before her, his brother
succeeds him. He makes his father-in-law a small present
and kills an ox, with the gall of which he and his bride
besprinkle themselves in token of purification ; but there is
not, properly speaking, any marriage ceremony. A man is
not compelled to marry his brother's widow ; in that case
she is quite free to return to her father or to take another
husband." ^ Thus we see that the Bechuanas observe both
the levirate and the sororate, and that among them, as
among the Thonga, a younger sister may not marry before
an elder. Among the Basutos " the death of the husband
1 Henri A. Junod, I'ke Life of a Esp^rance (Paris, 1842), p. 76. Com-
South African Tribe, i. 234 sq., 252. pare E. Casalis, The Basutos (London,
1861), p. 184, "The custom which
'^ T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, Rela- forbade the marriage of Rachel before
tionoCim Voyage cCRxp/orat ion an Nord- Leah still exists in full force among
Est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne- the Bechuanas."
278
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
levirate
among the
Basutos.
The
sororate
and levirate
among the
Herero.
The
sororate
among the
Matabele,
and the
Bantu and
Nilotic
tribes of
Kavirondo.
does not liberate the wife. She falls by law to one of the
brothers or to the nearest relation of the deceased. There,
the institution of the levirate is not subject to the wise re-
strictions made by Moses for the people of Israel. Although
the children of this second union bear the name of the first
husband, and are understood to belong to him and to in-
herit his possessions, while they have very small claim to
the succession of their real father, the fact that the widow
is compelled to remain in the family, although she has
already borne children to the deceased, proves that the
purchase of which she was the object is the chief obstacle to
her liberation." ^
Among the Herero, a Bantu tribe of South-West Africa,
both the sororate and the levirate are in vogue. In order
to marry a certain woman, a Herero man is often obliged,
like Jacob, to begin by marrying her sister, and when his
wife dies he marries her sister instead.^ It is a rule of
Herero law that the principal heir inherits the widow of the
deceased ; and as the heir is usually a younger brother, it
follows that such marriages conform to the levirate custom.^
In the powerful Bantu tribe of the Matabele, when a wife
dies soon after marriage or remains barren, her husband has
a right to claim her sister or nearest relation in place of her."*
Among the Bantu tribes of Kavirondo a man has the right
to marry all his wife's younger sisters as they come of age ;
they may not be given in marriage to any one until he has
declined their hands. When a wife dies childless, her
husband can reclaim the amount he paid for her to her
father ; but if the father happens to have another daughter
the widower, instead of exacting repayment, generally con-
soles himself by marrying his deceased wife's sister, who
costs him nothing beyond a itw goats slaughtered for
1 Rev. E. Casalis, Hit Basutos
(London, 1861), p. 190.
- J. Irle, Die Herero (Giitersloh,
1906), p. 109. The reason why, in
order to marry a certain woman, a
man must often first marry her sister,
is not mentioned by the writer. We
may conjecture that among the Herero,
as among the Thonga and the Bechu-
anas, a younger sister may not mairy
before her elder sister ; hence a man
wlio loves the younger sister will, like
Jacob, marry the elder in order to ob-
tain the right of marrying the younger.
•* E. Dannert, Zum Reekie der
Herero (Berlin, 1906), p. 38.
■* Lionel Decle, Three Years in
Sa-oage Africa (London, 1898), p.
158.
CHAP. VI THE SO RO RATE AND LEV I RATE 279
the marriage feast.^ Among the Nilotic tribes of Kavir-
ondo, when a wife is proved to be barren, her parents send
her sister to be the man's wife ; but he does not divorce his
first spouse, both sisters hve together with him as his wives.^
Among the Basoga, a Bantu tribe of the Uganda Pro- The
tectorate, a bride is attended to her new home by a sister, and*kvrraie
who remains with her and attends to her wants during the among the
period of seclusion which is incumbent on Basoga women °^^"
after marriage. Often the sister does not return home, but
remains with the bride and becomes a second wife to the
bridegroom. He must pay a marriage-fee for her, but in
the case of such a second wife the preparatory ceremonies are
dispensed with, and she falls into her place in the household
at once.^ In this tribe, when a man dies, his brother may
marry the widow or widows, provided he is chosen heir to the
deceased ; or if the brother is not heir, he may still receive
from the heir one of the widows to wife. But except in
these cases a man has no right to marry the widows of his
deceased brother.^ Thus it appears that among the Basoga
the custom of the levirate is falling into decay. The
Bagesu, a Bantu tribe of Mount Elgon, in the Uganda The
Protectorate, practise polygamy, and a man is free to marry amon^^'the
several sisters. A wife never objects to her husband marry- Bagesu and
ing as many wives as he can afford to keep, whether they ^^^"
be her sisters or other women.^ Among the Baganda, when
a wife dies, her brother provides another sister to supply her
place and marry the widower.^
Among the Banyoro, another Bantu tribe of the Uganda The
Protectorate, there are no restrictions on a man's marrying anTievh-ate
1 C. W. Plobley, Eastern Uganda, p. 210. BTn"(5o'^^
an Ethnological Surz'ey{\.ox^^oxi,\(iC7.), \ To/emism a7id Exogamy, n. 461, ^"^°'°"
pp. IT sg.; Sir Harry Johnston, 7'he from information furnished by the Rev.
Uganda Protectorate (London, 1904), John Roscoe. In his own book, sub-
ii. 747 ; Max Weiss, ZJ/^ Ft'//-«-j7'(7wwf sequently published {T/ie Northern
im Norden Deutsch Ost-Afrikas[^&xY\x\, Bantu, Cambridge, 1915), Mr. Roscoe
1910), p. 226 (who calls these people has omitted this account of the succes-
Wageia). s\on to widows among the Basoga.
- T. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu - •, t, ^.7 ,r 7 V.
(Cambridge, 1915), p. 282. Compare " J" ^^°s^°^' ^ ^' Northern Bantu,
G. A. S. Northcote, "The Nilotic l^P" ^73 •fi'-
Y^2i^\xon^o," Journal of the Royal An- ^ John Roscoe, "Worship of the
thropological Institute, xxxvii. (1907) Dead as practised by some African
p. 62. Tribes," Harvard African Studies, i.
3 J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu, (Cambridge, 1917) p. 35.
28o
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Among the
Banyoro,
according
to one
account,
a man's
widow is
inherited
by his son,
and only in
diifault of
sons by his
surviving
brother.
This rule,
which
gives the
inheritance
in the first
place to
sons, is
probably an
innovation
on an
older rule,
which
gave the
inheritance
first to
brothers'
and next
to sisters'
sons.
.several sisters ; he may marry two or more sisters at
the same time. Moreover, if his wife dies, especially
in childbed, he expects her parents to furnish him with
one of her sisters to replace the dead wife. Further,
if his wife prove childless, he may demand one of her
sisters in marriage, and in that case the barren wife may
either remain with him or return to her parents, as she
pleases. A man has not the right to marry his dead
brother's widow, but he may do so if the clan appoints him
heir to the deceased.^ Thus among the Banyoro, while the
sororate is practised in both forms, with the sisters of a
living wife and with a deceased wife's sisters, the levirate
appears to be falling into decay.
From an earlier account of customary law among the
Banyoro we gather that in that tribe the right of a brother
to marry his dead brother's wives has been to some extent
superseded by the right of a son to marry his dead father's
wives, always with the exception of his own mother. The
account runs as follows : " Should the head of a hous^ die
without children, his brother inherits everything, even the
wives ; if there are several brothers, the younger ones receive
small shares in goods and wives, according to the good
pleasure of the eldest, who is the chief heir. When there
are no brothers, the chief of the tribe inherits. But when
there are sons, the eldest inherits all that is left by his father,
the wives included, who, with the exception of his own
mother, become his wives. The younger sons receive two
women, two cows, and as much of the other property as the
principal heir will give them." ^ From this it would appear
that among the Banyoro a brother only succeeds to his
dead brother's widows in default of sons, who, if there are
any, enjoy a prior right. This succession of sons to the
wives of their dead father is common in Africa ; ^ but we can
^ Toteiiiisin and Exogamy, ii. 522,
from information furnished by llie Rev.
John Roscoe. This account of the
sororate and levirate among the Ban-
yoro has been omitted bj' Mr. Roscoe
in The Northern Bantu. The praciice
of the sororate among the Banyoro is
also attested by Emin Pasha. " If a
man marries, and his wife falls ill and
dies during a visit to her father's house,
the husband either demands a wife — a
sister of the deceased — in compensation,
or receives two cows" (Emin Pasha hi
Central Africa, London, 1888, p. 86).
2 Emin Pasha in Central Africa
(London, 1888), p. 86.
•^ See above, vol. i. p. 541, note 3.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 281
scarcely doubt that it is an innovation on older custom of
the succession of brothers, which still survives in many parts
of the continent. For it may be laid down as a general
rule, that in the evolution of law the first heirs to be called
to the succession are a man's brothers, the next his sister's
sons,^ and the last his own sons ; since the recognition of
physical paternity, with the rights and obligations which it
confers and imposes, has been reached at a comparatively
late date in the history of our species, whereas the recognition
of maternity, which carries with it the perception of relation-
ship to brothers and to sisters' sons, must derive from the
very origin of human society. But once the relationship of
fatherhood was clearly understood, it was natural that a
father should desire to transmit his estate, including his
wives, to the sons whom he had begotten and whom he
justly regarded as in a real sense parts of himself, rather
than to his brothers or his sisters' sons, with whom he
now perceived that his relationship was more remote.
Hence it has come about that in not a few African tribes
the ancient custom of the levirate has given way to the more
recent practice of passing on a dead man's wives to his
own sons.
Among the Boloki or Bangala, a Bantu tribe of the The
Upper Congo, a barren wife will take her sister to be a ^^^^^^^^
second wife to her husband, that he may have a child by her.^ levirate
Among the Wabemba or Awemba, a Bantu tribe of the
Congo Free State and North-Eastern Rhodesia, the sororate and the
is practised both in the lifetime and after the death of the first orAw^emba,
sister. When a man's wife dies, he has the right to marry her
younger sister, if she is still unmarried. Should the girl be
under puberty, her father will send her to the widower along
with a nubile female slave, who will replace her until she is
1 For example, among most of the 1867), p. 429. Similarly, among the
tribes of the Gaboon investigated by Kunamas, on the borders of Abyssinia,
Du Chaillu, a man's heirs were his a man'swidow is married by his brother;
brothers, and only in default of brothers but if the deceased left no brother, his
did the eldest son of the eldest sister widow is taken to wife by his sister's
inherit. Only in one of the tribes son. See Werner Munzinger, Ost-
known to Du Chaillu (the Bakalai) afrikanische Studien (Sciiafifhausen.
did sons inherit the property of their 1864), p. 488.
fathers. See Paul B. du Chaillu, 2 John H. Weeks, Aniotig Congo
Journey to Ashango-land (London, Cannibals (London, 19 13), p. 130.
among the
Boloki
282 JACOB'S MARRIAGE par: ii
"Taking old eiioiigh to maiTy her brother-iii-law, the widowcr. But if
the death ^ j^jg deceased wife's sisters are married, the widower sends a
off the _ '
body" of a present to the husband of his late wife's younger sister, and the
widower, ^oman is ceded to him by her husband for one or two nights,
in order that by cohabiting with him she may, as the phrase
runs, " take the death off his body." Unless she performed
this ceremony, the widower could never marry again ; no
woman would have him. When the death has thus been
" taken off his body," he returns the woman to her husband
and looks out for another wife ; but before he can marry
her, he must appease the spirit of his dead wife by scraping
with his fingers a little hole at the head of the grave and
filling it with beer, doubtless to slake the thirst of the ghost.
Further, when a wife has grown old and her husband is still
comparatively young and vigorous, it is customary for the
wife to go to her father and obtain from him her younger sister,
whom she brings to her husband as a second wife. If she has
no sister, she will probably procure a niece to take her place;
but she herself is not divorced, the two sisters are wives
simultaneously of the same man. Further, the Wabemba
practise the levirate ; for when a man dies, his eldest brother
or, in his default, the son of the eldest brother, inherits the
"Taking property and the wives of the deceased. And the heir,
off the whether he be the brother of the deceased or another kins-
body" of a man, must " take the death off the body " of his predecessor's
rid her widow by Cohabiting with her. Even if he declines to marry
of her her he is still obliged to " take the death off her body" in
husband's , . ' , r , • r ,
ghost. this manner before the woman is free to marry any one else.
Should the woman refuse to marry her late husband's brother
or other heir, and to let him " take the death off her body,"
she would be pointed out as an adulteress and accused of
having caused the death of her former husband. It would
be considered unlucky for any one else to marry her, for the
ghost of her dead husband would be supposed to haunt or
kill any one who married her.^ Thus among the Wabemba
1 Charles Delhaise, Notes Ethno- Coxhead, The Native Tribes of North-
graphiqiies sur quelques penplades du em Rhodesia, their Laws and Cus-
Ta/ig-aniha {Brus&e\s, igo^), pp. i8 sq. ; toms (London, 1914), pp. 9 sq.^ 15.
Cullen Gouldsbury and Hubert Sheane, I have ventured to assume the identity
The Great Plateau of Northern Nigeria of the Wabemba of the Congo Free
(London, 191 1), pp. 171 sg.; J. C. C. State with the Awemba of North-
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 283
or Awemba the cohabitation of the heir with the widow
would seem to be intended to rid her of the jealous ghost
of her departed spouse, who might otherwise haunt or kill
his living rival. The cohabitation of the deceased wife's
sister with the widower in this tribe is probably designed in
like manner to relieve him from the unwelcome attentions
of his late wife's wraith.
Among the Hausas a Mohammedan may marry a The
younger sister after the death of her elder sister, his wife, amon^^the
but he may not marry an elder sister after the death of a Hausasaud
younger.^ In harmony with this is the rule, reported by one ^^^ French
Hausa informant, that during his wife's lifetime a man should Sudan.
avoid meeting her elder but not her younger sister ; ^ for the
discrimination which he thus makes between the sisters
probably springs from the consideration that he may one
day marry the younger but never the elder. We have seen
that in the Thonga tribe of South Africa a man discriminates
in the same way between his wife's elder and younger sisters
and for the same reason. In the French Sudan, where
wives are generally bought, a reduction in the price used
sometimes to be made when a man married several sisters.
For example, among the Nounoumas a man got a second
sister for one fifth less than he paid for the first ; and if
he chose to marry the third sister, he got her for nothing.^
Among the Menkieras the calculation of the relative
value of the sisters is rather more intricate. A husband
who had married an elder sister might afterwards marry
her second sister on paying only four head of cattle
instead of five, which was the price he had paid for his first
Eastern Rhodesia, partly on account ' A. J. N. Tremearne, The Ban of
of the similarity of the names, but still the Bori (London, [1914]), p. 121.
more on account of the close resem- ^ A. J. N. Tremearne, The Ban of
blance of their marriage customs, which the Bo7-i, p. 1 24. According to another
in some respects amounts to identity ; of Major Tremearne's informants, a
the account given by Messrs. Goulds- man should avoid both the elder and
buryandSheaneof the Awemba customs the younger sisters of his wife in her
might almost be a translation of the lifetime ; and Major Tremearne thinks
account which Delhaise gives of the this account the more likely. For the
Wabemba customs. That the widower reason indicated in the text I am
actually cohabits with his deceased inclined to accept the other account
wife's married sister is not expressly as the more probable,
affirmed by Delhaise ; but his words •'' Louis Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan
seem clearly to imply it. (Paris, 1912), p. 139.
284
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The •
sororate
and levirate
in Mada-
gascar.
Among the
Kafirs
younger
brothers
may not
marry
before the
eldest.
wife. If he afterwards married a third sister, there was no
reduction in price ; but if he married a fourth sister, he
again got an abatement of one head of cattle out of five.
At the present day the relative price of sisters in the tribe
is the same, but it is now paid in cowries instead of in cattle.^
From the foregoing survey it appears that both the soror-
ate and the levirate are characteristic institutions of the Bantu
stock, while the sororate is found among the Nilotic tribes
of Kavirondo and the black races of the Sudan. In Mada-
gascar, the native population of which belongs to the
Malayan or Indonesian and not to the African stock, it
is said to be customary for a man to receive, along
with his wife, her younger sisters in marriage,^ but the
statetnent lacks confirmation. However, if it is doubtful
whether the sororate was customary in Madagascar, it
is certain that the levirate was so. The widow formed
part of her husband's inheritance, and his eldest surviving
brother had the right to marry her, but should he abstain
from exercising his right, he was bound formally to
repudiate her before she might marry again. If the
deceased left no brother, his widow went to a nephew or
cousin, as it was deemed very desirable to keep the property
vvithin the family. Also when a man died childless it was
held to be very important that his widow should have
offspring by a kinsman, and the children begotten by him
on her were reputed, as in ancient Israel, the children of the
dead man.^
Before quitting Africa to turn to Asia, it may be well to
note that the Thonga and Bechuana rule, which forbids a
younger sister to marry before an elder sister, has its parallel
in a Kafir rule which forbids younger brothers to marry before
their eldest brother. Among the Kafirs, we are told, it is " a
common custom not to allow any younger brother to marry
until his elder brother has at least one wife. The reason of
' Louis Tauxier, Le Noir du Soudan,
P- 95-
2 Th. Waitz, A?ithropologie der
Naturvolker (Leipsic, 1860-1877), ii.
438. The view that the bulk of the
Malagasy are of African origin, tho-ugh
it has been held by many writers,
appears to be erroneous. See A. et G.
Grandidier, Ethnographic de Madagas-
car, i. (Paris, 1908), pp. I sqq. {His-
toire Physique, Naiurelle et Politiqtie
de Madagascar, vol. iv. ).
3 A. et G. Grandidier, Ethnographte
de Madagascar, ii. (Paris, 1914), pp.
240 sq.
1
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 285
this is very simple. A father usually helps his sons to
marry, giving them a number of cattle to pay as dowry.
If a younger brother married first he might do an in-
justice to the elder brother, who might not be able to get
help from his father. Rut once the elder brother has one
wife the other brothers may marry as soon as they like, and
may buy as many wives as they wish," ^ The parallelism
with the custom which forbids a younger sister to marry
before her elder sister suggests a doubt whether this simple
economic motive suffices to explain the rule. To this point
we shall return later on.
Whatever may be the true explanation of the rule Tin- rule
which enjoins both brothers and sisters to marry in order of enjoins
seniority, the custom in its application to both sexes appears both
brothers
to be generally observed in India. Thus with regard to the and sisters
various peoples of the Punjab we read that, "when the ^° '"^^'■'"y ^
^ ^ ■' . . in order of
children live under the protection of the father or some seniority is
other guardian, the custom regarding the order in which commonly
o ' & o ^ obseived in
they are married is that the sons are generally married in India,
the order of seniority, i.e. the eldest being married first and
the youngest last. Similarly in the case of daughters, the
eldest must be married before the next younger sister. In
the absence cff special reasons, it is considered a disgrace
to marry the younger son or daughter before the elder one.
So far, the custom is general amongst the Hindus, Muham-
madans, and Sikhs. Exceptions are only made when, owing
to some physical defect or for other reasons, it is not possible
to find a match for the elder son or daughter, while a suit-
able alliance can be arranged for a younger member to the
advantage of one or both parties, if contracted without
delay. The younger son or daughter is also sometimes
married before the elder, if convenient, provided that the
elder son or daughter has been betrothed. Amongst the
Hindus, the rule has been to many all children, i.e. both
boys and girls in the order of seniority, and a score of years
ago no one would accept the hand of a girl if her elder
brother remained unmarried. The age of marriage for boys
^ Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir in Col. Maclean's Compendium of k'afir
(London, 1904), p. 211. The .same Zaw^rt/za^Cwj/'^wj (Cape Town, 1S66),
rule, with the same explanation, is re- p. 45-
corded by the Rev. H. H. Dugmore
286
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Ancient
Indian law
strictly
enjoined
brothers
and sisters
to marry
in order of
seniority.
is, however, being raised gradually, and consequently the
objection to the younger sister being married before the
elder brother is losing its force. Among the IVIuham-
madans and Sikhs generally, the marriageable age of boys
being higher, the marriage of girls is not put off in favour
of the elder boys. When sons grow independent of the
father, or if the brothers separate at the death of the father,
they marry at their own discretion, usually without regard
to precedence by birth." ^ Among the Santals of Bengal
" the custom is to marry the young folks according to their
ages, and it is very seldom that a younger is married before
an elder. Should a younger sister be married before an
elder, the latter claims a solatium known as tarain gande,
which amounts to about two rupees." "
Among the Aryans of India this custom of marrying
both sons and daughters strictly in the order of seniority is
very ancient. In the Lazvs of Manu, a curious jumble of
law, religion, and metaphysics, which in its present form may
date from about the second century of our era,^ we read
that " the elder brother who marries after the younger, the
younger brother who marries before the elder, the female
with whom such a marriage is contracted, he who gives her
away, and the sacrificing priest, as the fifth, all fall into
hell."^ xAn older code of law, which bears the name of
Baudhayana, and may perhaps date from thp sixth or fifth
century before our era, is more merciful ; for while it
acknowledges that all these five sinners naturally "sink to
a region of torment," it holds out to them the hope of
escaping this dreadful doom by the simple performance of a
penance proportioned to the gravity of their offence, the
male culprits being sentenced to a penance of twelve days,
and the female offender to a fast of three daj's.^ It will be
i- 332, 334, ii- 262.
* The Laws of Manu, iii. 172, p.
108 of G. Biihler's translation {The
Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxv. ,
O.xford, 1886).
» The Sacred Laws of the Aryas,
translated by G. Biihler, Part ii.
(Oxford, 1882) p. 217 [The Sacred
Books of the East, vol. xiv. ). As to
the date of Baudhaj-ana's code, see G.
Biihler's Introduction, p. xliii ; also
1 Census of India, igii, vol. xiv.
Punjab, Part i. Report, by Pandit
Harikishan Kaul (Lahore, 1912), p.
268.
- Hon. and Rev. A. Campbell,
D.D., " Santal Marriage Customs,"
Journal of the Bihar and Orissa
Reseajxh Society, ii. (Bank! pore, 19 16)
p. 308.
2 The Imperial Gazetteer of India,
The Empire of India (Oxford, 1909),
cHAi'. VI THE SORORATE AND LE 17 RATE 287
observed that while the penalty of damnation is thus de-
nounced against the sinner who marries before his elder brother,
nothing is said about the fate of him who marries a younger
before an elder sister. However, a felon of the latter sort
by no means escaped scot-free. The code which goes by
the name of Vasishtha lays down the rules to be followed
for the repression of all such offences against the order of
nature. An elder brother who suffers a younger brother to
wed before him is to perform a penance and marry the
woman. The younger brother who married before his elder
brother is to perform a double penance, to give up his wife
to his elder brother, marry again, and then take back the
woman whom he had married first. A man who marries
a younger before an elder sister is to perform a penance for
twelve days and then to marry the elder sister. A man
who marries an elder sister after her younger sister is to
perform a double penance, give up his wife to the husband
of the younger sister, and marry again.-^ Another Indian
code, which passes under the name of Vishnu and seems to be
not earlier than the beginning of the third century of our era,
prescribes a uniform penance for "an unmarried elder brother
whose younger brother is married, a younger brother married
before the elder, an unmarried elder sister whose younger
sister is married, the relative who gives such a damsel in
marriage, and the priest who officiates at such a marriage." ^
The ancient Aryan custom recorded in these Indian The
lau?books is still to a certain extent followed by the South '^"^'°'" °f
^ nia.rrying
Slavs, who have preserved many relics of early law and •" order of
usage which have long vanished among the Western nations suu°"'''
of Europe. " Serbian custom requires that the eldest son observed
should marry before his younger brothers. A single excep- south"
tion is admitted for the case in which he renounces marriage, ^^^^^•
his Introduction to The Sacred Laivs is not "comparatively late" (Intro-
0/ the Aryas, Part i. (Oxford, 1879) duction, p. xxvi), from which we may
pp. xxii, xliii (The Sacred Books of perhaps infer that it is not later than
the East, vol. ii. ). tlie beginning of the Christian era.
^ The Sacred Laws of the Aryas, ^ xhe Institutes of Vishnu, trans-
translated by G. Blihler, Part ii. lated by Julius Jolly (Oxford, 1880),
(Oxford, 1882) p. 103 (The Sacred p. ijj (The Sacred Books of the East,
Books of the East, vol. xiv. ). The vol. vii.). As to the date of this work,
date of the laws of Vasishtha is un- <e.t7yie Imperial Gazetteer of India, The
certain. The translator thinks that it Indian Efupire (Oxford, igog),i\. 2.62.
288 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
either voluntarily or compulsorily, by reason of some bodily
infirmity ; but he must expressly give his brother permission
to marry. The daughters always precede their brothers in
marriage. However, when one of the sisters is married, and
the other still a child, the brother is not obliged to wait till
his younger sister is nubile. The same order is rigorously
Reminis- observed in Bulgaria. A man who should violate it would
cences of {-,£ severely excluded from the community." ^ Even in our
the custom . .
in England owu couutry a remuiiscence of the old rule seems to survive
^"^ in the custom which prescribes that when a younger sister
marries before her elder sisters these damsels should all
dance at the wedding barefoot or at least without shoes :
" this will counteract their ill - luck, and procure them
husbands." ^ The custom is alluded to by Shakespeare,^ and
appears to be still observed in Shropshire and the north of
England.* In Wales, " if the youngest of a family was
married before the eldest, the seniors had to dance shoeless
for penance to the company." ^ From this it appears that
elder brothers had also to dance without shoes at the weddings
of their younger brothers. In the west of England the
rule is said to be that at the wedding of a younger sister
the elder sister should dance in green stockings.^ Appar-
ently in some parts of Scotland the custom was similar, for
there is a saying that when a girl marries before her elder
sisters " she has given them green stockings." ^ In the
north-east of Scotland a younger sister on such an occasion
gave her elder sister green garters,^ in which we may suppose
that the elder w as formerly expected to dance at her younger
1 F. Demelic, Le Droit Coiitimiier 1883), pp. 290 sq. ; W. Henderson,
des Slaves Miridionaiix d'apres les Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern
rechercJies de M. V. Bogi}ic (Paris, Counties of Efigland and the Borders
1877), P- 52. (London, 1879), p. 41.
- Francis Grose, A Provincial Glos- 5 Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and
sary, with- a Collection of Local Fro- Folk-stories of IVales (London, 1909),
7Je?-bs and Popular Superstitions (Lon- p 274
don 1811), p 293 ; J Brand /'./^/^r ' , ^ chambers, The Book of Days
Aitttquittes of Great hntaii! (London, ,t , oc^i •
00 00 V ■• ^ (London, isbo), 1. 72-3.
1882-1S83), n. 169. ^ ' /' / J
3 The Taming of the Shrew, ^c\.u, ' Robeit Chambers, Popular Phymcs
« Scene i, line 33^ where Katharina says "/ Scotland (London and Edinburgh,
of her younger sister, Bianca, " I must N.D. ), p. 342.
dance bare-foot on her wedding-day." ^ Walter Gregor, Notes on the Folk-
* Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F. lore of the North - East of Scotland
]a.c\iSon, Shropshire Folk-lore {hondon, (London, 1881), p. 90.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEV/RATE 289
sister's wedding. Among the mining folk of Fife at a mar-
riage " a dance would be held and ' the green garters ' (which
had been knitted in anticipation by the best maid) were pinned
surreptitiously on to the clothing of the elder unmarried brother
or sister of the bride. When discovered they were removed
and tied round the left arm and worn for the rest of the
evening. The green garters are still in evidence." ^ The
use of green for the stockings or garters of the elder sister
on such occasions is all the more remarkable because in
general green is thought a very unlucky colour at marriage.
Down to the present time in the north of Scotland no young
woman would wear green on her wedding-day ; and we hear
of an old lady who attributed all her misfortunes in life to
her imprudence in being married in a green gown instead of a
blue." The prejudice against green at weddings is equally
strong in Yorkshire ; a bride who was rash enough to be
married in green is said to have contracted a severe illness
in consequence ; and in that part of the country a bridal
dress of blue is thought to be very little better, for they say,
" If dressed in blue, she's sure to rue." ^ It is a popular
saying in Shropshire and Suffolk that an elder unmarried
brother or sister should dance at his or her younger
brother's or sister's wedding in a hog's trough.'* In the
year 1881 a man in the Bridgenorth neighbourhood was
heard to observe gravely, with reference to the marriage of
the second son of the local squire, that Mr. M (the
elder brother, still unmarried) would have to dance in a pig-
trough on the wedding-day.^ In Yorkshire there is a saying
that an unmarried elder brother or sister must dance " in
the half-peck " at the marriage of his or her younger brother
1 D. Rorie, M.D., in County Folk- collected by Mrs. Gutch (London,
lore, vii. Fife, collected by J. E. 1901), p. 290; Cotinty Folk-lore, vol-
Simpkins (London, 1 9 14), p. 393. v\. East Riding of Yorkshire, hy '^Ixs-
Green garters seem to have been Gutch (London, 1912), p. 128.
similarly used at weddiniTs in Lincoln- 1 t-i- 1 ^i -ht -.it • 1 . r, .-
, . o /- ^ r- 7 7 7 1 Llizabeth Mary Wrimit, Rustic
shire, bee County J'olk-lore, vol. v. „^ , , r- 77 7 //-^ r j tt •
, . , 7 . , -k/ /^ . 1. J iM L , i)peecli and t'olk-lore (Oxford Univer-
Lincolnshtre, by Mrs. Gutch and Mabel • t . p ifs C
Peacock (London, 1908), p. 252, com- 111,,^^!: ' w' t^a/L' a .y?"A''t?
Robert Chambers, The Book of Days,
i. 723.
pare p. 233.
- Robert Chambers, Popular Rhymes
of Scotland, p. 342. ^ Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F.
^ County Folk-lore, vol. ii. North Jackson, 5'/ir(?;)5//?;r /"<?//C'-/i3r^ (London,
Riding of Yorkshire, York and Ainsty , 1883), p. 291.
VOL. II U
290
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Reminis-
cence of
the custom
in France.
Marriage
of children
in order of
seniority
in China,
the East
Indies, and
Africa.
or sister.^ We have seen, too, that among the mining folk
of Fife an elder unmarried brother has to wear green garters,
apparently as a badge of infamy, at the marriage of his
younger sister. At Ventron, in the Vosges, a girl who
marries before her elder sisters must give them a white
goat ; but the demand of justice is generally satisfied with
a goat cut out of wood or of cardboard or simply of
turnip.^ Thus popular custom in England, Scotland, and
France still reflects that prejudice against the marriage of
younger before elder children which is recorded in the
ancient lawbooks of India.
The Chinese also are wont to marry their children in
order of seniority ; ^ and in China the bridal chair which is
carried at marriage processions is frequently decorated with
a pair of trousers hung over the door. This singular orna-
ment is explained as follows. " It would appear that if a
man marries before his elder brother, or a woman before her
elder sister, it is the correct thing to hang this article of
clothing both over the door of the house where the marriage
takes place and over that of the bride's chair. The trovvsers
represent the elder brother and sister." * We may conjec-
ture that the intention is to hold up the old bachelor or old
maid to public derision, which after all is a lighter penalty
than that of damnation denounced by the Laws of Manu
against unmarried elder brothers. The modern Javanese
and the modern Egyptians are also reluctant to marry their
daughters except in the order of seniority.^ Among the
Bataks of Sumatra a younger brother may not marry before
an elder brother.^ In the East Indian island of Halmahera
a younger sister may not marry before an elder sister,^ and
1 Elizabeth Mary Wright, Rustic
Speech and Folk-lore (Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 191 3), p. 276.
2 L. F. Sauve, Le Folk-lore dcs
JIaitles-Vos«^es {Park, 1889), p. 98.
3 J. H. Gray, China (London,
1878), i. 190.
* The China Review, vol. i. (Hong-
Kong, July 1872-June 1873), p. .272.
^ C. F. Winter, " Instellingen
gewoonten en gebruiken der Javanen
te Soerakarta," Tijdschrift voor Nor-
lands Indie, Vijfde Jaargang, Eerste
Deel (Batavia, 1843), p. 566 ; E. W.
Lane, Manners and Custofns of the
Modern Egyptians (Paisley and Lon-
don, 1895), p. 172.
6 G. A. Wilken, " Plechtigheden en
gebruiken bij verlovingen en huwelij-
ken bij de volken van den Indischen
Archipel," De verspreide Geschriften
(The Hague, 1912), i. 450 j^.
7 J. G. F. Riedel, " Galela und
Tobeloresen," Zeitschrift fiir Eihno
logie, xvii. (1885) p. 76. *
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 291
the same rule applies to sisters in the island of Nias, a
departure from the rule being permitted only when the elder
sister, by reason of chronic ill-health, deformity, or other
bodily defect, is not likely to find a suitor.^ Among the
Toboongkoos and Tomoris of Central Celebes, when a
young man asks the hand of a girl whose elder sister is still
unmarried, her father urges him to marry the elder sister
first ; but if the suitor will not hear of it, he must pay the
elder sister or sisters a fine for marrying their younger sister
before them. Should the suitor be rich, he will have to give
each of the slighted damsels a slave or four buffaloes ; should
he be poor, the amount of the fine will be proportionately
less.^ Fines for similar transgressions of what is deemed
the natural order of marriage are exacted from bridegrooms
among some of the Bare'e-speaking Toradjas of Central
Celebes.^ Similarly in some parts of Sumatra a man is allowed
to marry a younger before an elder sister on payment of
a small sum of money to the elder sister or her mother.*
Among the Sangos of German East Africa a younger sister
ought not to marry before her elder sister, and she may not
do so unless the elder is more than twenty years old and
has no prospect of finding a husband.'' We have seen that
a similar custom of precedence accorded to elder sisters in
marriage is observed by other African tribes, the Thonga
and Bechuanas.^
In India at the present day the custom of the sororate is Tiic
common, and sometimes it is expressly laid down that the J^j^o^grrT '"
elder sister must be married before the younger. Thus among India: rule
the Assamese a man may marry two sisters, but he must marry yJunger
sister may
^ T. T. Nieuwenhuisen en H. C. B. Bare' e-sprekendeToradja'svait Midden- , . '^
octorc tin
von Rosenberg, " Verslag omtrent het Ce/el/es (Ba\.a.vi&, 1912-1914), ii. 16. p\Api-
eiland Nias," Verhandeli7igen van het 4 William Marsden, History of
Batavtaasch Genootschap van Rmisten Sumatra (London, 1811), p. 22q ;
«WfW«»c-/m//.«, XXX (Batavia, 1863), q. A. Wilken, " Plechti^heden en
p. 39; H. von Rosenberg Z?.r^/a/«j'- ^^ebruiken bij verlovingen en huwe-
ische Archipel (Lei psic, 1878), p. 155. \^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^.^j^^^ ^.^^ ^^^ Indischen
^ A. C. Kruijt, "Lenige ethno- Kxc\{i^<t\;^ Deverspreide Geschriften,\.
gransche aanteekenmgen omtrent de .j
Toboengkoe en de Tomori," Mededcel- r m- •
ingen van wage het Nederlandsche ^ Missionar Heese, " Sitte und
Zcndelinggenootschap, xliv. (1900) p. ^/^"^^ der Sango, Archiv fiir An-
234. ^y,iv Mr^/^/^-z^, N.F., XII. (1913) p. 134.
■* N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De ^ See above, p. 277.
292
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
the elder before the younger.^ Among the Garos of Assam
the custom is the same.^ So in the Uppara caste of Mysore,
two sisters may be taken in marriage by the same man, pro-
vided that he does not marry the younger before the elder
sister. But while the Upparas allow the sororate, they forbid
the levirate, in other words, they do not allow a widow to
marry her deceased husband's brother.^ Other castes of
Mysore allow a man to marry several sisters in their lifetime,
sometimes simultaneously ; but where he is only permitted
to marry them successively, we may surmise that he has to
observe the custom enjoined by the Upparas of marrying
the elder before the younger sister.* For example, among
the Nagartas " two sisters may be married by one man but
at different times, especially when the first wife is barren or
is suffering from an incurable disease ; and to avoid the
quarrels in the family if a stranger girl is married, the sister
of the living wife is preferred,"^ So among the Kurubas of
North Arcot a man may marry two sisters either on the death
of one of them, or if his first wife is childless or suffers from
an incurable disease.^ Similarly, among the Medaras of
Southern India marriage with two living sisters is common,
especially when one of the wives is diseased ; and marriage
with a deceased wife's sister is regarded with special favour.'^
The Kachhis, an important caste of cultivators in the Central
Provinces, allow a man to have two sisters as wives at the
same time ; indeed at their weddings a piece of pantomime
is enacted which seems to indicate a preference for marriage
with two sisters simultaneously. At a certain point of the
ceremony the bride is hidden somewhere in the house, and
the bridegroom has to search for her. Sometimes the bride's
younger sister is dressed up in the bride's clothes, and the
bridegroom catches her in mistake for his wife ; whereupon
^ A Sketch of Assam, -a<ith some Caste, p. 3 ; id. xiii. Domhar Caste,
Account of the Hill Tribes, by an
Officer [John Butler] (London, ^847),
p. 142.
- Major A. Playfair, The Garos
(London, 1909), p. 69.
^ H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
graphical Survey of Mysore, xxi. Uppiira
Caste (Bangalore, 1910), pp. 4, 7.
■^ H. V. Nanjundayya, op. cit. ii.
Holeya Caste, p. 7 ; id. ix. Tigala
p. 5 ; id. XV. Morasic Okkalu, p. 13 ;
id. xvi. Sanyasi Caste, p. 2.
^ H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
graphical Survey of Mysore, xxx. Na-
gat-tds (Bangalore, 1913), p. 6.
® E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India (Madras, 1909), iv.
147.
" E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, v. 55.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRAIE 293
the old women laugh and say to hiin, " Do you want her
also?"^ In some castes, however, a man may not have two
sisters to wife at the same time, but is free to marry the
second sister after the death of the first. Thus among the
Sunars, who are the goldsmiths and silversmiths of the
Central Provinces, " a man is forbidden to marry two sisters
while both are alive, and after his wife's death he may
espouse her younger sister, but not her elder one." ^ So,
too, among the Oswals, a wealthy and respectable trading
class of the North-Western Provinces, a man may marry his
deceased wife's younger sister, but is forbidden to marry her
elder sister.^
In India the custom of the sororate is very commonly The
practised in conjunction with the levirate. Thus among the ^^^^^^^
Veddas of Ceylon " second marriages are, and always have levirate
been frequent, a man often marrying a sister of his deceased conjunc- '"
wife and a woman marrying one of her dead husband's tion in
brothers. We believe that such unions were regarded as i„dia.
both a privilege and a duty, though according to Handuna ^he
, / ' & t> Veddas.
of Sitala Wanniya a man married his dead wife's sister
principally because if he married any one else his children
would not be looked after so well." ^ The Besthas, a large The
caste of Mysore, do not allow a man to be married to two ^^' '^^'
sisters at the same time, but they permit him to marry the
one after the death of the other ; indeed a deceased wife's
sister is generally preferred as a second wife. Further, a
widow may marry her deceased husband's elder brother, but
such marriages are rare.^ Among the Saoras, a tribe of The
industrious cultivators inhabiting a rugged mountainous ^^°''''^-
region in northern Madras, it is said to be common for a
man to marry his wife's sister in the lifetime of the first,
and the two sisters so married live together until a child is
born, after which they must separate ; for each wife has a
separate house and a separate patch of ground to till on the
' R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes lifetime of both is here rather implied
of the Cent7-al Provinces of India (Lon- than expressed,
don, 1916), iii. 386 sq. * C. G. Seligmann and Brenda Z.
^ R. V. Russell, op. cit. iv. 520. Seligmann, The Veddas (Cambridge,
^ W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of 191 1), p. 69.
the North-Western Provinces and Oudh ^ H. V. Nanjundayya, The Ethno-
(Calcutta, 1896), iv. 99. The pro- graphical Survey of Mysore, v. Bestha
hibition to marry two sisters in the Caste (Bangalore, 1906), pp. 4, 8.
294 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
hill-side. A widow is bound to marry her late husband's
younger brother ; if he is too young to wed, she waits till
he is grown up. If her deceased husband has no younger
brothers living, she marries a son of one of his brothers. A
reason assigned for marrying a wife's sister is that the mar-
riage is inexpensive ; probably she is to be had cheaper than
another woman. Thus with the Saoras, as with many other
peoples, the passion of love tends to flow in the channel of
The Ahirs. ecouomy.^ Among the Ahirs, a large caste of cowherds and
milkmen in the Central Provinces, a man may marry his
wife's younger but not her elder sister, while his first wife
is still living ; and a widow is often expected to marry
The her deceased husband's younger brother.^ The Kawars, a
Kawars. primitive hill tribe of the Central Provinces, observe similar
customs. A man may not marry his wife's elder sister, but
he can take her younger sister to wife in the lifetime of his
first wife ; and the marriage of a widow with her late husband's
younger brother is deemed the most suitable match.^ So
The Talis, with the Tclis, a large caste of oil-pressers in the Central
Provinces, a man may marry his wife's younger sister while
she herself is alive, but he may never marry her elder sister.
In Chhattisgarh a Teli widow is always kept in the family,
if it can be done ; and when her late husband's brother is
V only a boy, she is sometimes induced to put on the bangles
and wait for him. In Chanda, on the other hand, some Telis
do not permit a widow to marry her deceased husband's
younger brother at all, and others allow the marriage only
The when he is a bachelor or a widower.* The Korkus, a
Korkus. Munda or Kolarian tribe of the Central Provinces, practise
polygamy on a very liberal scale, a husband sometimes
3 having twelve wives all living at one time. But he " must
not marry his wife's younger sister if she is the widow
of a member of his own sept nor his elder brother's
widow if she is his wife's elder sister." ^ This implies that
he may marry his wife's younger sister, if she is not the
1 Fred. Favvcett, "On the Saoras of the Central Provinces of India {^ox\.-
(or Savaras), an aboriginal Hill People don, 1916), ii. 26, 27.
of the Eastern Ghats of the Madras ^ R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 393,
Presidency," yi?«r«a/ of the Attthropo- 395-
logical Society of Bombay, i. (Bombay, ■* R. V. Russell, op. cit. iv. 547.
1886-1887) pp. 230 sq., 234 sq. 548.
2 R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes ^ R. V. Russell, of. cit. iii. 559.
i
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 295
widow of a member of his own sept ; and that he may
marry his elder brother's widow, provided that she is not
his wife's elder sister. The Gonds of the Central Provinces The
appear to practise the sororate with the usual restriction ; ^°"'^^-
for we are told that among them " a man cannot marry his
wife's elder sister," ^ which implies that he can marry her
younger sister. They commonly observe the levirate also
with the usual limitation, for we read that, while the re-
marriage of a widow is freely permitted, " as a rule it is con-
sidered suitable that she should marry her deceased husband's
younger brother, but she may not marry his elder brother,
and in the south of Bastar and Chanda the union with the
younger brother is also prohibited. In Mandla, if she will
not wed the younger brother, on the eleventh day after the
husband's death he puts the tarkhi or palm-leaf ear-rings in
her ears, and states that if she marries anybody else he will
claim dazva-bunda or compensation. Similarly in Bastar, if
an outsider marries the widow, he first goes through a joint
ceremony with the younger brother, by which the latter
relinquishes his right in favour of the former."" Among
the Ramaiyas, a pedlar class of the North - Western The
Provinces, a man may not have two sisters to wife '^'"^'y^^'
at the same time, but there is no rule against his marry-
ing his deceased wife's younger sister ; and a widow may
marry her deceased husband's younger brother, if he is
unmarried. Should her brother-in-law not claim her hand,
she is free to bestow it upon somebody else.^ Among the
Hindoos of the Punjab a man who has married an elder The
sister will seldom marry her younger sister in the lifetime ^'"he°''^
of the first ; but when the elder sister dies, he will often Punjab,
take her younger sister to wife. Indeed, among ruling
chiefs, instances of two sisters being given in marriage at
the same time to the same man are not uncommon. In
those castes of the Punjab which permit a woman to marry
again, she must be taken to wife by her deceased husband's
1 R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 72. to take to wife the widow of an elder*
2 R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 80 sq. The converse is not, however, per-
Compare Captain J. Forsyth, The mitted."
Highlands of Central India (London, - W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of
1871), p. 150, "Among the Gonds it the North-lVestern Provinces and Otidh
is even the duty of a younger brother (Calcutta, 1896), iv. 224.*
296
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
sororate
and the
lev irate
among the
tribes of
Assam.
Distinction
in respect of
marriage-
ability
between
elder and
younger
brothers
and sisters.
brother. Contrary to the usual rule, there is no objection
to her wedding her dead husband's elder brother; but if
there is a younger brother, a union with him is deemed
preferable.^
Among the inhabitants of the hills near Rajamahall a
man is free to marry his wife's sisters and the widow of his
elder brother." Among the Kacharis of Assam " a widower
may marry his deceased wife's younger sister, but not the
elder, whom he is taught to regard conventionally in the
light of a mother. Much the same principle holds good in
the case of the re-marriage of widows, which is freely per-
mitted, the one limitation being that a widow may marry
her deceased husband's younger brother, but not the elder." ^
So among the Kachcha Nagas, in the North Cachar Hills,
" the younger brother may marry the deceased elder brother's
wife, but not the widow of a younger brother. A man may
marry his wife's younger sister, but not the elder." ^ With
the Kuki-Lushai tribes of the same region the rules are
similar. " A man, if not already married, is bound to marry
the widow of a deceased elder brother. Even if he be a
mere child, he will, on coming of age, marry the woman,
however old she may be. An elder brother may not marry
the widow of the younger. A man may marry his wife's
younger sister, but not the elder." ^
Thus many Indian castes or tribes draw a sharp dis-
tinction in respect of marriageability between the elder and
the younger sisters of a wife, and between the elder and
younger brothers of a husband : in the one case a man may
marry his wife's younger but not her elder sister, in the
other case a woman may marry her deceased husband's
younger but not his elder brother. The reasons for such
distinctions of age will be discussed later on.
The customs of the sororatc and the levirate are observed
1 Census of India, igi i, vol. xiv.
Punjab, Part i. Report, by Fandit
Harikshan Kaul (Lahore, 1912), pp.
289 sq.
2 Lieutenant Thomas Shaw, " On
the Inhabitants of the Hills near Raja-
mahall," Asiatic Researches, iv. (Lon-
don, 1807), pp. 59, 60.
2 Sidney Endle, The Kacharis (Lon-
don, 191 1), p. 29.
* C. A. Soppitt, A Short Account
of the Kachcha Ndga (Einpeo) Tribe in
theNorJh Cachar Hills {'~A\\\\ox^q^, 1885),
p. 8.
^ C. A. Soppitt, A Short Account
of the Kuki-Lushai Tribes on the
North -East Frontier (Shillong, 1887),
pp. 15 sq.
CJiAi\ VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 297
by other Asiatic peoples. Thus in Siam a man is allowed The
to marry two sisters, either simultaneously or successively ; ^°[°'j'|[g
but if he has married the younger sister first, he may not leviraie
afterward marry the elder.^ Among the Rodes, a savage ^"her^
tribe of hunters in the mountains of Cambodia, polygamy is Asiatic
in vogue, and a man who has married the eldest daughter ^
of a family has an acknowledged right to marry all her
younger sisters ; they may not wed any one else without
his consent." Among the Kachins, Chingpaws, or Singphos of
Upper Burma " polygamy is permissible. For a man to have
more than two wives is rare. Sometimes, however, he cannot
help himself, since successive brothers must marry a deceased
elder brother's widows. Occasionally, when many brothers
die and one brother is saddled with more wives than he is
able to support, it is permissible to arrange for a still
younger brother or even a stranger to take the widow ; the
widow in any case has to be taken care of and fed by her
husband's family even if none of them will formally become her
husband."^ Among the Kamchadales a man often married
two sisters either at the same time or one after the death of
the other ; and when a husband died, his surviving brother
married the widow, whether he already had a wife or not.*
With the Koryaks of North-Eastern Siberia it is a rule that
a man may not marry the sister of his living wife, but on the
other hand he is obliged to marry his deceased wife's younger
sister, though he is forbidden to marry her elder sister.
Similarly, a Koryak widow is bound to marry her deceased
husband's younger brother, but is forbidden to marry his
elder brother.^ The heathen Ostiaks marry as many wives
as they can afford to keep, and they prefer to take several
1 Turpin, " History of Siam," in can only many again outside iier
John Pinkerton's Gateral Collection of husband's household with their con-
Voyages and Travels (London, 1808- sent." Compare also John Anderson,
1814), ix. 585 ; E. Aymonier, Notes Mandalay to Moniien (I^ondon, 1S67),
sur le Laos (Saigon, 1885), p. 268. p. 142.
^ J. Moura, Le Koyanme dn Cam- * G. W. Steller, Bescln-eibiaig voit
bodge (Paris, 1883), i. 426, 427, 428. dem Lande Kaniischatka (Frankfort
•^ (Sir) J. George Scott and J. P. and Leipsic, 1774), p. 347.
Hardiman, Gazetteer of Upper Burma ^ W. Jochelson, 77/(? A'(7;;)'a/t (Leyden
and the Shan States (Rangoon, 1900- and New York, 1908), pp. 737, 748.
1 901), Part i. vol. i. p. 405 ; compare {The Jesiip North Pacific Expedition,
id. p. 407, " A widow, as has been vol. vi. ALemoir of the American
noted, is usually taken by her husband's Miisenin of Natural LListo/y, New
brothers. She has no option and York.)
298
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Marriage
with a
deceased
wife's sister
among the
Cheremiss
and
Mordvins
of Russia.
The
sororate
andlevirate
in the
Indian Ar-
chipelago.
sisters to wife, not only because they deem marriage with a
wife's sister lucky, but also because they get the subsequent
sisters at half price, a large reduction being made by the
father of the girls to the man who takes a number of them
off his hands. Further, an Ostiak may lawfully wed his
deceased brother's widow.^
The heathen Cheremiss of Russia practise polygamy,
and though they may not marry two sisters at the same time,
they are pleased to marry them one after the other."
Among the Mordvins of Russia the practice of marrying
a deceased wife's sister was common as late as the eighteenth
century. Indeed, we are told that the widower had a right
to the hand of the lady, and if her father refused his consent,
the importunate suitor could extort it by the following
ceremony. Snatching a morsel of bread from the bin, he
would lay it on the table and run away, crying, " Behold the
bread and salt ! Watch over my betrothed." After that
his father-in-law could no longer withhold from him the hand
of his second daughter.^
Among the Bataks of Sumatra, if a wife dies childless,
her husband has the right to marry her sisters successively,
one after the other, without having to pay another bride-
price for them to the parents ; if the parents refuse their
consent to the new marriage, the widower may demand the
restitution of the price he paid for his first wife.* Further,
it is a rule of Batak law that on a man's death his wives pass
with his property to his heir, who is his younger brother or
eldest son. If the brother desires to niarry them, the women
have no right to refuse ; but if he will not have them, it is open
to them to marry other men. If, at the time of her husband's
death, his younger brother is under age, the widows must
wait for him till he is grown up.^ But while a Batak woman
^ P. S. Pallas, Reise durch verschie-
dene Provinzen des Kitssischen Reichs
(St. Petersburg, 1771-1776), iii. 51.
2 J. G. Georgi, Beschreibung aller
Nationtn des Russischen Reichs (St.
Petersburg, 1 776-1 780), i. 31.
^ Jean N. Smirnov, Les Populations
Finiioises des bassins de la Volga et de
la Kama, Premiere Partie (Paris, 1898),
p. 340.
* C. J. Temminck, Coup cF ceil gin^ral
sur les possessions Nierlandaises dans
PInde Archipc'lagique (Leyden, 1847),
ii. 55 ; F. Warneck, " Das Eherecht
bei den Toba-Batak," Bijdragen tot de
Taal- Land- en Volkenkundevan Neder-
landsch- Indie, liii. (1901), p. 535.
5 J. B. Neumann, " Met Pane- en
Bilastroomgebied op bet eiland Sum-
atra," Tijdschrift van het Neder landsch
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEV/RATE 299
is bound to marry her deceased husband's younger brother,
if he will have her, she is forbidden to marry his elder brother;
such a union is regarded as incest, and is punished by killing
the culprits and devouring their bodies.^ The Menangkabavv
Malays of Sumatra regard it as a meritorious deed when a
man marries his deceased wife's sister or his deceased brother's
widow, because in this way the bond between the families is
not broken by death." In the island of Engano, to the
south-west of Sumatra, a widower usually marries his deceased
wife's sister ; but if he fails to do so, he has not to pay a fine
for culpable negligence.^ In the Mansela and Nusawele
districts of Ceram a man may lawfully marry two wives, but the
men who avail themselves of this privilege are not numerous.
However, in the comparatively rare cases of polygamy the
wives are nearly always sisters, and the custom is defended on
the ground that if the wives were not sisters, there would be
constant bickering in the house.'*
The natives of the Western Islands of Torres Straits The
observed both the sororate and the levirate. Amone them, ^^'^J"^'^
i=> ' and levirate
when a man married a second wife, either in the lifetime of in the
his first wife or after her death, he commonly espoused her isiands"of
sister {tukoiab). But the sister need not be a full sister in Torres
our sense, since the native term for sister {tukoiab) is used in "xew '
the classificatory or group sense of the term, so as to include <^u'nea,
. .^ . . • r 1 • TT ^nd the
halt-sisters and certam first and second cousms. However, Lousiades.
in a considerable proportion of the recorded cases the second
wives whom a man married were the own sisters of his first
wife.- In regard to the levirate, a widow among these people
was not compelled to marry her deceased husband's brother,
Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, Tweede bij de Minangkabausche Maleiers,"
Serie, iii. Afdeeling, Meer uitgebreide Tijdschriftvoor Indische Taal- Land- en
Artikelen, No. 3 (Amsterdam, 1886), Volkenkiuide, xliv. (1901) p. 394.
pp. 4S7 sq.; F. Warneck, "Das ^ j Winkler, " Bericht liber die
Eherecht bei den Toba-Batak," Bij- zweite Untersuchimgsreise nach der
dragentotde Taal- Land- en Volkenkiinde Insel Engano," Tijdschrift voo7- Indische
van Nederlandsch- Indie, liii. (1901) Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, 1. (1908)
pp. 540 sq. ^ p. 152.
^ G. A. Wilken, "Over de ver- * M. C. Schadee, " Heirats- und
wantschap en het huwelijks- en erfrecht andere Gebrauche bei den Mansela
bij de volken van het maleische ras," und Nusawele Alfuren in der Unter-
De verspreide Geschi-iften (The Hague, abteilung Wahasi der Insel Seram
1912), i. 328 J^?. (Ceram),"' Internationales Archiv fiir
^ J. C. van Eerde, " Een huwelijk Ethnographie, xxii. (1915) p- 135.
300 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
but apparently in most cases she did so. Only here again
we must remember that the native term for brother {tukozab)
is used in the classificatory or group sense, so as to include
certain first and second cousins. In these islands permission
to marr\- a widow seems not to have been limited, as usually
in India and sometimes in Africa, to the younger brothers
of the deceased husband.^ Among the Yabim of German
New Guinea a man may marry his deceased wife's sister, but
he is expected to earn her hand by first avenging the death
of one of her kinsfolk.- Again, in the Louisiade Archi-
pelago, to the east of New Guinea, when a woman dies, her
husband may take her unmarried sister to wife without any
fresh payment, and she may not refuse him. But if he does
not care to marry her, and she marries somebody else, her
husband must pay the bride-price to her dead sister's husband
instead of to her own people. Yet though a man may, and
indeed should, marry his deceased wife's sister, he ought not
to approach her closely or hold prolonged conversation with
her during his wife's lifetime, nor should he speak to her
alone in the forest ; if he does so, she might tell her sister,
his wife, who would thereupon think she had cause for
jealousy, and a domestic quarrel might be the result. In
this case the ceremonial avoidance of the wife's sister in the
-^ lifetime of the wife is clearly a precaution to prevent an im-
proper intimacy between the two. Further, in the Louisiade
Archipelago the correlative custom of the levirate is also in
vogue : that is, a man has a right to marry his deceased
brother's widow, after she has completed her term of
mourning.^
The Similarly, in the New Hebrides, a widower marries his
anTievhate deceased wife's sister, and a widow marries her deceased
in the New husband's brother. " All these substitutions are explained
Hebrides.
' Dr. W. H. R. Rivers in Reports of brothers had the right of marrying his
ike Cambridge Anikropologicnl Expedi- widow, the eldest brother having the
tion to Torres Straits, v. (Cambridge, first claim. See Reports of the Cam-
1904) pp. 244 sq. As to the native bridge Expedition to Torres Straits,
term tukoiab, which includes both vi. (Cambridge, 1908) pp. 124 sq.
brothers and sisters, see id., pp. 130 ^ h. Zahn, "Die Jabim," in R.
sqq. As to the classificatory or group '^&\\^\z.M?&,Deutsch Neii-Guinea{^tx\\n,
system of relationship, see above, pp. 191 !)> iii- 307.
227 sqq. The natives of the Eastern '^ C. G. Seligmann, The Melanesians
Islands of Torres Straits also observed of British New Guinea (Cambridge,
the levirate. Among them a man's 1910), pp. 738 sq.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 301
by the fact that the native pays for his wife. Since she is a
slave, it is a gain for the brother who inherits her. In case
this second marriage does not take place, the parents are
obliged to restore the pigs paid by the first husband." ^ A
like testimony to the strictly economic basis of the levirate
in the New Hebrides and in Melanesia generally is borne by
Dr. Codrington. " The levirate," he says, " obtains as a
matter of course. The wife has been obtained for one
member of a family by the contributions of the whole, and
if that member fails by death, some other is ready to take
his place, so that the property shall not be lost ; it is a matter
of arrangement for convenience and economy whether a
brother, cousin, or uncle of the deceased shall take his widow.
The brother naturally comes first ; if a more distant relation
takes the woman he probably has to give a pig. In Lepers'
Island if a man who is a somewhat distant cousin of the
deceased wishes to take the widow, he adds a pig to the
death-feast of the tenth or fiftieth day to signify and support
his pretensions, and he probably gives another pig to the
widow's sisters to obtain their good-will. If two men contend
for the widow she selects one, and the fortunate suitor gives
a pig to the disappointed. In fact a woman, when once the
proper payment has been made for her, belongs to those who
have paid, the family generally." ^ In Futuna, one of the
Southern New Hebrides, " a husband called each of his wife's
sisters ' my wife.' They were all in the same relationship to
him as his own wife, and if she died he took one of her
unmarried sisters. The wife spoke of her husband's brothers
as ' my husbands.' " ^ The significance of such terms for a
wife's sister and a husband's brother will appear presently.
In Samoa polygamy was practised, and it often happened The
in former days that a bride was accompanied to her new ,^n]^°]'^yf,.ate
home by her younger sister or sisters, who became secondary in
wives or concubines to the husband.'* Or, at a later time, if a^j "^^'^
1 A. Hagen et A. Pineau, " Les -t George Brown, D.D., i^e/a«««a;/j ^'^''O'^^sia.
Nouvelles Hebrides," Revue cFEthno- and Polynesians (London, 1910), p.
(?w/^/g, vii. (1889) pp. 330 j^^. 123; Rev. S. Ella, "Samoa, etc.,"
2T? vrrn't nn Th Report of the Fourth Meeting of the
., , ' . ' ,^ r -1 o' >* *' Australasian Associatio7i for the Ad-
Melanesians (Oxford, ISQI), p. 244. . r c- ■ i u ^ u 1
\ ) 7 /> r -TT vanceinent oj Science, held at Hobart,
3 William Gunn, The Gospel in Tasmania, in Jamiary i8g2 (Sydney),
Futuna (London, 1914), p. 206. p. 628.
302 JACOBUS MARRIAGE part n
a man was resolved on adding to his harem, " the principal
wife often selected her own sister or sisters, and endeavoured
to get them added to the family roll of wives, so that she
might have some control over them. This plan was fre-
quently adopted to avoid strangers being brought into the
family." ^ Further, the Samoans observed the levirate as
well as the sororate. " The brother of a deceased husband
considered himself entitled to have his brother's wife, and
to be regarded by the orphan children as their father. If
he was already married, she would, nevertheless, live with
him as a second wife. In the event of there being several
brothers, they met and arranged which of them was to act
the part of the deceased brother. The principal reason
they alleged for the custom was a desire to prevent the
woman and her children returning to her friends, and
thereby diminishing the number and influence of their own
family. And hence, failing a brother, some other relative
would offer himself, and be received by the widow." ^
In Mangaia, one of the Hervey Islands, " in general,
if a man of position married the eldest girl of a slave
family, the younger sisters became his as a matter of course,
being only too glad to have a protector. Even amongst
those of equal rank a man often had two or three sisters to
wife at the same time. Even now, in Christian times, a
woman feels herself to be deeply injured if her brother-in-law
does not, on the death of his wife, ask her to become a mother
to his children." ^ In the Mortlock Islands custom assigned
to a husband, along with his wife, all her free sisters, but only
chiefs availed themselves of the privilege.* In Puynipet, one
of the Caroline Islands, both the sororate and the levirate are
in vogue ; for a man marries his deceased wife's sister and
his deceased brother's widow, even though, in the latter case,
he is already married.^
^ Rev. John B. Stair, Old Samoa (Sj'dney), p. 331.
(London, 1897), P- i75- 4 j. Xubary, "Die Bewohner der
^ George Turner, Samoa a liundrea ht n 1 t 1 " T\/r-t^i v j
^ , ' , ^ ,T J Mortlock-Inseln, Mtttheilun^eti der
vears a^o and lotts^ hetore (London, ^.j ■ ? r- 7? l ^-4 ■ rr i
QQ s o ^ J "■ geographische7iGeselhchaJtin Hamburg,
iS»4), p. 9s. /<S'7<5'-79, p. 37 (separate reprint).
3 W. Wyatt Gill, "Mangaia (Hervey / /x> r j/ v t- v 1
l&\diTi([?,),'" Report of the Second Meeting * K. Scherzer, Narrative of the
of the Australasian Association for the Circttmnavigation of the Globe by the
Advancement of Science, held at Mel- AustrMn Frigate ^^ Novara" (London,
bourne, Victoria, in January i8go 1861-1863), ii. 581,
CHAP. VI THE SO RO RATE AND LEVI RATE 303
Some tribes of Queensland and North-West Australia The
allow a man to marry two or more sisters at once/ Thus anTicvrrate
in the Kariera tribe of North-Western Australia, " where inAustraiia.
there are several sisters in a family, they are all regarded as
the wives of the. man who marries the eldest of them. He
may, if he chooses, waive his right in favour of his younger
brother, with the consent of the father of the girls. If a family
contained four girls, and a man took the two oldest, but per-
mitted his younger brother to marry the third, the youngest
daughter thereby also becomes the wife of the younger
brother, and the older brother cannot claim any right to her.
When a man dies, his wives pass to his younger brother or
to the man who stands nearest to him in the relation of
margara. This man marries the widow and adopts the
children." ^ Thus the Kariera practise both the sororate and
the levirate, and with them, as with many peoples, the levirate
is restricted by the rule that it is only a younger brother who
may inherit his deceased brother's ^widow. This transmission
of a widow to a younger, but never to an elder, brother of
the deceased husband is reported to be a very characteristic
feature of the northern tribes of Central Australia,^ and it
is customary in the Kakadu tribe of Northern Australia.'*
Among the aborigines of South-West Victoria a man might
marry his deceased wife's sister or his brother's widow ; indeed,
when a married man died leaving a family, it was the duty
of his surviving brother to marry the widow and rear his
deceased brother's children.^ The custom of the levirate has
been more commonly reported in Australia ^ than the custom
of the sororate.
' The Bishop of Queensland (Dr. than the speaker {ib. p. 149).
Frodsham), quoted in Folk-loix, xx. ^ (^\x) Baldwin Spencer and F. J,
(1909) p. 352, and in Man, ix. (1909) Gillen, The No7-the7-ti Tribes of Central
p. 147; E. Clement, "Ethnographical ^?«/ra//a (London, 1904), p. 510.
Notes on the Western Australian Abo- ■* (Sir) Baldwin Spencer, Native
rigines," Internationales Archiv fiir Tribes of the Northern Territory of
Ethnographie, xvi. (1904) p. 12. Australia (London, 1 9 14), pp. 51 sq.
2 A. R. Brown, " Three Tribes of * James Dawson, Australian Aboii-
Western Australia," Journal of the ^«;£.f( Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide,
Royal Anthropologieal Institute, xliii. 1 881), p. 27.
(1913) p. 158. The term margara is ^ For examples see A. W. Howitt,
applied to younger brothers in the A'atiz'e Tribes of South- East Australia
classificatory or group sense, which in- (London, 1904), pp. 217) 220, 224,
eludes the father's brother's son and the 227, 250, 257, 258, 266 ; R. Brough
mother's sister's son, if he is younger Smyth, The Aborigines of Victoria
304
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The
sororate
and levirate
seem to
have
originated
in the
marriage of
a group of
brothers to
a group of
sisters.
Such a
form of
group
marriage,
in which
all the
husbands
are brothers
and all the
wives are
sisters,
actually
occurs in
Australia,
and among
the Todas
and Santals
of India.
The general conjunction of the sororate and the levirate
in the usage of so many peoples renders it probable that, as
I have already said, the two customs are correlative and
admit of a similar explanation. " Taken together, the two
customs seem to indicate the former prevalence of marriage
between a group of husbands who were brothers to each other,
and a group of wives who were sisters to each other. In
practice the custom which permits a man to marry several
sisters has diverged in an important respect from the custom
which permits a woman to marry several brothers ; for
whereas the permission granted to a man to marry several
sisters simultaneously in their lifetime has survived in many
races to this day, the permission granted to a woman to
marry several brothers has generally been restricted by the
provision that she may only marry them successively, each
after the death of his predecessor. We may conjecture that
the cause of the divergence between the two customs was
the greater strength of the passion of jealousy in men than
in women, sisters being more willing to share a husband
between them than brothers to share a wife." ^ The same
cause may in large measure account for the great frequency
of polygamy contrasted with the great rarity of polyandry in
the human species.
Thus the two customs of the sororate and the levirate seem
traceable to a common source in a form of group marriage,
in which all the husbands were brothers and all the wives
were sisters. Nor are we left entirely to conjecture the
former existence of such group marriages ; instances of them
(Melbourne and London, 1878), i. 87 ;
E. M. Curr, The Australian Race
(Melbourne and London, 1886-1887),
i. 107 ; F. Bonney, " On some Customs
of the Aborigines of the River Darling,
New South Wales," Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, xiii. (1884)
p. 135 ; E. Palmer, "Notes on some
Australian TxVbes," Joiii'jial of the An-
thropological Institute, xiii. (1884) p.
298 : Carl Lumholtz, Among Cannibals
(London, 1889), p. 164.
1 Totemisin attd Exogainy, ii. 144.
This explanation of the sororate and
the levirate is not altogether novel ; for
L. H. Morgan explained the sororate
by group marriage in which the wives
were sisters, and A. W. Howitt ex-
plained the levirate by group marriage
in which the husbands were brothers.
See L. H. Morgan, Anciettt Society
(London, 1877), p. 432; A. W. Ilowitt,
Native Tribes of South- East Australia
(London, 1904), p. 281. But it does
not appear to have occurred to these
eminent writers that the two hypotheses
are complementary, and point to a form
of group marriage in which all the
wives were sisters and all the husbands
were brothers.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LFVIRATE 305
have been noted by modern observers in several parts of the
world. Among the tribes of North Queensland " a feature
of more than ordinary interest is the right of marital relation-
ship between a husband and his wife's blood sisters on the
Pennefather and Tully Rivers, and between a wife and her
husband's blood brothers on the Tully River. Cases of this
nature, coupled with the handing over of the widow to her
late husband's brother, bear strong evidence of communal
marriage in a very primitive condition, before the distinction
had come to be made between the blood- and group-members
of the different class-systems." ^ Thus, on the Tully River
a group of men, who are blood brothers, have marital rela-
tions with a group of women who are blood sisters. This is
exactly the form of group marriage in which, on my hypo-
thesis, both the sororate and the levirate took their rise.
Again, among the Todas of Southern India, " if there be four
or five brothers, and one of them, being old enough, gets
married, his wife claims all the other brothers as her husbands,
and as they successively attain manhood, she consorts with
them ; or if the wife has one or more younger sisters, they
in turn, on attaining a marriageable age, become the wives
of their sister's husband or husbands, and thus in a family of
several brothers there may be, according to circumstances,
only one wife for them all, or many ; but, one or more, they
all live under one roof, and cohabit promiscuously, just as
fancy or taste inclines." ^ Again, the Santals, a primitive
tribe of Bengal, " not only allow a husband's younger brothers
to share his wife's favours, but permit the husband in his turn
to have access to his wife's younger sisters. This latter
custom is an approach to the Hawaiian group marriages of
brothers and sisters, which formed the foundation for Morgan's
theory of a Punaluan family. To a modified extent it has
its counterpart in Ladakh, where the wife of several brothers
can bring in her sister as a co-wife." ^ "A Santal's wife is
common property with him and all his younger brothers as
1 Walter E. Roth, North Queens- Transactions of the Ethnological Society
la}td Ethnography, Bulletin No. 10, of London, New Series, vii. (London,
Marriage Ceremonies and I) f ant Life 1869), p. 240.
(1908), p. 3. 3 Census of India, Jgii, vol. i.
'^ J. Shortt, M.D., "An Account of J/idia, Part i. Report, by (Sir) E. A.
the Hill Tribes of the Neilgherries," Gait (Calcutta, 191 3), p. 240.
VOL. 11 X
3o6 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
regards conjugal relations, even after the younger brothers
marry for themselves. Similarly, a Santal woman's younger
sisters legitimately share without marriage all her conjugal
privileges with her husband. The above relations were quite
common thirty- five years ago, and are still in vogue, though
they are, perhaps, not quite so openly indulged in now." ^
The Santal The Santal custom which thus permits conjugal relations
custom o between a group of brothers and a group of sisters has been
marriage fc> I t> i
between a described more fully by Mr. C. H. Craven, Assistant Settle-
brothei°s mcnt Officer at Diimka, and his description deserves to be
anda group quoted in full, since it illustrates not only the general working
of this form of group marriage, but also those special features
of the sororate and the levirate which depend on a distinc-
tion of age between elder brothers and younger brothers,
between elder sisters and younger sisters. Mr. Craven's
account runs as follows : —
" Traces of fraternal Polyandry amongst the Santdls. —
Among the Santals, the wife of a younger brother is
treated most deferentially by the elder brother. To quote a
familiar saying, ' the bokot bahu (younger brother's wife) is
like a bonga (god).' From the day of her marriage, when
the bokot ba/m catches the elder brother round the ankles and
demands a present (a ceremony known as katkoui^f the
-V bokot balm and the elder brother must never so much as touch
one another. The relations between them become very
strict ; they cannot enter into the same room or remain
together in the court}-ard unless others are present. Should
the bokot balm come in from work in the fields and find the
elder brother sitting alone in the raca, or courtyard, she must
remain in the village street or in the outer verandah of the
house till some other people enter the house.
" The bokot ba/m cannot usually sit down in the presence
of the dadat (elder brother), and it is absolutely improper for
her to take a seat on a parkoni, or bed, while he is close at
hand. Should it be necessary for the bokot bahu to sit down
while the elder brother is close by, she must use a gando, or
low stool. She can never loosen or comb her hair before
^ Rev. L. O. Skreefsrud (Sonthal ^ "The literal meaning of katkom
Parganas), in Journal of the Asiatic is ' crab,' which is supposed to indicate
Society of Bengal, Ixxii. Part iii. No. 2, the firmness of the girl's grip."
1903, p. 90.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 307
the elder brother. To do so would be considered highly
improper, and would imply that the relations between them
had become much too familiar,
" The intercourse, on the other hand, between the elder
brother's wife {Juli) and the unmarried younger brothers is
remarkably free and easy. They can flirt and jest together
quite openly, and until the younger brothers find suitable
helpmates of their own it is not improper for them to share
their elder brother's wife, so long as they respect his dignity
and feelings and do not indulge in amorous dalliance in his
presence. Subject to this condition the elder brother and
the village community do not consider that the matter
specially concerns them. Santal women often complain that
their husband's younger brothers are carrying on intrigues
with other girls when they can get all they want at home.
" When an elder brother dies, his widow very frequently
takes up her abode with one of the younger brothers as a
kind of elder wife, and this almost invariably happens in
cases where the widow has been left badly off. This relic of
polyandry is not confined to the Santals or to tribes low
down in the social scale. It is common to Goalas, Kalwars,
and to some septs of Rajputs.
" The relations between husbands and their wives' younger
sisters {erwel kuriko) are perhaps even less restricted, and it
is considered quite legitimate for a man to carry on an
intrigue with his wife's younger sister, provided the damsel
is agreeable, the only stipulation being that if she became
enceinte her brother-in-law {tenay) must take her to wife per-
manently. Santal wives are usually frantically jealous, but
they seldom fail to tolerate, and have been known to
encourage, improper relations between their consorts and
their younger sisters. It is often urged as an excuse for the
practice that the latter are thus kept from going wrong with
other young men.
" The improper relations usually cease when the younger
brothers and younger sisters get married. They are more-
over limited very considerably by the natural temperament
of the members of a family. All elder brothers do not
submit tamely to their wives being enjoyed in common ; all
wives are not complacent, nor do all younger brothers and
3o8 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
younger sisters conform to what is asked of them. Families
often become divided in consequence of an indulgence in
these practices, but the fact that they are recognized and
form a part of the social system of the Santal is incontest-
able." 1
The Thus among the Santals a group of brothers is permitted
of group"" ^° exercise marital rights over a group of sisters ; and when
marriage one of the brothers dies, his widow very often, in some cases
thesororate invariably, is taken as an elder wife by his younger brother,
and the Hence the Santals practise both the sororate and the levirate,
levirate. 111
and among them these customs are the outcome of what is,
to all intents and purposes, a form of group marriage con-
tracted between a group of brothers on the one hand and a
group of sisters on the other. Yet this union is by no
means absolutely loose and indiscriminate ; it is subject to
certain definite rules which concern in particular the respec-
tive ages of the persons who compose the groups. A man
who has married a wife obtains thereby a right of access to
her younger unmarried sisters, but apparently not to her
elder sisters ; and if we ask, Why not to her elder sisters ?
the answer would probably be that, in accordance with the
common rule which prescribes that an elder sister must
marry before a younger, the elder sisters are already married
^^ and therefore appropriated to other men. For a like reason,
when a wife's younger sisters marry, the man who married
their elder sister usually ceases to exercise marital rights
over them, because by their marriage they are appropriated
to other men. Again, a younger unmarried brother exer-
cises marital rights over his elder brother's wife ; but as soon
as he marries a wife of his own, he usually ceases to have
access to his elder brother's wife,^ and his elder brother is
from the first strictly debarred not only from conjugal but
even from ordinary social relations with his younger
brother's wife. The stringent rules of mutual avoidance
which are incumbent on an elder brother and his younger
brother's wife are clearly nothing but precautions to prevent
improper relations between the two ; and the same explana-
^ C. H. Craven, Assistant Settle- 90.
ment Officer, Dumka, in Journal of ^ So Mr. Craven reports (above, p.
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 307) ; but Mr. Skreefsrud's account is
Ixxii. Part iii. No. 2, 1903, pp. 88- ditierent (above, pp. 305 sq.').
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 309
tion, as I have already pointed out,^ probably applies to
every similar case of ceremonial avoidance practised between
persons of opposite sexes in rude society.
We see then that among the Santals the communal in such a
srroups consist of an elder married brother and a number of ^^^'"^"^ ^ ^
o r communal
unmarried younger brothers on the one hand, and an elder groups are
married sister and a number of unmarried younger sisters on ohangin^y
the other hand. When one of the younger brothers or younger being
sisters marries, he or she normally falls out of the group ; decom-
when all the younger brothers and sisters have married, the v^^^^ ^"d
11 1 1- 1 1 1 ■ 1 111 recom-
old communal groups are dissolved and either replaced by posed,
single couples or, more probabl\% recomposed into fresh com-
munal groups by the new marital relations which on his
marriage each younger brother contracts with his wife's
younger sisters, and which on her marriage each younger
sister contracts with her husband's younger brothers. On
this showing, the social system of the Santals consists of a
series of communal groups which are constantly being dis-
solved and recomposed in fresh forms, the dissolution being
effected by the desire of each man to appropriate a wife to
himself, and the recomposition being effected by his desire
to enlarge the circle of his women. Thus the centripetal
force of sexual communism, which tends to collect the
whole of society into a single aggregate, is perpetually
counteracted by the centrifugal force which tends to break
up that aggregate into a series of isolated couples ; the
same antagonism which we see at work in the macro-
cosm of the physical world is at work in the microcosm of
the social world, producing a perpetually shifting kaleidoscope
of molecules now meeting, now parting, now integrating,
now disintegrating, always in motion, never at rest.
The Santal system of group marriage, in accordance Parallel
with which a group of brothers cohabits with a group of thTsTnlai
sisters, subject only to certain restrictions in regard to age, system
may be compared with the Thonga system,^ which exactly ma^ria""^
resembles it except that among the Thonga the brothers no ^"f^ ^^^
longer share each other's wives in their lifetime, but only system,
succeed to them, one after the other, as each brother dies ; '" ^^"'^"^'^
1 • • 1 T-1 r 1 o"*-" 'mature
to put it otherwise, in the ihonga system iraternal com- has dis-
^ Above, pp. 160 sq. ^ Above, pp. 276 sq.
3IO JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
munism in wives has been replaced by the levirate, but the
sororate in its original form remains intact, since a man has
the right of marrying his wife's younger sisters either in her
lifetime or after her death. Thus the full communal mar-
riage of a group of brothers with a group of sisters, which
survives among the Santals, has been reduced among the
Thonga by the disappearance of all the male partners but
one, while the female partners still muster in undiminished
number. The equipoise between the sexes has been dis-
turbed to the advantage of the male, who now enjoys all the
females, and to the corresponding disadvantage of the female,
who is now reduced to the enjoyment, so to say, of only a
fraction of a single male. The change is probably due in
great measure to the superior strength and fiercer jealousy
of the male, who in time refuses to share his females with a
rival. But in the broken-down Thonga system both sexes
continue to observe the very same restrictions in regard to
age which are observed in the still full-blown Santal system of
communal marriage. For while the husband may make free
with his wife's younger sisters, because they can become his
wives, he is forbidden to take liberties with her elder sisters,
because they cannot become his wives ; and on the other
hand he carefully avoids the wives of his younger brothers,
-V because under ordinary circumstances he cannot inherit
them, whereas he is free to dally with the wives of his elder
brother, because he will inherit them after his brother's
Common death. So exact a correspondence between the Thonga
Thon°a ^^*^ ^^^ Santal systems points to a common basis in custom,
and Santal and that basis is found in a conjugal group composed of
mgroup husbands who are brothers and of wives who are sisters,
marriage. Such a Conjugal group exists practically intact among the
Santals ; it survives in a mutilated, one-sided form among
the Thonga. Another imperfect survival of such a conjugal
Survival group is found among the Bhuiyas, a large and important
of group aboriginal tribe of Bengal, Orissa, and the Central Provinces.
marriage ° .
among the With them " a widow is often taken by the younger brother
Bhuiyas o ^^ ^^ deceased husband, though no compulsion is exerted
India. ' ° ^
over her. But the match is common because the Bhuiyas
have the survival of fraternal polyandry, which consists in
allowing unmarried younger brothers to have access to an
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 311
elder brother's wife during his lifetime." ^ Thus among the
Bhuiyas the levirate appears to be a relic of polyandry, that
is, of the one-sided form of group marriage in which a single
wife is shared by a group of brothers. This is clearly
just the Qonverse of the Thonga system, in which a single
husband is shared by a group of sisters. The two
systems, the Thonga and the Bhuiya, are complementary,
and together represent that full or symmetrical system of
group marriage in which a group of brothers is married to
a group of sisters.
The theory which deduces both the sororate and the The theory
levirate from a common source in the marriage of a group sororate
of brothers with a group of sisters may be confirmed by an andievirate
examination of the terms for husband and wife which are in'fhe^ "^
employed in the classificatory or group system of relation- '"^'"riage of
ship. If the classificatory or group system of relationship brothers
accurately reflects, as I have argued, a system of group ^"^ ^ ,
■' o J 01 group of
marriage, it ought to contain a record of that particular form sisters is
of group marriage, which consists in the marriage of a group "'"fi'''"^^
of brothers to a group of sisters, on the supposition that such examina-
a marriage was a widespread and characteristic feature in c°r".°„
the relations of the sexes at a certain stage of social evolu- classifica-
tion. Should the classificatory or group system of relation- oTreiaTion-
ship be found on examination to contain terms which appear ship.
to be only explicable on the hypothesis of such marriages of
groups of brothers to groups of sisters, the discovery will
furnish a strong argument in favour of the view that this
particular form of group marriage has prevailed widely, and
consequently that it may be the source both of the sororate
and of the levirate, which appear to be its detached halves
produced by fission of the original group. On the other
hand, should the classificatory or group system of relationship
be found to contain no terms corresponding to such a form
of group marriage, the absence of the corresponding terms
would raise a presumption of the absence of the institution.
1 R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes brother ; she is strictly forbidden to
of the Central Provinces of Ind'a marry his elder brother. See (Sir) 11.
(London, 1916), ii. 317. As usual, H. Risley, Tribes atid Castes of Bengal
a Bhuiya widow is only allowed to (Calcutta, 1892), i. 114.
marry her deceased husband's younger
312
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
If the
theory is
right, there
should be
one and
the same
term for
wife, wife's
sister, and
brother's
wife ; and
there
should be
one and
the same
term for
husband,
husband's
brother,
and sister's
husband.
Now this
identity
of terms,
pointing
to the
marriage of
a group of
brothers
with a
group of
sisters, is
found in
various
forms of the
classifica-
tory or
group
system of
relation-
ship.
What then are the classificatory or group terms of
relationship which would correspond to and express the
marriage of a group of .brothers to a group of sisters ?
First, let us look at this supposed marriage from the point
of view of the man. In such a marriage he. exercises
marital rights equally over a group of sisters ; therefore he
calls all the sisters his wives. Again, he exercises marital
rights equally over all his brothers' wives ; therefore he calls
all his brothers' wives his wives. Hence he applies the
term wife to the whole group of sisters and to the whole
group of his brothers' wives, since these two groups of
women are in fact one and the same. Second, let us look
at this supposed marriage from the point of view of the
woman. In such a marriage she enjoys conjugal rights
equally over a group of brothers ; therefore she calls all the
brothers her husbands. Again, she enjoys conjugal rights
equally over all her sisters' husbands; therefore she calls all
her sisters' husbands her husbands. Hence she applies the
term husband to the whole group of brothers and to the
whole group of her sisters' husbands, since these two groups
of men are in fact one and the same. To sum up, on the
hypothesis of a form of group marriage in which all the
husbands are brothers and all the wives are sisters, we should
expect to find the following equations : —
wife = wife's sister = brother's wife [inan speaking)
husband = husband's brother = sister's husband {zvoinan
speaking).
Now if we examine the actual systems of classificatory
or group relationship we shall find that a number of them
contain terms for husband and wife which conform exactly
to these equations, the term for wife including the wife's
sister and the brother's wife, and the term for husband in-
cluding the husband's brother and the sister's husband.
Systems of relationship containing these equations are par-
ticularly common in Australia, where the forms of marriage
approximate more closely than elsewhere to that system of
group marriage on which the classificatory or group system
of relationship is founded. Hence the frequency with which
in aboriginal Australia the term for wife coincides with the
tribes.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 313
terms for wife's sister and brother's wife, and the term for
husband coincides with the terms for husband's brother and
sister's husband, raises a strong presumption in favour of the
view that these communal terms originally corresponded to
and expressed the communal marriage of a group of brothers
to a group of sisters.
Thus to take instances, in the Kurnai tribe of south- identity of
eastern Victoria a man applies the same term {inaiaji) to his [^w^ife"^
wife, to his wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a wife'ssister,
woman applies the same term {bra) to her husband, to her ^^,^°g ^nd
husband's brother, and to her sister's husband.^ In the Yuin (*)husband
tribe of south-eastern New South Wales a man applies the brothe",
same term {nadjanduri) to his wife, to his wife's sister, and and sister's
, 1 • 1 ^1 ' •/- 1 1- 1 husband,
to nis brothers wite ; and a woman applies the same term in many
{tarravid) to her husband, to her husband's brother, and to ^"j^^|^^^'^"
her sister's husband." In the Wotjobaluk tribe of Victoria
a man applies the same term {inatjiin) to his wife, to his
wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a wife applies
the same term {jianitcJi) to her husband, to her husband's
brother, and to her sister's husband.^ In the Wurunjeri
tribe of Victoria a man applies the same term {bimbang) to
his wife, to his wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a
woman applies the same term {iiangurimg) to her husband,
to her husband's brother, and to her sister's husband.* In
the Watu-Watu or Wathi-Wathi tribe of Victoria a man
applies the same term {iiopui) to his wife, to his wife's sister,
and to his brother's wife ; and a woman applies the same
term {nopui) to her husband, to her husband's brother, and
to her sister's husband.^ In the Northern Kamilaroi tribe
of New South Wales a man applies the same term {ungiiid)
to his wife, to his wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ;
and a woman applies the same term {golzd) to her husband,
to her husband's brother, and to her sister's husband." In
the Kaiabara tribe of south-eastern Queensland a man applies
1 A. W. Howitt, "Australian Group- Howitt calls the tribe Watu-Watu.
relationships," Journal of the Royal Elsewhere he calls it Wathi-Wathi
Anthropological Institute, xxxvii. {1907) {Native Tribes of South- East Australia,
p. 287. p. 50, etc.).
2 A. W. Howitt, I.e. s A. W. Howitt, "Australian Group-
3 A. W. Howitt, I.e. relationships," Jourtial of the Royal
* A. W. Howitt, I.e. Anthropological Institute,-x.:iw\\.(igoj)
5 A. W. Howitt, I.e. Here Dr. p. 287.
314 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
the same term [inaleniungaii) to his wife, to his wife's sister,
and to his brother's wife ; and a woman appHes the same
term {inalaunic) to her husband, to her husband's brother,
and to her sister's husband.^ In the Kuinmurbura tribe of
eastern Queensland a man applies the same term {gingil) to
his wife, to his wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a
woman applies the same term {^itipd) to her husband, to her
husband's brother, and to her sister's husband.^ In the
Kurnandaburi tribe of southern Queensland a man applies
the same term {abai'ja) to his wife, to his wife's sister, and to
his brother's wife ; and a woman applies the same term
{abaija) to her husband, to her husband's brother, and to her
sister's husband.^ In the Dieri tribe of Central Australia a
man applies the same term {noa) to his wife, to his wife's
sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a woman applies the
same term {nod) to her husband, to her husband's brother,
and to her sister's husband/ In the Urabunna tribe of
Central Australia a man applies the same term {nupd) to his
wife, to his wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a
woman applies the same term {niipa) to her husband, to her
husband's brother, and to her sister's husband,^ In the
Arunta tribe of Central Australia a man applies the same
term iimaiva) to his wife, to his wife's sister, and to his
brother's wife ; and a woman applies the same term {imawd)
to her husband, to her husband's brother, and to her sister's
husband.^ In the Warramunga tribe of Central Australia
a man applies the same' term {katiinnngd) to his wife, to his
wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a woman applies
the same term {kuUa-kidld) to her husband and to her
husband's brother." In the Binbinga tribe of Northern
Australia a man applies the same term {karind) to his wife,
to his wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a woman
applies the same term {kaikai) to her husband, to her hus-
band's brother, and to her sister's husband.^ In the Port
1 A. W. Howilt, I.e. Australia [London, 1904), p. 79. The
2 A. W. Howitt, I.e. writers do not say, but we may conjec-
3 A. W. Howitt, I.e. ture, that a woman applies the same term
* A. W. Howitt, I.e. {kulla-kul/a) to her sister's husband.
'' A. W. Howitt, I.e. * A. W. Howitt, "Australian Group-
* A. W. Howitt, I.e. relationships," Journal of the Royal
7 (Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Antkropologieal I?ist{tute,xx\v\i.{l(^o'j)
Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central p. 287.
J
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 315
Essington tribe of Northern Australia a man applies the
same term {angban or ilkumd) to his wife, to his wife's sister,
and to his brother's wife ; and a woman applies the same
term {ilkujna) to her husband, to her husband's brother, and
to her sister's husband.^ In the Melville Island tribe of
Northern Australia a man applies the same term {yamoaniyd)
to his wife, to his wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and
a woman applies the same term {yabmuneinga) to her
husband, to her husband's brother, and to her sister's hus-
band.^ In the Kariera tribe of North-Western Australia r.
man applies the same term {fiuba) to his wife, to his wife's
sister, and to his brother's wife ; and a woman applies the
same term {nuba) to her husband, to her husband's brother,
and to her sister's husband.^ In the Mardudhunera tribe of
North-Western Australia a man applies the same term
{yagan) to his wife, to his wife's sister, and to his brother's
wife ; and a woman applies the same term {yagan) to her
husband, to her husband's brother, and to her sister's
husband.'*
Thus the use of communal terms for husband and wife The
extends across the whole length and breadth of Australia, "^™'"y
° ^ 'of terms
from south-east to north-west. The terms themselves points to
vary almost from tribe to tribe, yet their application is ^^^>^'^"'
identical, pointing clearly to an identical system, whether marriage.
present or past, of communal or group marriage. That
system appears to be based on the marriage of a group of •
brothers to a group of sisters, since the terms expressive of
conjugal relations are exactly such as would necessarily
arise from the existence of such marriages.
A similar use of communal terms for husband and wife identity of
occurs among other peoples who possess the classificatory ^'\"^'^^■/°'
or group system of relationship. Thus in the Melanesian wife's
' (Sir) Baldwin Spencer, Native ^ (Sir) Baldwin Spencer, Native brother's
Tribes of the Northern Territory of Tribes of the Northern Territory of Arts- wife, and
Australia (London, 1914), PP- 70, 71- tralia, pp. 71, 73. (i5)husband,
"■^Angban is the general term for ^ A. R. Brown, "Three Tribes of husband's
mother's brother's daughters, all of Western Australia," Jot/rnal of the brother,
whom are eligible as wives to a man ex- Royal Anthropological Institute, xliii. and sister's
cept the daughters of his mother's actual (I9l3)p. 149- husband
blood brothers. Ilknma is the name ^ A. R. Brown, "Three Tribes of '" ^°'^^
applied to the actual woman or women Western Australia," Journal of the P^''^^ of
a man marries. Before marriage he Royal Anthropological Institute, xliii. eanesia
calls them angban' (ib. p. 70 note i) I1913) P- 178. Polynesia.
3i6
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Similar
communal
terms for
husband
and wife
among the
Gilyaks.
island of Vanua Lava, one of the Banks' Islands, a man
applies the same term {j-engomd) to his wife, to his wife's
sister, and to his brother's wife; and. a woman applies the
same term {aviartma) to her husband, to her husband's
brother, and to her sister's husband.^ Again, a like use of
communal terms for husband and wife is found in Poly-
nesia. Thus in Hawaii a man applies the same term
[tva-hee-nd) to his wife, to his wife's sister, and to his
brother's wife ; and a woman applies the same term {ka-iid)
to her husband, to her husband's brother, and to her sister's
husband.'"^ Again, in Tonga a man applies the same term
{Jiokii unoJio) to his wife, to his wife's sister, and to his
brother's wife ; and a woman applies the same term {Jioku
unoho) to her husband, to her husband's brother, and to her
sister's husband.^ And in general, with very few exceptions,
the Polynesian forms of the classificatory or group system of
relationship " agree in the feature that a man and his wife's
sister or his brother's wife address and speak of one another
as if they were man and wife." * Indeed, in some parts of
Polynesia " marital relations between those who call one
another husband and wife have been permitted till com-
paratively recent times." ^ Thus among the Polynesians
group marriage survived in fact as well as in name not so
long ago. This coincidence of terms indicative of group
marriage with the existence of the institution itself strongly
confirms the conclusion that the use of communal terms to
denote conjugal relations is everywhere based ultimately
on a system of communal or group marriage.
Lastly, among the Gilyaks of the Amoor River, who
have the classificatory or group system of relationship, we
find precisely the same use of communal terms for husband
and wife. A man applies the same term {^ngej) to his
wife, to his wife's sister, and to his brother's wife ; and
a woman applies the same term {pu) to her husband, to
1 W. H. R. Rivers, The History of
Melanesian .S't?«£/j)' (Cambridge, 191 5),
i. 31-
2 Lewis H. Morgan, Ancient Society
(London, 1877), pp. 422 sq.
3 Lewis H. Morgan, Systems of
Consanguinity and Affinity of tHe
Human Family (Washington City,
1871), p. 576.
4 W. H. R. Rivers, The Histo>y of
Me/anesian Society, ii. 33.
5 W. H. R. Rivers, The History of
Melanesian Society, ii. 34.
CHAP. VI THE SO RO RATE AND LEVI RATE 317
her husband's brother, and to her sister's husband.^ Here
again, therefore, we may infer the existence, present or past, .
of a system of communal marriage based on the union of a
group of brothers with a group of sisters.
If we ask what was the origin of a form of group This form
marriage which would seem to have prevailed so widely, °'^g''°"P
^ . ^ ■' ' marriage
we may conjecture that it rested on a system of exchange may have
like that which appears to lie at the root of the cross- °"S'"^'^'^
' i^ \n an
cousin marriage. We have seen that as a matter of fact exchange
men commonly exchange their sisters in marriage, because ° ^'^'*-'^s-
that is the easiest and cheapest way of obtaining a wife.
For similar reasons in a society where group marriage was
in vogue, it would be natural for a group of brothers to
exchange their sisters for the sisters of another group of
brothers, each set of men thereafter using the sisters of the
other set of men as their common wives. In this way, on
the simple principle of bartering women between families,
a system of group marriage might easily arise in which all
the husbands of each group were brothers and all the wives
of each group were sisters to each other, though not to their
husbands.
Thus, if I am right, the sororate and the levirate are The
offshoots from one common root, a system of group and'kvh^ate
marriage in which all the husbands were brothers and all derived
the wives were sisters to each other, though not to their mar^rifge"^
husbands ; and that system in its turn originated in a
simple desire to get wives as easily and cheaply as possible.
But there still remain features in the sororate and the The
levirate of which no complete explanation has yet been ^°''°''^^^
'^1 -' and levirate
suggested. Why may a man marry his wife's younger limited in
but not her elder sister? Why may a man marry the gg^j^Jj.; '°
widow of his elder but not of his younger brother ? Or to and
put the same questions* from the other side, why may a ■'"""^" ^'
woman marry the husband of her elder but not of her younger
sister? Why may a widow marry her late husband's
younger but not his elder brother ? Such definite rules
^ Leo Sternberg, ''The Turano- the XVII I. Inteynatioiial Cofigfess of
Ganowanian System and the Nations Aviericanists, p. 323.
of North-East Asia," Proceedings cf
31 8 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part n
must have had definite causes, and it is worth while to try
to discover them.
Other These are not the only distinctions dependent on age
oTmard^^ ^^^icli have met us in the present inquiry. We have seen
in regard to that in some parts of India a man is allowed and even
and°'^''^ encouraged to marry his niece, the daughter of his elder
juniority, sister, but that he is strictly forbidden to marry his other
niece, the daughter of his younger sister.^ Further, we have
seen that among the Urabunna of Central Australia a man
is allowed and even encouraged to marry his cross-cousins,
the daughters of his mother's elder brother or of his father's
elder sister, but that he is strictly forbidden to marry his
other cross-cousins, the daughters of his mother's younger
brother or of his father's younger sister.^ We may sur-
mise that all these rules permitting or prohibiting marriage
according to seniority or juniority are referable to one
common principle. What was that principle?
Rule that A starting-point in the inquiry is perhaps furnished by
broUier^or ^^^^ ^"'"^ ^^^^^ ^ younger brother or sister may not marry
sister may before his elder brother or sister. That rule appears to be
before Vis botli widespread and ancient ; and the penalty of damna-
orher tion, with which Indian lawgivers threatened all breaches of
senior. ,,.,..,,
the statute, seems to show that m their mmds the practice
rested on a foundation much deeper than mere propriety.
Division of Perhaps the custom of not allowing a younger brother or
communi- sistcr to marry before an elder may go back to a system of
ties into age-gradcs such as still exists in some savage tribes, notably
age gra es. .^ ^ group of East African tribes of which the Masai may
be regarded as typical. Under such a system the whole
community is divided into a series of groups according to
age, and the transition from one group to another is com-
monly marked by certain ceremonies, which at the transi-
tion from youth to adult years often take the form of severe
and painful ordeals undergone by the young people of both
sexes before they are admitted to the full rights of man-
hood and womanhood, above all to the right of marriage.^
Age-grades For example, among the Kaya-Kaya or Tugeri, a large
among the
Kaya- * Above, pp. 109, 113 sqq. Hldnnerbunde (Berlin, 1902), pp. 125
Kaya or ^ Above, p. 187. sqq.; Hutton Webster, Primitive
Tugeri of ^ On these age-grades in general, Secret Societies (New York, 1 908), pp.
Dutch New see H. Schurlz, Altersklassen ttnd 83 sqq.
Guinea. ^
>
i.
4
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 319
and notorious tribe of head-hunters in the south-east corner
of Dutch New Guinea, there are seven such classes or age-
grades for the males and six for the females. Each class
or age-grade has its distinctive badges and mode of wearing
the hair. Amongst the males the first age-grade {patur) The age-
comprises all boys up to puberty. These live with their ^""^^^ '^^
parents in the village and are free to go anywhere. But as Kayamcn.
soon as signs of puberty appear on their persons, they pass
into the second age-grade {aroi-patur) and are banished from
the village, which they are forbidden to enter unless they
fall ill. In that case they are carried to their father's house
in the village, but must shun the presence of women and
girls. Otherwise they live with the young men in the
bachelors' hall or men's house {gotad), which is built by
itself behind the village in the forest or under the shadow
of coco-nut palms. There may be more than one such
bachelors' hall. Women may never enter one of these build-
ings when there are people in it, but the men often gather
there. When the lad is fully developed he passes into the
third age-grade {wokravid or bokravid). He may still not
enter the village, and the presence of women and girls is
absolutely forbidden to him. If he sees one of them afar off
on the path, he must hide himself or go round about to avoid
her. The fourth age-grade [ewati), which may last three or
four years, is the hey-day of life for a Kaya-Kaya man. In
the prime of youthful vigour, he struts about with dandified
airs, admired by the world in general and ogled by the girls
in particular. He must still avoid women, but when he
knov.'s they are passing the bachelors' hall, which he graces
with his presence, he will make a loud noise to attract their
attention, and they will say admiringly in his hearing,
" That's he ! What a young buck it is ! " Now, too, is the
time for him to choose a wife, if a girl has not been already
reserved for him. He makes presents to the damsel of his
choice, and if she accepts them, the two are regarded as
betrothed. The young man thus enters the fifth age-grade
{iniakini), which is that of the betrothed men. He is now
free to return to the village and to live there, and he ceases
to avoid women, though good manners require him to appear
somewhat shy and bashful in their presence. When he
320 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
marries he passes into the sixth age-grade {amnaiigiU)^ which
is that of the married men. He is now master of himself and
of his wife ; he is accountable to no man for his actions, for
there are no chiefs and no judges. He lives a free man
among his peers. When he grows old he passes into the
seventh and last age-grade (;//£?j--7;//cr/i'/;//), which is that of
the old men. He now receives a title {somb-anein\ which
may be translated " signior " or " great man," and his opinion
carries weight in council. Every man, if he lives to old age,
must pass through all of these age-grades ; he may not omit
any of them. The transition from one age-grade to another
is always an occasion of feasting and dancing.
The age- The six age-gradcs of the Kaya-Kaya women corre-
Kaya- ° spond to the seven of the men, except that there is none
Kaya among them which answers to the second age-grade of the
men. In the first age-grade {kivasum), which lasts to the age
of ten or eleven, a girl plays freely with the boys in their less
noisy games ; she follows her mother and the other women to
the plantations or to the seashore to gather shells. She is at
liberty to roam the village, but may not enter the young
men's house {gotad). Arrived at the second age -grade
{wahiiku), she begins to wear a scanty covering and to assume
a certain reserve ; in particular she ceases to associate with
the boys. She now helps her mother in the plantation, learns
^^ to pound sago, and to carry burdens. The third age-grade
{kivasiun-hvag) answers to the fourth of the men. It is for
a girl the time of the roses — if roses could bloom under the
tropical sun of New Guinea — the time when she blossoms out
in the pride of youthful beauty, the admired of all admirers,
the cynosure of neighbouring eyes. In the fourth age-grade
{iwag) she is generally betrothed, and may either stay in the
village or work in the plantations with the other women.
But she is spared the heavy burdens and the hard toil ; for
care is taken to preserve the fresh bloom and grace of her
youth till marriage. Hence the girls are for the most part
plump and buxom. Strangers may not tamper with them
in presence of the men. The head of more than one
Chinaman and Malay, who has made too free with a Kaya-
Kaya maiden, now adorns the collection of skulls in a Kaya-
Kaya village. The fifth age-grade {saf^ is that of the married
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 331
women. A wife is the slave of her husband. It is she
who bends under the heavy load, while he saunters jauntily
behind her with his bow and arrows and perhaps a basket.
However, he relieves her of the hardest field labour, hoeing
the ground himself while she weeds it ; and husband and
wife may be seen side by side mending the ditches and
cutting sago - palms and banana - trees. It is the wife's
business to pound the sago and bake it into cakes ; and she
cooks the venison. The sixth age-grade {ines-hvag) is that
of the old women. If she is hale and hearty, an old woman
will still go out to the plantations to help her husband or her
gossips ; while the feeble old crones potter about in the
village, weaving mats, mending nets, or making cradles to
rock their infant grandchildren.^ It is perhaps not irrele-
vant to add that the Kaya-Kaya are divided into totemic
and exogamous clans with descent in the paternal line ; in
other words, no man may marry a woman of his own totemic
clan, and children take their totem from their father."
Again, the natives about Bartle Bay, in the extreme Age-grades
south-east of British New Guinea, are divided into ase- ''^"*°"S the
' t> natives
grades. All the individuals of the same sex, who are about
approximately of the same age, having been born within jn^Bdtirh^
about two years of each other, are considered to belong to New
the same class (called a kimtd). Members of the same class
or age-grade are entitled to each other's fellowship and help.
The men hunt together and work together at the irrigation
dams and ditches ; the women fish together in the river.
A child would call all the male members of his father's age-
grade his fathers ; and he would call all the women of his
mother's age-grade his mothers. The members of an age-
grade are not all congregated in the same village, but dis-
persed among villages to a distance of twenty or thirty miles
or more. From all of them a man may expect to receive
hospitality and assistance, but between him and the members
of his own age-grade in his own village the social bond is
1 H. Nollen, " Las differentes Sitzungsberichte der niat/iemaiisck-
Classes d'Age dans la Societe kaia- naturwissenschaftlichen Klasse det
kaia, Merauke, Nouvelle Guinea Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissen-
Neerlandaise," Ajithropos, iv. (1909) schaften (Vienna), cxv. (1906), Abtei-
PP- 553-573' lung i. p. 900 ; Totemistn and Exo-
2 R. Poch, " Vierter Bericht iiber gamy, iv. 285 sq.
meine Reise nach Neu • Guinea,"
vol,. II Y
322 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
particularly close. Such mates are called eriaiii to each
other. They keep together in war, borrow each other's
fishing-nets, take food, in case of need, from each other's
gardens, and freely exercise marital rights over each other's
wives, except so far as these women are barred to them by
the laws of consanguinity or totemic exogamy ; for the
people are divided into totemic and exogamous clans with
descent of the totem in the female line. Naturally enough,
therefore, a child applies the name of father to all the men
of his or her father's age-grade who reside in the village ;
and logically, though perhaps less naturally, he or she applies
the name of mother to all the wives of these men. But
the children of members of the same age-grade, residing in
the same village, rnay not marry nor have sexual relations
with each other. The right of access which a man has to
the wives of his mates (ineriam) is, moreover, subject to a
limitation. If he has only one wife, and his mate has
several, he has only rights over one of these women ; the
principle of group marriage is thus regulated by the principle
of an equitable exchange ; it would clearly be unjust for a
man who can only lend one woman to expect to borrow
several in return.^ Further it deserves to be noticed that
among these people in former times there seem to have
been clubhouses for men of different ages ; one for old men,
one for men rather past middle age, one for men in the
prime of life, and one for young unmarried men.^ But
obviously these distinctions of age do not coincide with the
age-grades, if the age-grades are separated from each other
by short intervals of two years.
Age-grades The system of age-grades is found well developed in a
aniong the j^j-gg group of tribes in British East Africa, which appear for
British East the most part to belong to the Nilotic and not to the Bantu
Africa.
1 C. G. Seligmann, The Alelanesians when he reaches his fourteenth or
of British New Guinea (Cambridge, fifteenth year, and he is promoted to
1910), pp. 470-476. Astothetotemism a higher grade every five or eight
of these people, see id. pp. 446 sqq. years. The elder men, belonging to
the higher age-grade, exercise control
2 C. G. Seligmann, The Meianesians over social matters. See Shinji Ishii,
of British New Guinea, p. 495. In The Isla7id of Formosa and its Primi-
the Ami tribe of Formosa there is a tive Inhabitants, p. 13 (reprinted from
system of ten or twelve age-grades for The Transactions of the Japan Society
males. A boy joins the lowest grade of London, vol. xiv.).
4
\
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEV/RATE 323
stock. Thus among the Masai all males belong to an age- Age-grades
grade {poror or boror), which includes all men who have ^"f '^^
been circumcised within a period of seven and a half years.
When leave has been granted by the medicine-man to hold
the circumcision festivals, one such feast is held in every
sub-district every year for four years in succession, and all
males who have been circumcised at any one of these four
successive feasts are members of the same age-grade. Then
follows an interval of about three and a half years during
which no circumcision feast is held. Hence the period of
time covered by an age-grade is about seven and a half
years. Two successive age-grades are known as " the right-
hand circumcision " and " the left-hand circumcision " respec-
tively ; together they constitute a generation, which is thus
a period of about fifteen years. Each of the two age-grades,
" the right-hand circumcision " and " the left-hand circum-
cision," has to observe certain rules which forbid the pro-
nunciation of certain words and the eating of certain foods.
Thus men of " the right-hand circumcision " may eat neither
the heads nor the tails of slaughtered cattle, and they must
use special words for heads and tails, and also for a goat's
fold. Men of " the left-hand circumcision " may not eat
pumpkins and cucumbers, and they may not call arrow-
poison by its ordinary name. To do or say any of these
things in the presence of a man who is forbidden by custom
to say or do it, is an insult which often provokes retaliation
on the spot. As a rule, boys are circumcised when they ■-
are between thirteen and seventeen years old. Orphans
and the children of poor parents often wait until they are
twenty. Women do not, strictly speaking, belong to an
age-grade, because they are not circumcised, like the men,
in groups at regular intervals ; the operation is performed on
them at odd times as they grow up and before they marry.
However, they are reckoned to the age-grade which happens
to coincide with the time at which they are circumcised.-^
Between men and women of the same age-grade among
the Masai sexual communism or group marriage appears to
1 A. C. Hollis, T/ie Masai (O.xford, Kamba and other East African Tribes
1905), pp. 261-263; M. Merker, Z?/^ (Cambridge, 1910), p. 122. As to
Masai (Berlin, 1904), pp. 70 sq. ; the circumcision of girls, see A. C.
C. W. Hobley, Ethnology of a A- Hollis, The Masai, p. 299.
324
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Sexual
commun-
ism or
group
marriage
between
members of
the same
age-grade
among the
Masai.
A.C. Holhs
on sexual
commun-
ism among
the Masai.
prevail, subject only to the restrictions that a man may not
marry or cohabit with a woman of his own sub-clan, nor
with a woman who is more nearly related to him by blood
than third cousin. But while with these exceptions he has
free access to the women of his own age -grade, he is
debarred from sexual relations with women of the age-grades
corresponding to those of his son and his father ; to cohabit
with a woman of either of these age -grades is a serious
offence, which renders the offender liable to severe punish-
ment. On this important point it may be well to quote
the evidence of Mr. A. C. Hollis, our principal authority on
the Masai. He says : —
" Though individual marriage is recognised, sexual com-
munism or something very like it prevails between all the
men of one age-grade and the women of the corresponding
age-grade, subject to the rules of exogamy and relationship,
which forbid a man to marry or have sexual intercourse
with a woman of his own clan or with a near relative. In
other words the Masai may be said to live in a state of
group marriage, based on the organisation of the whole com-
munity in age-grades, and restricted by the exogamy of the
sub-clans and the rules regarding incest. If a man is know-
ingly guilty of incest, or has sexual intercourse with a
daughter of his own sub-clan, he is punished by his relations,
who flog him and slaughter some of his cattle. If he
fornicates or commits adultery with a daughter of a member
of his own age-grade, he is punished by the members of
his age-grade. His kraal is destroyed, he is severely beaten,
and a number of his oxen are slaughtered. If a warrior or
boy commits adultery with a wife of a man belonging to
his father's age-grade, he is solemnly cursed by the members
of that age-grade. Unless he pays the elders two oxen, one
for them to eat and the other to enable them to buy honey-
wine, and prays them to remove the curse, it is supposed he
will die." ^
To a certain extent the system of age-grades exists
' A. C. Hollis, "A Note on tlie C. \N . Hohley, Esknohg)' of A- R'a7nba
Masai System of Relationship and and other East African Tribes (Cam-
other matters connected therewith," bridge, 1910), p. 122, "A man can-
Journal of the Royal Anthropological not marry the daughter of a man of
/^w/Z/'w/e, xl. (1910) p. 480. Compare his own age — he must marry the
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEV/RATE 325
among the Wataveta, a tribe of British East Africa, whose Age-grades
territory borders on that of the Masai. They are a mixed wataveta^
race of Hamitic and Bantu stock, who inhabit the rich and of British
fertile district of Taveta at the foot of the mighty snow-
capped KiHmanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. With
them an age-grade {irika) comprises a period of fifteen years,
and every age-grade has a special name. Thus the age-
grade of the Wataveta is equal to two age-grades or one
generation of the Masai. The government of the country
is entrusted for one such period of about fifteen years to the
men of one of these age-grades, at whose head are four
middle-aged chiefs. It is said that the members of a par-
ticular age-grade come into power whenever they can kid-
nap the daughter of one of the ruling chiefs or one of his
contemporaries. In this they are aided and abetted by the
elders of the former age-grade, who were themselves turned
out of office in the same manner by their juniors some
fifteen years before, and are now glad to serve their sup-
planters as their supplanters once served them. In olden
times the reigning chiefs and their fellows never succumbed
without a battle royal, and it was not without difficulty that
the younger men snatched the reins of power from the
hands of their elders. Formerly it was a matter of no small
consequence to belong to the reigning age-grade, for two-
thirds of the spoils of war and of the duty levied on all .
caravans passing through the country were appropriated by
the chiefs and their contemporaries, while the rest went to
the witch-doctors and the other old men.^
The Wataveta, like the Masai, are divided into clans
daughter of a man of a previous age of East Africa, also possess a system of
to his own," where by "age" the age-grades, of which there are five for
writer means age-grade (/or^?;-). Though the males. See J. L. Krapf, Travels,
in the passage quoted above Mr. A. C. Researches, and Missionary Labours
Hollis speaks in one place of the clans during an Eighteen Years' Residence
as if they were exogamous, he tells us itt Eastern Africa (London, i860), p.
expressly (p. 479 note ^) that the clans 363 ; C. C. von der Decken, Reisen in
are not exogamous, but that the sub- Ost-AfriJza (Leipsic and Heidelberg,
clans into which the clans are divided 1 869-1 871), ii. 25.
are exogamous ; and he adds that "no ^ Claud Hollis, " Notes on the
man may marry a nearer relation than History and Customs of the people of
a third cousin." Taveta, East Africa," Journal of the
The Wakuafi, a tribe akin to the African Society, '^o.\{^zX.o\itx,\<^0\),
Masai, and inhabiting the same region pp. 98, 104 sqq.
326
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Sexual com-
munism
between
members of
the same
age-grade
among the
Wataveta.
Sexual
relations
regulated '
by age-
grades
among the
Wataveta.
which are not exogamous, though the sub clans are so ; in
other words, a man may marry a woman of his own clan,
provided that she does not belong to the same sub-clan
as himself/ They practise polygamy and among them,
as among the Masai, both sexes must be circumcised
before marriage, but marriage does not always follow
immediately on circumcision. When they have passed
through that ordeal, the young people are free to consort
with each other in a sort of kraal or assemblage of low,
kennel-like huts erected for them in the woods, where they
pass the night. No restriction appears to be placed on their
intercourse, but all children born in that kraal are put to
death at birth. After the operation of circumcision " the
youths join one of the groups of the coming generation,
according to the number of summers they have seen, or, if
no ' age ' has yet been formed, they do their utmosf'to kid-
nap a daughter of one of the reigning chiefs or one of the
latters' contemporaries, and until this has been accomplished
they are unable to pass their nights in that haven of bliss,
the 'Maniata" that is, in the kraal of the young folk in the
woods.^ Thus it seems that among the Wataveta, as
among the Masai, the age-grade to which a man belongs
is determined by the time at which he is circumcised.
The age-grades apparently regulate sexual relations
among the Wataveta in much the same way as among the
Masai ; for while a degree of licence approaching to group
marriage prevails between men and women of corresponding
age-grades, members of different age-grades are forbidden to
cohabit with each other under pain of penalties which
increase in proportion to the difference between their age-
grades. Thus adultery is only punishable when the adulterer
is not of the same age-grade as the husband of the adulteress ;
and if a man were to rape the wife of a member of his own
age-grade, he could at the most be fined one goat for
assault. If the offender belongs to the age-grade immedi-
ately subsequent to that of the husband whose wife he has
^ Totemisvi and Exogamy, ii. 418
sq,, from information furnished by Mr.
A. C. HoUis in a letter dated Nairobi,
East Africa Protectorate, June 15th,
1909.
2 Claud Hollis, "Notes on the
History and Customs of the people of
Taveta, East Africa," Journal of the
AJricaii Society, No. I (October, 1901),
pp. 110-113.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 327
wronged, he is fined a goat ; but if the culprit belongs to a
later age-grade, say to an age-grade two degrees junior to
that of the injured husband, it is considered a serious crime,
and the criminal must give the old man an ox. On the
other hand, if a member of a senior age-grade commits
adultery with the wife of a reigning chief or of one of his
contemporaries, he is deprived of all his cattle. And were
a member of a senior age-grade to commit fornication with
a girl of an age-grade one or two degrees junior to his own,
while the girl was resident in the maniata or kraal of the young
folk in the woods, he would have to atone for his sin by pre-
senting the members of the damsel's age-grade with an ox,
which they would slaughter and eat. If he does not pay the
fine promptly, the young men of the injured age-grade pro-
phesy that his sin will soon find him out ; and so it does, for
the sinner's body is commonly discovered a few days later
stabbed with a hundred spears.^ To this account of sexual
morality among the Wataveta our informant adds : " I am
informed by natives of Moschi and by the Rev. A. R.
Steggall that one finds both there and in other Chaga states
in Kilima Njaro, situated but a few miles from Taveta,
examples of polyandry in which the husbands are all
brothers. It is therefore of some interest that almost in the
same district in different sections of the population there
exist two forms of polyandry ; at Taveta a man lends his
wives to a comrade of his ' age ' ; at Moschi, a man's brothers
only have an equal right to his women." "
The care which the Wataveta take to prevent the The
cohabitation of men and women belonging to different age- y^^{^^ ^n
grades may account for a very remarkable custom which children
borne by
they practise. Every child that a woman bears after her ^ woman
daughter's marriage is put to death.^ No reason is assigned after her
*=• ° '^^ daughters
marriage.
1 Claud Hollis, " Notes on the brothers, who are too poor to keep a
History and Customs of the people of wife apiece, sometimes club together to
Taveta, East Africa," Journal of the keep one in common. See J. Roscoe,
African Society, No. i (October, The Northern Baniti (Cambridge,
1901), p. 124. 1915). P- 121.
2 Claud Hollis, I.e. Fraternal poly- ^ Claud Hollis, "Notes on the His-
andry seems to be exceedingly rare in tcry and Customs of the people of
Africa, but it occasionally happens Taveta, East Africa," Journal of the
among the pastoral Bahinia of Ankole, African Society, No. i (October, 1901),
in the Uganda Protectorate, where p. no.
328 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
for this massacre of the innocents, but we may conjecture
that the motive for the murder is as follows. The children
which a woman bears after her daughter's marriage will be
contemporary with her daughter's children ; in other words,
her younger children and her grandchildren will be of the
same age, and hence will fall into the same age-grade. But
if a woman's daughter and granddaughter are thus placed in
the same age-grade, it would obviously be open to any man
of the corresponding age-grade to marry or cohabit with them
both, thus confounding that distinction between the genera-
tions which it seems a principal object of the age-grades to
maintain. Whatever the object of this cruel law, a natural
effect of it is that a woman delays the marriage of her daughter
as long as possible, at least so long as she herself is still capable
of bearing children, because she knows that her daughter's
wedding may prove a sentence of death on the infant which
she herself carries, or hopes to carry, in her womb. Hence
she resorts to stratagem to divert the attentions of suitors
from her daughter, hanging a leaden bracelet, the sign of
betrothal, on the girl's arm long before she is actually
betrothed.^
Age-grades The System of age-grades occurs also among the Nandi,
among the ^„Q|-|^gj. ^-j-jbg Qf British East Africa, who seem, like the
JN andi oi ' '
British East Wataveta, to be of mixed origin, combining elements of
the Bantu and the Nilotic negro with a dash of pygmy and
perhaps of Galla blood.^ They possess the classificatory
system of relationship and are divided into totemic clans,
but these clans are not exogamous ; in other words, a man
is free to marry a woman of his own totemic clan.^
According to the social system of the Nandi, the male
sex is divided into boys, warriors, and elders, the female
sex into girls and married women. The first stage is con-
tinued till circumcision, which may be performed between
the ages of ten and twenty. A circumcision festival for boys
should take place, as among their neighbours the Masai, every
seven and a half years, but since their removal to a reserve
1 Claud HoUis, I.e. ^i}<J-y 92 sq. Similarly we have seen
2 A. C. Hollis, The Nandi (Oxford, f PP" .f^ sq. ) fat among the neighbour-
^ ing Masai and Wataveta the clans are
" •^'' P* ' not exogamous, though the sub-clans
* A. C. Hollis, The Nandi, pp. 4 are so.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 329
in 1905 the Nancli seem to have altered this custom, and
boys are now circumcised every year or so Hke girls. All
boys who are circumcised at the same time are said to belong
to the same age-grade {ipindd), and there are seven sucK age-
grades in all, giving a total period of about fifty-three years.
The age-grades always bear one of the following names
(which are taken by their respective members) and succeed
one another in the following order : —
Maina, small children.
Nyovge, boys between 10 and 20 years of age.
Kimnyike, men between 18 and 28 years of age.
Kdplelach, men between 26 and 36 years of age.
Kipkoiiviet, men between 34 and 44 years of age.
Sowe, men between 42 and 52 years of age.
Junia, men between 50 and 60 years of age.
In each age-grade there are three subdivisions called
fires, probably because the members of each age -grade
associate round their own fires, and do not allow the mem-
bers of the other age-grades to join them.^ ' Similarly among
the Masai each age-grade falls into three subdivisions, called
respectively " the big ostrich feathers," " the helpers," and
" our fleet runners." ^
The ceremonies at circumcision among the Nandi present Ceremonies
some peculiar features ; the boys who are to be operated on circum^- ^'
are dressed as women, and the girls who are to be operated cision
on are dressed as men, and for some days after being circum- Nandf.
cised neither boys nor girls may touch food with their hands,
but are obliged to eat out of a half calabash with the help
of a leaf of a particular tree. During the second, and very
severe, part of the operation performed on boys, barren
women and women who have lost several brothers or sisters
in quick succession are allowed to be present ; and it is
believed that the barren women will afterwards conceive.
The severed foreskins are collected by the old men, who pour
milk and beer on them and put them away in an ox-horn.
Four days later the old men take the foreskins out of the
ox-horn, and after offering them to God, bury them in cow-
dung at the foot of a particular kind of tree {Croton sp.).
For four days after circumcision boys continue to wear female
• A. C. Hollis, The Naiidi, p. 11 sq. ^ ^_ q Hollis, llie Masai, p. 262.
330 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
costume, and after the lapse of that period girls are clothed
in long garments which reach to their feet, and cover their
heads and faces with masks or cowls which have only two
• holes in front for the eyes. In the seclusion which they are
obliged to observe for some time after undergoing the opera-
tion boys are shown the friction drums and the bull-roarers
and taught how to play them. On the completion of the
ceremonies they are regarded as adults ; their spirits live
after death ; and on their decease their names may be given
to members of their families.-^ This naming of a child after
a dead man is not an empty compliment ; the spirit of the
deceased is thought to watch over his namesake and keep
him from harm.^
Circum- In the mystery which still surrounds the widespread
and°"he practice of circumcision,^ the curious observances which
belief in the attend the rite among the Nandi must remain obscure.
tionofthe The belief in spiritual immortality, which is apparently
dead. supposed to be ^ consequence of circumcision, lends some
support to the conjecture that the primary intention of the
rite was to ensure the survival of the soul after death in
order that at some later time it might be reborn in the
family.'* The Nandi notion that the spirit of a dead man,
after whom an infant is named, acts as the child's spiritual
"^ guardian, may be only a modification of an older notion that
the dead man's spirit is actually incarnate in his living
namesake. The belief that the souls of dead relatives are
born again in their namesakes appears to be widespread
among mankind.^ The Kayans of Borneo think that " the
soul of a grandfather may pass into one of his grandchildren,
and an old man will try to secure the passage of his soul to
a favourite grandchild by holding it above his head from
time to time. The grandfather usually gives "up his name
to his eldest grandson, and reassumes the original name of
^ A. C. HoUis, The Naiuii, pp. 52- * This conjecture I have put forward
60, 68. tentatively in The Magic Art and the
2 A C HoUis The Nandi p 66 Evolution of Kings, i. 92 sqq. {The
' > f • Golden Bough, Third Edition, Part i. ).
3 For evidence as to the ditfusion ^ Compare (Sir) E. B. Tylor, Priini'
of circumcision among many races, tive Cidlure, Second Edition (London,
see Richard Andree, Ethnographische 1873), ii. 3 ■f^^'. ; Taboo and the Perils
Parallelen und Vergleiche, Neue Folge of the Soul, pp. 365 sgg. ; Totemism
(Leipsic, 1889), pp. 166-212. and Exogamy, iii. 297 sqq.
CHAr. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 331
his childhood with the prefix or title Laki, and the custom
seems to be connected with this belief or hope." ^ Here the
grandfather only anticipates matters by bestowing in his
lifetime his name on the grandchild in whose person his soul
is to be reborn after his death.^ In Nukahiva, one of the
Marquesas Islands, every one believes, or rather used to
believe, " that the soul of a grandfather is transmitted by
Nature into the body of his grandchildren ; and that, if an
unfruitful wife. were to place herself under the corpse of her
deceased grandfather, she would be sure to become pregnant." ^
Similarly we have seen that among the Nandi a barren woman
is supposed to conceive through attending at the second part
of a boy's circumcision ; apparently the operation is thought
to have the effect of liberating a human soul, which will seek
to be born again in the first disengaged woman it may
encounter.
But to inquire into the origin and meaning of circum- circum-
cision would lead us too far from our present subject. We vision in
• 1 1 1 -1 1 -NT T relation to
must be content with the observation that among the JNandi age-grades
and other kindred tribes the age-grade to which a man
belongs is determined by the time at which he is circumcised.
The operation is therefore of fundamental importance for
fixing the social position, rights, and duties of all members
of the community.
At intervals of about seven and a half years the guardian- Transfer-
ship of the Nandi country is solemnly transferred from the ^nceof
^ •' ■' govern-
men of one age-grade, now grown old, to the men of the ment from
age-grade immediately succeeding. The ceremony at which °"^jjg°j^J
the transference takes place is one of the most important in another
the Nandi annals. All the adult male population, so far as ^™°^f
possible, gather at a certain spot ; but no married warrior
may attend, nor may he or his wife leave their houses while
the ceremony is being performed. The Chief Medicine Man
{Orkoiyof) must be present ; and the ceremony opens with
the sacrifice of a white bullock, which is purchased by the
young warriors for the occasion. After the meat has been
1 Charles Hose and W. McDougall, with the belief in the transmigration of
The Pagan Tribes of Borneo (London, souls, see Toteinism and Exogamy, iii.
1912), ii. 47. 298 sq.
2 On the practice of naming children ^ U. Lisiansky, A Voyage rotind the
after their grandparents, in connexion World (London, 1 814), p. 89.
332 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
eaten by the old men, each of the young men makes a small
ring out of the hide, and puts it on one of the fingers of his
right hand. A circle is then formed round the Chief Medicine
Man, who stands near a stool, about which is heaped cow
dung studded with the fruit of the lapotuet shrub {Sola?ium
cajHpylant/non). All the old men and the members of the
age-grade immediately preceding the one in power stand up,
whilst the warriors who are going to receive the control of
the country sit down. On a sign from the Chief Medicine
Man the members of the preceding age-grade strip themselves
of their warrior's garments and don the fur robes of old men.
The warriors of the age in power, that is, those who were
circumcised about four years before, are then solemnly in-
formed that the safety of the country and the welfare of the
people are committed to their hands, and they are exhorted
to guard the land of their fathers. After that the people
disperse to their homes.^
Age-grades Age -grades also occur among the Akamba and the
Akamba^'' Akikuyu, two large tribes of British East Africa, but appar-
and ently in both tribes the system is in decay, since admission
BritisiiEast ^° ^^^ various grades is conditional on the payment of fees.^
Africa. Botli tribes practise circumcision as a necessary preliminary
to the attainment of full membership of the tribes.'^ x'\mong
-V the Akikuyu the rite used to be combined with a solemn
pretence of a new birth, the candidate for initiation making
believe to be born again from his mother or from another
woman, if his real mother happened to be dead. Girls as
well as boys had to submit to the ceremony of the new
birth, which has now been detached from the rite of circum-
cision, but it is still compulsory and univ^ersal in all the clans,
as a stage through which every man and woman must pass
1 A. C. Ilollis, The Nandi, pp. 12 id., "The Organization and Laws ol
sq. some Tribes in East Mncs.,'''' Journal
2 Yi. R. Tate, "Notes on the of the Royal Anthropological Institute,
Kikuyu and Kamba tribes of British xlv. (1915) pp. 241 sqq. ; W. Scoresby
-'E.zst Ainca.,'" Journal of the Royal A7t- Routledge and K. Routledge, IVith a
thropological Institute, ■x.yix\\.{igoj\.)-p-p. Prehistoric Feople {Lo'^^oxi, 19 10), pp.
I33> 13S; C. W. Hobley, Ethnology \<)J sqq.
of A-Kamba and other East African ^ C. W. Hobley, Ethnology of A-
Tribes (Cambridge, 19 10), p. 49; Kamba and other East African Tribes,
Hon. Ch. Dundas, " History of Kitui," pp. 68 sqq. ; W. Scoresby Routledge
Journal of the Royal Anthropological and K. Routledge, With a Prehistoric
Institute, xliii. (1913) pp. 539-541; People, pp. 1^4 sqq-
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 333
at some period of their life. Any one who has not gone
through it is debarred from inheriting property or taking
any part in the religious rites of the country ; a man, for
example, who has not been born again may not assist in the
disposal of his father's body after death nor help to carry
him out into the wilds to breath his last. This sacrament,
as we may call it, of the new birth appears to be generally
partaken of at about the age of ten, but sometimes it is
administered to infants.^
Another tribe of British East Africa which is divided Age-grades
into age-grades is the Suk. They are a people of mixed sX of
origin, closely akin to the Nandi in language and customs. British East
Their system of age-grades in particular resembles that of ^
the Nandi, as will appear from the following account : —
" Socially the Suk are roughly divided into Kara-cho>i-a,
or ' boys ' ; MuTcn, or full-grown circumcised men ; and Poi,
or old men. There are a number of ages, Pen, the duration
of each being a generation, or roughly fifteen years. These
ages, as with the Nandi, run in cycles. Circumcision takes
place whenever there are sufficient candidates, generally
about once in three years, but any one circumcised during
the generation of fifteen years is said to belong to the same
age. Nor can a man be said to belong to an age at all until
he has been circumcised. Thus Maina is the age of those
most recently circumcised, and comprises youths between the
ages of about fifteen and thirty. Nyongu, the next age, con-
sists of comparatively old men between the ages of thirty and
forty-five ; while the oldest men living probably belong to
the age of Merkiitwa. Any one older than sixty would
belong to Kablelach. Besides these, four other ages are still
spoken about in narrating tales, folklore, etc. Thus the
generation older than Kablelach, i.e. older than seventy-five
years, of whom there would almost certainly be no one living,
is spoken of as Kip-koimet. Prior to that is Karongoro ;
prior to that Sowa ; and most ancient of all, Jumo. After
fuvio the age cycle begins again with Maina. The seniors
of each age are called Nerkau or Chage?i-dpero, those in the
^ W. Scoresby Routledge and K. Royal Anthropological Institute, xl.
Routledge, With a Prehistoric People, (1910) pp. 440 sq. On the rite of the
pp. 151 sqq. ; C. W. Hobley, " Kikuyu new birth see above, pp. 7 sqq.
Customs and Beliefs," Journal of the
334 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
middle Ngiru, and the juniors Niinur. Once circumcised,
a youth remains a ' warrior ' until the day of his death or
incapacity to fight further. The care of the country is not
entrusted to any particular age ; consequently there is no
elaborate handing-over ceremony as with Masai and Nandi.
Women are circumcised at irregular intervals, and become
included in the ' age ' of the men they marry." ^
Corre- Thus among the Suk, as among the Nandi and Masai,
^fAe^""^^ the rite of circumcision forms, as it were, the pivot on
age-grades which the systcm of age-grades revolves ; the period of an
among e a.ge-grade, about fifteen years, corresponds to one age-grade
Nandi, and of the Nandi and two age-grades or one generation of the
Masai ; and each age -grade falls into three subdivisions
according to seniority and juniority. One curious feature in
the age-grades of the Suk is their multiplication beyond the
ordinary, and perhaps even the extraordinary, limits of
human life. The motive for such an extension is not
obvious. As these superhuman ages are said to occur in
tales and folk-lore, they may perhaps be related, whether as
cause or effect, to a belief, like that of the Hebrews, that the
patriarchs of old attained to degrees of longevity far exceed-
ing the short span of existence enjoyed by men in modern
times.
Totemism The Suk are divided into clans, which are both totemic
^^^ and exosfamous, with paternal descent of the totem ; in
exogamy .
among the other words, each clan has its totem, no man may marry a
^^^' woman of his own clan, and children take their clan and
their totem from their father, not from their mother.^
Age-grades Yet another people of British East Africa who possess a
among the gygt-gj^ Qf age-gradcs are the Turkana. They are a tribe of
BritishEast very mixed origin who speak a language like that of the
Africa. Masai, but have little in common with their neighbours the
Suk, though the two tribes are often classed together as
closely allied. Each sex among the Turkana is divided
into three age-grades. The first age-grade of the males is
that of the young boy {iiidue) ; the second is that of the
1 Mervyn W. H. Beech, The Suk, the Tribes inhabiting the Baringo
their Language and Folklore (Oxford, District, East Africa Protectorate,"
IQII), pp. ^ sq. Journal oj the Royal Antkropolcgical
Institute, xl. (1910) p. 59 ; Mervyn
2 Hon. K. R. Dundas, "Notes on W. H. Beech, The Suk, p. 5.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 335
warrior (egile) ; and the third is that of the old man {kasikou).
The corresponding age-grades of the women are called apesur,
aberu, and ageinat. The generations of warriors are called
asavanissia. Each generation, as it attains the warrior's age,
is given a distinctive name. Apparently a new age is
created about every four or five years. UnHke all the other
tribes of this region which possess the system of age-grades,
the Turkana do not practise circumcision. They are divided
into exogamous clans, but there is no evidence that the clans
are totemic.^
Some traces of a system of age - grades have been Age-grades
recorded among the Gallas.^ ;^'"°"S the
. o Gallas.
At a much higher stage of culture the system of age- Age-grades
grades is found among the Mohammedan population of ;^'"?"" *^^
° _ ^ ^ ^ Mohain-
Wadai, in the Central Sudan. The males are there divided medansof
according to age into five grades, and in the larger villages ^^*^'
there are public huts set apart for the use of old men and
mature men respectively.^ But in the stage of a survival
from savagery among civilized or semi-civilized people the
institution cannot be expected to retain its primitive features,
and an examination of it can hardly throw light on the
origin of the custom.
From this survey of the system of age-grades it appears Age-grades
that both in New Guinea and among the wilder tribes of with^sexuai
Africa the institution is associated with a form of sexual commun-
communism, all the members of an age-grade exercising or {„ New
claiming marital rights over women of their own age-grade, Guinea and
with the exception of such women as are barred to them by
the laws of consanguinity or of exogamy. Finding this
association of sexual communism with age -grades among
comparatively primitive tribes in distant parts of the world,
* Hon. K. R. Dundas, "Notes on Siidosten Dcutsch-Ostafrikas (Berlin,
the Tribes inhabiting the Baringo 1898), pp. 115 sq.
District, East Africa Protectorate," 2 ph_ Paulitschke, Ethnographic
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Nordost-Afrikas, die Materielle Cultur
InstitJtte, xl. (1910) pp. 66 sq. The der Dandhil, Galla ttnd Somdl (Berlin,
Makonde of German East Africa are 1893), p. 194; H. Schurtz, Alters-
reported to possess the S3'stem of age- klassen und MdnnerbUnde (Berlin,
grades, the males being divided into 1902), pp. 135 sqq.
five classes according to their age, from ^ Gustav Nachtigal, Sahara und
infancy to old age. See Karl Weule, SMdn, iii. (Leipsic, 1889), pp. 245
Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse tneiner sqq. ; H. Schurtz, Altersklasseit und
ethnographischen Forschungsreise in den Mdnnerbibide, pp. 139 J^.
336
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Converging
evidence
of former
sexual com-
munism on
a large
scale in
the human
race.
Social
conditions
which
regulate
marriage
according
to seniority
and
juniority.
The rule
that a
younger
brother or
sister may
not marry
before his
or her elder
brother
or sister
seems to
point to a
social
disappro-
bation of
seniors,
whether
men or
women,
who remain
unmarried.
we may with some probability infer that the association has
been at some time or another a universal characteristic of
age-grades, wherever that classification of society is found
among savages. Thus by a third line of evidence we are
led to infer the existence, present or past, of sexual com-
munism or group marriage on a great scale in a large
portion of the human race. The three lines of evidence
which point to that conclusion are, first, the classificatory or
group system of relationship ; second, the combination of
the sororate with the levirate ; and, third, the institution of
age- grades. The convergence of three distinct lines of
argument naturally strengthens our confidence in the con-
clusion to which they all point.
Perhaps, too, we can now frame to ourselves a clearer
idea of the social conditions which regulated marriage
according to the seniority or juniority of the parties
concerned. Among the lower races it appears to be the
general, indeed almost invariable, rule that men and women
marry at the earliest opportunity afforded them by age and
the customs of the society in which they live. The practice
of deferring marriage from purely prudential motives is
characteristic of the civilized races, it is practically unknown
among the uncivilized ; it implies on the material side an
accumulation of property, on the intellectual side a foresight
and on the moral side a self-control, which are only to be
found in wealthy, intelligent, and temperate communities,
but which we should vainly look for among poor, improvi-
dent, and intemperate savages, as well as among those
members of civilized communities who most nearly resemble
savages in their lack not only of wealth but of intelligence
and self-restraint. Accordingly in primitive society, where
almost every man marries as soon as he can, the unmarried
state is looked upon with astonishment and disfavour as
something abnormal and reprehensible, not only because it
seems to run counter to one of the strongest instincts of our
animal nature, but because it tends to weaken the com-
munity by depriving it of the recruits which it requires for
its maintenance and defence against enemies. Hence we
can understand the disapproval with which the marriage of
younger brothers and sisters before their elders has been
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVIRATE 337
visited by so many races. In all such cases the real culprit,
we may surmise, is not the younger brother or sister who
marries, but the elder brother or sister who neglects the
promptings of nature and the claims of society by remaining
Cinmarried ; and his negligence is all the more conspicuous
under social conditions which subject him to ordeals and
observances of various kinds specially designed as a prepara-
tion for marriage. For example, in tribes which compel all
their members, male and female, to be circumcised, there is
no doubt that the rite of circumcision is regarded as a
necessary preliminary to the married state ; and if after
submitting to the operation, as he must do, a man continues
unmarried when he might have taken to himself a wife, he
is naturally looked upon by his fellows as a sort of anomaly
or contradiction, bearing the badge of marriage on his person
but failing to enjoy the privileges and to discharge the
duties which that badge imports. And a like verdict of
condemnation is passed for similar reasons on any woman
who, after passing through the prescribed ordeal, persists in
celibacy, though she is both legally and physically capable
of being a wife and a mother.
The same considerations perhaps suffice to explain the The same
Urabunna rule that a man should marry his cross-cousin, the disappro-
daughter either of his mother's elder brother or of his father's Nation of
... , , . -111 • , ^ seniors who
elder sister, but not his cross-cousin, the daughter either of remain
his mother's younger brother or of his father's younger sister.^ unmarried
T" I'- 11 ir mayexplain
For under ordinary circumstances the daughters of a mother's the
elder brother or of a father's elder sister will be older than Urabunna
rule of
their cross-cousins, the daughters of a mother's younger marriage
brother or of a father's younger sister ; and in virtue cf the dau„hter
rule, practically universal among savages, that women should eitherofthe
marry at the earliest opportunity, it seems clearly incumbent ^'der^^^
on a man to marry his elder cross-cousins before his vounefer brother or
. / ., . . , , . -^ ^ of the
cross-cousins, just as it is incumbent on him to marry an father's
elder sister before a younger sister. Hence it would com- elder sister.
monly happen that a man would be expected to marry the
daughters of his mother's elder brother or of his father's
elder sister in preference to the daughters of his mother's
younger brother or of his father's younger sister ; and this
' See above, p. 187.
VOL. II Z
335 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
preference for marriage with the senior branch of the family
might develop into the absolute injunction of marriage with
the senior branch and the absolute prohibition of marriage
with the junior branch of the mother's or the father's family.
The Again, the prohibition to marry a wife's elder sisters
fo°mfrn°" '^^^' ''^^^ °" ^^^ assumption that these women already have
a wife's husbands and therefore cannot be taken to wife by another
perhaps ^^^ "^^^ 5 while on the other hand the permission to marry any
rests on the or all of a wife's younger sisters is most naturally derived, as
that^hes'e" I have attempted to show, from a system of communal mar-
sisters are riage in which a group of brothers is married to a group of
already . ^ ^ , , . • , • i , ., . . ^ ,
married to sistcrs. On that theory, it IS obvious, the prohibition and
other men. j-j-^g permission to some extent clash with each other; for if
a man is bound to marry an elder sister first, and has the
right to marry all her younger sisters afterwards, how comes
it that any of these sisters can be married to another man ?
The answer is implicitly given in some of the cases which
came before us : ^ though a man in many tribes has the
right to marry his wife's younger sisters, he does not always
exercise the right, but is sometimes willing to transfer it to
other men, perhaps on receipt of a valuable consideration.
Suggested Lastly, we have to explain, why a man is commonly
explanation allowed or cven obliged to marry the widow of his deceased
of the rules ° ^
regulating elder brother, but is commonly forbidden to marry the widow
wkh a^^ of his deceased younger brother. The explanation both of
brother's the permission and of the prohibition is perhaps to be sought
in that form of communal marriage which I suppose to lie
at the base of the levirate as well as of the sororate, namely,
the marriage of a group of brothers to a group of sisters.
Why a man On that supposition, as fast as a man's younger brothers
his d'der"^^ grow up they join the group of husbands formed by their
brother's elder brothers ; and as fast as younger sisters grow up they
join the group of wives formed by their elder sisters. Thus
a younger brother is entitled to use his elder brother's wife
in the lifetime of his elder brother, and naturally continues
to enjoy her after his elder brother's death. When with the
growth of sexual jealousy men refused any longer to share
their wives with their brothers, the elder brother claimed for
himself all the sisters whom he had formerly held in common
' Above, pp. 266, 270, 272, 278, 297, 300, 302, 303.
CHAP. VI THE SORORATE AND LEVI RATE 339
with his younger brothers, but on his death he allowed his
wives to pass by inheritance to his next younger brother,
who on his death passed the women on to his next younger
brother, and so on, until all the brothers in turn, one after
the other in order of seniority, had married the wives of their
eldest brother. In this manner we can conceive the custom
of the levirate to have originated.
But if in this way we can account for the permission to Whyaman
marry an elder brother's widow, how are we to explain the maayWs
prohibition to marry a younger brother's widow ? The rule younger
is to be compared with the Santal rule which forbids a man widow.'^^
to take any liberties with a younger brother's wife in the
lifetime of the younger brother, while it allows him to take
any liberties with an elder brother's wife in the lifetime of
the elder brother.^ Together the two rules point to the
conclusion, that when a younger brother marries a wife who
is not one of the group of sisters over whom his elder
brother has full marital rights, that wife does not join the
group of communal wives composed of sisters, and that con-
sequently the eldest brother may neither have intercourse
with her during his younger brother's life nor marry her
after his death. On this view, while the permission to
marry an elder brother's widow is a relic of group marriage,
the prohibition to marry a younger brother's widow marks
an early step in the disintegration of group marriage, having
been brought about by the growth of sexual jealousy and
the consequent reluctance of brothers to share their wives
with each other. This explanation of the prohibition to
marry a younger brother's widow is purely conjectural, but
it may be allowed to stand till a better has been suggested.
On this view the levirate, like the sororate, originated in Two later
a particular form of group marriage, namely in the marriage |evjrate^he
of a group of brothers to a group of sisters. But when the economic
levirate survived, as it often did, among peoples who had left reiic^Lun.
group marriage far behind them, it would naturally assume
a different character with its changed surroundings. Thus
wherever the rights of property and the practice of purchas-
ing wives had become firmly established, the tendency would
be to regard the widow as a valuable part of the inheritance,
1 Above, pp. 306 sq.
340 J A COB ' 5 MA RRIA GE pa rt 1 1
who, having been bought and paid for, could not be allowed
to pass out of the family but must go to the heir, whether
he be a brother, a son, or other relation of the deceased
husband. This, for example, appears to be the current view
of the levirate in Africa, where the custom is commonly
observed.'^ Again, wherever it came to be supposed that a
man's eternal welfare in the other world depends on his
leaving children behind him, who will perform the rites
necessary for his soul's salvation, it naturally became the
pious duty of the survivors to remedy, as far as they could,
the parlous state of a kinsman who had died without off-
spring, and on none would that duty appear to be more
incumbent than on the brother of the deceased. In such
circumstances the old custom of the levirate might be con-
tinued, or perhaps revived, with the limitation which we find
in Hebrew and Hindoo law, namely that a brother must
marry his brother's widow only in the case where the
deceased died childless, and only for the purpose of beget-
ting on the widow a son or sons for him who had left none
of his own. Hence what had at one time been regarded as
a right of succession to be enjoyed by the heir, might after-
wards come to be viewed as a burdensome and even repul-
sive obligation imposed upon a surviving brother or other
kinsman, who submitted to it reluctantly out of a sense of
duty to the dead. This is the light in which the levirate
was considered by Hindoo legislators.^
1 A. H. Post, Afrikanische Juris- schen Philologie und Altertumskunde) ;
/r«^j^«3( Oldenburg and Leipsic, 1887), J. F. McLennan and D. McLennan, The
i. 419-425. So, too, in Melanesia Patriarchal Theory (London, 1885),
(above, pp. 300 sq.). pp. 156^5^^., 266 sqq. The distinction
2 Laws of Alattu, ix. 59-68 (G. between what maybe called the religious
Biihler's translation, pp. 337-339, and the economic types of levirate is
Sacred Books of the East, vol. xxv. drawn very clearly in the following
Oxford, 1886) ; Gautama, Itistitutes passage, from which we learn that the
of the Sac)-ed Law, xviii. 4-14 (G. religious levirate is now extinct in
Bdhler's translation. The Sacred Laws India, while the economic levirate
of the Aryas, Part i. pp. 267 sq. continues to flourish there: " Niyoga
Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii. Ox- was an ancient custom among the
ford, 1879) ; Vasishtha, xviii. 55-65 Hindus, by which a childless widow
(G. Biihler's translation, The Sacred often raised a son to her dead husband
Laws of the Aryas, Part ii. pp. 89-91, through the agency of her dead hus-
Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiv. Ox- band's brother, or sometimes a Rishi.
ford, 1882); Julius Jolly, Recht und . . . The idea was to have a son (////;-«■)
Sitte (Strasburg, 1896), pp. 70 sq. (in to offer libations to the dead husband
G. Biihler's Grundriss der Indo-Ari- to save him from the terrible hell {put). «
THE SO RO RATE AND LEVI RATE
341
Thus, according to the predominance of purely economic or
of purely reUgious motives, the levirate may dwindle or develop
either into a mercenary transaction, as in modern Africa, or
into a pious duty, as in ancient India. But that neither the
mercenary nor the religious aspect of the custom is original
and fundamental seems to follow from the nature of the levirate
as it is practised by the aborigines of Australia, the lowest
savages about whose institutions we possess exact informa-
tion ; for these people neither buy their wives and transmit
them like chattels to their heirs; nor do they believe in a
heaven in which the dead can only secure and keep a foot-
ino- through the good offices of their living descendants.
Accordingly we must look for another explanation of their
custom of handing over a widow to her deceased husband's
brother, and such an explanation lies to our hand in the old
custom of group marriage, which still survives, or survived
down to recent years, in some backward tribes.
In its
original
form the
levirate is
directly
derived
from a form
of group
marriage,
in which the
husbands
were
brothers.
Hfence (i) Niyoga was only allowed to
a childless widow ; (2) not more than
one son was' allowed ; and (3) the son
belonged not to his real father but to
the dead husband of his mother. No
trace of ■ this custom in its entirety is
found anywhere in India now. . . But
a brother's taking to wife his elder
brother's wife is looked upon as a
matter of course, and the children of
the union are treated as legitimate.
And this'is a younger brother's special
right ; for, if a widow goes to live with
some other man (as concubine, for re-
marriage is not permitted), the younger
brother can demand payment of the
bride-price from the new husband.
This custom, however, cannot have
been derived from Niyoga, for there is
no idea of raising' children to the dead
husband — the children of the union
belong to the begetter, and therefore,
even widows having sons can become
the wives of their dead husband's
brothers. Nor is union with a stranger
permitted, as in Niyoga. The custom
is far more probably a survival of
polyandry, at least in the hills, for the
widow does not ' marry ' the brother
— there is no ceremony — but she simply
begins to live with him as his wife.
And even during the lifetime of her
husband, a woman's liaisoti with her
husband's younger brother is not
visited with the same punishment as
with a third person." See Panna Lall,
"An enquiry into the Birth and Mar-
riage Customs of the Khasiyas and the
Bottiyas of Almora District, U.P.,"
The Indian Antiquary, xl. (Bombay,
191 1), pp. 191 sq.
McLennan proposed to derive the
levirate from fraternal polyandry of the
sort which is practised in Tibet. Against
this it is to be said, that while the levirate
is very common, fraternal polyandry is
very rare ; for example, it appears to
be totally absent from aboriginal Aus-
tralia and very exceptional in Africa,
in both of which regions the levirate is
widespread. Accordingly we must
look for the cause of the levirate, not
in an exceptional institution like frater-
nal polyandry, but in an institution of
wide prevalence such as group mar-
riage appears to have been. Compare
Totemism and Exogamy, i. 501 sqq.
342 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part n
^17. Serving for a Wife.
How Jacob Although Jacob may have had a prior claim on the
^^^■^^ ■ hands of his cousins Leah and Rachel, the daughters of his
father-in- mother's brother Laban, he might not marry them for
two\v^ves'^ nothing ; far from it, he had to serve his father-in-law as a
shepherd and a goatherd for seven years for each of his
cousins, making a period of fourteen years of service in all
for the two. At the end of the time, having earned his
wives and his children by his services, Jacob desired to
return with them from Haran to his own country, the land
of his fathpr Israel. But his father-in-law had found him to
be a valuable servant, and was unwilling to let him go ; so
he persuaded Jacob to stay with him and serve as a
shepherd and goatherd for another period of years. During
this third period of service, which lasted six years, the
patriarch by his craft as well as his skill acquired immense
flocks of sheep and goats, with which he returned a rich
man to his native land.^
His period From this narrative it clearly follows that Jacob was
equrvaient believed to have earned his wives in exactly the same way
topayment. as he earned his flocks, namely by serving his father-in-law
for them. The fourteen years' service was reckoned equal
^ to the value of two wives, just as six years' service was
reckoned equal to so many heads of sheep and goats. In
other words, Jacob paid for his wives in labour instead of
in money or in kind. The affair, apart from the genuine
love which Jacob felt for one of his wives, was substantially
a commercial transaction between two sharp men, each of
whom attempted successfully to cheat the other. The
virtuous indignation which each of the two rogues felt, or
affected, at the rascality of the other is a delicate stroke of
satire in the manner of Moliere.
The If any doubt could subsist as to the true light in which
earni'n^<^a J^cob's scrvice for his wives is to be regarded, it may be
wife by dispelled by a comparison with the marriage customs of
parents ^"^ peoples in many parts of the world ; for an examination of
instead of these customs will satisfy us that it is a common practice
them for for the parents of a girl to accept the services of a son-in-
her is , „ . . .
' Genesis xxix. -xxxi.
common m
the world.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 343
law instead of a direct payment for their daughter's hand.
We have to bear in mind that at a certain stage of social
evolution a wife is valued, not merely as a companion and a
mother of children, but also as a labourer, who contributes
in large measure to the support of the family. Hence her
parents naturally refuse to part with her except for a valu-
able consideration, which may take the form of a woman
given in exchange, or of a payment in money, or of services
rendered for a longer or shorter period by the man who
marries the daughter. The practice of bartering women as
wives has been illustrated by the custom of exchanging
sisters or daughters in marriage.^ It remains to illustrate
the practice of procuring wives by service as a substitute for
the payment of a bride price.^
Thus among the Gonds of the Central Provinces of Serving for
India " polygamy is not forbidden ; but, women being costly \^q^ the
chattels, it is rarely practised. The father of the bride is Gonds of
always paid a consideration for the loss of her services, as is provincer
usually the case among poor races where the females bear a of India,
large share in the burden of life. The Biblical usage of the
bridegroom, when too poor to pay this consideration in cash,
serving in the house of his future father-in-law for a certain
time, is universal among the tribes. The youth is then called
a lamjan ; and it frequently happens that he gets tired of
waiting, and induces his fair one to make a moonlight flitting
of it." ^ To the same effect a more recent authority on the
Gonds tells us " the practice of Lamsena, or serving for a wife,
is commonly adopted by boys who cannot afford to buy one.
The bridegroom serves his prospective father-in-law for an
agreed period, usually three to five or even six years, and at
its expiry he should be married to the girl without expense.
During this time he is not supposed to have access to the
girl, but frequently they become intimate, and if this happens
^ Above, pp. 195 sqq., 2\o sqq. Grundriss der cthnologischen Juiis-
2 With what follows compare A. H. prudenziOXAtnhuxg and Leipsic, 1894-
Post, Die Anfdvge des Staats- und 1895), i. 318 sqq. ; E. Weslermarck,
Rechtslebens (Oldenburg, 1S78), pp. History of Human Afarriage (London,
28 sqq. ; id., Bausteine fiir eine allge- 1891), pp. 390-392.
meine Rechtswissenschaft (Oldenburg,
1880-1881), i. 113 sqq. ; id., Afri- ^ Captain J. Forsyth, The High-
kanische Jurisprudenz (Oldenburg lands of Central l7id!a{'LorAo'[\, i?,"]!),
and Leipsic, 1887), i. 378 sq, ; id., pp. 148 j-^-
344
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
PART II
Serving for
a wife
among
other tribes
of the
Central
Provinces
of India.
the boy may either stay and serve his unexpired term or
take his wife away at once ; in the latter case his parents
should pay the girl's father five rupees for each year of the
bridegroom's unexpired service. The Lamsena custom does
not work well as a rule, since the girl's parents can break
their contract, and the Lamsena has no means of redress.
Sometimes if they are offered a good bride price they will
marry the girl to another suitor when he has served the
greater part of his term, and all his work goes for nothing." ^
Here the exact equivalence of the service to the bride price,
and the purely mercenary character of the whole transaction,
are sufficiently obvious.
Again, among the Kawars, a primitive hill tribe of the
Central Provinces of India, a man normally pays for his
bride, but " it is permissible for two families to effect an
exchange of girls in lieu of payment of the bride price, this
practice being known as gnm-dwat. Or a prospective bride-
groom may give his services for three or four years instead
of a price. The system of serving for a wife is known as
gharjidn " ; it is generally favoured by widows who have
daughters to dispose of^ This case is instructive, for it
shows the equivalence of purchase, exchange, and service as
modes of procuring a wife. Among the Khonds, a Dravidian
tribe of the Central Provinces of India, notorious for the
human sacrifices which they used to offer for the sake of the
crops, wives are usually bought and sold. The price of a bride
used to be very high, as much as from twelve to twenty head
of cattle, but in some places it has now fallen very consider-
ably. If a man cannot afford to purchase a bride, he may, like
Jacob, serve his prospective father-in-law for seven years as
the condition of obtaining her hand.^ Among the Korkus, a
Munda or Kolarian tribe of the Central Provinces of India,
who used to live by hunting and a migratory system of
cultivation, if a man has only one daughter, or if he requires
some one to help him on the farm, he will often make his
future son-in-law serve for his wife for a period varying from
five to twelve years, at the end of which he bestows his
1 R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes
of the Cent7-al Provinces 0/ India (Lon-
don, 1916), iii. 80.
2 R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 395.
3 R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 467.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 345
daughter on the faithful suitor, Hberally celebrating the
wedding at his own expense. Should, however, the swain
tire of the long period of service, and run away with the girl
before its expiry, his parents must pay the girl's father five
rupees for each year of the unexpired term.^ Among the
Mahars, a menial caste of the Central Provinces of India, the
custom of serving for a wife is recognized and bears a special
name {Lainjhand) ; the expectant son-in-law lives with his
future father-in-law, and works for him for a period varying
from one to five years.^ Again, in the same province " the
Marars of Balaghat and Bhandara have the lamjhana form
of marriage, in which the prospective husband serves for his
wife ; this is a Dravidian custom and shows their connection
with the forest tribes." ^ Similarly, among the Patlias, a
jungle tribe of the Central India Agency, " it is not uncommon
for a man to work for his bride, acting as the servant of his
father-in-law. Seven years is the usual period. No pay-
ment is made for the bride in this case. After seven years
the couple are given a separate house and means to cultivate,
whereas, up to then, clothing and food only are given them."
If a man prefers to buy his wife rather than to work for
her, he must pay her father a sum of money, which comes
usually to about fourteen rupees.^
Among the Gonds of the Eastern Ghauts, in the Madras Serving for
Presidency, a poor man who cannot afford to pay the usual ^J^^^ '"^^^
price for a wife will agree to work instead for a fixed of India.
period in the house of his future father-in-law. Such a man
is called in the Oriya language gJiojvjavai or " house son-in-
law." The term of years for which he labours usually does
not exceed three. During that time he helps his father-in-
law in agriculture and other work, but he holds no intercourse
with his future bride, and he lives in a separate hut adjoining
her father's house. At the end of the period that has been
agreed upon the marriage is performed in the house of the
bride's parents and at their expense. After that, the couple
continue to reside for another year with the bride's family,
the husband working for his father-in-law as before. Then
' R. V. Russell, op. cit. iii. 558 sq. graphical Survey of the Central India
'^ R. V. Russell, op. cit. iv. 'i-Zls^l- ■^S^'^'^yi Monograph II., The Jungle
3 R. V. Russell, op. cit. iv. 166. Tribes of Malwa (Lucknow, 1909),
* Captain C. E. Luard, The Ethno- pp. 46, 47.
346 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
they set up a house of their own, generally in the husband's
village, to which they repair. At their departure it is
customary to present them with new clothes, rice, a pot of
liquor, and any cash that the young wife's parents can spare.^
Among the Santals of Bengal brides are usually purchased
from their parents ; but if for any reason a daughter has
not been sought in marriage, her father will sometimes
procure for her what is called a " Home Bridegroom " {ghardi
jazvae). For this purpose he employs a go-between to look
out for a needy young man, who will be glad to get a wife
without having to pay for her. If the youth consents to the
arrangement, he takes up his abode in the house of his
parents-in-law and is married very quietly and unostenta-
tiously, for such a marriage is thought to reflect unfavourably
on the personal charms of the bride. The young couple
live with the wife's parents for five years, receiving food and
clothing in return for their labour. When the period has
expired, the son-in-law receives a present of a yoke of oxen,
a cow and a calf, a bundle of rice, and an axe, and with
these and the wife's savings the two set up as farmers in a
small way on their own account.^ Again, among the
Kirantis of the Central Himalayas the practice is to buy
wives, usually at from five-and-twenty to thirty rupees a
head ; but if a man has neither the money nor the copper
utensils which are often accepted instead of cash, he will go
and earn his bride by labouring in her father's family.^
Similarly, among the Mandadan Chettis of Southern India,
between the Neilgherry District and Malabar, a young man
is sometimes made to work for his bride for a period varying
from one to five years, the precise length of which is settled
by the council. In such a case the father-in-law defrays the
cost of the wedding, and sets up the young couple with a
house and some land.^
' C. Hayavadana Rao, " The Gonds id., " Santal rules of Succession and
of the Eastern Ghauts, India," Anthro- Partition," Journal of the Bihar and
pos, V. (1910) pp. 794 sq. . Orissa Research Society, i. (Bankipore,
2 Hon. and Rev. A. Campbell, D.D., 1915) p. 24.
" Santal Marriage Customs," Journal ^ Brian Houghton Hodgson, Mis-
of the Bihar ajid Orissa Research cellaneous Essays relating to Indian
Society, ii. (Bankipore, 1916) pp. 328 Subjects (London, 1880), i. 402.
sq. ; compare zo'., " Position of Women * 'Edga.xT'h\xx?,tor\, CastesaftdTribesof
among the Santals," ibid. pp. 245 sg. ; Souther/i India {Msidias, 1909), iv. 445.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 347
Thus the custom of serving for a wife appears to be not TheAbb^
uncommon in India, particularly among the Dravidian tribes, thecustom
One good authority, the Abbe Dubois, even speaks of the of serving
... , , - 1 1 11 1 . for a wife
custom as if it were generally practised by all men who are too jq i^dia.
poor to purchase a wife. His observations refer chiefly to
Southern India, especially to the Madras Presidency ; but, even
so limited, they are probably not of universal application. He
says, " As the marriage expenses are considerable, we find
in all castes a number of young men destitute of the means
of defraying them who, in order to procure a wife, resort to
the same expedient which Jacob employed with Laban.
Like that holy patriarch, an Indian who has no fortune
enters the service of one of his relations or of any other
person of his caste who has marriageable daughters, and he
engages to serve him gratuitously for a number of years on
condition that at the end of the time he obtains the hand of
one of the daughters. When the term agreed upon has
expired, the father fulfils his engagement, pays all the expenses
of the marriage, and then allows the wedded pair to retire
where they please. In sending them away he gives them a
cow, a yoke of oxen, two copper vases, one for drinking
and the other for eating, and a quantity of grain sufficient
to support them during the first year of their married
life. But the remarkable thing is, that the number of years
of service required in India in order to get a wife on these
conditions is the same as that for which Jacob engaged to
serve Laban, that is, seven years." ^ However, the examples
I have quoted sufficiently prove that the period of serving for
a wife is by no means uniform in modern India, whatever it
may have been in ancient Israel.
The custom of serving for a wife instead of paying for Serving for
her is common also among the Mongoloid tribes of North- \^^^l„ j,^^
Eastern India. Thus, among the Lepchas of Sikhim Lepchas
marriages " are not contracted in childhood, as among the L|n,boos
Hindoos, nor do the men generally marry young. This ofSikhim
arises principally from the difficulty of procuring means of ^epaui.
paying the parents of the bride the expected douceur on
giving the suitor his daughter to wife ; this sum varies from
1 J. A. Dubois, Maurs, histitulions et C&^hnovies des Pcuples de Vlnde (Paris
1825), i. 295 sq.
348 J A COB'S MA RRIA GE pa rt 1 1
40 rupees to 400 or 500, according to the rank of the parties.
It is not customary to allow the bride to leave her parents'
home for that of her husband until the sum agreed on has
been paid in full ; hence as the consummation of the marriage
is permitted while the female is still under her father's roof,
it is by no means uncommon to find the husband the tem-
porary bondsman of his father-in-law, who exacts, Jewish
/ fashion, labour from his son in lieu of money until he shall
have fairly won his bride." ^ Here, again, the nature of the
transaction is obvious ; service rendered by a son-in-law to
his father-in-law is merely a substitute for the pecuniary
payment which the suitor is too poor to make for his bride.
Among the Limboos of Sikhim and Nepaul the price of a
wife rarely exceeds ten or twelve rupees, yet a bridegroom is
often too poor to pay even this paltry sum, and he is obliged
to remain with his father-in-law and work for him until he
has redeemed his bride.^
Serving for Again, among the Kuki-Lushais of Assam, " the pre-
among the lin^in^i'ies to an ordinary marriage are as follows : A man
Kuki- having taken a fancy to a girl, offers a present of liquor to
Assam^ ° the parents and taiks the matter over. Should they be will-
ing to accept him as a son-in-law, he takes up his abode with
them for three years, working in the jhunis^ and practically
^ becoming a bondservant. At the end of this period he is
allowed to marry the girl, but even then is not free, as he has
to remain on another two seasons, working in the same
manner as he did before. At the completion of the five
years he is free to build a separate house and start life on his
own account. Two rupees is the sum ordinarily paid the
parents of the girl, a sum paid evidently more for the purpose
of proving a contract than for anything else, the long period
of servitude being the real price paid." ^ However, among
1 A. Campbell, " Note on the Lep- undescribed," Journal of the Asiatic
.. ^■i.%oi'Si\^^\v\,'' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, ix. Part i. (January
Society of Bengcil, ix. Part i. (January to June, 1840) pp. 602 sq. Compare
to June, 1840), p. 384. Compare Sir E. T. Dalton, Deso-iptive Ethnology of
Joseph Dalton Hooker, Himalayan Bengal, p. 104.
Journals (London, 1891), p. 91 ; E. 3 C. A. Soppitt, A Short Account of
T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of the Kuki-Lushai Tribes on the North-
Bengal (C3.\cnit?i, 1872), p. 102. East Frontier (Shillong, 1887), pp.
^ A. Campbell, " Note on the Lim- 14 sg. Conxpare Major John Butler,
boos, and other Hill Tribes hitherto Travels and Adventures in the Pro-
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 349
the Kukai-Lushai tribes the custom varies somewhat. The
Thadoi tribes prefer marriage by purchase, and the price of a
wife varies from 20 to over 200 rupees, according to the
means of the parents. On the other hand, the Rangkhol
tribe prefers marriage by service ; the bridegroom resides
from three to seven years in his future father-in-law's house,
during which time he is allowed free access to the girl of
his choice.^
In the Bodo group of tribes in Assam marriage is by Serving for
purchase or servitude, and sometimes also by capture. The \^ll ^j^g
price paid for a bride usually varies from 60 to lOO rupees, Bodos and
but when the suitor is too poor to pay the sum demanded, Assam.°
he frequently enters the house of his parents-in-law and works
for them for three or four years.^ So among the Assamese,
" it is not uncommon, when a man is poverty stricken, to
engage to live and work for several years for the father of
the girl he wishes to marry. He is then called a chapunea,
a kind of bondsman, and is entitled to receive bhat hipper,
food and clothing, but no wages ; and at the expiration of
the period of servitude, if the girl does not dislike him, the
marriage takes place. The man is looked on in the family
as a khanu dainad (or son-in-law), and is treated kindly." ^
Among the Mikirs of Assam the mode of marriage " depends
upon the wealth and standing of the parties. If the wedding
is dkejoi — that is, if no payment is to be made for the bride —
the girl goes with her husband next day to her new home.
Her parents accompany her, and are entertained with food and
drink, returning the following day. If the wedding \sdkevien
(literally ripe, pakkd), the lad stays in his father-in-law's
house. He rests one day, and then works for his father-in-
law for one year, or two years, or even it may be for life,
according to agreement. There is no money payment in
any case. If the girl is an heiress or only daughter, the
vince of Assam (London, 1855), pp. (Shillong, 1892), p. 251.
82 sq. ; E. T. Dalton, Descriptive ^ Census of India, i8gi, Assam, by
Ethnology of Bengal, p. 47. The (Sir) E. A. Gait, vol. \.y Report
jhiUns are the clearings made in the (Shillong, 1892), p. 225. Compare
forest and temporarily cultivated. See R. G. Latham, Descriptive Ethnology
above, vol. i. pp. 442 sgg. (London, 1859), i. 103.
1 Census of India, i8<fi, Assam, by '■'• [John Butler], Sketch of Assam
(Sir) E. A. Gait, vol. i. Report (London, 1847), p. 142.
350
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Serving
for a wife
among the
Nagas and
Tunings
of Assam
and the
Tipperahs
and Mrus
of Chitta-
gong.
Serving for
a wife
among the
Mishmees
of North-
Eastern
India.
marriage is usually dkemen, but in the great majority of cases
it is dkejoiy ^
Among the wild tribes of the Naga Hills in Assam,
when a young man takes a fancy to a girl either of his own
or of a neighbouring village, he must serve in her parents'
house for a certain time, varying from one to two or more
years, according to agreement, before he may marry her.^
According to another account a price is paid for a Naga
bride, and it is only when a suitor cannot pay it that he is
reduced to serving his father-in-law for the maiden ; at the
end of his period of servitude the young man is provided for
and set up in the world by the damsel's father.^ Among
the Turungs of Assam the usual form of marriage is by
purchase, and the price of a wife ranges from 40 to 80
rupees. But marriage by servitude is also not uncommon ; the
time during which the bridegroom has to work in the bride's
house varies from three to four years.^ Among the Tipperahs,
a tribe inhabiting the Hill Tracts of Chittagong, when a
match is made with the consent of the parents, the young
man must serve three years in his father-in-law's house
before he obtains his wife or is formally married. But
during his time of servitude or probation the. girl is really,
though not nominally, his wife.° Similarly among the Mrus,
another tribe of the same region, a wooer has to serve three
years for his wife in his father-in-law's house ; but if he be
wealthy, he can dispense with this service by paying 200
or 300 rupees down.^ Here, again, we see that service
rendered for a wife to a father-in-law is merely a substitute
for payment.
Among the Mishmees, who inhabit the mountains at
the extreme north-eastern corner of India, on the border of
Burma, " women are priced at from fifty to five hundred
1 Sir Charles Lyall, The Mikirs,
from the papers of the late Edward
Stack (London, 1908), pp. 18 sq.
2 Lieut. - Col. R. G. Woodthorpe,
" Notes on the Wild Tribes inhabiting
the so-called Naga Hills, on our North-
East frontier of India. " /oufttal of the
Anthy-opological htstitute, xi. (1S82) p.
204.
•^ E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno-
logy of Bengal, p. 41.
* Cettsus of India, i8gi, Assam, by
(Sir) E. A. Gait, vol. i. Heport (Shil-
long, 1S92), p. 284.
s Capt. T. H. Lewin, Wild Races of
South-Eastern India (London, 1870),
p. 202.
^ Capt. T. IL Lewin, op. cit. p.
234:
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 351
heads, and a large family of daughters are very valuable,
especially if they be well-favoured." ^ But " poor younger
sons have to work very hard for a wife, for they get no help
from their father, but have to trade sometimes for years,
before they can bring their wives home to a house of their
own ; but on payment of a part of the purchase-money the
youth may marry and visit his wife at her father's house,
though she and her children can never leave it until every
head is paid. This custom is a great stimulus to the young
men in their musk-hunting and trading excursions, for until
they pay for their wives they hold no position, and their
wives and children have to work for the benefit of the wife's
family." ^ In this case, apparently, the husband only visits
his wife occasionally at her father's house, and he does not
serve his father-in-law directly ; but he works in order to
earn the money which will enable him to buy his wife and
children. The economic principle is therefore the same as
in the other cases which we are considering ; in all of them
a wife and her children are treated practically as valuable
pieces of property which a man cannot procure without
giving an equivalent for them, whether in kind, or in labour,
or in payment of some sort. The "heads" which the Mish-
mees give in exchange for a wife are, properly speaking, the
heads of slain animals, such as buffaloes, bears, tigers, deer,
and so forth, which are hung up in the houses and form a
kind of currency, being exchanged for slaves and other
valuables. But the word " head " in the Mishmee tongue
is also used in a more general sense as equivalent to
" money." ^
In Burma " after marriage the couple almost always live Serving
for two or three years in the house of the bride's parents, the j° Burma
son-in-law becoming one of the family and contributing to andsiam.
its support. Setting up a separate establishment, even in
Rangoon, where the young husband is a clerk in an English
office, is looked upon with disfavour as a piece of pride
and ostentation. If the girl is an only daughter she and her
husband stay on till the old people die." * Similarly among
1 T. T. Cooper, The Mishmee Hills, - T. T. Cooper, op. cit. pp. 236 sq.
an Accoimt of a Joitrtiey made ift an ^ T. T. Cooper, op. cit. pp. 189 sq.
attempt to penetrate Thibet from Assam * Shway Yoe [Sir J. George Scott],
(London, 1873), p. 235. The Burman, his Life and Notiotts
352
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Serving
for a wife
among the
aboriginal
races of
Indo-
china.
the Karens of Burma a young man usually lives with his wife's
parents for two or three years after marriage.^ In Siam a
house is built for a newly wedded pair near the house of the
wife's parents ; hence a young married man is hardly ever to
be found living with his own father, but generally with his
father-in-law and in a state of dependence on him. But from
the birth of their first child the young people are allowed to
shift for themselves.^ So in the Siamese province of Laos
and in Cambodia a newly married pair generally resides for
some time with the wife's parents and under their tutelage ;
the husband cannot take his wife away without their consent.^
In Cambodia the residence may last for years or even for
life, and a popular tale is told to account for the origin
of the custom.*
Similar customs are observed by various aboriginal
races of Indo-China. Among the Hka Muks, Hka Mets,
and Hka Kwens, three forest tribes on the borders of Burma,
who are believed to be aborigines, a young man has
to serve in the house of his wife's parents for a longer or
shorter time.^ Again, " amongst the Mois marriage should
perhaps be regarded as a mitigated form of slavery. In fact,
a daughter who marries does not quit her parents ; on the
contrary, it is the husband who comes to dwell in his wife's
house, unless he is rich enough to furnish a male slave by
way of compensation to replace her. But it is to be under-
stood that in no case does this species of slavery permit of
the sale of the man who accepts it. Hence the number of
his daughters is for the Moi a real source of wealth." ^ So
amone the Stienes " daughters above all constitute the honour
(London, 1882), i. 70. Compare
Sangermano, Descriptio7t of the Bu7--
mese £m/>ire (RsLngoon, 1885), p. 133 ;
Capt. C. J. F. S. Forbes, Brt/M
Burma (London, 1878), p. 62.
1 Rev. F. Mason, D.D., "Physical
Character of the Karens," Jourual of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1866,
Part ii. No. I, p. 18.
2 Carl Bock, Temples and Elephants
(London, 1884), pp. 183, 186. Com-
pare De la Loubere, Du royaume de
Siam (Amsterdam, 1 691), i. 156 sq.
* E. Aymonier, Notes sur le Laos
(Saigon, 18S5), p. 186; J. Moura, Le
Royaicme du Cambodge (Paris, 1883),
i. 409.
* E. Aymonier, Notice sur le Cam-
bodge (Paris, 1875), p. 54.
5 (Sir) J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardi-
man. Gazetteer of Upper Burma and
the Sha7t States, Part i. vol. i. (Ran-
goon, 1900) p. 522.
^ A. Gautier, "Voyage au pays des
Mois," Cochinchine Fran^aise, Excur-
sions et Reconnaissances, No. 14 (Saigon,
1882), p. 246.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 353
and the riches of a house, for to the mind of a Sticng
the daughter seems nobler than the sonj because at her
marriage the nubile daughter rarely quits the paternal home ;
it is the son-in-law who, obliged to submit to a sort of miti-
gated slavery, takes up his abode with his father-in-law and
thus increases the household and the number of hands avail-
able for work in the rice -fields. In consequence of this
custom, which has the force of law, a young man, who would
take his betrothed bride to his own home, is bound to give
his father-in-law a strong healthy male slave. That is, among
the Stiengs, the dowry which in such a case the young man
must provide ; only the dowry does not accompany the
young wife to her new home, it replaces her in the house of
her father." ^ Here, again, the economic value of the husband's
services is brought out in the clearest way by the stipulation,
that if he deprives his father-in-law of them, he must provide
a sturdy male slave as a substitute.
The practice of serving for a wife instead of paying for Serving for
her is found in some parts of the Indian Archipelago. Thus sJ)^',^^tra
in Lampong, the district at the southern extremity of Sumatra,
when a man cannot pay the bride price, he is obliged to live
with his parents-in-law and work for them until he has dis-
charged his debt. Sometimes the period during which he is
to reside with them and work for them is stipulated before-
hand ; it is usually seven years. The husband's labour is
reckoned towards the payment of the bride pri^e. In Palem-
bang, another district in the south of Sumatra, the custom is
similar. A poor suitor bindshimself to live with his parents-
in-law and to labour for them until he has paid for his wife.
Sometimes it happens that he is unable all his life long to
discharge the debt ; in that case the debt is transmitted
to his children, who continue like their father in a state of
bondage until the daughters, by the bride prices which are
paid for them at their marriage, at length succeed in paying
the sum which is still owing for the marriage of their mother.^
Similarly among the Gayos, a people who inhabit an inland
^ Le Pere Azemar (Missionnaire ^ Q. A. Wilken, " Over het hu-
apostolique), " Les Stiengs de Brolam," welijks-en erfrecht bij de volken van
Cochinchine Fran^aise, Fxcursions et Zmd-?)\\mz.\.rz" Deverspt-eideGeschi-ift-
Kecontiaissa^ices, No, 28 (Saigon, en (The Hague, 1912), ii. 232 sq.
1666), pp. 220 sq.
VOL. II 2 A
354
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Another
form of
marriage
by service
in Sumatra.
district of Achin, in the north of Sumatra, if a man cannot
pay for his wife, he works for her family until he is able to
discharge his debt, when he is free to remove her to his own
house. His period of servitude may last for years. Indeed
the girl's father will sometimes not consent to such a marriage
unless his son-in-law binds himself not to pay the full bride
price before a certain time. So long as the price is not
paid, the children belong to the clan of the father-in-law,
but as soon as it is settled in full, they pass into the clan of
their father.^ Again, among the Looboos, a primitive tribe
of Mandailing in Sumatra, a man is obliged to serve his
prospective parents-in-law for two years before marriage,
during which he has to perform all kinds of drudgery for
them. Even after his marriage, the custom of the country
imposes on him many obligations as to field labour for the
benefit of his wife's father and mother."
In another form of marriage, which is practised in Sumatra
and bears the name of avibel afiak, a man transfers himself
permanently to the house of his father-in-law, where he lives
in a state between that of a son and a debtor, partaking
of what the house affords, but himself entirely destitute of
property. His own family renounce all right to, or interest
in, him ; should he rob or murder, his wife's family pay the
fine, and if he is murdered, it is his wife's family who receive
the blood-wit. They, too, are responsible for all debts that
he may contract after marriage. Further, they are free to
divorce him at any time and to send him away ; in that case
he departs empty-handed as he came, leaving his children
behind him. Sometimes his wife's family indulge him so far
as to let him remove with his wife to a house of his own,
but he, his children, and his goods, are still their property.
Nevertheless, if he has not daughters by his marriage, he
may redeem himself and his wife on paying her bride price
{J7ijur) ; but if there are daughters, the difficulty of emanci-
pation is enhanced, because his wife's family are entitled to
compensation for them also. However, on payment of an
additional fine he may insist on his release, whilst his
1 C. Snouck Hurgronje, Het Gajo- dailing," Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land-
land ett zij'ne Bewouers (B?^\.?iYidi, i<)02,), en Volkcnkiinde van Nederlandsch-
pp. i-jo sq. Indie, Ixvi. (1912) p. 321.
2 J. Kreemer, '* Ue Loeboes in Man-
i
CHAF. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 355
daughters are not marriageable.^ This form of marriage is
recognized by the Bataks or Battas of Central Sumatra,
though it is much less frequent among them than marriage
by purchase, which confers on the husband full rights over
the wife whose price he has paid.^
A similar form of marriage is usually observed by the Serving
Bare'e-speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes. Amonsf them fo"" ^ wife
. ° among the
a married man regularly lives with his wife's parents, who Bare'e-
lodge him and feed him. In return he. has to work for ^^^^!"^
" _ _ I oradjas
them in the rice-fields and elsewhere. Only after the lapse of Central
of two, three, or four years, when the wife has become a *-'^'^^"-
mother, may the young couple lay out a rice-field of their
own. In rare instances the wife is allowed, some years
after marriage, to follow her husband to his own village,
but she may never do so in her mother's lifetime, unless
the mother accompanies her. And if the husband falls sick
while he is living with his wife's family, he is permitted to
return to his own people, and in that case his wife often
goes with him to nurse him in his sickness ; but such a
stay in her husband's family is only temporary. During
his residence with his wife's people a man is bound to
behave respectfully, not only to her parents, but also to her
brothers and sisters and more distant members of the
family. He must address them all with the polite komi
(" ye ") instead of with the familiar siko ('' you ") ; and he
may never mention the names of his wife's parents, uncles,
and aunts. If their names happen to be those of common
objects, he may not call these objects by their common
names, but must substitute other words or phrases for
them ; for example, if his father-in-law bears a name which
in the native tongue means " horse," then his son-in-law
may not call a horse a horse, but must allude to it delicately
in the phrase, " some one with a long face." When the
Toradjas are asked why they treat their wives' parents with
such punctilious respect, they say that it is from fear lest
their parents-in-law should dissolve the marriage. But
though a man usually lives with his wife's family and works
^ W. Marsden, History of Sumatra 1882), pp. 291 sq .
(London, 181 1), pp. 262 sq. Com-
pare A. L. van Hasselt, Volksbeschrijv- 2 Yxzxiz Junghuhn, Die Battaldnder
ing van Midden Sumatra (Leyden, an/ Sumatra (Berlin, 1847), ii. 13 1 sq_
356
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
The bride
price paid
for the
children
rather than
for the wife.
Serving
for a wife
in South-
Eastern
Celebes.
for them, he has nevertheless to pay a price for her, or
rather his blood relations have to do so for him. The
price is generally not paid at marriage but some time
afterwards. When a child has been born of the marriage,
the payment of the bride price should no longer be delayed.
The primary object of the payment is said to be " to make
the eyes of the children hard," that is to prevent them from
being ashamed. For if the bride price is not paid, the
child has no father, and the father has no rights over the
child, who in that case belongs to his mother alone.^ Thus
it would seem that among the Toradjas the bride price is
really paid for the children, not for the wife ; a man earns
his wife by serving her parents, he earns his children by
paying for them. Both acquisitions are made on a business
footing ; in each case the transaction is strictly commercial ;
neither wife nor child may be had by him who is not pre-
pared to give a full equivalent for them either in labour or in
goods. Similarly in some African tribes the bride price paid
at marriage appears to be intended to buy the children who are
to be born rather than the wife who is to bear them. Hence
in these tribes, if a man pays nothing for his wife, his children
do not belong to him but to his wife's father or maternal
uncle, and he can only obtain possession of his own offspring
by paying for them."
Among the natives of South-Eastern Celebes, when a
1 N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De
Bare' e-sprekende Toradja'siian Middcn-
Celehes (Batavia, 19 12- 1 91 4), ii. 23
sqq., 27 sqq.
2 For example, among the Banyoro
of Central Africa, " when a poor man
is unable to procure the cattle required
for his marriage at once, he may, by
agreement with the bride's father, pay
them by instalments ; the children,
however, born in the meantime belong
to the wife's father, and each of them
must be redeemed with a cow." See
Emin Pasha in Central Africa (London
1888), p. 86. Again, the Matabele
*• do not buy the wife from her father,
but after the first child is born the
husband has to pay its value, or else
the wife's father lias the right to take
the child away." See Lionel Decle,
Three Years in Savage Africa (Lon-
don, 1898), p. 158. Again, among
the Bambala of the Congo valley, " the
position of the children of a marriage
varies according as the mother has been
purchased or betrothed. In, the latter
case they belong to the maternal uncle,
and the purchase price of the girls goes
to him. The children of the purchased
wife, on the other hand, belong to the
father." See E. Torday, Cajiip and
'Tramp in African Wilds (London,
1913)1 P- 95- Again, among the
Bakundu of the Cameroons, if a man
marries a woman without paying for
her, the children of the marriage belong
to the wife's father. See Missionar
Bufe (Kamerun), "Die Bakundu,"
Archiv fUr Anthi-opologie, N F. xii.
(19 1 3) p. 236.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 357
young man desires to marry, his father goes to the parents
of the girl on whom his son has set his heart, and says, " My
son would like to come and help you with the house-work and
the field-work ; but you must not be angry with him if he
does not work well." Should the implied offer of marriage
be favourably received, the young man goes to live with the
damsel's parents, and if after a period of probation they are
satisfied with him, and the girl returns his affection, he
marries her, but he must pay for her hand a price which
varies from fifty to a hundred guilders. After the marriage
he continues to reside for some time, generally a year, in the
house of his wife's parents. Not till later does he take his
wife away to a place of his own.^
Among the Tenggeres, who inhabit a mountainous region serving
in the east of Java, men seldom marry outside their own among'[he
village, and no price is paid for a wife ; but after marriage Tenggeres
the young couple take up their abode in the house of the
wife's father, whom the husband now regards as his own
father, being bound to obey him and to help him in his
work. If there are several daughters in the family, all the
sons-in-law reside with their children in the house of their
father-in-law, until one of them, generally the eldest, has
become rich enough to build a house for himself. When
only one son-in-law is left in the house, he must remain
with his wife's parents until either a new son-in-law takes
his place or the parents are dead ; in the latter case the
whole inheritance falls to him. However, when there are
many sons-in-law with their children and none of them is
well enough off to make a home of his own, indigence
reigns in the house by reason of the many mouths that there
are to feed ; and in that case one of the sons-in-law is
permitted to remove to the home of his own father, if his
father is wealthier or has a larger house.^ However, a
form of marriage under which a man is permanently
transferred to his wife's family, with only the possibility,
1 F. Treffers, " Het landschap 2 j. h. F. Kohlbrugge, " Die Teng-
• Laiwoei in Z. O. Celebes," Tijdschrift gdresen, ein alter Javanischc Volks-
VMi het Koninklijk Nederlandsch Aar- staam," Bijdrageti tot de Taal- Land-
drijkskiindig Genootschap, Tweede en Volkenkiinde van iVederlattdsch-
Serie, xxxi. (Leyden, 1914) pp. /W/fi, liii. (1901) p. 116
209 sq.
358 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
under certain conditions, of ultimately returning to his own
family, is to be distinguished from the form of marriage
under which a man serves his father-in-law for a limited
time for the wife whom he will afterwards regularly take
away with him to his own home.
Serving Among all the Kayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo a
amon^-^'the young husband usually goes at first to reside in the house
Kayans of of his parcuts-in-law, and only after three or four years
may he remove with his wife to a house of his own or to
his parents' house. However, if the wife is delivered of a
child in her parents' house, she may follow her husband to
his home before the expiry of this period. A breach of
the custom is permitted only on the payment of a very
heavy fine. An exception to the rule is made when an only
son marries a girl who is one of a large family ; for in that
case the parents often agree to let the bride accompany the
bridegroom at once to his own house.^
Serving for The custom of serving for a wife is observed in other
A^h^!" parts of the Indian Archipelago. Thus in Amboyna, when
Ceram, two youug people have been publicly betrothed, the young
and^the^^'' "^^" settles in the house of his future parents-in-law and
Watubeia cohabits sccrctly with their daughter, as if she really were
his wife. During this time he must help his wife's parents
^ in their daily work and bring them a part of his earnings.
This state of things may last for years, and the children
born in the course of it to the young pair follow their
mother or remain in her family,^ Similarly in Ceram,
when a young man is betrothed, he takes up his abode in
the house of his future parents-in-law, is treated as one of
the family, and may cohabit freely with their daughter,
though the couple are not yet married. The marriage does
not take place for some time, and it may not be celebrated
till the young husband has paid the full price for his wife.
In some villages of Ceram the custom is that all children
born before the payment of the bride price remain with the
* A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer du7-ch Sarawak and British North Borneo
Borneo (Leyden, 1 904-1907), i. 85. (London, 1896), i. 124 sq. •
The practice in regard to the residence
of young married couples seems to vary 2 j_ q p_ Riedel, De sluik- en
a good deal among the tribes of Borneo. h-oesharige 7-assen tussehen Selebes en
See H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Paptia (The Hague, 1 886), pp. 67 sq.
I
I
I
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 359
wife's parents. Men in indigent circumstances are allowed
to pay for their wives by service, and sometimes it is agreed
that some of the children born to a poor man shall be
accepted by his parents-in-law instead of a bride price or of
part of it.^ In Ceramlaut the custom is similar. On his
betrothal a young man goes to live with his future parents-
in-law, and he is bound to help them and to give his
betrothed a part of his earnings. If he cannot pay the
bride price, his children belong to their mother's family.^
In the Watubela Islands marriage is contracted in one of
two ways. Either a man pays for his wife and takes her
to live with him in his parents' house ; or without paying
anything he goes to live in her parents' house and works
for them and for her. In the latter case the children whom
he begets belong not to him but to their mother ; should
he afterwards, however, pay the bride price, the children
belong to him and he has the same rights over them which
he would have acquired by paying for his wife at the
beginning.^
Among the Tagales of the Philippine Islands it was Serving
formerly the custom for a young man to take up his abode amo^^'th
in the house of his future wife's family ; there he laboured Tagales
like a bondsman for his father-in-law for three or four years, ^^besoflhe
at the end of which he received the girl to wife, and his Philippine
family provided him with a hut and clothes* Among the
Bisayas, of the Samar and Leyte islands, in the Philippines,
" the suitor has to serve in the house of the bride's parents
two, three, and even five years, before he takes his bride
home ; and money cannot purchase exemption from this
onerous restriction. He boards in the house of the bride's
parents, who furnish the rice, but he has to supply the
vegetables himself. At the expiration of his term of service
he builds, with the assistance of his relations and friends, the
house for the family which is about to be newly established." ^
Among the Bagobos of Mindanao a man generally does not
' J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. pp. 131 * Ferd. Blumentritt, Versiich einer
■.sq. Eihnographie der Philippinen (Gotha,
2 J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. pp. 171, 1SS2), p. 14 (Petermafm^s Mitthei-
173. lungett, Ef-gattzungsheft, No. 67).
^ J. G. F. Riedel, op. cit. pp. 205 ^ F. Jagor, Travels in' the Philip-
sq. pines (London, 1875), p. 296.
ales.
360 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part 11
marry_^ his wife for a year or more after the marriage
settlement has been concluded, and in the interval he serves
his future father-in-law. Even after marriage, when the
young couple are established in their new home, the bride's
family will exact a certain amount of service from the
bridegroom for several years. ^ With the Kulamans, another
tribe of Mindanao, it is customary for a youth to serve his
future father-in-law for two or three years before marriage,
but once he receives his wife he is released from service.""^
Serving The custom of serving for a wife is practised also by
for a wife sQj^g tribes of Northern Asia. Thus, for example, " when
among the _ .
Kamchad- a Kamchadalc decides to marry, he looks about in a neigh-
bouring village, seldom in his own, for a bride, and when he
has found one to his mind, he discloses his intention to her
parents and offers to serve them for a time. The per-
mission is. readily granted, and during his service he
endeavours, with uncommon diligence, to satisfy his new
masters, so far as lies in his power. When his period of
service has expired, he requests leave to carry away his
bride, and if he has earned the approbation of the parents,
of the bride, and of her relations, the leave is granted him
at once ; but if he has incurred their displeasure, he receives
a small compensation for his services and is sent empty away.
It sometimes happens that such suitors hire themselves out
in a village where they are complete strangers, without
giving the least intimation of their intentions, and though
everybody can at once guess what they have come for, the
people pretend to know nothing about it, till the suitor
or one of his friends announces his purpose." Immediately
after the consummation of the marriage, the husband takes
his wife away to his own house, but after some time the
young couple return to the house of his wife's father, and
there celebrate a wedding feast. ^ However, according to
other accounts, even after a Kamchadale had earned his bride
by serving her father for a period of time varying from one
to four years, he was not free to depart with his wife, but
must take up his abode permanently with his wife's father ;
^ Fay-Cooper Cole, The Wild Tribes ^ Fay-Cooper Cole, op. cit. p, 157.
of Davao Dist7-id, Mindanao {Chicago, ^ S. YLx^^chcmnmko'w, Beschreibung
1913), pp. 101 sq. (Field Museum des Landes fCayntschatka (Lemgo,
of Natural Hisloiy, Publication 170). 1766), pp. 2^6 sg.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 361
and if his wife died, and her parents liked him, they would
give him another daughter to wife, without requiring him to
serve for her.^
In like manner among the Koryaks, the neighbours of Serving
the Kamchadales on the north, a suitor brings presents to ^"'^^Tfu
' ° ^ among the
the man whose daughter he wishes to marry, and if his Koryaks.
presents are accepted he takes service with his future father-
in-law. In this service, which may last three, five, or even
ten years, the hardest tasks are laid on him, such as fetch-
ing wood and tending the reindeer. If he succeeds in
pleasing his taskmaster, he gets the girl to wife as the
reward of his long and incessant labours ; but if he fails to
win the favour of the damsel's father, he is sent about his
business, and all his pains are wasted.^ Generally, when a
husband has at last won his wife, he takes her away to live
with him in his parents' house, but sometimes he settles
permanently in the house of his wife's father ; this happens
particularly when there are no sons in his wife's family, for
in that case his father-in-law may ask him to stay with him
altogether and take the place of a son. In modern times
the period of serving for a bride would seem to be reduced,
for we are told that it lasts from six months to three years,
and that its termination depends on the pleasure of the
bride's father or elder brother. Often the girl's mother
will say to the father or, in his absence, to the elder son,
that the young man has been tortured long enough.^
Among the Chukchee, who inhabit the north-eastern Serving
extremity of Siberia, " the usual method of getting a bride is ^^mo^nrthe
the so-called naund-6 urgin (literally 'for wife herdsman Chukchee.
being ' ; i.e.^ the custom of serving as a herdsman of the
future father-in-law, in payment for the bride). This in-
stitution, as its name indicates, evidently originated under
the conditions of nomadic life, and the necessity of having
1 G. W. Steller, Beschreibwig vnn burg, 1862), " Peuples de la Siberie
dem Lande Kaintschatka (Franklort Orientale," p. lO.
and Leipsic, I774)> PP- 343-346;
Peter Dobell, Travels in Kaintchatka ^ W. Jochelson, The Koryak (Ley-
and Siberia (London, 1830), i. 82. den and New York, 1908), pp. 739-
2 S. Krascheninnikow, Beschrdbung 744 (The Jestip North Pacific Ex-
des Landes Kamtschatka, p. 281 ; T. pedition, Memoir of the AiJierican
de Pauly, Description Ethiiographique Mtisetim of Natural History, Neu.
des Peuples de la Kussie (St. Peters- York, vol. vi.).
362 JACOB'S MARRIAGE part ii
young men care for the reindeer-herd. It reminds us of
Laban, whose herd Jacob tended for years, first for Leah,
and then for Rachel. The term appHed to this custom is so
firmly established that it is used also even among the Mari-
time Chukchee, though they have no herds, and the bride-
groom simply lives in the house of the girl's father and
works for him during a certain period. Among the Reindeer
Chukchee the term has acquired a broader meaning, and is
applied to all marriages in which the young man obtains
his bride, not through his family connections, but exclusively
through his own efforts."
Hard lot of Generally, a young Chukchee announces his suit by
aChukchee bringing a heavy load of fuel from the woods to the man
whose daughter he intends to court. " Then begins his
trial, which lasts one summer, two or even three summers.
All this time the suitor leads a very hard life. He rises
first in the morning, and retires last at night. Often he is
not even given a place in the sleeping-room, but stays in
the outer tent or in the open air. Most of his time is spent
with the herd. He carries burdens, hauls heavily- loaded
sledges, mends and repairs broken utensils. He has to
please the girl's father, her elder brothers, and other male
members of the family. If one of the old people reproaches
him and calls him names, he has to bear it patiently, and is
even expected to agree. When the old people are ill-
tempered, — as many Chukchee are, — they may decline
food and shelter to the poor suitor. Then he has to endure
the pangs of hunger and cold while performing his work.
If the girl likes him, she will try to give him some meat ; or
he may steal some food and devour it in haste, lest some-
body should see it and report him to the father. Even then,
after two or three months of continual toil, he may be driven
away without any apparent reason. ' This is no cause of
resentment,' I was told by the Chukchee, ' but only a weak-
ling consents to go. A good strong man remains and works
on without food, without place in the sleeping -room, and
even without hope.' To desist, and return home without a
bride, is considered a humiliation for a young man. His
father will say, 'So you are really bad. If you were good,
you would not be sent away thus.'
CHAP. VI SEK17NG I'OR A IV/FE 363
" After the first few months the father of the bride
usually somewhat relents, and the conditions of life of the
suitor become less severe. FVom that time on, it is not
thought becoming to send him away without serious reason.
The suitor also begins to insist on his matrimonial rights.
Often he acquires them after several months of struggle. Of
course, this depends largely upon the woman herself. Some
fathers, however, keep guard over their daughters. , . .
" As soon as the bridegroom becomes the actual husband, A
his thoughts naturally turn back to his own home and herd, son"-in-iaw
and he plans to take his wife home. For this reason the receives
girl's father delays the marriage as long as possible, especi- fa^ther-in-
ally when he is rather short of herdsmen and the help of the '^^'^ herd
... ■ r 11 1 • T 1,1 of reindeer
bridegroom is ot much value to him. In some tales, the
bridegroom who came from afar,' usually after having over-
come all the obstacles put in his way, stays for a long time
with his wife's family ; and only after several years, when
the couple have children, does he begin to think about return-
ing to his own country. At this time his father-in-law usually
gives him a part of his herd, and assists in taking him back
to his own country. Even now, the Chukchee consider it
proper for the young husband to stay with his father-in-law
two or three years, ' as long as his joy in his wife is still
fresh.' The inconsiderate young man stays with his father-
in-law half a year, and then leaves him. He will stay longer
only if the father-in-law has a large herd and there is any
likelihood of his succeeding to part of it.
"When the son-in-law takes his wife home without
quarrelling with her father, he is usually given some reindeer,
the number of which depends partly upon the quality of
work the young man has done while serving for his bride.
The better his service, the larger the revi^ard he receives from
his father-in-law. The woman also will take a few reindeer,
which from her childhood on were marked for her with her
own private ear- mark. I was told that a rich reindeer-
breeder sometimes gives to his son-in-law the ' freedom of
one day ' ; i.e., during this one day the young man may
catch reindeer from the herd and put his mark on their ears.
All these become his property.
" When a rich man wants to marry a girl of a poor
364
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Time of
service for
a wife
shortened
for a
rich man
among the
Chukchee.
Parallel
between a
Chukchee
wooing
and that
of Jacob.
family, the time of service is much shortened, and even
dwindles down to nothing. Especially a second wife is
rarely acquired through service in her family ; for the man
who has a wife and children, and who is often of middle
age, will find it difficult to leave his own herd and home,
and undertake service for a second wife — a custom suited
only to young suitors. If he is rich, he arranges the mar-
riage with the girl's father in an easier way. According to
Chukchee ideas, however, it is improper to pay for a bride
' as if she were a reindeer.' The Chukchee always criticise
the Tungus and Yakut, who ask and receive pay for their
brides in reindeer, skins, and money. Rich reindeer-breeders
arrange the terms of a marriage with the girl's father in a
more decent form. The suitor gives to the girl's father a
few reindeer, but he does not call them pay for the bride,
but a 'joyful gift,' meaning the joy it gives him to marry the
young girl ; or more frequently he invites the poor family of
his new wife to come to his camp and to live there on his
own herd. If they do not want to live in his camp, because
of the possibilitv of quarrels with the first wife, they may
stay close by, and from time to time receive from him
presents of live or slaughtered reindeer. Still I know of rich
men of middle age who had families, and who served for
several months in the families of young girls whom they
wanted to marry, undergoing all the usual hardships of the
bridegroom's life." ^
The hardships which a Chukchee wooer undergoes in
tending the reindeer of his future father-in-law remind us of
the hardships which Jacob suffered in tending the flocks of
Laban ; " in the day the drought 'consumed me, and the
frost by night ; and my sleep fled from mine eyes." ^ And
the reindeer which a Chukchee receives from his father-in-law
when, after years of hard service, he departs with his wife
and children to his own land, remind us of the flocks which
Jacob received from Laban, and which he carried off with
him when he, in like manner, returned with his wives and
children to his own home.^ So similar may life be under
^ Waldemar Bogoras, The Chuck- the Americaii Museum of Nattiral
chee (Leyden and New York, 1904- History, New York, vol. vii.).
1909), pp. 579, 584-586 {The Jesup - Genesis xxxi. 40.
North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of ^ Genesis xxx. 25 sqq., xxxi. 17 sqq.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 365
circumstances outwardly so different ; for few contrasts can
be greater than that between the bleak steppes and icy seas
of Chukchee-land and the green pastures and sunny skies
of Syria.
Another Siberian people who retain the custom of serving Serving
for a wife are the Yukaghirs. Among them, when a young "^^^ ^ ^^'[f
o fa » / & among the
man wishes to marry a girl, he begins by working voluntarily Vukaghirs
for her family. For example, he will bring them the pro- Ba,abinzes
duce of his hunt, chop wood for them, mend the sledge or of Siberia.
the gun of his prospective father-in-law, bind up his nets for
him, and so forth. These attentions are services for the
bride ; they last for a longer or shorter time according to
circumstances. If the suitor is accepted, the marriage is
consummated, and the bridegroom takes up his residence in
his father-in-law's house, where he occupies a very sub-
ordinate position. " In fact, he appears to be ' serving ' for
his wife as long as any members of the family older than
her are alive. He has to do the bidding of his father-in-law,
his wife's elder brothers, and other elder members of the
family ; but after the death of his father-in-law, his wife's
uncle, and her elder brothers, or after the latter marry and
go away to live with their fathers-in-law, he himself becomes
the head of the family." On the other hand, his attitude to
the younger members of his wife's family is not at all that
of a subordinate ; on the contrary, under certain circum-
stances, he assumes paternal authority over them. Thus
with the Yukaghirs the rule is that a man makes his per-
manent home in the house of his father-in-law. But there
are exceptions to the rule. For example, two families may
agree to exchange daughters, and then the sons remain in
their respective homes ; and sometimes a man will allow his
son-in-law to go and live with his parents, if these have no '
other children and he himself has offspring. When the
husband has had children born to him, he may take his
wife and children and depart ; but public opinion blames
a man who thus deserts his father-in-law. Again, among
the Yukaghirs of the tundra or steppe, it is customary for a
man, after serving from one to three years in his father-in-
law's house, to carry off his wife to his own home ; but
before he does so, he must pay a certain number of reindeer
366
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Serving
for a wife
among the
Eskimo
and
Indians of
America.
for her. These customs of purchasing a bride and taking
her away from the house of her parents are said to have been
borrowed from the Tungus by the Yukaghirs of the steppe.
Their practice thus exhibits a combination of service and
payment for a wife ; a suitor must work for his bride as well
as pay for her.^ The Barabinzes, a Tartar people of Western
Siberia, between the Obi and the Irtish Rivers, buy their
wives for sums varying from two to fifty rubels ; but many
of them, instead of paying for their brides, give their 'services
in fishing, hunting, and agriculture to their fathers-in-law as
an equivalent for the bride price {kalyvi)}
In America the custom of serving for a wife is found
both among Eskimos and Indians. Thus among the Kenai,
an Eskimo people of Alaska, a man must perform a year's
service for his bride. He goes to the house of his intended
father-in-law, and there, without speaking a word, proceeds
to bring water, to prepare food, and to heat the bath-room.
Questioned as to his intentions, he explains that he desires
the daughter of the house to wife. At the end of a year's
service he is free to take his wife home with him.^ Again,
among the Naudowessies, an Indian tribe in the region of
the Great Lakes, it was customary for a young man to
reside for a year as a menial servant in the tent of the
Indian whose daughter he wished to marry ; during that
time he hunted and brought all the game he killed to the
family of his future wife, and when the year expired the
marriage was celebrated. But this servitude was only
undergone by a man in his youth for his first wife ; it was
not repeated for any other woman whom he might after-
wards marry.^ Among the Indians of Yucatan a man used
to serve his father-in-law four or five years for his wife ; if
he failed to complete his term of service, he was turned
1 Waldemar Jochelson, The Yuka-
ghir and the Yukaghirized Tungus
(Leyden and New York, 1910), pp.
87 sq., 91-93 {The Jesiip North Pacific
Expedition, Memoir of the American
Museum of Natural History, New
York, vol. ix. Part i. ).
2 J. G. Georgi, Beschreihtng aller
Natio7ien des Russischen Reichs (St.
Petersburg, 1776), pp. 188, 195.
3 H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races
of the Pacific States (London, 1875-
1876), i. 134; T. de Pauly, Descrip-
tion Ethnographique des Peuples de la
Russie{^\.. Petersburg, 1862), "Peuples
de I'Amerique Russe," p. 10.
* J. Carver, Travels through the
Interior Parts of North America,
Third Edition (London, 1781), p. 373.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 367
adrift and the woman given to another.^ Among the
Arawaks of British Guiana " the wife's father expects the
bridegroom to work for him in clearing the forest, and
in other things, and the young couple often remain with
him until an increasing family renders a separate establish-
ment necessary." " However, it would seem that among the
Indians of Guiana, even when a man has earned his wife by
service, he does not remove her from the house, or at least
the vicinity, of her father, but that on the contrary he goes
to live permanently with her people. On this subject Sir
Everard F. Im Thurn writes as follows : " The nature of
the bargain for a wife is another obscure point. It is
certainly sometimes, if not always, by purchase from the
parents. . . . Sometimes, again, a girl is given by her
parents to a man in recompense for some service done.
The marriage once arranged, the husband immediately
transports his possessions to the house of his father-in-law,
and there he lives and works. The head of his family, for
whom he is bound to work, and whom he obeys, is not his
own father, but his wife's. A complete and final separation
between husband and wife may be made at the will of the
former at any time before the birth of children ; after that,
if the husband goes away, as very rarely happens, it is con-
sidered not lawful separation, but desertion. When the
family of the young couple become too large to be con-
veniently housed underneath the roof of the father-in-law,
the young husband builds a house for himself by the side of
that of his wife's father ; and to this habit is probably due
the formation of settlements." ^
Among the Indians of Brazil, besides the method of Serving
violence, "the savage acquires his wife with the express fo^awife
' . among the
consent of her father in two different ways ; first, by work Indians of
in the house of the father-in-law (this takes place especially ^'^''"
among the larger, settled hordes and tribes), and, second,
by purchase. The young man devotes himself, like Jacob
^ A. de Herrera, The General His- Tribes of Gtiiana (London, 1868), p.
tory of the Vast CoJitinent a?td Islands loi.
of America, commonly called the West
Indies, translated by Captain John ^ (Sir) Everard F. Im Thurn, Among
Stevens (London, 1725-1726), iv. 172. the Indians of Guiana CLondon, 1883),
2 Rev. W. H. Brett, The Indian pp. 221 sq.
368
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Serving for
a wife in
Africa, on
the Gold
Coast, in
Southern
Nigeria,
and the
French
Sudan.
with Laban, often for several years, to services and work of
all kinds in the house of his prospective father-in-law, labour-
ing with indefatigable diligence. He goes out hunting and
fishing for his father-in-law ; he helps him to build the hut,
to clear the forest, to carry wood, to make canoes, to fashion
weapons, to twine nets, and so on. It is true that he
generally lives with his own relations, but he spends the
whole day in his sweetheart's house. There several suitors
often meet. Among the small tribes on the Amazon he is
during this time allowed the so-called * bosom privilege,' as
is often the case among Siberian peoples ; in other tribes
stricter principles prevail, and the father would punish with
death any attempt on the virginity of his daughter. If the
lover is at last fortunate enough to obtain the consent of the
father, he at first takes a place and a hearth in the hut of
his parents-in-law, or he at once occupies a hut of his own,
apart from the parents. Among the Guaycurus the son-in-
law remains always in the house of his parents-in-law, but
from thenceforth they abstain from speaking with him.
Sometimes the wooer hires himself to the family of a strange
horde, or even of a strange tribe, and after marriage he
generally remains among them. That is one cause of the
common mixture of languages." ^
The custom of serving for a wife is occasionally reported
from Africa, but it appears to be comparatively rare among
the tribes of that continent. Thus amongst the Tshi-speak-
ing people of the Gold Coast, the usual way of obtaining a
wife is to buy her from her relations by the payment of a
sum which varies, in English money, from eighteen shillings
to seven pounds five shillings. But when a man is too poor
to scrape together even the smallest of these sums, he will
live with his wife without paying anything for her, unless it
be a bottle or two of rum ; but in that case he generally
resides with his wife's family and gives them his services
towards their common support.^ Again, among the Ekoi of
Southern Nigeria a man who has set his affections on a
particular woman and desires to marry her, must serve her
' C. F. Ph. V. Martius, Zur Ethno-
graphic Amerikd's, ztimal Brasi liens
(Leipsic, 1867), pp. 107 sq.
2 (Sir) A. B. Ellis, T/ie Tshi-speak-
ing Peoples of the Gold Coast of West
Africa (London, 1887), p. 281.
CHAP. VI SERVING FOR A WIFE 369
family for some considerable time, usually from two to three
years. His work mostly consists in helping to clear the
bush for the next season's farms, but other services may
be required of him, and during his time of service he
is expected to make presents to the relations of his
future wife. After marriage the wife becomes a member
of her husband's family, and goes to live .in his dwell-
ing.^ Among the Zangas of the French Sudan a man does
not pay for his wife, but he works instead once a year
for three years on the fields of his father-in-law, or rather
of the head of the family group to which his father-in-law
belongs.^
Among the Boobies or Edeeyahs of Fernando Po " the Serving
system of betrothal observed among Eastern nations here *^°'' ^ *'*^
^ _ ^ ° among the
obtains in the case of the first wife. It must continue at Boobies of
least for two years, during which time the aspirant to ^^^^^^^
Edeeyah beauty is obliged to perform such labour as would
otherwise fall to the lot of his intended wife ; carrying the
palm-oil to the market, water for household purposes, plant-
ing yams, etc., thus realizing in part, Jacob's servitude for
his loved Rachel, ' And they seemed but a few days for the
love he had to her.' The girl is kept in a hut concealed
from the public gaze as much as possible. The courtship
or betrothal commences at thirteen or fourteen years of age,
but connexion is not permitted until the conclusion of the
two years, and should frail nature yield before the specified
time, the offence is treated as seduction, the youth severely
punished, as well as heavy fines exacted from his relatives ;
indeed to seduce an Edeeyah is one 01 the greatest crimes
against their social system. The period of betrothal having
expired, the girl is still detained in the hut until there are
unequivocal symptoms of her becoming a parent, which failing,
the term is prolonged until eighteen months. On her first
appearance in public as a married woman, she is surrounded
by all the young maidens of the tribe, who dance and sing
round her, and a feast is held by the friends and relatives.
The probationary system of betrothal is only observed for
' P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow 2 Louis Tauxier, Le Noir du Sondaii
of the Bush (London, 1912), pp. 105, (Paris, 1912), pp. 366 .rf.
109.
VOL. II 2 B
370
JACOB'S MARRIAGE
Serving
for a wife
among tlie
Tunibuka
of British
Central
Africa.
Serving
for a wife
among the
Banyais
of the
Zambesi.
the first wife, who keeps all the others in order, polygamy
being universally permitted."^
Among the Tumbuka of British Central Africa, when a
young man's suit was accepted, he had to go and build a
house in the village of his future father-in-law and help him to
hoe his garden in the rainy season. When all arrangements
were completed, the marriage took place and the husband
became a member of his wife's village. Yet there he had
to observe a number of taboos. He might not call his
wife's parents by their names, nor might he eat with them.
Yet he was bound to obey and respect them more strictly
than his own father and mother, and if he treated them
harshly, he would be driven from the village and compelled
to leave his wife and children behind him. Should he
desire, after the lapse of some years, to return to his own
people, he might do so on condition of presenting a slave or
a cow to his parents-in-law to redeem himself. But his
children he could never redeem. They might go with him
and his wife to his old home, but when they grew up they
must return to the village of their maternal grandparents
and build houses for themselves there as members of that
community."
Among the Banyais of the Zambesi River, " when a
young man takes a liking to a girl of another village, and
the parents have no objection to the match, he is obliged to
come and live at their village. He has to perform certain
services for the mother-in-law, such as keeping her well
supplied with firewood ; and when he comes into her presence
he is obliged to sit with his knees in a bent position, as
putting out his feet towards the old lady would give her
great offence. If he becomes tired of living in this state of
vassalage, and wishes to return to his own family, he is
obliged to leave all his children behind — they belong to the
wife. This is only a more stringent enforcement of the law
from which emanates the practice which prevails so very
extensively in Africa, known to Europeans as ' buying wives.'
Such virtually it is, but it does not appear quite in that
1 Captain W. Allen, R.N., and T. (London, 1848), ii. 203 sq.
R. H. Thomson, M.D. , Narrative of ^ Donald Fraser, Wintiing a Fritiii-
the Expedition sent by Her Majesty's five People (London, 1914), pp. 153,
Government to the River Niger in 1841 155.
CHAP. VI CONCLUSION 371
light to the actors. So many head of cattle or goats are
given to the parents of the girl, ' to give her up,' as it is
termed, i.e. to forego all claim on her offspring, and allow
an entire transference of her and her seed into another
family. If nothing is given, the family from which she has
come can claim the children as part of itself: the payment
is made to sever this bond. In the case supposed, the
young man has not been able to advance anything for that
purpose." ^ Hence among the Banyais, as among the
Toradjas of Celebes," the bride price seems to be paid for
the purchase of the children rather than of the wife ; the
mere begetting of children, in the eyes of these people,
apparently gives the father no claim over them ; if he desires
to own them, he must pay for them as for any other article
of property. This implicit denial of the father's vital con-
nexion with his offspring may perhaps date from a time
when the mere fact of physical paternity was unknown.
§ 18. Conclusion
The foregoing examples suffice to prove that marriages The
like that of Jacob have been and still are practised in many o^Tacob's
different parts of the world. In marrying his cross-cousins, marriage
the daughters of his mother's brother, in wedding the elder tolhe™^
sister before the younger, and in serving his father-in-law customs of
for a term of years for each of his wives, the patriarch con-
formed to customs which are fully recognized and strictly
observed by many races. It is reasonable, therefore, to sup-
pose that they were also recognized and observed by the
Semites in the patriarchal age, and that, though they were
discarded by later ages, the historian who attributes the
observance of them to Jacob had good authority for doing
so, whether he described the customs from personal observa-
tion or merely from oral tradition. To say this is not to
prejudice the vexed question of the historical reality of the
Hebrew patriarchs, but it is to affirm that the portraiture of
manners in Jacob's biography is no mere fancy picture but
drawn from the life.
^ David Livingstone, Missionary (London, 1857), pp. 622 sq.
Travels and Researches in South Africa ^ Above, p. 356, with note^.
manv races
CHAPTER VII
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
How On a day in May, when the reapers were busy among the
Reuben wheat/ the child Reuben had followed them into the fields,
found ' _ ^ '
mandrakes and Straying along the hillside, he observed growing on the
broucrht ground a plant which attracted his attention both by its
them to his appearance and its smell. Its great broad leaves, like those
Leah?^ of a primrose, but more than twice as large, lay flat on the
earth and radiated from a centre, where grew a round yellow
fruit about the size of a large plum. The plant emitted a
peculiar but not unpleasant odour, which had guided the
child to the spot. He plucked the fruit and tasted it, and
finding it juicy and sweet, he gathered his lapful of the yellow
berries and carried them home to his mother Leah. The
-^ fruit was what we call mandrakes, and what the Hebrews
called " love-apples " {dudahn), apparently because the taste
of it was thought to cause barren women to conceive." Now,
1 Genesis xxx. 14. Throughout of "the insipid, sickish taste" of the
Palestine the wheat harvest is at its fruit (W. M. Thomson, The Land and
height at the end of May, except in the Book, London, 1859, p. 577), and
the highlands of Galilee, where it is of the "ill savour" of the plant (H.
about a fortnight later. See H. B. Maundrell, Joia-ney f7-om Aleppo to
TustrsLxn, The Land 0/ Israel * {hondon, Jerusa!e?n, Vcxlh, j8oo, p. 96, under
1882), pp. 583 sg. Compare I. Ben- date March 24th, Old Style). The
zmger, Ilebra'ische Arckdologie"^ [Txxhm- Hebrew name of the plant (o'Knn
geu, 1907), p. 141 ; C. T. Wilson, dudaini) is derived from nn cbd.
Peasant Life in the Holy Land {\^onion, <. beloved," " love." See Fr. Brown,
1906), pp. 205 5^. The barley harvest g^ ^ jydvev, and Ch. A. Briggs,
IS earlier ; m the neighbourhood of ^^.^,.^.^, ^„^^ ^«^o//^/^ Lexicon (Oxford,
. Jerusalem it is usually in full swing by j^^^x ^g^^ j88_ That by dudaim
l^^ ^"i ^ ^P"' °' *^^ beginning of ^^^ ^^^^^^^ mandrakes is made certain
May (C. T Wilson, op. ctt. p. 205). ^ ^^^ rendering of the Septuagint
As to the plant {Maitdrag^-a offia- ^ .^^ f,a.dpayopQ.), of Josephus (^u-
^/'T°''^'^^^ ^^'''/?-|:.T?,T^™' Spaydpov /x^Xa, Antigtcit. Jud i. 19,
TheNatural History of the mie^ (Lon- ^^ \^^ of the Vulgate {mandrasoral).
don, 1898), pp. 466-468. Others speak My learned and ingenious friend, Dr.
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 373
when Rachel saw the love-apples that the boy Reuben had
brought home, the sight of them stirred in her a longing to
be, like her sister Leah, the happy mother of children ; for
Leah had four sturdy boys, but Rachel was childless, though
her husband Jacob loved her and consorted with her more
than with Leah. So Rachel begged Leah to give her of the
love-apples that she, too, might conceive and bear a son. But
Leah, jealous of the preference shown by her husband to her
sister, was angry and answered, saying, "Is it a small matter
that thou hast taken away my husband ? and wouldest thou
take away my son's mandrakes also ? " Nevertheless, Rachel
urged her to give her of the apples, saying, " Give me of
them, and to-night Jacob shall sleep with thee instead of with
me." To this Leah consented and gave her sister some of
the love-apples.
And at evening, when the sun was setting and the asses, How
almost buried under corn-sheaves, like moving ricks, were ^^^^hei
concGivcd
seen returning from the harvest fields along the narrow path Joseph
on the mountain side,^ Leah, who had been watchiner for ^ly eating
° 01 the
them, went out to meet her husband as he plodded wearily mandrakes.
home from the reaping, and there in the gloaming, with an
arch or a wistful smile, she told him of the bargain she had
struck with her sister. So he turned in to her that night,
and she conceived and bare Jacob a fifth son. But Rachel
ate of the mandrakes which her sister had given her, and
having eaten of them, she also conceived and bare a son, and
she called his name Joseph.^
Such appears to have been the original Hebrew tradition The behef
as to the birth of Joseph : his mother got him by eatine of *^^^ *''*^
iTitinclriKP
a mandrake. But the pious editor of Genesis, shocked at the canfertUize
intrusion of this crude boorish superstition into the patriarchal ^l°^l^
narrative, drew his pen through the unedifying part of the current in
Palestine.
Rendel Harris, would deduce the Greek (Manchester, 191 7), pp. it,\ sqq.
goddess of love, Aphrodite, from the * I have ventured to transfer to
superstition as to the fertilizing virtue antiquity the description of the return
of the mandrake, and he proposes to from the harvest field, as it may be
derive the name of the goddess from witnessed in Palestine at the present
pri (ns) and dtidai ("1"), so that the time. In the East such scenes have
compound name pridiidai would mean probably altered but little since the
"fruit of the mandrake." See Rendel days of Jacob. See C. T. Wilson,
Harris, "The Origin of the Cult of Peasant Life in the Holy Land, ■^. 206.
Aphrodite," The Ascent of Olympus ^ Genesis xxx. 14-24.
374 JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES part ii
story which traced Rachel's first pregnancy to the eating of
the yellow berries, replacing it by the decorous phrase, " God
remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened
her womb." ^ Nevertheless, though this curious piece of folk-
lore was struck out of the text of Genesis some thousands of
years ago, the popular belief in the magical virtue of the man-
drake to ensure conception was by no means thereby eradicated,
for it has survived among the natives of Palestine to the
present time. When Henry Maundrell visited the high priest
of the Samaritans at Nabhis, the ancient Shechem, in 1697,
he inquired into the story of Rachel and the mandrakes. " I
demanded of him," he says, " what sort of plant or fruit the
dudaim or (as we translate it) mandrakes were, which Leah
gave to Rachel, for the purchase of her husband's embraces ?
He said they were plants of a large leaf, bearing a certain
sort of fruit, in shape resembling an apple, growing ripe in
harvest, but of an ill savour, and not wholesome. But the
virtue of them was to help conception, being laid under the
genial bed. That the women were often wont to apply it, at
this day, out of an opinion of its prolifick virtue. Of these
plants I saw several afterwards in the way to Jerusalem ; and
if they were so common in Mesopotamia, as we saw them,
hereabout, one must either conclude that these could not be
the true mandrakes {dudaim), or else it would puzzle a good
critick to give a reason, why Rachel should purchase such
vulgar things at so beloved and contested a price." ^ And
again, the late Canon Tristram, one of our principal authorities
on the natural history of Palestine, tells us that " the mandrake
is universally distributed in all parts of Palestine, and its fruit
is much valued by the natives, who still hold to the belief, as
old as the time of Rachel, that when eaten it ensures concep-
tion. It is a very striking-looking plant, and at once attracts
^ Compare The Century Bible, as far as she is concerned. We read
Genesis, edited by W. H. Bennett, instead, in verse 22, the more seemly
D.D., p. 293, "Probably in the statement of the Elohist, ' God opened
original form of the story Rachel con- her womb.'" The view taken by H.
ceived through the help of the man- Gunkel is ?,\m\\a.r {Genesis iibersetzt und
drakes ; but this seemed to the more erkldrt^ Gottingen, 1910, p. 335).
enlightened editors of later days a piece ^ Henry Maundrell, A Journey from
of heathen superstition. Hence it was Aleppo to Jertisaletn at Easter, a.D.
omitted, and there is no secjuel to i6gy (Perth, 1800), p. 96 (under date
Rachel's acquisition of the mandrakes, March 24th).
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 375
attention from the size of its leaves and the unusual appear-
ance of its blossom. Wc found it in flower at Christmas in
warm situations, and gathered the fruit in April and May.
Wheat harvest is, therefore, the period of its ripening gener-
ally." ^ The blossoms of the plant are cup-shaped and of a
rich purple hue." We can now understand why, in the
exquisite picture of love and springtime in the Song of Songs,
the lover should blend the smell of the mandrakes with the
budding of the vines and the flowering of the pomegranates
to lure his beloved out with him at morning into the vernal
fields.^
The ancient Greeks in like manner ascribed to the man- Amatory
. . . . . i- . . , virtues
drake the power of excitmg the passion ot love, and perhaps, ascribed
though this is not directly stated, of promoting conception in *° '^^ ,
° •' ^ 1 r • 1 1 mandrake
women ; but for this purpose they used, not the fruit, but the by the
root of the plant, which they steeped in wine or vinegar.^ both''^'
And because the root was thus used in love charms, they ancientand
called the mandrake the plant of Circe, after the famous "^°^^''°-
sorceress who turned men into swine through a magic
draught.^ Indeed, so well recognized was the association of
the plant with the mysteries of love, that the great goddess
of love herself, Aphrodite, was known by the title of Mandra-
goritis, or " She of the Mandragora." ^ Special precautions
were thought by the Greeks to be necessary at cutting or
digging up the wizard plant. To secure the first specimen
you should trace a circle thrice round the mandrake with a
sword, then cut it while you faced westward ; and to get a
1 H. B. Tristram, The Natural tarum, ix. 9. i. It is to be observed
History of the Bibk^ {Lo-nAon, 1898), that elsewhere Theophrastus bestows
p. 468. Compare Mrs. Hans H. the same name of mandragora (man-
Spoer (A. Goodrich - Freer), "The drake) on an entirely different plant,
Powersof Evil in Jerusalem," i^?/i-/o;-£, which may be the deadly nightshade
xviii. (1907) p. 67, "I have seen {Atropa belladonna). See Theo-
Tewish and Moslem women seeking phrastus, Enquiry into Plattts, with an
for mandrakes, but more likely with English translation by Sir Arthur Ilort
an eye to their alleged therapeutic (London and New York, 1916), ii. 463
properties [e.g. Gen. xxx. 14, etc.) (identifications by Sir William Thiselton-
than for the sake of their roots, which, Dyer).
however, they hang in their houses, , ^ioscorides, De materia medica,
but whether as curiosities or for pur- .^,_ g. pjj^ ^^^_ j^.^^ ^^^
poses of witchcraft, I cannot ascertam. ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^ pj^^^^^ Odyssey, x.
203 sqq.
H. B. Tristram, op. cit. p. 467.
' Song of Songs vii. ii-i;_
* Theophrastus, De Historia Plan- ^ Hesychius, s.v. MavdpayopiTH.
376 JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES part ii
second you were recommended to dance round it, talking of
love matters all the time/ As an additional precaution, you
were advised to keep to windward in digging up the root, no
doubt, lest the stench should knock you down ; for some
people found the smell of the mandrake very unpleasant.^
The amatory properties of the plant are still an article of
popular belief in Greece, for in Attica young men carry pieces
of mandrake about with them in satchels as love-charms.^
The The same superstition long survived in Italy, for Machiavelli's
fcrtii[ziifo° comedy Mandragola turns on the power which the mandrake
barren was supposcd to posscss of rendering barren women fruitful.^
ascribed ^or were such notions confined to the south of Europe. In the
to the seventeenth century the English herbalist John Gerarde wrote
mandrake ^, ,, , rr i i • ,
in Italy, that great and strange enects are supposed to be m the
England, mandrakes to cause women to be fruitfull and to beare
and among , ., ,
the Jews of children, if they shall but carry the same neere unto their
America, bodies." ^ Indeed, the Jews still believe in the power of the
mandrake to induce fertility; and in America they import roots
of it from the East for that purpose. " Here, in Chicago,"
we are told, " is a man of wealth and influence among the
Orthodox Jews ; he mourns the fact that no child perpetuates
his line ; he has been interested in the return of the Jews
to Palestine, and has given largely to the cause. The Jews
w of Jerusalem, knowing of his family sorrow and appreciative
of his sympathy, sent him a mandrake with their best wishes.
At first this merely indicated to me that the mandrake super-
stitions still live in Syria, a fact already well known. But
questioning soon showed that mandrakes imported from the
Orient are still in demand here among Orthodox Jews.
They are rarely sold for less than four dollars, and one young
man whose wife is barren recently paid ten dollars for a
specimen. They are still thought to be male and female ;
they are used remedially, a bit being scraped into water and
^ Theophrastus, De Historia Plan- Elis and the Greek islands. It flowers
tarimt, ix. 8. 8. in late autumn. See J. Sibthorp,
2 Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxv. 148. op. cit. iii. 26.
3 J. Sibthorp, Flo7-a Graeca, iii. * W. Hertz, " Die Sage vom Gift-
(London, 1819) p. 27, " Radicis fjus- madchen," Gesamiiielte Abkandlutigen
tula, in sacadis gesta, pro aimdeto (.Stuttgart and Berlin, 1905), pp. 259 j^.
amatorio hodie, apud juvenes Aiticos, ^ John Gerarde, The Herball or
in tisu stmt.''' The plsLnl {A tropa man- Ge7teral Historie of Plantes (London,
dragora) is found near Athens, also in 1633), p. 353.
CHAP. VII
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
377
taken internally ; they are valued talismans, and they ensure
fertility to barren women." ^ So persistent among the Jews
is that superstition touching the magical virtue of the plant,
which first appears under a decent but transparent veil in the
story of Jacob and the mandrakes.
The superstitions which have clustered thick about the
mandrake or mandragora in ancient and modern times ^ are
partly explicable by the shape of the root, which is often
forked and otherwise shaped so as to present a rude resem-
blance to a human figure.^ Hence the Pythagoreans, whose
so-called philosophy was to a great extent simply folk-lore,*
called the mandrake the anthropomorphic or man-like plant,^
and Columella speaks of it as semi-human.^ The Arabs call
it the " face of an idol," or the " man-plant," on account of
the strong resemblance of the root to the human form.'^ An
Frederick Starr, " Notes on the Man-
dragora," llie Amerkaft Afitiqiiarian
and Oriental Journal, xxiii. (1901)
pp. 258-268 ; W. Hertz, Gesammelte
Abhandlungcn (Stuttgart and Berlin,
1905), pp. 273-275; Ch. Brewster
Randolph, "The Mandragora of the
Ancients in Folk-lore and Medicine,"
Proceedings of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, vol. xl. No. 12,
January 1905, pp. 487-537 ; E. S.
Hartland, Pritnitive Paternity (Lon-
don, 1909), i. 44-47 ; Rendel Harris,
"The Origin of the Cult of Aphro-
dite," The Ascent of Olympus (Man-
chester, 1917), pp. 107-140. Our
word mandrake is a corruption of the
Greek mandragoras.
^ See the coloured plate (No. 232)
in J. Sibthorp's Flora Graeca, vol. iii.,
facing p. 26. The plate is reproduced,
without colours, in Rendel Harris's
The Ascent of Oly?>iptis, plate facing
p. 107.
* On this subject I may refer to my
article, "Some Popular Superstitions
of the Ancients," Folk-lore, i. (1890)
pp. 147 sqq.
^ Dioscorides, De materia medica,
iv. 76.
* Columella, De re rustica, x. 19
sq.
^ John Richardson, Dictionary, Per-
sian, Arabic arid English (Oxford,
1777-1780), i. col. 104, s.v. isterenk.
1 Frederick Starr, " Notes upon
the Mandrake," Tlie A?nerican Anti-
qnarian and Oriental Journal, xxiii.
(Chicago, 1901) p. 267.
2 Much has been written on the folk-
lore of the mandrake. Among modern
writings on the subject it may suffice
to refer to Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudo-
doxia Epidemica, bk. ii. chap. vi. pp.
72-74 (in The Works of Sir Thomas
Browne, London, 1686) ; J. Grimm,
Deutsche Mythologie* (Berlin, 1875-
1878), ii. 1005 sqq., iii. 352 sq. ; F.
Liebrecht, Des Gej'vasius von Tilbury
Otia Itnperialia (Hanover, 1856), p.
70 note** ; A. Wuttke, Der deutsche
VoUisaherglaube'^ (Berlin, 1869), pp.
98 sq., § 131 ; A. de Gubernatis, La
Mythologie des Plantes (Paris, 1878-
1882), ii. 213 sqq. ; Andrew Lang,
Custom and Myth (London, 1884),
pp. 143 sqq., " Moly and Mandra-
gora"; Hilderic Friend, Flowers atid
Flower Lore (London, 1886), pp. 291
sqq., 532 sqq., 647 ; F. von Luschan,
P. Ascherson, R. Beyer, and J. G.
Wetzstein, in Verhandlu7igen der Ber-
liner Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologie,
Ethnologie imd Urgeschichte, iSgi
(Berlin, 1891), pp. (726)-(746), (890)-
(892) (appended to the Zeitscht-iftfiir
Ethnologie, xxiii. 1891) ; P. J. Veth,
" De Alruin en de Heggerank," Inter-
nationales Archiv fiir Ethnographie,
vii. (1894) pp. 81-88, 199-205;
The
super-
stitions
concerning
the
mandrake
partly
explicable
by the
human
shape of
the root,
which has
earned for
the plant
the
epithet of
man-like.
378 JACOB AAW THE MANDRAKES part ii
old writer tells us that the mandrake was fashioned out of
the same earth whereof God created Adam, and that its
likeness to a man is a wile of the devil which distinguishes
it above all other plants ; for that reason, when a mandrake
is dug up, it should be placed for a day and a night in a
running stream,^ no doubt in order to wash out the taint
of its diabolic association. It is the Greek medical writer
Dioscorides who tells us of the epithet " man-like " applied
to the mandrake by the Pythagoreans ; and in a manuscript
of his treatise, which is preserved at Vienna, the epithet is
appropriately illustrated by two drawings which represent
the plant in human shape with leaves growing out of the
head. In one of the drawings the goddess Invention is
represented handing the man-like mandrake to Dioscorides,
who is seated in a chair ; while immediately beneath the
mandrake a dog is seen rearing itself on its hind-quarters.
An inscription beneath the picture sets forth that the dog is
" dragging up the mandragora and then dying," The mean-
ing of this picture and inscription will be explained im-
mediately. In early printed herbals the mandrake is similarly
portrayed in human form, sometimes male and sometimes
female, with a bunch of leaves growing out of the top of his
Distinction or her head." The distinction of sex in the mandrake is as
of sexes qJ^j ^g Dioscorides, who says that the male mandrake was
mandrake, white and the female mandrake black.^ In English folk-lore
the two sorts are known as Mandrakes and Womandrakes
respectively.'*
Artificial In modern times the high value set on the mandrake as
mandrakes ^ potent charm, especially useful for its power of fertilizing
and sold barren women, has given rise to a trade in counterfeit man-
as charms (jrakes carved in human form out of bryony and other roots.
m modern ^ "^
Europe. The use of substitutes for the mandrake was all the more
necessary in northern countries, because the plant grows
wild only in lands about the Mediterranean, including Syria,
Cilicia, Crete, Sicily, Spain, and North Africa.^ The most
1 Hildegard, Phys. ii. 102, quoted 76. The same distinction is made by
by J. Grimm, Deutsche Afyihologie,^ ii. Pliny {Nat. Hist. xxv. 147), who here
1007. copies from Dioscorides.
2 J. Rendel Harris, The Ascent' of * John Parkinson, Theatru77i Botani-
Olympus, p. 115, with the annexed cum (London, 1640), p. 343.
plates. ^ Encyclopcedia Britannica, Ninth
^ Dioscorides, /?£ wa/^r/a wt'^^Va, iv. Edition, xv. 476, s.v. "Mandrake."
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 379
northerly point where it has been certainly found is Mount
Vicentin, on the southern edge of the Venetian Alps
Specimens are reported to have been found in the Tyrol,
but these reports seem to be disputed.^ A Tuscan doctor
of the sixteenth century, by name Andrea Matthioli, who
wrote a Latin commentary on Dioscorides, and whose New
Herbal was translated into German and published at Prague
in 1563, learned the secret of these forgeries from a mounte-
bank and quack, whom he had cured in a hospital at Rome.
The fellow told the doctor that his practice was to take roots
of canes, bryony, or other plants, carve them into the shape
of a man or woman, stick grains of barley or millet into the
parts of the figures where hair should grow, and then bury
them under sand for twenty days or so until the grain had
sprouted, when he dug them up and trimmed the sprouts
with a sharp knife into the likeness of hair and beards.
These false mandrakes he then palmed off on childless
women, some of whom gave him as much as five, twenty,
or even thirty gold pieces for a single figurine, fondly ex-
pecting by its means to become the joyful mothers of
children.^ Bacon was acquainted with such magical effigies, Bacon on
though it does not appear that he suspected the mode in "ia"^''^J'es
which art assisted nature to invest them with a rich growth
of beard. He says, " Some plants there are, but rare, that
have a mossy or downy root ; and likewise that have a
number of threads, like beards ; as mandrakes ; whereof
witches and impostors make an ugly image, giving it the
form of a face at the top of the root, and leave those strings
to make a broad beard down to the foot." ^ John Parkinson,
herbalist to Charles I., writes that " those idle forms of the
Mandrakes and Womandrakes, as they are foolishly so called,
which have been exposed to publike view both in ours and
' R. Beyer, in Verhan^lungeji der (739) .f^. ; Sir Thomas Browne, /Vew^o-
Berliner Gesellschaft filr Anthropologic, doxia Epideniica, bk. ii. chap. vi. p. 83
Et/uiologie und Urgeschichte, J8gi, p. ( The Works of Sir Thomas Browne,
(738) (appended to Zeitschrift fiir London, 1686). Compare F. Panzer,
Ethnologic, xxiii., 1891). Beitrag zur dcutschcn Mythologie
^ A. de Gubernatis, La Mythologie (Munich, 1848- 1855), i. 250 sq.,
des Plantes, ii. 216; Rendel Harris, quoting Tabernaemontanus, Krauter-
The Ascent of Olympus, pp. 116 sq. ; btich (1687), p. 979.
R. Beyer, in Vcrhandlungen der Ber- ^ "Natural History," Cent. vii. 616
lijier Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologic, {The IVorks of Francis Bacon, 'London,
Ethnologic und Urgeschichte, I Sg I, pp. 1740, vol. iii. p. 123).
38o JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES part ii
other lands and countries, are utterly deceitfull, being the
work of cunning knaves onely to get money by their forgery." ^
Two such effigies, covered all over their bodies with mock
hair, have been preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna
since 1680 ; they formerly belonged to the Emperor Rudolph
II., a great patron of all so-called occult sciences. They used
to be bathed regularly, and if the bath chanced to be omitted,
it is said that they would scream like children till they
got it.^
Artificial . To this day there are artists in the East who make a
"roduceZ^ busmess of carving genuine roots of mandrakes in human
andpaimed form and putting them on the market, where they are pur-
creduious chased for the sake of the marvellous properties which popular
in the East, superstition attributes to them. Antioch in Syria and Mersina
in Cilicia particularly excel in the fabrication of these curious
talismans. Sometimes the desired form is imparted simply
by cutting and pressing the roots while they are still fresh
and juicy, or while they are in process of desiccation. But
sometimes, when a root has been thus moulded into the
proper shape, it is buried again in the ground, until the
scars on it have healed, and the parts which had been tied
together have coalesced. When such an effigy is finally
unearthed and allowed to dry and shrivel up, the traces of
-V the manipulation which it has undergone are often hard to
detect. A skilful artist will in this way turn out man-
drake roots which look so natural that no native would dream
of questioning their genuineness. The virtues ascribed to
these figures are not always the same. Some act as in-
fallible love-charms, others make the wearer invulnerable or
invisible ; but almost all have this in common that they reveal
treasures hidden under the earth, and that they can relieve
their owner of chronic illness by absorbing it into themselves.
This last property, however, has its dark as well as its bright
side, for the new owner of the talisman is apt to contract the
malady which the previous owner had transferred to it. So
popular are these artificial mandrakes in Syria that hardly
anybody will look at the natural roots. The Turkish name
1 John Parkinson, Theatritui Botani- Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte, j8gi, p.
cum (London, 1640), p. 343. (7 40) (appended to Zeitschrifl fur
2 R. Beyer, in Verhandltingen der Ethnologie, xxiii., 1891).
Berliner Geselhchaft filr Antliropologie,
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 381
for the root is the " man-root " {Adani-Kokii) ; the Arabic
name is the " servant of health " {Abdul-scldni)}
The human shape of the mandrake root has probably Belief
helped to foster, if it did not originate, the weird notion that n^andrake
the plant springs from the drippings of a man hanged on a grows
gallows. Hence in Germany the plapt bears the popular drippings
name of the Little Gallows Man. It is, or used to be, of a man
believed in that country that when a hereditary thief, born a gaiiows.
of a family of thieves, or one whose mother stole while he
was in her womb, is hanged on a gallows, and his seed or
urine falls on the ground, the mandrake or Little Gallows
Man sprouts on the spot. Others, however, say that the
human progenitor of the plant must be, not a thief, but an
innocent and chaste youth who has been forced by torture
falsely to declare himself a thief and has consequently ended
his days on a gallows. Be that as it may, the one thing
about which all are agreed is that the Little Gallows Man
grows under the gallows tree from the bodily droppings of a
hanged man. It is a plant with broad leaves and yellow ,
fruit. But there is great danger in digging it up, for while How to
1 ■ 1 • 111 11-1 uproot the
It IS bemg uprooted it moans, and howls, and shrieks so mandrake
horribly that the digger dies on the spot. Therefore if you ^'|^ '^^
would get it you must proceed as follows : Go to the gallows dog.
hill on a Friday evening before the sun has set, having stopped
your ears fast with cotton or wax or pitch, and taking with
you a black dog that has no patch of white on his body.
When you come to the plant make three crosses over it and
dig the soil away round its roots, till they remain attached
to the earth only by a few slender fibres. Now bring up
the black dog ; take a string, and tie one end of the string
to the animal's tail and the other end to the mandrake.
Next hold out a piece of bread to the dog, taking care to
keep beyond its reach, and retreating rapidly as you do so.
In its eagerness to snatch the bread the dog will strain and
tug at the string, and thus wrench the mandrake out of the
ground. At the awful yell which the plant utters in the
process, the poor dog drops dead to the ground, but you
^ Y.\ox\'L,\x%Q!azx\,mVerha7idhingen iSgi, pp. (726) -(728) (appended to
der Berliner Gesellschaft fitr Anthro- Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, xxm.,lSgi).
pologie. Ethnologic, und Urgeschichte,
382
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
\
Valuable
properties
ascribed
to the
mandrake.
Transmis-
sion of the
mandrake*
to the
youngest
son.
have got the mandrake. All you have now to do is to pick
up the plant, wash it clean in red wine, wrap it in white and
red silk, and, lay it in a casket. But you must not forget to
bathe it every Friday and to give it a new white shirt every
new moon. If you only observe these precautions, the man-
drake will answer any question you like to put to it con-
cerning all future and secret matters. Henceforth you will
have no enemies, you can never be poor, and if you had no
children before, you will have your quiver full of them after-
wards. Would you be rich ? All you need do is to lay
a piece of money beside the mandrake over- night ; next
morning you will find the coin doubled. But if you would
keep the Little Gallows Man long in your service, you must
not overwork him, otherwise he will grow stale and might
even die. You may safely go the length of half a thaler
every night, and you must not exceed a ducat, and even that
a prudent man will not lay down every night but only now
and then. When the owner of the Little Gallows Man dies,
the precious heirloom passes not to his eldest but to his
youngest son, who must in return place a piece of bread
and a coin in his father's coffin to be buried with him in the
grave. Should the youngest son die in his father's lifetime,
the mandrake goes to the eldest son ; but the youngest son
must be buried with bread and money in the grave, just as
if he had owned the mystic plant.^ Some think that the
proper time for gfubbing up the wondrous root is at dead
of night on Midsummer Eve ^ — the witching hour when the
year is on the turn and many plants are invested with mystic
but evanescent virtues.
^ Grimm (die Briider), Deutsch!
Sagen"^ (Berlin, 1865-1866), vol. i.
No. 84, pp. W] sq. ; J. Grimm,
Deutsche jlfythologie,* ii. 1006 ; F.
Panzer, Beiirag zur deutschen Aly-
thologie (Munich, 1848-1855), i. 250
sq., quoting Tabernaemontanus, Krdu-
terbitch (16S7), pp. 250 sq. Similar
superstitions as to the origin, virtues,
and mode of obtaining the mandrake
or Little Gallows Man prevail in Lower
Austria, Bohemia, and Silesia. See
Th. Vernaleken, Mythen und Bi'duche
desVolkesin Oesterreich (Vienna, 1859),
pp. 253 sqq. ; J. V. Grohmann, Aber-
glauhen tmd Gebrduche atis Bohmen
U7id Mdhren (Prague and Leipsic,
1864), p. 88, § 622, compare id. pp.
19, 94> 95. §§ ^2, 659, 662 ; P.
Drechsler, Sitte, Branch, wid Volks-
glaiibe in Schlesien (Leipsic, 1903-
1906), ii. 212 sq., § 585.
- K. Haupt, Sagenbttch der Lattsitz
(Leipsic, 1862- 1863), i. 64 sq.. No.
66 ; P. Drechsel, Sitte, Brattch, und
Volksglaiibe in Schlesieti, ii. 212. As
to the magic plants of Midsummer
Eve, see Balder the Beautiful, ii. 45
sqq. {The Golden Bough, Third
Edition, Part vii,).
CHA1-. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 383
Thus in German folk-lore the mandrake root is treated The
as a familiar spirit, who brings treasures both of wisdom "rcailTas
and of wealth to his fortunate owner. This mystical aspect a familiar
of the plant is expressed by its ordinary German name of brinW^ °
alraun, which, derived from a word identical with our word wealth to
,, „ (fill- II • 1 1 • - its owner.
rune, means the all wise one, with the connotation of
" witch " or " wizard." ^ In some parts of North Germany
the name {alruii) is applied to a helpful elf or goblin ; hence
of a rich man they will say that he possesses such an elf,
and of a lucky gamester that he has one of them in his
pocket. A woman in Nordmohr has been heard to observe
that the goblin is a little man about a foot high, who must
be kept in a cupboard and fed on milk and biscuit ; on that
diet he grows so strong that he can bring a whole wagon-
load of rye in his mouth to his owner." Dr. Faust and all
wizards and witches were supposed to possess such a familiar
spirit.^ Hence in trials for witchcraft the Inquisition used
to inquire whether the alleged culprit owned a familiar of
this sort ; and many a woman is said to have been burnt as
a witch because she kept a puppet carved out of a root ,
{alriincken) and laid it under her pillow at night to dream
upon.* In 1603 the wife of a Moor was hanged as a witch
at Romorantin, near Orleans, because she kept and daily
fed a mandrake-goblin in the likeness of a female ape.^ One joan of Arc
of the articles of accusation against Joan of Arc was that ^^^ ",^^
° •' mandrake.
" the said Joanna was once wont to carry a mandrake in
her bosom, hoping by means of it to enjoy prosperity in
riches and temporal things, alleging that the said mandrake
had such a power and effect." This accusation the Maid
utterly denied. Being asked what she did with her man-
drake, she replied that she never had one, but she had heard
say there was one near her town, though she had never
' J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,'^ i. 65, § 66.
i. 334 sq., ii. 1005 sq. Compare Du >. tr t, . l o- t,^- 1 .
/- ^,; ■ J c •^, i,T J- K- Bartsch, Sapen, Marchcn itnd
Cansje, Glossamwi ad Scrtplores Medtiz ^ , ■ , nr , , i ,tt-
^ f J- 7- ^- „ ^- i-A ■ uebrauche aits Meckknbursc (Vienna,
et IiihmcE Latimtatis (Fans, 1733- <> 00 » •• en ^ i /-
1736)^ i. coll. 346, 362, 5-^. AlraiL ^^79-iS8o , n. 39, §§39;, 39;. Com-
J M j-T ' J v,z.x<t R. Kuhnau, Schlesische Sa^en
and Alyrttmncv. y. . . j ti ,- > •■•
2 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, Nord- ^^^'Pf '^ ^"g^g ^"1^"' 1910-1913) m.
diiitsche Sdgen, Aldrchen, tiftd Ge- ' • o •
07-dttche (Leipsic, 1848), p. 423, § 220. ° Hilderic Friend, Flowers and
^ K. Yi2M.T^t, Sagenbuch der Lausitz, F/ower Lore {hondon, 1886), p. 532.
384
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
Super-
stitions
touching
the
mandrake
in Wales
and
Ensrland.
The
shrieks
of the
mandrake
when
uptorn.
seen it. Moreover, she had been told that a mandrake is a
dangerous thing and difficult to keep ; she did not know
what it was used for. Questioned further about the par-
ticular mandrake which she admitted to have heard about,
she answered that she had been told it was in the ground
under a hazel-tree, but the exact spot she did not know.
Interrogated as to the use to which a mandrake is put, she
replied that she had heard that it causes money to come,
but she did not believe it, and the voices which spoke to her
had never said anything to her on the subject.^
These quaint superstitions touching the mandrake, or
any plant which served as a substitute for it, appear to have
been widely distributed over Europe. " In many parts of
Wales the black bryony, with its dark green and glossy
leaves and brilliant red berries, which clings to trees and
shrubs and has no tendrils, was known as the mysterious
and uncanny mandrake. The leaves and fruit were called
' charnel food,' and formerly it was supposed only to grow
beside the gallows - tree or near cross - roads. Witches
gathered the leaves and flowers, and uprooted the plant
for magical purposes. When uprooted it shrieked and
groaned like a sensible human being, and its agony was
dreadful to hear. From its stalk a sweat like blood oozed,
and with each drop a faint scream was heard. There was
an old saying that people who uprooted the mandrake would
die within a year. They would die groaning as the man-
drake died, or approach their death raving, or uttering
penitent prayers for having uprooted the unholy plant.
Witches kept the mandrake, and were said to sell portions
of it to people who wanted to find out secrets, to wives who
desired offspring, and to people who wished for wisdom." ^
The English herbalist, John Gerarde, mentions, only to
ridicule as old wives' fables, the belief that the plant grew
under a gallows from the drippings of a corpse, that it
^ Jules Quicherat, Proces de Cott-
dainuation et de Rehabilitation de
Jeanne d'An; i. (Paris, 1 841) pp.
213 sg.
2 Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and
Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909),
pp. 92 sq. After mentioning the be-
lief that the mandrake grew from the
tears of an innocent man hanged
on the gallows, the writer adds, " It
was also supposed to grow mysteriously
near the cross-roads where suicides
were buried." But whether this last
belief was general or peculiar to Wales
does not appear.
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
385
shrieked when it was torn from the earth, and that it should
be extracted by being tied to a dog.^ Shakespeare was Shake-
clearly familiar with the fantastic story, for he speaks of ^6'^"^^°"
mandrake.
" Shrieks like mandrakes' torti out of the earlJi^
That Ihnng mortals^ heaH7ig them, run mad." ^
and again,
" Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan ?" ^
He was acquainted also with the soporific property which
popular opinion ascribed to the plant Thus in the absence
of her lover Cleopatra is made to cry :
^^ Give me to drittk mandragora . . .
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away." * •
And again, at sight of the victim whom his vile insinuations
had for ever robbed of his peace of mind, the villain lago
mutters :
" Not poppy, nor mandragora.
Nor all the droivsy syrups of the world.
Shall ever inedicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday?^ ^
The belief in the soporific and narcotic quality of Soporific
mandragora or mandrake is very old ; the ancient Greeks ^"^ .
held it so firmly that they administered the drug as an quality
anaesthetic to patients undergoing surgical operations,*' and ^^^''^^"^'^
this practice was continued into the Middle Ages, being mandrake
recommended, for example, by the Arabian physician antiquity
Avicenna in the eleventh century." Allusions to the drowsy
effect of the plant are not uncommon in Greek writers.
1 John Gerarde, The Herball or
General Historie of Plantes (London,
X633), p. 351-
^ Romeo and Juliet, Act iv. Scene
iii. Drayton also sjjeaks of " the
mandrake's dreadful groans." See
the poem quoted in "The Folk-lore
of Drayton," The Folk-lore Journal, iii.
(1885) p. 153.
3 Second Fart of Heu)y VI. Act
iii. Scene ii.
* Antony and Cleopatra, Act i.
Scene v.
VOL. II
^ Othello, Act iii. Scene iii.
** Dioscorides, De tnateria medica,
iv, 76. Compare Pliny, Nat. Hist.
XXV. 150; Isidore, 07-igines, xvii.
9- 3°-
^ Ch. Brewster Randolph, "The
Mandragora of the Ancients in Folk-
lore and Medicine," Proceedings of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
vol. xl. No. 12 (January 1905), pp.
513 S(/q. Compare John Parkinson,
llieatntm Bolanicum (London, 1640),
P- 345-
2 C
386
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
Belief of
the French
peasantry
that the
mandrake
is an inex-
haustible
source of
wealth.
Xenophon represents Socrates as saying that wine lulls care
to sleep as mandragora lulls men's bodies/ Plato compares
the philosopher among common men to the master of a
ship whom his crew have reduced to a state of torpor by-
wine or mandragora.^ Inveighing against Philip of Macedon,
and attempting to rouse his countrymen to a sense of their
danger, Demosthenes declared that they were as lethargic as
men who had drunk mandragora or some other soporific.^
Aristotle includes mandragora with poppies and darnel
among the things that induce slumber and heaviness.^ The
Carthaginian general Maharbal is said to have captured or
slain a host of rebels whom he had contrived to drug with
a mixture of mandragora and wine ; ^ and Caesar is reported
to have overcome by a similar stratagem the Cilician pirates
by whom he had been captured.® Lucian describes the city
of Sleep surrounded by a wood in which the trees were tall
poppies and mandragoras, with a multitude of bats perched
on the boughs.'''
The notion that the mandrake, if properly treated, was
an inexhaustible source of wealth to its lucky owner, must
doubtless have greatly contributed to enhance the popularity
of the plant with that indolent and credulous portion of
mankind who are always on the look-out for shorter cuts to
riches than 'the tedious and roundabout road of honest
industry. In this capacity the mandrake appears to have
appealed strongly to the saving and thrifty disposition of
the French peasantry. " The Jourital of a Citizen of Paris,
written in the fifteenth century, speaks of this superstition.
' At that time,' says the anonymous author, ' Brother Richard,
a Franciscan, caused to be burned certain viadagfoires
(mandragoras, mandrakes), which many foolish people kept
and had such faith in that rubbish as to believe firmly for a
truth that so long as they had it they should never be poor,
provided that it was wrapt up in fine cloths of silk or linen.'
This superstition lasted into the eighteenth century. ' There
has long prevailed in France,' says Sainte-Palaye, 'an
ed. Im. Bekker (Berlin, 1831-1870).
^ Frontinus, Stratagem, ii. 5. 12.
^ Polyaenus, Strateg. viii. 23. i.
1 Xenophon, Convivium, ii. 24.
2 Plato, Republic, vi. 4. p. 488 C
2 Demosthenes, Pliilipp. iv. 6, pp.
132 sq.
* Aristotle, Dc somnio, 3, p. 456 B 30,
^ Lucian, Vera His tor ia, ii. 33.
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 387
almost general superstition concerning mandragora ; a relic
of it still lingers among the peasants. One day, when I
asked a peasant why he gathered mistletoe, he said that at
the foot of the oaks which bore mistletoe there was a hand
of glory {main degloire, that is, in their language, inandragora)\
that it was as deep in the earth as the mistletoe was high on
the tree ; that it was a sort of mole ; that he who found it
was obliged to give it food, whether bread, or meat, or any-
thing else, and that what he had given it he must give it
every day and in the same quantity, otherwise it would kill
those who failed to do so. Two men of his country, whom
he named to me, had perished in that way, but to make up
for it the hand of glory gave back twofold next day what
any one had given it the day before. If to-day it received
food to the value of a crown, he who had given it would
receive two crowns next day, and so with everything else ;
such and such a peasant, whom he named to me, and who
had become very rich, was thought to have found one of
these hands of glory.' " ^ French fishermen used to wear
necklaces or bracelets of mandrakes as talismans which
would protect them against accidents of all sorts.^
The belief concerning the danger of uprooting the man- The use of
drake, aind the expediency of deputing the perilous task to up,-oot the
a dog, is not confined to the centre and north of Europe, for mandrake.
it occurs also in the Abruzzi,' where the season recommended
for culling the mysterious plant is Midsummer Day, the
day which the Catholic Church has dedicated to St John
the Baptist.^ In modern Greece also it is believed that
any man who dug a mandrake clean out of the earth would
die, and that to get it you must tether a dog to the root.^
Nor is the device of employing a dog for such a purpose a
modern invention. It is recommended by a late writer of
1 A. Cheruel, Didiontiaire Histo- ^ Antonio di Nino, Usi Abruzzesi
riqtie des Institittions, Mcettrs, et Cou- (Florence, 1879-1883), i. 86 sq.\ A.
tumes de la France, Sixieme Edition de Gubernatis, La Mythologie des
(Paris, 1884), ii. 726 sq. Compare P/antes, ii. 215 note'.
P. Sebillot, l.e Folk-lore de Frattce * P. Ascherson, in Verhandhnigen
(Paris, 1 904-1 907), iii. 487, quoting der Berliner Gesellschaft fur Anthro-
Les Evangiles des Qtienouilles, ii. 2. pologie, Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte,
2 J. L. M. -Nogues, Les Mccurs i8gi, p. (732) note, quoting Th. v.
d'' Autrefois en Saintonge et en Aitnis Heldreich, Nulzpfl. GriechenL, pp.
(Saintes, 1891), pp. 147 sq. 36 sq.
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
Apiileius
Platonicus
on the
uprooting
of the
mandrake
by a dog.
The use of
a dog to
uproot the
aglaophotis
or peony.
antiquity, who bore or assumed the name of Apuleius
Platonicus and composed a treatise on herbs, perhaps in
the fifth century of our era. The last chapter of his work
is devoted to the mandrake, and describes how the plant is
to be uprooted by a hungry dog, who has been tied to it
and drags the plant out of the earth in his efforts to get at
a piece of meat placed beyond his reach. This work was
translated into Anglo-Saxon, and the manuscripts of the
translation are adorned with illustrations which represent,
among other things, the extraction of the mandrake by the
dog. In one of these pictures the plant is delineated in
human form with leaves and berries growing out of the
head, while the dog is seen tugging at a chain by which
his neck is fastened to the left arm of the figure. On the
other side of the mandrake are two human figures carrying
implements of some sort, perhaps for the purpose of digging
up the mandrake. The manuscript which contains this
illustration was originally in the Cottonian Library, but is now
in the British Museum. Though sadly damaged by fire, it
must once have been a splendid volume, beautifully written
and decorated with a large number of coloured figures of
plants and animals. In another Anglo-Saxon manuscript
of Apuleius the mandrake is represented with a human
trunk and limbs, but with vegetable extremities, the human
head being replaced by a bunch of leaves, and the hands
and feet by branching roots ; the dog is seen fastened by
his tail to the roots which stand for the left hand of the
mandrake.^
But the use of a dog to uproot a plant, which it would
be fatal for a man to extract, can be traced still farther
back than the fifth century of our era. In the second
century A.D. the Roman writer x'^elian, author of a gossipy
work in Greek on the nature of animals, gave a similar
account of the way to obtain a certain plant which he calls
aglaophotis, or " bright shining," because it was said to shine
like a star or like fire by night, but to be hardly visible, or
1 J- F. Payne, M.D., English
Medicme in the Anglo-Saxon Times
(Oxford, 1904), pp. 62 sq., 72 sq.,
with the plates, figures 3 and 5, com-
pare 4. The Apuleius of this treatise
{Herbarii(m) is not to be confounded
with the far more famous writer of the
second century A.D., the author of The
Golden Ass.
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 389
at least hardly distinguishable from surrounding plants, by
the light of day. This remarkable plant is supposed by
moderns to be the peony.^ When the herb-gatherers desired
to collect specimens of the peony, as we may call it, they
put a mark at the root of the plant and returned to the spot
at night, bringing with them a young dog, which had been
kept without food for several days. They did not dare to
uproot the plant with their hands nor even to dig it up with
a spade, because the first person who had tried to do so
was said to have perished in the attempt. So they tied one
end of a very strong cord to the dog, and having made the
other end of the cord into a loop they threw it over the
stalk of the peony, standing as far from the plant as they
could. Then they offered savoury cooked meat to the dog,
and he, smelling the sweet savour and impelled by the
pangs of hunger, struggled to get at the tempting viand,
straining at the leash till it uprooted the peony. But no
sooner did the sunlight fall on the roots of the peony than
the dog died. So the herb-gatherers buried him on the
spot and performed certain secret rites in honour of the
animal, because they believed that he had sacrificed his life
for theirs. Having done so they could safely handle the
peony and carry it home. There they employed it for
many useful purposes, particularly for the cure of epilepsy
and of blindness caused by a " drop serene." And on
account of the mode in which the plant was procured it
received the special name of kynospastos or " dog-dragged." ^
The identification of Aelian's aglaophotis with the peony Super-
seems to be fairly certain, since Dioscorides, a good authorit}', ^s'{o"^j^e
gives aglaophotis as one of the many names which the digging
Greeks applied to the peony.^ Moreover, we know from p^^^^y
Theophrastus that in the opinion of some people the peony,
like the aglaophotis, should only be dug at night, for if a
man attempted to do it by day and were seen by a wood-
pecker while he was gathering the fruit, he w^ould risk
losing his eyesight, and if the bird saw him cutting the root,
he would suffer from prolapsus ani ; at least so thought
1 H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, xiv. 27.
Greek-English Lexicon' {Q\ioxA, 1883),
p. 311, s.v. yXvKvaidr], ^ Dioscorides, De viateria medica,
^ Aelian, De nattira atiimalitiiu, iii. 147 (157).
390
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
Arab
super-
stitions
about the
mandrake.
Josephus's
account of
a plant
called
■ baaras
and the
mode of
uprooting i
by means
of a dog.
these wiseacres.^ However, Aelian's account of the aglao-
photis reminds us of the mandrake, not only in the extrac-
tion of the plant by a dog, but also in the bright light
which it was supposed to diffuse at night. For the Arabs
call the mandrake " the devil's candle, on account of its
shining appearance in the night, from the number of glow-
worms, which cover the leaves." " The authority for this
statement seems to be the learned Ibn Beithar, who has
been called the Arab Dioscorides. In his dictionary of
medicine he gives an account of the mandrake, in which he
tells us that the Moors of Andalusia called the plant sirdg
el-kotrob, " lamp of the elves," because its stalk shone by
night. Also, he says, the Arabs call it " plant of the idol,"
because its root has the shape of a man. According to
him, King Solomon carried a mandrake in his signet-ring,
whereby the jinn were subject to him, and Alexander the
Great also employed it in his conquest of the East. The
plant, he informs us, is a remedy for all maladies that are
caused by jinn, demons, and Satan ; likewise it cures lame-
ness, cramp, epilepsy, elephantiasis, insanity, and loss of
memory ; and in general it affords protection against
mishaps of all sorts, including theft and murder. Finally,
he not only describes the method of procuring the man-
drake by means of a dog but asserts that he had witnessed
it in practice, which is possible and not improbable, since
he has the candour to add that, contrary to the usual belief,
the dog survived the operation.^
The Arab doctor's account of the mandrake presents
some remarkable points of resemblance to the account
which the Jewish historian Josephus gives of a root called
by him the baaras. According to him, the root grew in
tljiP deep rocky ravine which descends from the mountains
of Moab to the eastern shore of the Dead Sea and has been
famous both in antiquity and in modern times for the
abundance of its hot medicinal springs. A little to the
I
^ Theophrastus, Historia Plan-
tarum, ix. 8. 6. Compare Pliny,
Nattir. Hist. xxv. 29.
^ John Richardson, Dictionary,
Persian, Arabic, and English (Oxford,
1777- 1780), i. coll. 104 sq.y s.v.
isterenk.
3 W. Hertz, " Die Sage vom Gift-
madchen," Gesammelte Abhandlnngen
(Stuttgart and Berlin, 1905), p. 276,
referring to Sontheimer's translation of
Ibn Beithar, ii. 14 sqq., 594.
CHAP, VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 391
south of the ravine a commanding height is crowned by the
ruins of the castle of Machaerus, in the dungeons of which
John the Baptist was beheaded.^ The root which grew in
this romantic situation was itself, if we may trust Josephus,
very remarkable both in its appearance and in its properties,
It was flame-coloured, and at evening it shone like lightning
on persons who attempted to approach and seize it. As
they drew near, the root retreated before them, and could
only be brought to a standstill by such as poured the
urine or menstruous blood of a woman upon the fugitive
plant. Even then to touch it was certain death, unless the
seeker contrived to hang the root from his arm. However,
the Jewish historian adds that the root could be procured
without danger in another way. The seeker dug round
about the root till only a small part of it remained in the
earth ; then he tied a dog to it and walked away. In its
effort to follow him the animal easily pulled up the root
but died on the spot, as a sort of vicarious sacrifice for his
master, who thereafter could safely handle the plant. The
value of the root thus procured at so much risk, adds
Josephus, consists solely in its power of expelling the so-
called demons or spirits of bad men, which insinuate them-
selves into the bodies of the living and kill such as do not
receive timely assistance. But a simple application of this
precious root to the sufferer sufficed to drive out the foul
fiend;
What was the plant about which these queer fables The baaras
were told ? Josephus speaks as if it grew only in one spot ^^^^^^^^
of the deep glen, the ancient Callirrhoe, the modern Zerka with the
Ma'in. Canon Tristram, who visited the glen and has given p'Jant"'^
us a vivid description of its wild scenery, its luxuriant vegeta-
tion, and its steaming sulphur springs,^ proposed to identify
1 Josephus, Antiquit. xviii. 5. 2. 1883), pp. 144-147 ; (Sir) George
As to the situation and ruins of Adam Smith, " Callirrhoe and Mach-
Machaerus, see H. B. Tristram, The aerus," Palestine Exploration Fund,
Land of Moab"^ (London, 1874), pp. Quarterly Statemetit for igos (Lon-
253 sqq. don), pp. 219 sqq. ; J. Cropper,
„ ,, T , ■ ' ■■ " Madeba, M'kaur, Callirrhoe," /"a/iJi--
2josephus, Bellum Judarcum, vn. ^.^^ Exploration Fund, Quarterly
°- 3- Statement for igo6 (London), pp.
3 H. B. Tristram, The Land of 296 sq.; Adonis, Attis, Osiris,^ pp.
Moab'^, pp. 235 sqq. Compare C. R. 214 sqq. {The Golden Bough, Third
Conder, Heth and Moab (London, Edition, Part iv.).
392 JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES part ii
the plant with a strange crucifer, not unHke a wallflower in
form and size, which grows beside the warm natural baths
on sulphur deposits, " with its root orange, its stem and
bark sulphur colour, its leaves and fruit-pods a brick-dust
orange, and its flowers a paler orange. Every portion of it
reeked with the odour of sulphur, and altogether it had
a most jaundiced look." The plant appeared to have a
very limited range. Canon Tristram observed it nowhere
but on the sulphur and the basalt rocks near it, and
from its situation and appearance he named it the sulphur
plant.^ The yellow and orange hue of this remarkable plant
would answer well to Josephus's description of its flame-like
appearance, and the apparent limitation of its range to a
small area in the glen also tallies with the account of the
Jewish historian, which seems to imply that the baaras,
as he calls it, grew only at one place in the ravine. It
has been plausibly proposed to derive the name baaras
from the Hebrew ba'ar (~ii?^) " to burn." " The etymo-
logy would harmonize with the flame-like colour of the
plant and with the light which it was believed to emit at
evening.
The baaras On the Other hand, the account which Josephus gives of
may have ^)^q baaras agrees so closely in several respects with Ibn
been the t-. • , , r i i i i • •
idrake, Bcithar s account of the mandrake that it is tempting to
mane
though identify the two plants. For both of them were said to
Josephus ■' '■
seems not shine by night, both possessed the power of expelling
to have demons, and both were uprooted by a dog. But if the
recognized ' ...
it as such, baaras was the mandrake, it is difficult to understand why
Josephus should not have called the plant by its ordinary
name, with which he was certainly acquainted, since in the
story of Jacob and the mandrakes he renders the Hebrew
dudaiin by the Greek fxavhpa'yopov fxfj\a " apples of the
mandrake." Moreover, the mandrake, as a common plant
in Palestine, must have been familiar to him ; how then
could he assign it a particular habitat in a single ravine and
tell such strange stories about it ? For these reasons we
can hardly suppose that Josephus himself identified the
1 H. B. Tristram, T/ie Latid of mentis veteribiis illustrata (Trajecti
Moab"^ (London, 1874), pp. 249, 264. Batavorum, 1714), p. 881.
2 H. Reland, Palaestina ex monti-
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 393
baaras with the mandrake ; though it is possible that in
Palestine, as elsewhere, popular superstition had woven round
the humble plant a web of fable which disguised its true
nature beyond recognition.
It must probably remain an open question whether the We cannot
writer in Genesis, who has bequeathed to us the story of the wdter^"^
Jacob and the mandrakes, was, or was not, acquainted with '" Genesis
the more grotesque fables which have certainly clustered acquainted
round the plant in later ages. All that we can with ^^'^^ ^^e
more
tolerable certainty affirm is, that he knew and accepted the grotesque
popular belief as to the fertilizing virtue of the fruit of the fables con-
^ ^ ° _ _ cerning the
mandrake, and that he ascribed the birth of Joseph directly mandrake,
to the eating of a mandrake by his mother Rachel. A
later editor, offended at so crude a relic of rustic superstition,
carefully erased this incident from the narrative, leaving us
with the picturesque but pointless story of Jacob and the
mandrakes, according to which Rachel gave up her husband
to her sister without receiving any return except the handful
or lapful of common yellow berries which her nephew
Reuben had brought back to his mother that May evening
from his ramble in the fields.
Yet with regard to the gathering as well as the Later
medicinal effect of the mandrake we may suspect that the wend
writer of the story in Genesis was acquainted with another relates how
tradition which either he or his editor judged it better to procured
suppress. At least this is suggested by a later Jewish ^^^^
• r 1 1-11 T-> 1 mandrake
version of the same story, which relates how Reuben by means
obtained the mandrakes. In this account it is said that of ^n ass.
Reuben, tending his father's ass during harvest, tethered the
animal to a root of mandrake and went his way. On
returning to the spot he found the mandrake torn out of
the ground and the ass lying dead beside it. In struggling
to break loose, the animal had uprooted the plant, which,
the writer tells us, has a peculiar quality : whoever tears it
up must die. As it was the time of harvest, when any one
is free to take a plant from the field, and as the mandrake
is, moreover, a plant which the owner of a field esteems
lightly, Reuben carried it home. Being a good son, he did
not keep it for himself but gave it to his mother Leah.^
^ Louis Ginsberg, The Legends of the Jews, i. (Philadelphia, 1909) p. 366.
394
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
The writer
in Genesis
may have
known the
incident of
the ass,
but omitted
it as
unedifying.
Parallel
between
the early
Hebrew
and the
Homeric
treatment
of the
cruder
elements
in legend
and myth.
The func-
tion of the
dog in the
common
version
of the
mandrake
super-
stition.
The rest of the story does not differ substantially from the
narrative in Genesis.
Now, in this later Jewish version of the story the ass,
accidentally tied to the root of the mandrake, serves the same
purpose as the dog purposely tied to the root in modern folk-
lore : in both cases the animal extracts the root at the
sacrifice of its own life, and thereby enables a human being
to obtain the valuable but dangerous plant with impunity.
Can the writer in Genesis, to whom we owe the story of
Jacob and the mandrakes, have been acquainted with this
episode of the extraction of the root by the ass ? It seems
not impossible that he may have known and even related it,
and that the incident may afterwards have been omitted as
a vulgar superstition by the same hand which, for the same
reason, struck out the reference to the fertilizing virtue of tb.e
mandrake, and to the part which the plant was said to have
played in the conception and birth of Joseph. For a com-
parison of early Hebrew traditions with their Babylonian
counterparts enables us to appreciate how carefully the
authors or editors of Genesis have pruned away the grotesque
and extravagant elements of legend and myth ; how skilfully
they have uprooted the weeds and left the flowers in the
garden of literature ; how deftly they have refined away the
dross and kept the pure gold in the casket of history. In
their handiwork we can trace the same fine literary instinct
which has similarly purified the Homeric poems from many
gross and absurd superstitions, which, though they bear plain
marks of an antiquity far greater than that of Homer, are
known to us only through writings of much later ages. And
in both cases the fine literary instinct rests on and presup-
poses a fine moral instinct, which chooses the good and rejects
the evil, and, fusing the chosen elements in the crucible of
invagination, moulds them into " an immortal feature of
loveliness and perfection."
Whether the incident of the ass in the later Jewish story
of Jacob and the mandrakes is original or not, it helps us to
understand the function of the dog in the common version of
the mandrake superstition. The plant, we are told, has a
peculiar quality, in virtue of which it kills whoever tears up
its root ; it is charged, as it were, with an electricity which
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 395
will prove fatal to whoever meddles with it, but which, once
discharged, leaves the plant safe for anybody to handle.
Hence a prudent man who desires to procure the valuable
root harnesses an animal to it ; the poor animal receives the
shock and perishes, while the man profits by its death to get
possession of the root at his leisure. So far as appears, .
therefore, the agent employed to uproot the mandrake might
be any animal ; an ass would serve the turn quite as well as
a dog ; all that is required is a living medium to bear the
brunt of the fatal contact, and so to render the plant innocuous.
This view is confirmed by a parallel Armenian superstition An
as to the gathering of bryony {Bryonia alba), which is the pa"aiicr°
favourite substitute for the mandrake in countries where
,the mandrake does not grow. Oddly enough, in Armenia
bryony is popularly regarded as the king of plants ; it is
deemed to be not only animated, but man-like. Its roots
and berries are used to form a wishing-rod or magic wand,
which confers wisdom and power over men and wild beasts.
Also they heal various kinds of sickness and drive away evil
spirits. Hence the plant is everywhere sought as a precious
possession. But it can only be gathered in the month of
May, and in gathering it you must say certain prayers.
Further, in order to disarm or avert the wrath of the bryony
at being uprooted, you are advised to tether a kid or a cock
to it in order that the plant may vent its rage on the
innocent animal or fowl instead of on you.^ We are not
told that the creature actually uproots the bryony and
perishes in so doing, but on the analogy of the mandrake we
may infer that such is the popular practice and the popular
belief
In this Armenian superstition the bryony is plainly Personifi-
described as an animated and manlike creature, who resents of the
being uprooted, and wreaks his anger on the person or mandrake.
animal that does him violence. The same is, no doubt, true
of the mandrake, since it is commonly believed to be shaped
like a man, to shriek like a man, and sometimes, like a man,
to be bathed, fed, and clothed. On this view the danger of
uprooting the mandrake springs simply from the human
passion of the plant, and this conception is probably more
^ Manuk Abeghian, Der arinenische Volksglaube (Leipsic, 1899), pp. 60 sq.
396
JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES
A dog
employed
to uproot
mandrake.
primitive than that of an impersonal force pervading its
fibres and discharging itself, like electricity, with fatal effect
on meddlesome intruders.
And just as any animal, apparently, may serve to uproot
a mandrake, so a dog may seemingly serve to uproot any
other plants other valuable but dangerous plant of which a man desires to
obtain possession. We have seen that in ancient Greek
folk-lore a dog was employed to extract the aglaophotis or
peony. Similarly, modern gipsies of Transylvania set a
black dog to uproot a kind of orchid to which they give the
name of the boy-plant {karengro), and to which they ascribe
the power of promoting conception in women. They begin
by scraping away the earth about the root with a knife which
has never been used before ; then when the root is half laid
bare, they tie a black dog by its tail to the plant, and hold
out' a piece of ass's flesh to the animal. He springs at it,
and in doing so wrenches up the orchid by the root. Having
got the root, they carve it in the shape of the male organ of
generation, and hang it in a little deerskin pouch on the left
arm. In this way the orchid, like the mandrake, is believed
to help in getting a woman with child. ^
In all these cases the plant, whether it is the mandrake,
the peony, or an orchid, is apparently personified as a being
who feels anger at being uprooted, and whose wrath must be
diverted from the human culprit to an innocent animal.
Sometimes on such occasions an attempt is made not to
divert but to soothe the rage of the plant by making an
offering to it. Thus ancient Greek herbalists recommended
that when you cut a certain healing plant, which they called
after the divine physician Aesculapius, you should insert in
the earth a honey-cake and a varied assortment of fruits as
payment for the plant which you had uprooted ; and similarly
they said that when you cut gladwyn you ought to give com-
pensation in the shape of a honey-cake baked of spring-sown
wheat, while at the same time you drew three circles round
the place with a sword. ^
Such beliefs and practices illustrate the primitive tendency
' Heinrich von Wlislocki, Volks- '^ Theophrastus, Historia Plan-
glaube und religibser Brauch der Zi- taruin, ix. 8. 7. Compare Pliny,
geuner (Miinster i. W., 1891), pp. Nat. Hist. xxi. 42.
90 sq.
Attempts
to divert
or soothe
the rage
of plants
at being
uprooted.
CHAP. VII JACOB AND THE MANDRAKES 397
to personify nature, to view it as an assemblage of living, The
sensitive, and passionate beings rather than as a system of {endencyto
impersonal forces. That tendency has played a great part personify
in the evolution of religion, and even when it has been survives in
checked or suppressed in the general mass of educated society, peasants
. ,. .,V , • r ,• , and poets.
it hngers still among the representatives ot an earlier mode
of thought, the peasant on the one hand and the poet on the
other. No poet, perhaps, has ever felt or expressed this sense
of the animation of nature more vividly than Wordsworth.
He tells us that
" ^Tis my faith that every Jlower
Ejijoys the air it breathes."
And with the pain which the mandrake was supposed to feel
at being uprooted, we may compare the pang which Words-
worth seems instinctively to have ascribed to the hazel-trees
ruthlessly stripped by him of their boughs one autumn day
when, as a boy, he had gone out nutting in the woods.
" Theti tip I rose,
And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash
And merciless ravage ; and the shady 7100k
Of hazels, and the gree7t and mossy bower,
Deformed atid sullied, patiently gave up
Their quiet being : and, unless I tiow
Co7tfound my prese7it feelings with the past,
Even then, whe7t frofn the bower I fur7ied away
Exulting, }ich beyo7id the wealth of ki7igs,
I felt a sense of pai7i whe7i I beheld
The sile7it trees and the intruding sky. —
Then, dearest Maide7i ! 7nove along these shade:-,
In ge7ttleness of heart; with ge7itle ha7td
Touch — for there is a spirit i7i the zvoods.^'
CHAPTER VIII
THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN
Jacob
resolves
to return,
with his
wives and
children,
to the
land of
his fathers
He
acquaints
his wives
with his
purpose.
When Jacob had served his father-in-law Laban for many
years, and had acquired great store of sheep and goats by
his industry and craft, he grew weary of the long service
and resolved to return, with his wives and his children and
all that he had, to the land of his fathers. We may surmise
that it was not a simple feeling of homesickness which
moved him to take this resolution. The morning of life
was long over with him, and the warm impulses of youth, if
he had ever known them, had ceased to sway his essentially
cool and sober temperament. A calm calculation of profit
had probably more to do in determining him to this step
than any yearning for the scenes of his childhood and any
affection for his native country. By a happy combination
of diligence and cunning he had contrived in the course of
years to draft the flower of the flocks from his father-in-law's
folds to his own : he saw that there was little more to be
got in that quarter : he had drained the old man as dry as
a squeezed lemon, and it was high time to transfer his
talents to a more profitable market. But foreseeing that
his relative might possibly raise some objection to his
walking off with the greater part of the flocks, he prudently
resolved to avoid all painful family disputes by a moonlight
flitting. For this purpose it was necessary to let his wives
into the secret. Apparently he had some doubts how they
would receive the communication he was about to make to
them, so he broke the subject gently. In an insinuating
voice he began by referring to the changed demeanour of
their father towards himself; next with unctuous piety he
398
CHAP. VI n THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN 399
related how God had been on his side and had taken away
their father's cattle and given them to himself; finally, to
clinch matters, he told them, perhaps with a twinkle in his eye,
how last night he had dreamed a dream, in which the angel of
God had appeared to him and bidden him depart to the land
of his nativity. But he soon found that there was no need to
beat about the bush, for his wives entered readily into the
project, and avowed their purely mercenary motives with
cynical frankness. They complained that their spendthrift
parent had wasted all he had received as the price of their
marriage, so that he had nothing left to give or bequeath to
them. Hence they were quite ready to turn their backs on
him and to follow their husband to the strange far-away
land beyond the great river. But before they went off,
bag and baggage, the sharp - witted Rachel fortunately
remembered, that though their father had been stripped of
most of his goods, he still had his household gods about
him, who might be expected to resent and punish any
injury done to their proprietor. So she contrived to steal
and hide them among her baggage, without, however, in-
forming her husband of what she had done, probably from
a fear lest a relic of masculine conscience might induce him
to restore the stolen deities to their owner.
The preparations of the worthy family for flight were He sets
now complete. All that remained was to await a moment overtaken*
when they might be able to steal away unobserved. It by Laban
came when Laban went off for some days to the sheep- oiiead.
shearing. Now was the chance. The great caravan set
out, the women and children riding on camels and preceded
or followed by an endless procession of bleating flocks.
Their progress was necessarily slow, for the sheep and goats
could not be hurried, but they had a full two days' start,
for it was not till the third day that Laban got wind of their
departure. With his brethren he hastened in pursuit, and
after a forced march of seven days he came up with the
long lumbering train of fugitives among the beautiful
wooded mountains of Gilead, perhaps in a glade of the forest
where the sheep were nibbling the greensward, perhaps in a
deep glen where the camels were crashing through the cane-
brakes, or the flocks splashing across the ford. An angry
400
THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN
PART II
Dispute
between
Jacob and
Laban.
Jacob's
invective
against
Laban.
Laban 's
reply.
altercation ensued between the two kinsmen, Laban opened
the wordy war by loudly reproaching Jacob with having
stolen his gods and carried off his daughters as if they were
captives of the sword. To this Jacob, who knew nothing
about the gods, retorted warmly that he was neither a thief
nor a resetter of stolen goods ; that Laban was free to
search his baggage, and that if the missing deities were
found in the luggage of any of Jacob's people, Laban was
welcome to put the thief to death. So Laban ransacked
the tents, one after the other, but found nothing ; for the
crafty Rachel had hidden the images in the camel's palan-
quin and sat on it, laughing in her sleeve while her father
rummaged about in her tent.
This failure to discover the stolen property completely
restored the self-confidence of Jacob, who at first had prob-
ably been somewhat abashed on being confronted by the kins-
man whom he had outwitted and left in the lurch. He now
felt that he even occupied a position of moral elevation, and
he proceeded to turn the tables on his crestfallen adversary
with great volubility and a fine show of virtuous indignation.
He dismissed with withering scorn the trumped-up charge
of theft which had just been brought against him : he
declared that he had honestly earned his wives and his
flocks by many years of diligent service : he enlarged
pathetically on the many hardships he had endured and the
nice sense of honour he had ever displayed in his office of
shepherd ; and in a glowing peroration he wound up by
asserting that if it had not been for God's good help his
rascally father-in-law would have turned his faithful servant
adrift without a rag on his back or a penny in his pocket.
To this torrent of eloquence his father-in-law had little in
the way of argument to oppose ; he would seem to have
been as inferior to his respectable son-in-law in the gift of
the gab as he was in the refinements of cunning. A man
would need to have a very long spoon to sup with Jacob,
and so Laban found to his cost. He contented himself
with answering sullenly that the daughters were his
daughters, the children his children, the flocks his flocks, in
fact that everything Jacob had in the world really belonged
to his father-in-law. The answer was something more than
CHAP. VIII THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN 401
the retort courteous, it even bordered on the he circum- The recon-
stantial ; but neither of the disputants had any stomach for ^'''f '°"
' ^ -' ana the
fighting, and without going so far as to measure swords covenant at
they agreed to part in peace, Jacob to resume his journey ^ ^'^"^°'
with his whole caravan, and Laban to return empty-handed
to his people. But before they separated, they set up a
large stone as a pillar, gathered a cairn of smaller stones
about it, and sitting or standing on the cairn ate bread
together. The cairn was to mark the boundary which
neither party should pass for the purpose of harming the
other, and, more than that, it was to serve as a witness
between them when they were far from each other ; where-
fore they called it in the Hebrew and Syrian tongues the
Heap of Witness. The covenant was sealed by a sacrifice
and a common meal, after which the adversaries, now re-
conciled, at least in appearance, retired to their tents —
Jacob no doubt well content with the result of his diplomacy,
Laban probably less so, but still silenced, if not satisfied.
However, he put the best face he could on the matter, and
rising betimes next morning he kissed his sons and his
daughters and bade them farewell. So he departed to his
own place, but Jacob went on his way.^
The whole drift of the preceding narrative tends to show The caim
that the erection of the cairn by the two kinsmen on the P^'''s""iM
as a
spot where they parted was a monument, not of their witness and
friendship and affection, but of their mutual suspicion and guarantor
^ ^ of the
distrust : the heap of stones furnished a material guarantee covenant.
of the observance of the treaty : it was as it were a deed or
document in stone, to which each of the contracting parties
set his hand, and which in case of a breach of faith was
expected to testify against the traitor. For apparently the
cairn was conceived not simply as a heap of stones, but as
a personality, a powerful spirit or deity, who would keep a
watchful eye on both the covenanters and hold them to
their bond. This is implied in the words which Laban
addressed to Jacob on the completion of the ceremony.
He said, " The Lord watch between me and thee, when
we are absent one from another. If thou shalt afflict my
daughters, and if thou shalt take wives beside my daughters,
1 Genesis xxxi.
VOL. II 2D
402
THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN
I
no man is with us ; see, God is witness betwixt me and
thee." Hence the cairn was called the Watch-tower
{Mispah), as well as the Heap of Witness, because it acted
as watchman and witness in one.^
Rude stone The pillar and cairn of which this picturesque legend
mentsin ^^'^^ ^^^^ doubtlcss belonged to the class of rude stone
the region monuments which are still frequent in the region beyond
Jordan, including Mount Gilead, where tradition laid the
Jordan.
parting of Jacob and Laban. Speaking of the land of
Moab, the late Canon Tristram observes, " Part of our
route was by the side of the Wady 'Atabeiyeh, which runs
down south to the Zerka, a short and rapidly-deepening
valley. Here, on a rocky upland bank, we came for the
first time upon a dolmen, consisting of four stones, rough
and undressed ; three set on end, so as to form three sides
of a square ; and the fourth, laid across them, forming the
roof The stones were each about eight feet square. From
this place northwards, we continually met with these dol-
mens, sometimes over twenty in a morning's ride, and all
of exactly similar construction. They were invariably
placed on the rocky sides, never on the tops, of hills ; the
three large blocks set on edge, at right angles to each other,
and supporting the massive stone laid across them, which
was from six to ten feet square. They are favourite
stations for the Arab herdsmen, whom we frequently saw
stretched at full length upon the top of them, watching
their flocks. The dolmens appear to be confined to the
district between the Callirrhoe and Heshbon : in similar
districts to the south of that region, they never occurred.
I have, however, in former visits to Palestine, seen many
such in the bare parts of Gilead, between Jebel Osha and
Gerash. It is difficult to understand why they were erected
on these hill-sides. I never found one with a fourth up-
right stone, and in many instances the edifice had fallen,
but in such cases the heap always consisted of four blocks,
neither more nor less. From the shallowness of the soil,
there could have been no sepulture here underground ; and
there are no traces of any cairns or other sepulchral erections
in the neighbourhood. It is possible that the primaeval
^ Genesis xxxi. 4S-52.
I
CHAP. VIII THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN 403
inhabitants erected these dohnens in many other situations,
but that they have been removed by the subsequent agri-
cultural races, who left them undisturbed only on these bare
hill-sides, which can never have been utilized in any degree
for cultivation. Still it is worthy of notice that the three
classes of primaeval monuments in Moab — the stone circles,
dolmens, and cairns — exist, each in great abundance, in
three different parts of the country, but never side by side :
the cairns exclusively in the east, on the spurs of the
Arabian range ; the stone circles south of the Callirrhoe ;
and the dolmens, north of that valley. This fact would
seem to indicate three neighbouring tribes, co-existent in the
prehistoric period, each with distinct funeral or religious
customs. Of course the modern Arab attributes all these
dolmens to the jinns." ^
We have seen that when Jacob and Laban had raised a stones
cairn, they ate together, sitting on the stones." The eating ^^ thT^ '
of food upon the stones was probably intended to ratify the principle of
covenant. How it was supposed to do so may perhaps be thetic
gathered from a Norse custom described by the old Danish magic,
.to o'ive
historian, Saxo Grammaticus. He tells us that " the ancients, wefght and
when they were to choose a king, were wont to stand on stability to
, ° . . covenants.
stones planted in the ground, and to proclaim their votes,
in order to foreshadow from the steadfastness of the stones
that the deed vvould be lasting." ^ In fact, the stability of
the stones may have been thought to pass into the person
who stood upon them and so to confirm his oath. Thus we
read of a certain mythical Rajah of Java, who bore the title
of Rajah Sela Perwata, " which in the common language is
1 H. B. Tristram, The Land of position in question i^V) is certainly
Moab'^ (London, 1874), pp. 300-302. "upon," and there is no reason to
Compare H. Vincent, Canaan d'apres depart from it in the present passage,
Pexp/o7-ation rkente (I'aris, 1 9 14), pp.
408 sqq. ^ The First Nine Books of the Danish
2 In Genesis xxxi. 46 the Revised History of Saxo Grainmatiais, trans-
Version translates "and they did eat lated by Oliver Elton (London, 1S94),
therebythe heap," where the Authorized p. 16. The original runs thus : '^ Lee-
Version renders " and they did eat turi regem veteres affixis humo saxis
there upon the heap." The parallels insistere suffragiaqite promere constte-
which I adduce in the text make it verant siibjectorum lapidum firmitaie
probable that the Authorized Version fadi constantiam fitninattiri'' {Historia
is here right and the Revised Version Danica, lib. i. p. 22, ed. P. E. Miiller,
wrong. The primary sense of the pre- Copenhagen, 1839).
404 THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN part ii
the same as Watu Giinung, a name conferred upon him
from his having rested on a mountain like a stone, and
obtained his strength and power thereby, without other aid
or assistance." ^ At a Brahman marriage in India the bride-
groom leads the bride thrice round the fire, and each time
he does so he makes her tread with her right foot on a mill-
stone, saying, " Tread on this stone ; like a stone be firm.
Overcome the enemies ; tread the foes down." ^ This
ancient rite, prescribed by the ritual books of the Aryans
in Northern India, has been adopted in Southern India out-
side the limits of the Brahman caste. The married couple
" go round the sacred fire, and the bridegroom takes up in
his hands the right foot of the bride, and places it on a mill-
stone seven times. This is known as saptapadi (seven feet),
and is the essential and binding portion of the marriage
ceremony. The bride is exhorted to be as fixed in constancy
as the stone on which her foot has ■ been thus placed." ^
Similarly at initiation a Brahman boy is made to tread with
his right foot on a stone, while the words are repeated,
" Tread on this stone ; like a stone be firm. Destroy those
who seek to do thee harm ; overcome thy enemies." * Among
the Kookies of Northern Cachar at marriage " the young
couple place a foot each upon a large stone in the centre of
the village, and the Ghalim [headman] sprinkles them with
water, and pronounces an exhortation to general virtue and
conjugal fidelity, together with a blessing and the expression
of hopes regarding numerous progeny." " In the Kalian
caste of Madura, Trichinopoly, and Tanjore, patterns are
drawn with rice-flour on a bride's back at marriage, her
husband's sister decorates a grinding-stone in the same way,
invokes blessings on the woman, and expresses the hope
that she may have a male child as strong as a stone.^ In
^ T. S. Raffles, History of Java age anx hides Oj-ientales et a la Chine
(London, 1817), i. 377. (Paris, 1782), i. 81.
2 The Grihya-Siitras, translated by * The Grihya-Siitras, translated by
H. Oldenberg, Part i. (Oxford, 1886) H. Oldenberg, Part ii. p. 146.
pp. 13, 168, 282 sq., 381 ; Part ii. ° Lieut. R. Stewart, " Notes on
(Oxford, 1892) pp. 45, 188, 260 sq. Northern Cachar," Journal of the
{Sacred Books of the East, vols, xxix., Asiatic Society of Bengal, xxiv. (1855)
XXX.). pp. 620 sq.
^ Edgar Thurston, Ethnographic "^ Census of India, igoi, vol. xv.
Notes in Southern India (Madras, Madras, Part i. Report, by W. Francis
1906), p. I. Compare Sonnerat, Voy- (Madras, 1902), p. 138.
CHAP. VIII THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN 405
Madagascar it is believed that you can guard against the
instability of earthly bliss by burying a stone under the main
post or under the threshold of your house/
On the same principle wc can explain the custom of Oaths
swearing with one foot or with both feet planted on a stone, 'f ^" "P°"
•^ ^ stones in
The idea seems to be that the solid enduring quality of the Scotland.
stone will somehow pass into the swearer and so ensure that
the oath will be kept.^ Thus there was a stone at Athens
on which the nine archons stood when they swore to rule
justly and according to the laws.^ A little to the west of
St. Columba's tomb in lona " lie the black stones, which
are so called, not from their colour, for that is grey, but
from the effects that tradition says ensued upon perjury, if
any one became guilty of it after swearing on these stones
in the usual manner ; for an oath made on them was
decisive in all controversies. Mac-Donald, King of the Isles,
delivered the rights of their lands to his vassals in the isles
and continent, with uplifted hands and bended knees, on the
black stones ; and in this posture, before many witnesses,
he solemnly swore that he would never recall those rights
which he then granted : and this was instead of his great
seal. Hence it is that when one was certain of what he
affirmed, he said positively, I have freedom to swear this
matter upon the black stones." ■* Again, in the island of
Fladda, another of the Hebrides, there was formerly a round
blue stone on which people swore decisive oaths.^ At the
old parish church of Lairg, in Sutherlandshire, there used to
be built into an adjoining wall a stone called the Plighting
Stone. "It was known far and wide as a medium — one
might almost say, as a sacred medium — for the making of
bargains, the pledging of faith, and the plighting of troth.
By grasping hands through this stone, the parties to an
1 Father Abinale, " Astrologie Mai- (Stuttgart, 1908), pp. 41 sqq.
gache," Les Missions Catholiques, xi. ^ Aristotle, Constitution of Athens,
(1879) p. 482, " Qui va enterrer tin 7 and 55 ; Plutarch, Solon, 25 ; Julius
cailloii au pied du grand poteau de la Pollux, Onofnasticon, viii. 26.
case ou sous le seuil de laporte, a Peffet •* M. Martin, " Description of the
de se doniier un destin de poids et de Western Islands of Scotland," in John
Jidditi, apres s'Stre lavi d^un destin Pinkerton's General Collection of Voy-
d'i7U0tista7ice." ages and Travels (London, 1808-
2 For many examples of swearing on 1814), iii. 657.
stones, see Richard Lasch, Der Eid ^ M. Martin, op. cit. pp. 627 sq.
4o6 THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN part ii
agreement of any kind bound themselves with the inviol-
abihty of a solemn oath." ^
Oaths Similar customs are observed by rude races in Africa and
taken upon jj^^ji^ When two Bogos of Eastern Africa, on the border of
stones in ° '
Africa and Abyssinia, have a dispute, they will sometimes settle it at a
^ certain stone, which one of them mounts. His adversary
calls down the most dreadful curses on him if he forswears
himself, and to every curse the man on the stone answers
" Amen ! " ^ Among the Akamba of British East Africa
solemn oaths are made before an object called a kithito,
which is believed to be endowed with a mysterious power of
killing perjurers. In front of the object are placed seven
stones, and the man who makes oath stands so that his heels
rest on two of them.^ At Naimu, a village of the Tang-
khuls of Assam, there is a heap of peculiarly shaped stones
upon which the people swear solemn oaths.* At Ghosegong,
in the Garo hills of Assam, there is a stone on which the
natives swear their most solemn oaths. In doing so they
first salute the stone, then with their hands joined and up-
lifted, and their eyes steadfastly fixed on the hills, they call
on Mahadeva to witness to the truth of what they affirm.
After that they again touch the stone with all the appearance
of the utmost fear, and bow their heads to it, calling again
^ on Mahadeva. And while they make their declaration they
look steadfastly to the hills and keep their right hand on
the stone.^ The Garos also swear on meteoric stones, say-
ing, " May Goera (the god of lightning) kill me with one of
these if I have told a lie." '^ In this case, however, the use
of the stone is retributive rather than confirmatory ; it is
designed, not so much to give to the oath the stability of
the stone, as to call down the vengeance of the lightning-
god on the perjurer. The same was perhaps the intention
of a Samoan oath. When suspected thieves swore to their
1 Folk-lore, viii. (1897) p. 399. * T. C. Hodson, The N'dga Tribes
2 W. Munzinger, Sit ten ittid Recht 0/ Jlfani/ner CLondon, 191 1 ), p. no.
der Bon-OS (Winterthur, 1859), pp. 33 = , ^,. ^ ,, ^, . .
^ ^ ' J^" ff jj o j_ Eliot, " Observations on the
"", TT .^ T-> J <<T-. ■ inhabitants of the Garrow hills,"
^ Hon. C. Dundas, " Ihe oriraniza- , .,■ t> l ■•■ T7-r.i t-j- •
J , r -r, -L • Astatic researches, 111. l*ifth Edition
lion and laws of some Bantvi tribes m .^ , rSnv^
East Africa," Journal of the R/^yal ' ""' ^ ^'
Anthropological Institttte, xlv. (1915) '^ Major A. Playfair, The Garos
p. 252. (London, 1909), p. 75.
cifAP. VIII THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN 407
innocence in the presence of chiefs, they " laid a handful of Samoau
grass on the stone, or whatever it was, which was supposed °^ *
to be the representative of the village god, and, laying their
hand on it, would say, " In the presence of our chiefs now
assembled, I lay my hand on the stone. If I stole the
thing may I speedily die." ^
In this last case, and perhaps in some of the others, the Distinction
stone appears to be conceived as instinct with a divine life reiigio^us' *^
which enables it to hear the oath, to judge of its truth, and and the
to punish perjury. Oaths sworn upon stones thus definitely a^pfcl^of
conceived as divine are clearly religious in character, since stones
... in the
they involve an appeal to a supernatural power who visits ratification
transgressors with his anger. But in some of the preceding of oaths,
instances the stone is apparently supposed to act purely
through the physical properties of weight, solidity, and
inertia ; accordingly in these cases the oath, or whatever the
ceremony may be, is purely magical in character. The
man absorbs the valuable properties of the stone just as he
might absorb electrical force from a battery; he is, so to
say, petrified by the stone in the one case just as he is
electrified by the electricity in the other. The religious and
the magical aspects of the oath on a stone need not be
mutually exclusive in the minds of the swearers. Vague-
ness and confusion are characteristic of primitive thought,
and must always be allowed for in our attempts to resolve
that strange compound into its elements.
These two different strains of thought, the religious and Twofold
the magical, seem both to enter into the Biblical account of Jjrcaim
the covenant made by Jacob and Laban on the cairn. For in the
on the one hand the parties to the covenant apparently of7a"cob
attribute life and consciousness to the stones by solemnly and Laban.
calling them to witness their agreement," just as Joshua
called on the great stone under the oak to be a witness,
because the stone had heard all the words that the Lord
spake unto Israel.^ Thus conceived, the cairn, or the pillar
which stood in the midst of it, was a sort of Janus-figure
with heads facing both ways for the purpose of keeping a
sharp eye on both the parties to the covenant. And on the
1 George Turner, Samoa (London, 1884), p. 1S4.
2 Genesis xxxi. 47-52. ^ Joshua xxiv. 26 sq.
4o8 THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN part ii
other hand the act of eating food together on the cairn, if I
am right, is best explained as an attempt to establish a
sympathetic bond of union between the covenanters by
partaking of a common meal, while at the same time they
strengthened and tightened the bond by absorbing into
their system the strength and solidity of the stones on
which they were seated.
How the If any reader, afflicted with a sceptical turn of mind,
quaHty of ^^'^^ doubts whether the ground on which a man stands can
an oath affcct the moral quality of his oath, I would remind him of
affected by ^ passage in Procopius which should set his doubts at rest.
the natiu-e That veracious historian tells how a Persian king contrived
ground on to wring the truth from a reluctant witness, who had every
which It IS motive and desire to perjure himself. When Pacurius
taken, is . ^ -^ i i • i
illustrated reigned over Persia, he suspected that his vassal, Arsaces,
^y ^ , king of Armenia, meditated a revolt. So he sent for him
passage of •=" '
Procopius. and taxed him to his face with disloyalty. The king of
Armenia indignantly repelled the charge, swearing by all
the gods that such a thought had never entered his mind.
Thereupon the king of Persia, acting on a hint from his
magicians, took steps to unmask the traitor. He caused
the floor of the royal pavilion to be spread with muck, one
half of it with muck from Persia, and the other half of it
with muck from Armenia. Then on the floor so prepared
he walked up and down with his vassal, reproaching him
with his treacherous intentions. The replies of the culprit
were marked by the most extraordinary discrepancies. So
long as he trod the Persian muck, he swore with the most
dreadful oaths that he was the faithful slave of the Persian
king ; but as soon as he trod the Armenian muck his tone
changed, and he turned fiercely on his liege-lord, threatening
him with vengeance for his insults, and bragging of what he
would do when he regained his liberty. Yet the moment
he set foot again on the Persian muck, he cringed and
fawned as before, entreating the mercy of his suzerain in the
most pitiful language. The ruse was successful : the murder
was out : the traitor stood self-revealed. Yet being one of
the blood-royal, for he was an Arsacid, he might not be put
to death. So they did to him what was regularly done to
erring princes. They shut him up for life in a prison called
CHAP, viu THE COVENANT ON THE CAIRN 409
the Castle of Oblivion, because whenever a prisoner had
passed within its gloomy portal, and the door had grated on
its hinges behind him, his name might never again be
mentioned under pain of death. There traitors rotted, and
there the perjured king of Armenia ended his days.^
The custom of erecting cairns as witnesses is apparently Caims as
not extinct in Syria even now. One of the most famous )„ modern
shrines of the country is that of Aaron on Mount Hor. Syria.
The prophet's tomb on the mountain is visited by pilgrims,
who pray the saint to intercede for the recovery of sick
friends, and pile up heaps of stones as witnesses {meslihad)
of the vows they make on behalf of the sufferers.^
1 Procopius, De be.llo Persico, i. 5. Keligion To-day (Chicago, 1902), pp.
* ij. I. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic 79 sq.
CHAPTER IX
JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK
Jacob's After parting from Laban at the cairn, Jacob, with his wives
from^he ^^^ children, his flocks and his herds, pursued his way south-
mountains ward. From the breezy, wooded heights of the mountains
irito the ^f Gilcad he now plunged down into the profound ravine of
deepgienof the Jabbok thousands of feet below. The descent occupies
several hours, and the traveller who accomplishes it feels that,
on reaching the bottom of the deep glen, he has passed into
a different climate. From the pine-woods and chilly winds
of the high uplands he descends first in about an hour's time to
the balmy atmosphere of the village of Burmeh, embowered
in fruit-trees, shrubs, and flowers, where the clear, cold water
of a fine fountain will slake his thirst at the noonday rest.
^ Still continuing the descent, he goes steeply down another
two thousand feet to find himself breathing a hothouse air
amid luxuriant semi-tropical vegetation in the depths of the
great lyn of the Jabbok. The gorge is, in the highest degree,
wild and picturesque. On either hand the cliffs rise almost
perpendicularly to a great height ; you look up the precipices
or steep declivities to the skyline far above. At the bottom
of this mighty chasm the Jabbok flows with a powerful
current, its blue-grey water fringed and hidden, even at a
short distance, by a dense jungle of tall oleanders, whose
crimson blossoms add a glow of colour to the glen in early
summer. The Blue River, for such is its modern name, runs
fast and strong. Even in ordinary times the water reaches
to the horses' girths, and sometimes the stream is quite
unfordable, the flood washing grass and bushes high up the
banks on either hand. On the opposite or southern side the
410
remains
at
CHAP. IX JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK 411
ascent from the ford is again exceedingly steep. The path
winds up and up ; the traveller must dismount and lead his
horse.^ It was up that long ascent that Jacob, lingering Jacob
alone by the ford in the gloaming, watched the camels labour- ^^^J^J
ing, and heard the cries of the drivers growing fainter and the ford.
fainter above him, till sight and sound of them alike were
lost in the darkness and the distance.
The scene may help us to understand the strange adven- Jacob
ture which befell Jacob at the passage of the river. He had a m^sterU
sent his wives, his handmaids, and his children, riding on ous person-
camels, across the river, and all his flocks and herds had Smid^
preceded or followed them. So he remained alone at the wrestles
'■ ,. . . , with hini
ford. It was night, probably a moonlight summer night ; tin break
for it is unlikely that with such a long train he would have o^^^y-
attempted to ford the river in the dark or in the winter when
the current would run fast and deep. Be that as it may, in
the moonlight or in the dark, beside the rushing river, a man
wrestled with him all night long, till morning flushed the
wooded crests of the ravine high above the struggling pair in
the shadows below. The stranger looked up and saw the
light and said, " Let me go, for the day breaketh." So
Jupiter tore himself from the arms of the fond Alcmena
before the peep of dawn ; - so the ghost of Hamlet's father
faded at cockcrow ; so Mephistopheles in the prison warned
Faust, with the hammering of the gallows in his ears, to
hurry, for the day — Gretchen's last day — was breaking. But
Jacob clung to the man and said, " I will not let thee go,
1 W. M. Thomson, The Land attd given by Sir George Adam Smith's
the Book, Lebanon, Datnasctis, and eloquent description [Historical Geo-
beyond Jordatt, pp. 583 sqq. ; H. B. graphy of the Holy Land, London,
Tristram, The La7td of Israel^ CLondo-n, 1894, p. 584), which probably applies
1882), p. 549. The ford here described mainly either to the upper or the
is that of Mukhadat en Nusraniyeh, lower reaches of the river, before it has
" the ford of the Christian Woman," on entered the great caiion or after it has
the road between Reimiin and Shihan. emerged from it into the bro.nd strath of
It is the ford on the regular road from the Jordan. In these districts, accord-
north to south, and is probably, there- ingly, it would seem that the aspect of
fore, the one at which tradition placed the river and its banks is one of pastoral
the passage of Jacob with his family peace and sweet rural charm, a land-
and his flocks. In describing the gorge scape of Constable rather than of
and the ford I have followed closely Salvator Rosa,
the accounts of Thomson and Tristram,
who both passed that way and wrote as ^ piautus, Amphit>yo, 532 sq., ''Cur
eye-witnesses. A very different im- me tenes ? Tenipus<.esf>: exire ex tirbe
pression of the scenery of the Jabbok is prius qtiam lucescat vole.''''
412
JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JAB BO K part ii
Jacob's
adversary
was
perhaps the
jinnee of
the river.
The
wrestling
of Greek
heroes with
water-
sprites.
except thou bless me." The stranger asked him his name,
and when Jacob told it he said, " Thy name shall be called
no more Jacob, but Israel : for thou hast striven with God
and with men, and hast prevailed." But when Jacob
inquired of him, " Tell me, I pray thee, thy name," the man
refused to mention it, and having given the blessing which
Jacob had extorted, he vanished. So Jacob called the name
of the place Peniel, that is, the Face of God ; " For," said he,
" I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."
Soon afterwards the sun rose and shone on Jacob, and as it
did so he limped ; for in the struggle his adversary had touched
him on the hollow of the thigh. " Therefore the children of
Israel eat not the sinew of the hip which is upon the hollow
of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of
Jacob's thigh in the sinew of the hip." ^
The story is obscure, and it is probable that some of its
original features have been slurred over by the compilers of
Genesis because they savoured of heathendom. Hence any
explanation of it must be to a great extent conjectural.
But taking it in connexion with the natural features of the
place where the scene of the story is laid, and with the other
legends of a similar character which I shall adduce, we may,
perhaps, provisionally suppose that Jacob's mysterious adver-
sary was the spirit or jinnee of the river, and that the struggle
was purposely sought by Jacob for the sake of obtaining his
blessing. This would explain why he sent on his long train
of women, servants, and animals, and waited alone in the
darkness by the ford. He might calculate that the shy
river-god, scared by the trampling and splashing of so great
a caravan through the water, would lurk in a deep pool or a
brake of oleanders at a safe distance, and that when all had
passed and silence again reigned, except for the usual mono-
tonous swish of the current, curiosity would lead him to
venture out from his lair and inspect the ford, the scene of
all this hubbub and disturbance. Then the subtle Jacob,
lying in wait, would pounce out and grapple with him until
he had obtained the coveted blessing. It was thus that
Menelaus caught the shy sea-god Proteus sleeping at high
1 Genesis xxxi.
see id. xxxi. 17.
54-xxxii. For the camels on which Jacob's family rode,
CHAP. IX JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK 413
noon among the seals on the yellow sands, and compelled
him reluctantly to say his sooth. ^ It was thus that Peleus
caught the sea-goddess Thetis and won her, a Grecian Undine,
for his wife.^ In both these Greek legends the supple,
slippery water-spirit writhes in the grip of his or her captor,
slipping through his hands again and again, and shifting his
or her shape from lion to serpent, from serpent to water, and
so forth, in the effort to escape ; not till he is at the end of
all his shifts and sees no hope of evading his determined
adversary does he at last consent to grant the wished-for
boon. So, too, when Hercules wrestled with the river-god
Achelous for the possession of the fair Dejanira, the water-
sprite turned himself first into a serpent and then into a bull
in order to give the brawny hero the slip ; but all in vain.^
These parallels suggest that in the original form of the Jacob's
tale Jacob's adversary may in like manner have shifted his '^ay'have
shape to evade his importunate suitor. A trace of such shifted his
metamorphoses, perhaps, survives in the story of God's revela- the tussle.
tion of himself to Elijah on Mount Horeb ; the wind, the
earthquake, and the fire in that sublime narrative may in
the first version of it have been disguises assumed, one after
the other, by the reluctant deity until, vanquished by the
prophet's perseverance, he revealed himself in a still small
voice.* For it is to be observed that water-spirits are not
the only class of supernatural beings for whom men have laid
wait in order to wring from them a blessing or an oracle.
Thus the Phrygian god Silenus is said, in spite of his dissi- HowMidas
pated habits, to have possessed a large stock of general ^^^^^^^
information which, like Proteus, he only imparted on com- and how
pulsion. So Midas, king of Phrygia, caught him by mixing ^aueht
wine with the water of a spring from which, in a moment of Picus and
weakness, the sage had condescended to drink. When he
woke from his drunken nap, Silenus found himself a prisoner,
and he had to hold high discourse on the world and the
vanity of human life before the king would let him go. Some
of the gravest writers of antiquity have bequeathed to us a
more or less accurate report of the sermon which the jolly
^ Homer, Odyssey, iv. 354-570. ^ Ovid, Metamorph. ix. 62-86; com-
2 Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, iii. 13. pare Sophocles, Trachiniae, 9-21.
5; Scholiast on Pindar, Nem. iii. 60. * i Kings xix. 8-13.
414 JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK part n
toper preached beside the plashing wayside spring, or, accord-
ing to others, in a bower of roses.^ By a stratagem like that
of Midas it is said that Numa caught the rustic deities Picus
and Faunus, and compelled them to draw down Jupiter him-
self from the sky by their charms and spells.^
Custom of The view that Jacob's adversary at the ford of the
ui°watei- Jabbok was the river-god himself may perhaps be confirmed
spirits at by the observation that it has been a common practice with
many peoples to propitiate the fickle and dangerous spirits
of the water at fords. Hesiod says that when you are about
to ford a river you should look at the running water and
pray and wash your hands ; for he who wades through a
stream with unwashed hands incurs the wrath of the gods.^
When the Spartan king Cleomenes, intending to invade
Argolis, came with his army to the banks of the Erasinus,
he sacrificed to the river, but the omens were unfavourable
to his crossing. Thereupon the king remarked that he
admired the patriotism of the river-god in not betraying his
people, but that he would invade Argolis in spite of him.
With that he led his men to the seashore, sacrificed a bull to
the sea, and transported his army in ships to the enemy's
country.* When the Persian host under Xerxes came to the
river Strymon in Thrace, the Magians sacrificed white horses
and performed other strange ceremonies before they crossed
the stream.^ Lucullus, at the head of a Roman army, sacri-
ficed a bull to the Euphrates at his passage of the river.'^
" On the river-bank, the Peruvians would scoop up a handful
of water and drink it, praying the river-deity to let them
cross or to give them fish, and they threw maize into the
stream as a propitiatory offering ; even to this day the
Indians of the Cordilleras perform the ceremonial sip before
they will pass a river on foot or horseback." ^ Old Welsh
^ Xeiiophon, Anabasis, i. 2. 13; 741. As to the Greek worship of
Pausanias i. 4. 5 ; Herodotus viii. rivers, see the evidence collected by
138; Plutarch, Consol. ad Apollo^. R. \\.-3.ts\.er\, Stitdies in Primitive Greek
27 ; Aelian, Var. Hist. iii. 18 ; Religion (Helsingfors, 1907), pp. 29
Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. vi. 27 ; sqq.
lliinerius, Eclog. xvi. 5; Cicero, ■» Herodotus vi. 76.
Tuscid. Dispnt. i. 48, 1 14; Virgil, ^ „ , , •• ,,^
^ , . ^ ., , " Herodotus vn. 1 1 3.
Eclog. VI. 13 sqq., with the comment-
ary of Servius on the passage. " Plutarch, Lucullus, 24.
2 Ovid, Fasti, iii. 289-348. " (Sir) Edward B. Tylor, Primitive
3 Hesiod, Works and Days, 737- Culture- {L.o\\Ao\i, 1873), ii. 210.
.CHAP. IX JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK 415
people " al\va}'s spat thrice on the ground before crossing
water after dark, to avert the evil influences of spirits and
witches." ^
A Zulu story relates how a man named Ulangalasenzantsi Rivers
went to fetch his children, taking ten oxen with him. His bvThc''^^
way was barred by ten swollen rivers, to each of which he Bantu
sacrificed an ox, whereupon the river divided and allowed him gouth
to pass through. As to this we are told that " it is a custom Africa.
among native tribes of South Africa to pay respect to rivers,
which would appear to intimate that formerly they were
worshipped, or rather that individual rivers were supposed to
be the dwelling-place of a spirit. Thus, when a river has been
safely crossed, it is the custom in some parts to throw a stone
into its waters, and to praise the itongo. . . . When Dingan's
army was going against Umzilikazi, on reaching the banks of
the Ubulinganto, they saluted it, saying, 'Sa ku bona, hdln-
gafito,^ and having strewed animal charcoal {umstsi) on the
water, the soldiers were made to drink it. The object of
this was to deprecate some evil power destructive to life,
which was supposed to be possessed by the river. It is a
custom which cannot fail to recall what is recorded of Moses
under somewhat different circumstances.^ There can be little
doubt that Ulangalasenzantsi threw the oxen into the rivers
as a sacrifice to the aniatongo (ancestral spirits), or more
probably to river-gods," ^ From another writer we learn that
Kafirs spit on the stones which they throw into the water at
crossing a river. He tells us that " the natives in olden days
were in the habit of either sacrificing some animal or offering
some grain to appease ancestral spirits living in the river.
The bushmen used to offer up some game they had killed,
or in the absence of that would offer up an arrow. It is
very doubtful whether the natives have any fully formed con-
ception of what we call a river-spirit ; it seems more probable, The water-
on the whole, that they imagined some ancestral spirit to be ^^^^^^^
living in the river, or that some fabulous animal had its home identical
with
1 Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and powder, and strewed it upon the water, -_:^jje
Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), and made the children of Israel drink
p. 6. of it."
'^ Exodus xxxii. 20, " And he took ■* Henry Callaway, Nursery Tales,
the calf which they had made, and Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus
burnt it with fire, and ground it to (Natal and London, 1868), p. 90.
4i6
JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK part ii
The Bantu
tribes of
South- East
Africa
regard
river-
spirits as
malignant
and
propitiate
them with
offerings.
in the water." ^ The view that these water-spirits are essen-
tially spirits of ancestors is confirmed by another good
authority on the Bantu tribes of South Africa. Speaking
of the Thonga, who inhabit Mozambique about Delagoa
Bay, Mr. Henri A. Junod says, " Some lakes and rivers
are believed to be inhabited by spirits, but not in the
ordinary fetichistic way, as if they were a special spiritual
being incorporated with the natural object ; these spirits are
psikwevibo, spirits of the deceased ancestors of the owners
of the land, and they are propitiated by their descendants.
Should another clan have invaded the territory where those
lakes are, should crocodiles threaten fishermen, they will call
some one belonging to the clan of the old possessors of the
country and ask him to make an offering to appease Jiis gods.
This is the ordinary course, and the more you search the better
you identify these lake and river spirits with ancestor gods." ^
Another writer tells us that in the belief of the Bantu
tribes of South-East Africa " rivers are inhabited by demons
or malignant spirits, and it is necessary to propitiate these
on crossing an unknown stream, by throwing a handful of
corn or some other offering, even if it is of no intrinsic value,
into the water. Of these spirits, the incanti corresponds to
the Greek Python, while the Hili has the appearance of a
very small and ugly old man, and is very malevolent. These
spirits are never seen except by magicians. To an ordinary
person it is certain death to see an incanti. When any one
is drowned, the magicians say, ' He was called by the spirits,'
and this call no one can resist, nor is it safe to interfere in
order to save one who is ' called ' from drowning. After a
death by drowning the doctors prescribe a formal sacrifice to
be offered, but the animal is not killed ; it is simply driven
into the water, and this is deemed sufficient, or it may happen
that the form prescribed shall only include the casting of a
few handfuls of corn into the water at the spot where the
accident happened. At other times the magicians direct the
people to assemble at the river and pelt the spirit with stones,
and this is done with great good will, every man and woman
1 Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir
(London, 1904), pp. 9 sq.
2 Henri A. Junod, The Life of a
South African T^/Y^d? (Neuchfitel, 1912-
1913), ii. 302.
CHAI-. IX JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK 4' 7
shouting the most abusive epithets at the demon. This can
only be done when a magician is present to avert evil conse-
quences." ^ The spirit who is treated in this disrespectful
fashion can hardly be conceived as an ancestor.
When the Masai of East Africa cross a stream they Offerings
throw a handful of grass into the water as an offering ; for |^g uZ^^x
grass, the source of life to their cattle, plays an important and
.,, . .. ,-.io, .1-0 1 Baganda to
part m Masai superstition and ritual." Among the Baganda river-spirits
of Central Africa, before a traveller forded any river, he at crossing
... ... r -a ford.
would ask the spirit of the river to give him a safe crossing,
and would throw a few coffee-berries as an offering into the
water. When a man was carried away by the current his
friends would not try to save him, because they feared that
the river -spirit would take them also, if they helped the
drowning man. They thought that the man's guardian spirit
had left him to the mercy of the river-spirit, and that die he
must.^ At certain spots on the rivers Nakiza and Sezibwa,
in Uganda, there was a heap of grass and sticks on either
bank, and every person who- crossed the river threw a little
grass or some sticks on the one heap before crossing, and on
the other heap after crossing ; this was his offering to the
spirit of the river for a safe passage through the water.
From time to time more costly offerings were made at these
heaps ; the worshipper would bring beer, or an animal, or
a fowl, or some bark-cloth, tie the offering to the heap, and
leave it there, after praying to the spirit. The worship of
each of these rivers was cared for by a priest, but there was
no temple. The Bean Clan was especially addicted to the
worship of the river Nakiza, and the father of the clan was
the priest. When the river was in flood, no member of the
clan would attempt to ford it ; the priest strictly forbade
them to do so under pain of death.* In Uganda, as in in Uganda
ancient Greece, the spirit of a river is sometimes conceived ^'^'^^'"-^P"""^
in the form of an animal. Thus the river Manyanja was sometinnes
worshipped under the shape of a leopard, and some people ;„ the form
1 Rev. James Macdonald, Light in " S. L. and H. Hinde, The Last of o^ animals
^/r/ca, Second Edition (London, 1890), //i<? J/izjai (London, 1901), pp. 103 i^.
pp. 205 sq Compare id., '' Manners, 3 j^^ j^^^^^ ^^^ Baganda (Lon-
Customs, Superstitions, and Religions don IQIU n ■^IQ
of South African Tribes," Journal of > 9 J> F- J y-
the Anthropological Institute, xx. ■* John Roscoe, The Baganda, pp.
(1891) p. 125. 163, 318.
VOL. II 2 E
4i8
JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK part ii
Sacrifice
offered
by the
Banyoro
at crossing
the Nile.
Sacrifices
offered at
crossing
rivers in
Congo-
land and
Southern
Nig-eria.
accounted for this by saying that a leopard had been drowned
in the river. From time to time the ghost of the animal
took possession of a man, who, under its inspiration, gave
oracles in gruff tones and imitated the noises of a leopard.
Similarly the rivers Wajale and Katonga were worshipped
under the form of a lion, and the human medium who per-
sonated them roared like a lion when the fit of inspiration
was on him.^
At a place on the Upper Nile, called the Karuma Falls,
the flow of the river is broken by a line of high stones, and
the water rushes down a long slope in a sort of sluice to a
depth of ten feet. The native tradition runs, that the stones
were placed in position by Karuma, the agent or familiar of
a great spirit, who, pleased with the barrier thus erected by
his servant, rewarded him by bestowing his name on the
falls. A wizard used to be stationed at the place to direct
the devotions of such as crossed the river. When Speke
and his companions were ferried over the Nile at this point,
a party of Banyoro, travelling with them, sacrificed two kids,
one on either side of the river, flaying them with one long
cut each down their breasts and bellies. The slaughtered
animals were then laid, spread-eagle fashion, on their backs
upon grass and twigs, and the travellers stepped over them,
that their journey might be prosperous. The place of
sacrifice was chosen under the directions of the wizard of
the falls."
The Ituri river, one of the upper tributaries of the Congo,
forms the dividing-line between the grass land and the great
forest. " When my canoe had almost crossed the clear, rapid
waters, a hundred and fifty yards wide, I noticed on the opposite
bank two miniature houses built close to the edge and re-
sembling in every feature the huts of the villagers. The old
chief was loth to explain the object of these houses, but at
length I was told that they were erected for the shade of his
predecessor, who was told that he must recompense them for
their labours by guarding the passage of those crossing the
river. From that time, whenever a caravan was seen to
1 John Roscoe, The Bas^anda, p.
318.
2 John Hanning Speke, Journal of
the Discovery of the Source of the
Nile (London, 19 12), ch. xix. pp.
446, 447 sq. (Everyman's Library).
CHAi-. IX JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK 419
approach the bank, a little food would be carried down to
the ghost-houses, as a warning that the shade's protection
was needed for the caravan about to cross." ^ Among the
Ibos of the Awka district, in Southern Nigeria, when a
corpse is being carried to the grave and the bearers have to
cross water, a she-goat and a hen are sacrificed to the
rivcr.^
The Badaeas, a tribe of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern Offerings
India, believe in a deity named Gangamma, " who is supposed J^g ^ ^
to be present at every stream, and especially so at the Koonde Badagas of
and Pykar6 rivers, into which it was formerly the practice for india aT
every owner of cattle, which had to cross them at their height, crossing
rivers
to throw a quarter of a rupee, because their cattle used fre-
quently to be carried away by the current and destroyed.
It is enumerated amongst the great sins of every deceased
Badaga, at his funeral, that he had crossed a stream without
paying due adoration to Gangamma."^ Again, the Todas, Ceremonies
another smaller but better-known tribe of the same hills, ^y'^th™'^'^
regard two of their rivers, the Teipakh (Paikara) and the Todas at
Pakhwar (Avalanche), as gods or the abodes of gods. Every Hvers?^
person in crossing one of these streams must put his right
arm outside of his cloak in token of respect. Formerly these
rivers might only be crossed on certain days of the week.
When two men who are sons of a brother and a sister
respectively pass in company over either of the sacred streams
they have to perform a special ceremony. As they approach
the river they pluck and chew some grass, and each man says
to the other, " Shall I throw the river (water) ? Shall I cross
the river?" Then they go down to the bank, and each man
dips his hand in the river and throws a handful of water away
from him thrice. After that they cross the river, each of them
with his arm outside of his cloak in the usual way. But if
the day is a Tuesday, Friday, or Saturday they will not
throw the water, but only chew the grass. x'\lso, if the
funeral ceremonies of a person belonging to the clan of
1 Major P. H. G. Powell-Cotton, Burial Customs, "yipw^wfl/ ^ ///<? AVja/
"A Journey through the Eastern Por- Anthropological Instihite, xlvii. (1917)
tion of the Congo State," llie Geo- p. 165.
graphical Journal, xxx. (1907) pp. ^ F. Metz, The Tribes inhabiting
374 sq. the Neilgherry Hills, Second Edition
■- N. W. Thomas, "Some Ibo (Mangalore, 1864), p. 68.
420
JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK part ii
Chiefs
and kings
forbidden
to cross
certain
rivers.
Cere-
monies
observed
by the
Angoni at
crossinsr a
Attempt
of the
Toradjas
to deceive
water-
spirits.
either of the two men are not complete, they will not throw
the water. The sacred dairyman {palol) of the Todas may
not cross either of the holy rivers at the places used by
common folk. In the old days there were certain fords
where ordinary people waded through the water, but the
dairyman had a ford of his own. Nowadays the Todas
cross the Paikara by a bridge, but the holy milkman may
not make use of the profane convenience. And in the old
days no Toda who had been bitten by a snake might cross
any stream whatever.^
Among the Mahafaly and Sakalava of southern
Madagascar certain chiefs are forbidden to cross certain
rivers, while others are bound to go and salute all the
rivers of the country.^ In Cayor, a district of Senegal,
it is believed that the king would inevitably die within the
year if he were to cross a river or an arm of the sea.^ A
certain famous chief of the Angoni, in British Central Africa,
was cremated near a river ; and even now, when the Angoni
cross the stream, they greet it with the deep-throated manly
salutation which they accord only to royalty.* And when
the Angoni ferry over any river in a canoe they make a
general confession of any sins of infidelity of which they
may have been guilty towards their consorts, apparently
from a notion that otherwise they might be drowned in the
river.^ The Toradjas of Central Celebes believe that water-
spirits, in the shape of snakes, inhabit the deep pools and
rapids of rivers. Men have to be on their guard against
these dangerous beings. Hence when a Toradja is about
to make a voyage down a river, he will often call out from
the bank, " I am not going to-day, I will go to-morrow."
The spirits hear the announcement, and if there should be
amongst them one who is lying in wait for the voyager, he
1 W. H. R. Rivers, The Todas (Lon-
don, 1906), pp. 418 sq., 500 sq.
2 A. van Gennep, Tabou et Totem-
isme a Madagascar (Paris, 1904), p.
113.
' J. B. L. Durand, Voyage an S^n^gal
(Paris, 1802), p. 55.
* R. Sutherland Rattray, Some Folk-
lore Stories and Songs in Chinyanja
(London, 1907), p. 190.
^ R. Sutherland Rattray, op. cit. p.
194. As to the superstitions which
primitive peoples attach to the con-
fession of sins, see l^aboo and the Perils
of the Soul, pp. 114, 191, 195, 211 sq.,
214 sqq. {The Golden Bough, Third
Edition, Part ii. ). Apparently con-
fession was originally regarded as a
kind of physical purge.
CHAP. IX JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK 421
will imagine that the voyage has been postponed and will
defer his attack accordingly till the following day. Mean-
time the cunning Toradja will drop quietly down the river,
laughing in his sleeve at the simplicity of the water-sprite
whom he has bilked.^
Though the exact reasons for observing many of these Attempts
customs in regard to rivers may remain obscure, the general *° ^^'"""^
° ■' ' fc> coerce, and
motive appears to be the awe and dread of rivers conceived punish the
either as powerful personal beings or as haunted by mighty ^^^^l °^
spirits. The conception of a river as a personal being is
well illustrated by a practice which is in vogue among the
Kakhyeen of Upper Burma. When one of the tribe has
been drowned in crossing a river the avenger of blood repairs
once a year to the banks of the guilty stream, and filling a
vessel full of water he hews it through with his sword, as if
he were despatching a human foe.^ Among the Santals of
Bengal, when water is fetched from a tank for the purpose
of bathing a bridegroom at marriage, a woman shoots an
arrow into the water of the tank and another woman slashes
it with a sword. Then two girls dip up the water in pots
and carry it home in procession.^ The intention of thus
shooting and cutting the water before drawing it off may
perhaps be to weaken the water-spirit whom you are about
to rob. When the Meinam River at Bangkok has attained
its highest point, and the flood begins to subside, the king of
Siam deputes, or used to depute, some hundreds of Buddhist
monks to accelerate the subsidence. Embarking on state
barges, these holy men command the waters in the king's
name to retire, and by way of reinforcing the royal commands
they chant exorcisms. However, in spite of His Majesty's
orders and the incantations of the monks, the rebellious
river has been known to rise instead of to fall.^ It is said
that once on a time, when the Nile had flooded the land
of Egypt to a depth of eighteen cubits, and the waters
1 N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De riage CusVomz," Joitrna I of the Bihar
Bai-e'e-sprekcnde To7-adjd's van Midden- and Orissa Research Society, ii. (19 16)
Celebes (Batavia, 191 2-19 14), i. 276. p, 313.
o r-i iTS7ir 'Ti 1 n * Mgr- Pallepoix, Description dti
^ ri7 J i^T.- i-c \- \ u 1 T Royativie I hat on Siain (Fans, ls';4),
to I'Vesiern Lntnaih.amhw'Ciin a.\\aL,ox\- ■■ ^ c- t , ^ • ^r ,..^"
J ,o£c\ „, "• 50; Sir John Howrine, The Am"--
don, 186S , pp. 91 sa. j j n ^1 x c-- /t 1
'^'^ ^ > dom and Feople of Statu (London,
3 A. Campbell, D.D., " Santal Mar- 1857), i. 9.
422
JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK part n
Attempts
to punish,
fight, and
wound the
spirits of
the sea.
I
were lashed into waves by a strong wind, the Egyptian
King Pheron seized a dart and hurled it into the swirling
current ; but for this rash and impious act he was
punished by the loss of his eyesight.^ Again, we read
that when Cyrus, marching against Babylon, crossed the
River Gyndes, one of the sacred white horses, which accom-
panied the march of the army, was swept away by the
current and drowned. In a rage at this sacrilege, the king
threatened the river to bring its waters so low that a woman
would be able to wade through them without wetting her
knees. Accordingly he employed his army in digging
channels by which the water of the river was diverted from
its bed, and in this futile labour the whole summer, which
should have been devoted to the siege of Babylon, was
wasted to gratify the childish whim of a superstitious despot.^
Nor are the spirits of rivers the only water-divinities
which bold men have dared to fight or punish. When
a storm swept away the first bridge by which Xerxes
spanned the Hellespont for the passage of his army,
the king in a rage sentenced the straits to receive three
hundred lashes and to be fettered with chains. And as
the executioners plied their whips on the surface of the
water, they said, " O bitter water, thy master inflicts this
punishment on thee because thou hast wronged him who did
no wrong to thee. But King Xerxes will cross thee, willy
nilly. And it serves thee right that no man sacrifices to
thee, because thou art a treacherous and a briny river." ^
The ancient Celts are said to have waded into the billows as
they rolled in upon the shore, hewing and stabbing them with
swords and spears, as if they could wound or frighten the
ocean itself.^ Irish legend tells of a certain Tuirbe Tragmar
who, standing " on Telach Bela (the Hill of the Axe), would
hurl a cast of his axe in the face of the floodtide, so that he
' Herodotus ii. 1 1 1 ; Diodorus Siculus
J. 59-
^ Herodotus i. 189. However, Sir
Henry RawHnson inclined "to regard
the whole story as a fable, embodying
some popular tradition with regard to
the origin of the great hydraulic works
on the Diydlah [Gyndes] below the<
Hamaran hills, where the river has
been dammed across to raise the level
of the water, and a perfect network of
canals have been opened out from it on
either side " (note in George Rawlin-
son's Herodotus, Fourth Edition, vol.
i. p. 3")-
3 Herodotus vii. 35.
* Aelian, Varia Historia, xii. 23.
CHAP. IX JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK 423
forbade the sea, which then would not come over the axe." ^
The Toradjas of Central Celebes relate that one of their
tribes, which is proverbial for stupidity, once came down to
the sea-shore when the tide was out. Immediately they built
a hut on the beach below high-water mark. When the tide
rose and threatened to wash away the hut, they regarded it
as a monster trying to devour them, and sought to appease
it by throwing their whole stock of rice into the waves. As
the tide still continued to advance, they next hurled their
swords, spears, and chopping-knives into the sea, apparently
with the intention of wounding or frightening the dangerous
creature and so compelling him to retreat.^ Once on a
time, when a party of Arafoos, a tribe of mountaineers on
the northern coast of Dutch New Guinea, were disporting
themselves in the surf, three of them were swept out to sea
by a refluent wave and drowned. To avenge the death
their friends fired on the inrolling billows for hours with
guns and bows and arrow^s.^ Such personifications of the
water as a personal being who can be cowed or overcome
by physical violence, may help to explain the weird story
of Jacob's adventure at the ford of the Jabbok.
The tradition that a certain sinew in Jacob's thigh was The sinew
strained in the struggle with his nocturnal adversary is clearly shrank
an attempt to explain why the Hebrews would not eat the Parallels
corresponding sinew in animals. Both the tradition and the North
custom have their parallels among some tribes of North American
. . TT 1 11 11 Indians.
American Indians, who regularly cut out and throw away
the hamstrings of the deer they kill.'* The Cherokee Indians
assign two reasons for the practice. One is that " this tendon,
when severed, draws up into the flesh ; ergo, any one who
1 Whitley Stokes, "The Edinburgh Celebes (Batavia, 1912-1914), i. 37.
^if'^'^"'^^''"^'^^i"'T'!:-!^J?^^P- 3 p. E. Moolenburgh, " Enkele
t; Compa'^eStandishH.O Grady, .thnografische bvzonderheden van de
^^/^.« (?«,/.J.a Translation and notes ^^^^^^,^ ^^^^^ Nieuw-Guinea,"
(London and Edinburgh, 1 892) p. 5 18. 7^,vy,,;,„y-, %^,, ^,^ Koninklijk Neder-
These Celtic, Persian and Egyptian ^J^^^^j^ Aardrijkslamdig Genootschap,
parallels have alieady been cited, with ^^^,^^^^ Serie, xix. (Leyden, 1902) p.
more legends of the same sort, by Mr. ,
E. S. Hartland, in his essay, " The
Boldness of the' Celts," Ritual and * I have collected the evidence in
^«/?e/"{ London, 1 9 14), pp. 161 sqq. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.
■^ N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De 264 sqq. {The Golden Bough, Third
Bare^e-sprekende Toradjd's van Midden- Edition, Part v.).
424
JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK part ii
Ancient
Mexican
parallel to
Jacob's
wrestling
with the
nocturnal
phantom.
should unfortunately partake of the hamstring would find his
limbs draw up in the same manner." ^ The other reason is
that if, instead of cutting out the hamstring and throwing it
away the hunter were to eat it, he would thereafter easily
grow tired in travelling.^ Both reasons assume the principle
of sympathetic magic, though they apply it differently. The
one supposes that, if you eat a sinew which shrinks, the corre-
sponding sinew in your own body will shrink likewise. The
other seems to assume that if you destroy the sinew without
which the deer cannot walk, you yourself will be incapacitated
from walking in precisely the same way. Both reasons are
thoroughly in keeping with savage philosophy. Either of
them would suffice to account for the Hebrew taboo. On
this theory the narrative in Genesis supplies a religious sanc-
tion for a rule which was originally based on sympathetic
magic alone.
The story of Jacob's wrestling with the nocturnal phantom
and extorting a blessing from his reluctant adversary at the
break of dawn has a close parallel in the superstition of
the ancient Mexicans. They thought that the great god
Tezcatlipoca used to roam about at night in the likeness of
a gigantic man wrapt in an ash-coloured sheet and carry-
ing his head in his hand. When timid people saw this
dreadful apparition they fell to the ground in a faint
and died soon afterwards, but a brave man would grapple
with the phantom and tell him that he would not let
him go till the sun rose. But the spectre would beg his
adversary to release him, threatening to curse him if he
did not. Should the man, however, succeed in holding the
horrible being fast till day was just about to break, the spectre
changed his tune and offered to grant the man any boon he
might ask for, such as riches or invincible strength, if only
he would unhand him and let him go before the dawn. The
human victor in this tussle with a superhuman foe received
from his vanquished enemy four thorns of a certain sort as a
token of victory. Nay, a very valiant man would wrench
the heart from the breast of the phantom, wrap it up in a
1 J. Mooney, "Sacred Formulas of
the Cherokees," Seventh Annual Re-
port of the Bureau of EthnoIo;:^y (Wash-
ington, 1891), p. 323.
- James Mooney, " Myths of the
Cherokee," Nineteenth Annual Report
of the Bureau of American Ethnology
(Washington, 1 900), Part i. p. 263.
CHAP. IX JACOB AT THE FORD OF THE JABBOK 425
cloth, and cany it home. But when he undid the cloth to
gloat over the trophy, he would find nothing in it but some
white feathers, or a thorn, or it might be only a cinder or an
old rag.^
1 Juan de Torquemada, Moiia7-quia Espagtie, traduite par D. Jourdanet et
///(//awrt (Madrid, 1723), ii. 578. Com- Remi Simeon (Paris, iSSo), pp. 297
pare Bernardino de Sahagun, Histoire 299, 304 sq.
GiuiraU des. choses de la NouvdU;
CHAPTER X
JOSEPH'S CUP
Joseph's
divining
cup.
Divination
by means
of images
in water in
classical
antiquity.
When his brethren came to Egypt to procure corn during
the famine, and were about to set out on their homeward
journey to Palestine, Joseph caused his silver drinking-cup
to be hidden in the mouth of Benjamin's sack. Then when
the men were gone out of the city and were not yet' far off,
he sent his steward after them to tax them with theft in
having stolen his cup. A search was accordingly made in
the sacks, and the missing cup was found in Benjamin's sack.
The steward reproached the brethren with their ingratitude
to his master, who had treated them hospitably, and whose
kindness they had repaid by robbing him of the precious
goblet. " Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good ? " he
asked. "Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby
he indeed divineth ? ye have done evil in so doing." And
when the brethren were brought back and confronted with
Joseph, he repeated these reproaches, saying, " What deed is
this that ye have done? know ye not that such a man as I
can indeed divine ? " ^ Hence we may infer that Joseph piqued
himself in particular on his power of detecting a thief by
means of his divining cup.
The use of a cup in divination has been not uncommon
both in ancient and modern times, though the particular
mode of employing it for that purpose has not always been
the same. Thus in the life of the Neoplatonic philosopher
Isidorus we read that the sage fell in with a sacred woman,
who possessed a divine talent of a remarkable kind. She
used to pour clean water into a crystal cup, and from the
appearances in the water she predicted the things that should
' Genesis xliv. 1-15
426
CHAP. X JOSEPH'S CUP 427
come to pass.' Such predictions from appearances in water
formed a special branch of divination, on which the Greeks
bestowed the name of Jiydroniantia ; sometimes a particular
sort of gem was put in the water for the sake of evoking
the images of the gods.^ King Numa is said to have divined
by means of the images of the gods which he saw in water,
but we are not told that he used a cup for the purpose ;
more probably he was supposed to have beheld the divine
figures in a pool of the sacred spring Egeria, to the spirit
of which he was wedded.^ When the people of Tralles, in
Caria, desired to ascertain what would be the result of the
Mithridatic war, they employed a boy, who, gazing into
water, professed to behold in it the image of Mercury and,
under the inspiration of the divine manifestation, chanted the
coming events in a hundred and sixty verses/ The Persians
are related to have been adepts in the art of water-
divination ; ^ indeed the art is said to have been imported
into the West from Persia.^ The report may have been
merely an inference from the place which the reverence for
water held in the old Persian religion."
How Joseph used his magic cup for the detection of a Divination
thief or for other purposes of divination we do not know, of images
but we may conjecture that he was supposed to draw his '" water
inferences from figures which appeared to him in the water. Mirrortf^i*^
Certainly this mode of divination is still practised in Egypt, '"odern
and it may have been in vogue in that conservative country
from remote antiquity. Its modern name is the Magic
Mirror. " The magic mirror is much employed. A pure
innocent boy (not more than twelve years of age) is directed
to look into a cup filled with water and inscribed with texts,
while under his cap is stuck a paper, also with writing on it,
so as to hang over his forehead ; he is also fumigated with
^ Damascius, " Vita Isidori," in Dei, vii. 35.
Photius, Bibliotheca, ed. Im. Bekker ^ Apuleius, De Magia, 42, referrincr
(Berlin, 1824), p. 347 B. Compare to Varro as his authority.
JambHchus, De Mysteriis, iii. 14. ° Strabo xvi. 2. 39, p. 762, ed.
- PHny, Nat. Hist, xxxvii. 192, Casaubon.
" Anaticitide in hydromantia dicutit ^ Varro, in Augustine, De civitate
evocari imagines deorum." What kind Dei, vii. 35.
of stone the anaficiiis may have been ^ Thomas Hyde, Historia Religioms
appears to be unknown. vetenim Persarinn (Oxford 1700), cap.
^ Varro, in Augustine, De civitate vi. pp. 137 sqq.
428
JOSEPH'S CUP
Divination
by n\eans
of images
in ink in
modern
Egypt.
incense, while sentences are murmured by the conjuror. After
a little time, when the boy is asked what he sees, he says that
he sees persons moving in the water, as if in a mirror.- The
conjuror orders the boy to lay certain commands on the
spirit, as for instance to set up a tent, or to bring coffee and
pipes. All this is done at once. The conjuror asks the
inquisitive spectators to name any person whom they wish
to appear on the scene, and some name is mentioned, no
matter whether the person is living or dead. The boy com-
mands the spirit to bring him. In a few seconds he is pres-
ent, and the boy proceeds to describe him. The description,
however, according to our own observation, is always quite
wide of the mark. The boy excuses himself by saying that
the person brought before him will not come right into the
middle, and always remains half in the shade ; but at other
times he sees the persons really and in motion. When a
theft is committed the magic mirror is also sometimes
questioned, as we ourselves were witnesses on one occasion.
(This is called darb el viandel.) The accusations of the boy
fell upon a person who was afterwards proved to be quite
innocent, but whom the boy, as it appeared, designedly
charged with the crime out of malevolence. For this reason
such experiments, formerly much in vogue, were strictly pro-
hibited by the .government, though they are still practised." ^
Sometimes in Egypt the magic mirror used in divination
is formed, not by water in a cup, but by ink poured into the
palm of the diviner's hand, but the principle and the mode
of procedure are the same in both cases. The diviner pro-
fesses to see in the ink the figures of the persons, whether
alive or dead, whom the inquirer desires him to summon up.
The magic mirror of ink, like the magic mirror of water, is
resorted to for the detection of a thief and other purposes.
The persons who can see in it are a boy under puberty,
a virgin, a black female slave, and a pregnant woman,
but apparently a boy under puberty is most commonly
employed. A magic square is drawn with ink in the palm
of his hand, and in the centre of the square a little pool
of ink serves as the magic mirror. While the diviner
1 C. B. Klunzinger, Upper Egypt, its People ami its P'oducts (London,
1878), pp. 3S7 sq.
CHAP. X JOSEPH'S CUP 429
is gazing into it, incense is burnt, and pieces of paper
with charms written on them are consumed in the fire.^
When Kinglake was in Cairo he sent for a magician and
invited him to give a specimen of his skill. The magician,
a stately old man with flowing beard, picturesquely set off
by a vast turban and ample robes, employed a boy to gaze
into a blot of ink in his palm and there to descry the image
of such a person as the Englishman might name. Kinglake
called for Keate, his old headmaster at Eton, a ferocious
dominie of the ancient school, short in figure and in temper,
with shaggy red eyebrows and other features to match. In
response to this call the youthful diviner professed to see
in the inky mirror the image of a fair girl, with golden hair,
blue eyes, pallid face, and rosy lips. When Kinglake burst
into a roar of laughter, the discomfited magician declared that
the boy must have known sin, and incontinently kicked him
down stairs.^
Similar modes of divination have been practised in Divination
other parts of the world. Thus, in Scandinavia people used '^y "i^ans
^ _ ^ '^ of images
to go to a diviner on a Thursday evening in order to see in in water in
a pail of water the face of the thief who had robbed them.^ Scandi-
tr navia and
The Tahitians " have a singular mode of detecting a thief, in Tahiti.
any case of stolen goods, by applying to a person possess-
ing the spirit of divination, who, they observe, is always sure
to show them the face of the thief reflected from a calabash
of clear water." * This latter oracle has been described
more fully by another writer. The natives of Tahiti, he tells us,
" had also recourse to several kinds of divination, for discover-
ing the perpetrators of acts of injury, especially theft. Among
these was a kind of water ordeal. It resembled in a great
degree the wai harnru of the Hawaiians. When the parties
who had been robbed wished to use this method of discover-
ing the thief, they sent for a priest, who, on being informed
of the circumstances connected with the theft, offered
1 E. W. Lane, Account of the ^ Sven Nilsson, The Primitive In-
Manners and Ctistoms of the Modern habitants of Scandittavia, Third 'Edilion
Egyptians CP^ii&ley and London, 1895), (London, 1868), p. 241.
chap. xii. pp. 276-284.
2 A. W. Kinglake, Eothen, ch.,xviii. * John Turnbiill, A Voyage round
pp. 216-218 {Temple Classics edition, the World, Second Edition (London,
London, 1901). 1813), p. 343.
430 JOSEPH'S CUP part ii
prayers to his demon. He now directed a hole to be dug
in the floor of the house, and filled with water ; then, taking
a young plantain in his hand, he stood over the hole, and
offered his prayers to the god, whom he invoked, and who,
if propitious, was supposed to conduct the spirit of the
thief to the house, and place it over the water. The image
of the spirit, which they imagined resembled the person of
the man, was, according to their account, reflected in the
water, and being perceived by the priest, he named the
individual, or the parties, who had committed the theft,
stating that the god had shewn him the image in the water." ^
Divination When Sir Frank Swettenham had been robbed in
by means ^^^ Malay Peninsula, he was introduced to an Arab, who
of images •' '
in water in asserted that he would be able to tell him all about the
Penins^uk robbery, provided he might fast in solitude for three days in
New an empty house, but that without such a preparation he
Afric^'and could not see what he sought. " He told me that after his
among the vigil, fast, and prayer, he would lay in his hand a small
piece of paper on which there would be some writing ; into
this he would pour a little water, and in that extemporised
mirror he would see a vision of the whole transaction. He
declared that, after gazing intently into this divining-glass,
the inquirer first recognised the figure of a little old man ;
that having duly saluted this JtJi, it was only necessary to
ask him to conjure up the scene of the robbery, when all
the details would be re-enacted in the liquid glass under the
eyes of the gazer, who would there and then describe all
that he saw." ^ Some diviners in South-Eastern New Guinea
profess to descry the face of a culprit in a pool of water into
which coco-nut oil has been squeezed.^ Among the Mossi, a
nation of the French Sudan, in the upper valley of the Niger,
the royal pages, who are boys under puberty, are bound to
observe strict continence. Once a year their chastity is tested
as follows. Each page must look at his reflection in a cala-
bash of water, and from the appearance of the reflection it is
judged whether he has been chaste or not. In former days,
1 William Ellis, Polynesian Kc- New York, 1895), PP- 201-203; W.
searches, Second Edition {London, W. Skeat, Malay Magic (London,
1832-1836), i. 378 sq. 1900), pp. 538 sq.
2 (Sir) Frank Athelstane Swetten- ^ Henry Newton, In Far New
ham, Malay Sketches (London and Guinea (London, 1914), pp. 89 sj.
I
CHAP. X JOSEPH'S CUP 431
before the French occupation of the country, any page thus
convicted of unchastity was executed on the spot. Every
year the faithfulness of the king's wives was tested by a
similar ordeal, and all who were found guilty were put to
death. ^ Among the Eskimo, when a man has gone out to
sea and has not returned in due time, a wizard will under-
take to ascertain by means of the magic mirror whether the
missing man is alive or dead. For this purpose he lifts up
the head of the nearest relation of the missing man with a
stick ; a tub of water stands under, and in this mirror the
wizard professes to behold the image of the absent mariner
either overset in his canoe or sitting upright and rowing.
Thus he is able either to comfort the anxious relatives with
an assurance of the safety of their friend or to confirm their
worst fears by the tidings of his death."
An early Christian writer has let us into the secret of Vision of
the tricks to which ancient oracle-mongers resorted for the ^^ter'"
purpose of gratifying their dupes with a vision of the gods revealed tc
in water. They had a closed chamber built, the roof of andent'^
which was painted blue. In the middle of the floor they oracle-
set a vessel full of water which, reflecting the blue roof,
presented the appearance of the sky. The vessel was made
of stone, but it had a glass bottom, and beneath it was an
opening into a secret chamber under the floor, where the
confederates of the prophet assembled and played the parts
which he assigned to them immediately under the oracular
chasm. Meantime the inquirers of the oracle, gazing into
the water, beheld, as they thought, a miraculous vision, and
accordingly believed implicitly all that the prophet told
them.^
But the magic mirror is not the only form of divination Other
in which the material instrument employed for the discovery "1°.^".°'
i^ J J divination
of truth is a vessel of water. An Indian mode of detecting by means
a thief is to inscribe the names of all the suspected persons °c fvaie?^
on separate balls of paste or wax, and then to throw the
balls into a vessel of water. It is believed that the ball
which contains the name of the thief will float on the sur-
1 L. Tiiuxier, Le Noir du Soudan ^ Hippolytus, Refutatio onmium
(Paris, 19 1 2), pp. 570, 572. Haeresium, iv. 35, pp, 100, 102, ed.
2 David Crantz, History of Green- L. Duticker at F. G. Schneidewin
/f?;;i^ (London, 1767), i. 214. (Gottingen, 1859).
432
JOSEPH'S CUP
Divination
by the
position or
configura-
tion of
things
dropped
into water.
Divination
by tea-
leaves in a
cup.
face, and that all the others will sink to the bottom/ In
Europe young people used to resort to many forms of
divination on Midsummer Eve in order to ascertain their
fortune in love. Thus in Dorsetshire a girl on going to bed
would write the letters of the alphabet on scraps of paper
and drop them in a basin of water with the letters down-
wards ; and next morning she would expect to find the
first letter of her future husband's name turned up, but all
the other letters still turned down.^ In Shropshire a girl
will sometimes write the initials of several young men of
her acquaintance on bits of paper, wrap a little ball of
bread in each paper, and put the small packets in a glass of
water ; the young man whose initials first rise to the surface
will win her hand.^
Sometimes the fates are ascertained by dropping sub-
stances of one kind or another in a vessel of water and judg-
ing of the issue by the position or configuration which the
substance assumes in the water. Thus among the Bahima
or Banyankole, a pastoral tribe of Central Africa, in the
Uganda Protectorate, a medicine -man would sometimes
take a pot of water and cast certain herbs into it, which
caused a froth to rise ; then he dropped four coffee-berries
into the water, marked the positions which they took up,
and inferred the wishes of the gods according to the direc-
tion in which the berries pointed or the side which they
turned up in floating.* Among the Garos of Assam a priest
will sometimes divine by means of a cup of water and some
grains of uncooked rice. Holding the cup of water in his
left hand, he drops the rice into it, grain by grain, calling
out the name of a spirit as each grain falls. The spirit who
chances to be named at the moment when two grains, float-
ing in the water, collide with each other, is the one who
must be propitiated.^ In Scotland a tea-stalk floating on
the surface of a tea-cup was supposed to betoken a stranger.
1 James Forbes, Oriental Memoirs
(London, 1813), ii. 245 sq.
- William Hone, Year Book (Lon-
don, N.D.), col. 1 1 76.
3 Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F.
Jackson, Shropshire Folk-lore (London,
18S3), p. 179. It does not appear
that this mode of divination is practised
only on Midsummer Eve.
* John Roscoe, The Northern Bantu
(Cambridge, 1915), p. 135.
^ Major A. Play fair, The Garos
(London, 1909), p. 97.
CHAP. X JOSEPH'S CUP 433
" It was taken from the cup and tested with the teeth
whether soft or hard. If soft, the stranger was a female ;
if hard, a male. It was then put on the back of the left
hand and struck three times with the back of the right.
The left hand was then held up and slightly shaken. If
the tea-stalk fell off, the stranger was not to arrive ; if it
stuck, the stranger would arrive." ^ In the Highlands of
Scotland the art of divining by the tea-leaves or sediment
in a tea-cup was carried out in still greater detail. Even
yet, we are told, young women resort in numbers to
fortune-tellers of this class, who, for the simple reward of
the tea, spell out to them most excellent matches. The
prediction is made from the arrangement of the sediment or
tea-leaves in the cup after the last of the liquid has been
made to wash the sides of the cup in the deiseal or right-
hand-turn direction and then poured out.^ In England
similar prophecies are hazarded from tea-leaves and coffee-
grounds left at the bottom of cups.^ So in Macedonia people
divine by coffee. " One solitary bubble in the centre of the
cup betokens that the person holding it possesses one staunch
and faithful friend. If there are several bubbles forming a
ring close to the edge of the cup, they signify that he is
fickle in his affections, and that his heart is divided between
several objects of worship. The grounds of coffee are likewise
observed and variously explained according to the forms which
they assume : if they spread round the cup in the shape of
rivulets and streams money is prognosticated, and so forth." ■*
In Europe a favourite mode of divination is practised Divination
by pouring molten lead or wax into a vessel of water and J^y j"°i'*^"
^ ^ ° lead or wax
watching the forms which the substance assumes as it cools in a vessel
in the water. This way of prying into the future has been ° ^^^ ^'^'
resorted to in Lithuania, Sweden, Scotland, and Ireland.^
' Rev. Walter Gregor, Notes on the ^ J. Lasicius, De diis Samagitarum
Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotlajtd caeteroru?nque Sarmatarinn, reprinted
(London, i88l), pp. 31 sq. in Magazin heransgegeben von der
- Rev. J. G. Campbell, Superstitions Lettisch-Literdrischen Gesellschaft, xiv.
of the Highlands and Islands of Scot- Part i. (Mitau, 1 868) p. 98 ; L. Lloyd,
/«««? (Glasgow, 1900), pp. 2665^. /'^aj-flw^Zi/^m 6'K'^a?'«/ (London, I S70),
^ John Brand, Popular Antiquities p. 187 ; J. G. Dalyell, Darker Super-
o/Great BritaiuCLondon, 1882-1883), stitions of Scotland {Edinhurgh, 1834),
iii. 330. pp. 511 sq.; A. C. Haddon, "A Batch
* G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folk- of Irish Folk-lore," ^<9/>^-/or^, iv. (1893)
lore (Cambridge, 1903), p. 95. pp. 361 sq.
VOL. II 2 F
434 JOSEPH'S CUP part ii
Again, in Ireland a certain disease called esane was supposed
to be sent by the fairies, and in order to prognosticate its
course or prescribe for its treatment diviners used to inspect
coals which they had dropped into a pot of clean water.^
In one or other of these ways Joseph may be supposed
to have divined by means of his silver cup.
1 William Camden, Britannia, ing into water, see N. W. Thomas,
translated by Philemon Holland (Lon- Crystal Gazing (London, 1905), pp.
don, 1610), "Ireland," p. 147. For \i sqq. ; Edward Clodd, The Question
other examples of divination by look- (London, 1917), pp. 155 sqq.
PART III
THE TIMES OF THE JUDGES AND
THE KINGS
43S
H
I
CHAPTER I
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES
With the life of Joseph the patriarchal age of Israel may The
be said to end. A brilliant series of biographical sketches, ^^g e^^^s^'
vivid in colouring and masterly in the delineation of char- with
acter, has described the march of the patriarchs from the and^uie
banks of the Euphrates to the banks of the Nile. There national
the historian leaves them for a time. The curtain descends isiaei
on the first act of the drama, and when it rises again on begins with
the same scene, some four hundred years are supposed to •
have elapsed,^ and the patriarchal family has expanded into
a nation. From this point the national history begins, and
the first commanding figure in it is that of Moses, the great
leader and lawgiver, who is said to have delivered his people
from bondage in Egypt, to have guided them in their
wanderings across the Arabian desert, to have moulded
their institutions, and finally to have died within sight of
the Promised Land, which he was not to enter. There
seems to be no sufficient reason to doubt that in these
broad outlines the tradition concerning him is correct. In
the story of his exploits, as in that of so many national
heroes, later ages unquestionably embroidered the sober
tissue of fact with the gay threads of fancy ; yet the change
thus wrought in the web has not been so great as to dis-
guise the main strands beyond recognition. We can still
trace the limbs of the man under the gorgeous drapery of
1 Four hundred years, according to is compared with the reckoning by
Genesis xv. 13; four hundred and generations. On this subject the com -
thirty years, according to Exodus xii. mentators on Exodus, particulaily
40 sq. Either number creates a Dillmann, Bennett, and Driver, may
serious chronological difficulty when it he consulted.
437
438
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES part hi
The
element
of the
marvellous
in the story
of Moses.
The birth
and
exposure
of Moses
and his
fortunate
preserva-
tion.
the magician who confronted Pharaoh and wrought plagues
on all the land of Egypt ; we can still perceive the human
features through the nimbus of supernatural glory which
shone on the features of the saint and prophet as he
descended from the mountain, where he had conversed with
God and had received from the divine hands a new code of
law for his people. It is indeed remarkable that, though
Moses stands so much nearer than the patriarchs to the
border line of history, the element of the marvellous and
the miraculous enters much more deeply into his story than
into theirs. While from time to time they are said to have
communed with the deity, either face to face or in visions,
not one of them is represented as a worker of those signs
and wonders which occur so frequently in the career of
Moses. We see them moving as men among men, attend-
ing to the common business and sharing 'the common joys
and sorrows of humanity. Moses, on the other hand, from
the beginning to the end of his life is represented as set
apart for a great mission and moving accordingly on a
higher plane than ordinary mortals, with hardly any traces
of those frailties which are incidental to all men, and which,
touched in by a delicate brush, add so much life-like colour
to the portraits of the patriarchs. That is why the simple
humanity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob touches us all so
much more nearly than the splendid but solitary figure of
Moses.
Like all the events of his life, the birth of Moses is
encircled in tradition with a halo of romance. After the
death of Joseph and his brethren, their descendants, the
children of Israel, are said to have multiplied so fast in
Egypt that the Egyptians viewed them with fear and dis-
trust, and attempted to check their increase by putting
them to hard service. When this harsh treatment failed to
produce the desired effect, the king of Egypt issued orders
that all male Hebrew children should be killed at birth,
and when the cruel command was evaded by the humane
subterfuge of the midwives who were charged to carry it
out, he commanded all his people to fling every Hebrew
man-child at birth into the river. Accordingly, on the birth
of Moses, his mother hid him at first for three months, and
CHAP. I MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES 439
when she could hide him no longer she made an ark of
bulrushes, or rather of papyrus, daubed it with slime and
pitch, and put the child therein. Then she carried the ark
out sadly and laid it in the flags by the river's brink, liut
the child's elder sister stood afar off to know what should
become of her little brother. Now it chanced that the
daughter of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, came down to
bathe at the river, and spying the ark among the flags she
sent one of her maidens to fetch it. When the ark was
brought and opened, the princess saw the child in it, and
behold, the babe wept. So she had compassion on him
and said, " This is one of the Hebrews' children." While
she was looking at him, the child's sister, who had been
watching and had seen all that had happened, came up and
said to the princess, " Shall I go and call thee a nurse of
the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for
thee ? " And Pharaoh's daughter said, " Go." And the
maid went and called the child's mother. And Pharaoh's
daughter said to her, " Take this child away, and nurse it
for me, and I will give thee thy wages." So the mother
took her child and nursed it. And the child grew, and she
brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son.
And she called his name Moses, " Because," she said, " I
drew him out of the water." ^
While this story of the birth and upbringing of Moses is similar
free from all supernatural elements, it nevertheless presents o°[he
features which may reasonably be suspected of belonging to exposure
the realm of folk-lore rather than of history. In order, preserva-
apparently, to enhance the wonder of his hero's career, the ^'o" °^
' ^ ^ remarkable
story-teller loves to relate how the great man or woman was person-
exposed at birth, and was only rescued from imminent death ^ses.
by what might seem to vulgar eyes an accident, but what
really proved to be the finger of Fate interposed to preserve
the helpless babe for the high destiny that awaited him
or her. Such incidents are probably in most cases to be
regarded as embellishments due to the invention of the
narrator, picturesque touches added by him to heighten the
effect of a plain tale which he deemed below the dignity of
his subject.
* Exodus i., ii. i-io. '
440 MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES part iii
Story of the Thus, for example, the legendary Semiramis, queen of
exposure Assvria, IS said to have been a daughter of the Syrian
and preset- •' ' o j
ration of goddess Derceto by a mortal man. When the child was
Semirainis, \^q^^-^ ^-j-^g croddess, ashamed of her slip, exposed the infant in
queen oi > & ' i ' ir
Assyria. a rocky place and left it to perish there of cold and hunger.
But it so happened that a great multitude of doves had their
nests on the spot, and they took pity on the forsaken babe.
Some of them brooded over it and warmed its cold body with
their soft plumage ; others brought milk in their bills from
a neighbouring herd of cows and dropped it into the infant's
tender mouth. In time, as it grew stronger and needed more
solid food, the doves attacked the cheeses in the dairy, and
nibbling off morsels they brought them and so fed the child.
But the herdsmen marked how their cheeses were nibbled by
the doves, and following the birds in their flight they found
the fair infant. So they took her up and brought her home,
and presented her to the master of the king's herds, who,
being childless, adopted her and reared her as his own.
When she had grown to marriageable age and surpassed all
the maidens of the land in beauty, it chanced that one of the
king's officers was sent to inspect the royal herds, and he,
seeing the lovely damsel Semiramis, fell in love with and
married her. Afterwards she displayed so much military
talent that she attracted the notice of Ninus himself, the
"~^ king of Assyria, who, charmed alike by her beauty and her
genius, obliged her husband by threats to take his own life,
and then married the fair widow and made her his consort
on the throne. Her name was supposed to be derived from
a Syrian word for " dove," because doves had nursed her in
infancy, and henceforth the birds were deemed sacred by all
the Syrians.-^
Story of the A somewliat similar story was told of Gilgamesh or
exposure Qilsfamus, as the Greeks called him, the legendary Babylonian
and preser- & ' ^ ^ o j j
vation of hcro, whose deeds and sufferings form the theme of the now
Gilgamesh, f^j^Q^g epj^ named after him. It is said that in the reign
Giigamus, of Scuechoras, king of Babylon, the Chaldeans predicted that
Babylon ^'"'^ king's daughter would bear a son who should deprive
his grandsire of the kingdom. Hence, in order to prevent
her from fulfilling the prophecy, her royal father kept her
' Diodorus Siculus ii. 4.
CHAr. 1 MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES 441
straitly shut up in the citadel. But his precautions were
vain. Love found a way through the bolts and bars, and
the princess was discovered to be with child by a father
unknown. Her guardians, dreading the king's anger at their
lack of vigilance, cast the new-born babe from the parapet of
the castle wall, thinking to dash it to pieces on the rocks
below. But at that moment an eagle, which had been
circling overhead, swooped down, intercepted the falling
infant before it could reach the ground, and bearing it on
its back, deposited it gently in a garden. The gardener
beheld the handsome boy with admiration, took him home,
and reared him as his own. The boy was Gilgamesh, and
he lived to succeed his grandfather on the throne of
Babylon.^
A real historical personage who is said to have been Story of the
exposed in his infancy was Cyrus, the first king of Persia. and°preser-
His mother was Mandace, daughter of Astyages, the king vatioa of
of the Medes. Now it chanced that while Mandace was o/per'sia"^
still a maid her royal father dreamed a dream, in which it
seemed to him that a flood issued from his daughter's body The
and overwhelmed the whole of Asia. Alarmed at the portent, o"i'"ous
. '■ dreams.
he consulted the Magians, whose business it was to interpret
dreams. On their advice he gave his daughter in marriage
to a Persian named Cambyses, a man of good family, but of
a quiet, unambitious turn of mind. From such a union of
his daughter with a man of a subject race (for the Persians
acknowledged the sway of the Medes) the king thought that
no danger could arise to his dynasty. Nevertheless, after
Mandac^ was married to Cambyses, her royal father dreamed
another dream, and behold he saw growing out of his
daughter's body a vine which overshadowed the whole of
Asia. The king again betook him to the interpreters of
dreams, and asked them the meaning of the dream. It
betokened, they said, that his daughter would give birth to a
son who should reign in his stead. So the king kept his The king's
daughter, who was now with child, under watch and ward ; <=o™"^^"'^-
and when her infant, the future Cyrus, was born, the king sent
for his grand vizier, Harpagus by name, and charged him.
to take away the child and destroy it. His minister promised
^ Aelian, De natura aniinalium, xii. 2 1.
442
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES part hi
The
minister's
disobedi-
ence.
The
herdsman's
wife has
compassion
on the
princely
babe and
saves its
life.
The
youthful
prince
reveals
himself.
to obey, and taking up the babe, arrayed in fine clothes and
golden jewellery, he carried it, weeping as he went, to his
house. There he told his wife the secret, but fearing the
future vengeance of the princess if he put her infant to death
with his own hands, he resolved to turn over the office of
executioner to one of the king's own servants. Accordingly
he sent for one of the king's herdsmen, by name Mitradates,
who fed his flocks on high and thickly wooded mountains,
the haunt of wild beasts. Into his hands the grand vizier
committed the royal babe, saying, " The king commands thee
to leave this child to perish in the most solitary part of the
mountains. But if thou shalt save it alive, surely the king
will put thee to a most painful death. And when the child is
exposed, I am ordered to go and see its dead body." So the
herdsman took up the babe in his arms and carried it to his
cottage among the hills. Now so it was that his wife had
been with child, and in his absence she had been delivered,
but the infant was still-born. And when her husband returned
carrying a handsome baby boy, adorned with fine raiment and
jewels of gold, her heart went out to it, and she entreated her
husband to give her the live child, but to take her dead child,
dress it in the clothes and trinkets of the royal infant, and to
expose the little corpse, thus bedecked, in a lonely place
among the mountains. " Thus," said she, " our own child
will receive a royal funeral, and we shall save the life of the
princely infant." The advice seemed good, and her husband
followed it. So when their dead child, wrapt in regal finery,
had lain stark and cold on the mountains for three days, the
herdsman reported to the grand vizier that his commands
had been obeyed, and the vizier sent some of his trustiest
guards, and they brought him word of what they had seen,
and how they had buried the infant. Thus the young prince
Cyrus grew up in the wild mountains as the putative son of
the king's herdsman. But when he was ten years old his
masterful temperament betrayed his royal lineage. For it
happened that one day his playfellows chose him to be their
king, and in that capacity he issued his orders to them. But
one of them, the son of a noble Mede, disobeyed him, so Cyrus
ordered some of the other boys to hold him down, while he
himself administered a sound whipping to the small rebel.
I
CHAP. I MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES 443
On being released, the young nobleman hastened home to the
city, and there complained bitterly to his noble father of the
treatment to which he, a boy of blue blood, had been subjected
by the herdsman's son. His father shared his indignation,
and hurrying to court laid the matter before King Astyages
himself The monarch sent for the herdsman and his reputed
son, and from the lad's likeness to himself, and from the bold
answers he gave to the king's questions, he began to suspect
how the land lay. At first the herdsman attempted to deny The
the lad's real parentage, but the threat of torture extorted pareiuaKe
the truth from his reluctant lips. The murder, or rather the discovered,
failure of the murder, was now out ; and the king had to
decide what to do with his grandson, thus unexpectedly
restored to life. The interpreters of dreams were again sent
for, and, on weighing the whole matter in the balance of
their science, they pronounced that the king's dreams had
been fulfilled by the kingly title which had been bestowed
on his youthful grandson by his pla}'fellows, and by the
kingly power which he had exercised over them ; he had
reigned once, and could not reign a second time, so his grand-
father need not fear to be ousted by him from the throne.
The verdict of the sages apparently chimed in with the old
king's own inclination, for he acquiesced in it and sent the
boy away to live with his true parents, Cambyses and
Mandace, among the Persians. But on the grand vizier The king'?
Harpagus, who had disobeyed him, the king took a cruel "^^^^"s^-
revenge ; for he caused the vizier's only son to be murdered,
and his flesh to be cooked and served up to his unwitting
father at a banquet. When the father learned " what wild
beast's flesh he had partaken of," as the tyrant put it grimly
to him, all that the accomplished courtier said in reply was,
" The king's will be done." ^
Such is the story of the birth and upbringing of Cyrus Another
as it is related by Herodotus. But the father of history thnnfant
appears to have omitted a not unimportant feature of the Cyrus was
legend, which has been preserved by a much later historian, a bitch.
According to Justin, the infant Cyrus was actually exposed
by the herdsman, but afterwards rescued by him at the
entreaty of his wife. When he went to recover the forsaken
' Herodotus i. 107-122.
f
444
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES part in
babe in the forest, he found a bitch in the act of suckh'ng the
infant and protecting it from the attacks of wild beasts and
birds ; and when he took up the child in his arms and carried
it home, the bitch trotted anxiously at his heels. Hence the
herdsman's wife, who nursed the youthful Cyrus, received the
name of Spaco, which in the Persian language meant a bitch.^
As Herodotus also tells us that the woman's name was Spaco,
which in the Median tongue signified a bitch,^ we may infer
with some probability that he knew but disbelieved the story
of the suckling of Cyrus by a bitch, accounting for its origin
in a euhemeristic fashion through the name of the child's
nurse.
Story of the In Greek legend the incident of the hero exposed in
exposure infancy and wonderfully preserved for future greatness occurs
and preser- •' •' i i i i
vation of repeatedly. Thus Acnsms, kmg of Argos, had a daughter
k^n^^of ' Danae, but no son, and when he inquired of the Delphic oracle
Argos. how he should obtain male offspring, he was answered that
his daughter would give birth to a son who should kill him.
To guard against this catastrophe the king caused his daughter
to be shut up in a brazen underground chamber, that no man
might come at her. But Zeus, in the form of a shower of
gold, contrived to make his way through the roof into the
maiden's cell, and she became the mother of Perseus by the
god. In vain did the mother protest her innocence and tell
"^ the true story of the infant's miraculous birth ; her father, a
shallow sceptic, refused to believe in the divine parentage,
and obstinately persisted in asserting, in coarse and vulgar
language, that his daughter was no better than she should
be. The painful altercation ended in the king's peremptorily
ordering the hussy and her brat to be shut up in a chest
and thrown into the sea. The stern command was obeyed.
The chest with its living freight drifted to the island of
Seriphus, where it was caught and drawn ashore by a fisher-
man in his net. On opening the chest and beholding the
mother and her child, he was touched with compassion,
took them to his home, and brought up the boy, who
received the name of Perseus, and, after performing many
■ Tustin i. 4. in Sanscrit and Zend, in Russian under
2 Herodotus i. no. "A root spak the form oi sabac, and in some parts of
or rvak is common for 'dog' in the modern Persia as aspaka." (G. Raw-
Indo-European languages. It occurs linson's note on Herodotus, I.e.)
CHAP. 1 MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES 445
marvellous deeds, fulfilled the oracle by accidentally killing
his grandsire Acrisius with a quoit, and so succeeded to his
kingdom.^
A like tale was told of another Greek hero, Telephus. Sioryofthe
It is said that when Hercules was journeying through Arcadia and°p!^ser-
he lodged with Aleus, king of Tegea, and made an ill return vation of
for the hospitality which he received by debauching the king's king^of"^'
daughter Auge, and she bore him a son. Taxed by her Mysia.
angry father with the loss of her honour, the damsel stoutly
maintained that the father of her child was no other than
Hercules. . As usual, the stern parent refused to believe the
true but wondrous tale, which he treated as a cock and bull
story vamped up by a guilty woman to cloak her sin. So
he ordered his friend Nauplius to put the mother and her
child into a chest and cast them into the sea. But the chest
drifted to the mouth of the Caicus river in Mysia, where it
was found by Teuthras, king of the country, who married
Auge and brought up her son Telephus as his own.' Accord-
ing to another account, when Auge had given birth to her
son, she hid him on Mount Parthenius, that is, the Maiden's
Mount, where a doe found and suckled the forsaken infant.
There, too, the shepherds of King Corythus found him and
brought him to their master, who adopted him and called
him Telephus, because he had been suckled by a doe.
When Telephus grew to manhood he repaired* to Delphi and
inquired of the oracle after his mother. The god directed
him to go to Mysia, where he discovered his mother Auge
wedded to King Teuthras. Having no male offspring, the
king gave Telephus his daughter to wife and appointed him
heir to the throne.^ The suckling of Telephus by the doe
was a favourite subject of ancient artists ; it was represented,
for example, by a statue in the grove of the Muses on Mount
Helicon,* and it was particularly popular at Pergamus in
Mysia, where Telephus was a national hero. Hence the
scene of his nurture by the doe figures on coins of the city,
1 Pherecydes, quoted by the scholiast ^ Diodorus Siculus iv. 33 ; Apollo-
onA'poWom-ai'Rhodms, Argonautica,\\. dorus, Bibliotheca, ii. 7. 4, iii. 9. i;
109 1 ; Apollodonis, Bibliotheca, ii. 4. Pausanias viii. 48. 7, viii. 54. 6 ;
Horace converted the bronze dungeon J. Tzetzes, Scholia 011 Lycophi-on, 206 ;
into a bronze tower {Odes, iii. 16. l). Hyginus, Fab. 99 sq.
2 Strabo xiii. I. 69. * Pausanias ix. 31. 2.
446
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES part hi
and the same theme recurs in the series of reliefs which
adorned the great altar on the acropoh's, though here the
animal which suckled the infant appears to be represented as
Story of the a lioness rather than a doe.^ Aegisthus, the murderer of
and°preser- Agamemnon, is said to have been the fruit of incestuous
intercourse between his mother Pelopia and her father
Thyestes ; when he was born his mother exposed him, but
shepherds found the child and gave him to a she-goat to
suckle."
Another hero of Greek legend who was said to have
vation of
Aegisthus.
Story of the
exposure
and preser
exposure ^ j^ggj-, exposcd in his youth was Oedipus. His father Laius,
vation of
Oedipus,
king of
Thebes.
king of Thebes, had been warned by the Delphic oracle that
his wife Jocasta would bear him a son who would slay his
father. Hence the king avoided consorting with his queen,
until one fatal night, heated with wine, he forgot his caution
and admitted her to his bed. She bore him a son, but
within three days of his birth, to frustrate the decree of fate,
she pierced and fastened the infant's ankles together with
bodkins, and gave him to a shepherd to expose on the
heights of Mount Cithaeron. But unwilling to leave the
royal infant to perish, the herdsman passed him on to
another shepherd, the servant of Polybus, king of Corinth,
who drove his master's flocks every summer to the high
upland pastures among the pinewoods of Cithaeron, to escape
the parching heat and the withered grass of the Corinthian
plains. In his turn the Corinthian shepherd bore the child
to his royal mistress the queen of Corinth, who, having no
son of her own, adopted the foundling and passed him off as
her own offspring, giving him the name of Oedipus, or
" swollen-foot," because of his ankles pierced and swollen by
the bodkins. Thus Oedipus was brought up at a foreign
court as the son of the king of Corinth, and lived to fulfil
the oracle by slaying his true father Laius, king of Thebes,
whom he encountered accidentally driving his chariot in a
narrow pass of the Phocian mountains. Afterwards, by
reading the riddle of the Sphinx, he succeeded to his paternal
kingdom of Thebes, and married the late king's widow, his
^ Otto Jahn, Archdolos^sche Aufsdtze
(Greisswald, 1845), pp. 160 sqg. ;
A. Baumeister, Denhndler des klass-
ischen AlteHums (Munich and Leipsic,
1885-1888), ii. 1270, with fig. 1428.
2 Hyginus, Fab. 87, 88, 252.
CHAP. I MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES 447
own mother Jocasta, thus accomph'shing another prediction of
the Delphic Apollo.^
According to Roman tradition, the founder of Rome story of the
himself was exposed in his infancy and might have perished, ^^^°^"'^^
if it had not been for the providential interposition of a she- vation of
wolf and a woodpecker. The story ran thus. On the slope ^°™o"^'
of the Alban Mountains stood the long white city of Alba Rome.
Longa, and a dynasty of kings named the Sylvii or the
Woods reigned over it, while as yet shepherds fed their
flocks on the hills of Rome, and wolves prowled in the
marshy hollows between them. It so chanced that one of
the kings of Alba, by name Proca, left two sons, Numitor
and AmuHus, of whom Numitor was the elder and was
destined by his father to succeed him on the throne. But
his younger brother, ambitious and unscrupulous, contrived
to oust his elder brother by violence and to reign in his
stead. Not content with that, he plotted to secure his
usurped power by depriving his injured brother of an heir.
For that purpose he caused the only son of Numitor to be
murdered, and he persuaded or compelled his brother's
daughter, Rhea Silvia by name, to dedicate herself to the
worship of Vesta and thereby to take the vow of perpetual
virginity. But the vow was broken. The Vestal virgin was The virgin
found to be with child, and in due time she gave birth "il°'5fJi^"'^
to twin boys. She fathered them on the god Mars, but father,
her hard-hearted uncle refused to admit the plea, and
ordered the two babes to be thrown into the river. It
happened that the Tiber had overflowed its banks, and
the servants who were charged with the task of drowning
the infants, unable to approach the main stream, were
obliged to deposit the ark containing the children in shoal
water at the foot of the Palatine hill. There they aban- The
doned the babes to their fate, and there a she-wolf, attracted e'cposureof
the twins
by their cries, found and suckled them and licked their Romuhis
bodies clean of the slime with which they were covered. ^^
Down to imperial times the bronze statue of a wolf suckling and the
two infants stood on the spot to commemorate the tradition, them'by°^
and the statue is still preserved in the Capitoline Museum a wolf.
1 ApoUodorus, Bibliotheca, iii. 5. 7 sq. ; Sophocles, Oedipus Tyraitnus, 71 1
sqq., 994 ^IQ-^ "23 sqq.
448
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES part hi
Hill.
at Rome. Some said that a woodpecker assisted the wolf
in feeding and guarding the forsaken twins ; and as both
the wolf and the woodpecker were creatures sacred to Mars,
people drew from this circumstance a fresh argument in
favour of the divine parentage of Romulus and Remus. Be
that as it may, the children thus miraculously preserved
were found by one of the king's shepherds, named Faustulus,
who took them home and gave them to his wife Acca
Larentia to rear. As the boys grew up to manhood they
gave proof of their noble birth by their courage and valour ;
for not content with tending the flocks of their putative
father, they hunted the wild beasts in the woods, and attack-
ing the robbers who infested the country they stripped them
of their ill-gotten gains and divided the booty among the
shepherds. In this way they gathered about them a troop
of followers and adherents, but incurred the enmity of the
The hut of freebooters. The very hut in which Romulus dwelt as a
Romulus shepherd among shepherds was shown at Rome down to the
Palatine reign of Augustus ; it stood on the side of the Palatine Hill
facing towards the Circus Maximus ; it was built of wood
and reeds, and the inevitable dilapidations wrought by time
and the weather were carefully repaired in order to preserve
this venerable monument of antiquity for the edification
of a remote posterity. The sight of the lowly hut, over-
shadowed by the marble palaces of the Caesars, was well
fitted to minister to Roman pride by reminding the passers-
by from what humble beginnings Rome had advanced to
the dominion of the world. But the shepherds of King
Amulius on the Palatine Hill had neighbours and rivals in
the shepherds of his brother Numitor, who fed their flocks
on the opposite Aventine Hill. Disputes as to the right of
pasture led to brawls and even to fights between the herds-
men of the two princes. On one occasion, when the herds-
men of King Amulius were celebrating the quaint rites of
the Lupercal, at which they ran naked except for a girdle
made out of the skins of the sacrificed goats, their rivals lay
in wait for them, and succeeded in capturing Remus and
other prisoners, while Romulus cut his way through them
by force of arms and escaped. Some, however, said that
the capture was effected by robbers, who thus avenged them-
ciiAf. I AfOSJiS IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES 449
selves for the losses of booty which they had sustained at
the hands of the two valiant brothers. However that may
have been, the captive Remus was brought before his master
King Amulius and charged with having encroached on the
pastures belonging to Numitor. The king handed over the
accused to his brother Numitor, as the injured party, to be
by him examined and punished. On questioning the sup-
posed culprit, Numitor learned the circumstances of the
exposure and upbringing of the twins, and by comparing
their age with that which his grandchildren would have
reached if they had been suffered to live, and by observing
the handsome figure and princely bearing of the captive, he
began to suspect the truth. Meantime Faustulus, the foster-
father of the twins, had revealed the secret of their noble
birth and parentage to Romulus, and, fired by the prospect
thus opened up to his aspiring temperament, the young
prince collected a band of comrades and hastened to the
rescue of his brother. Arrived at the capital he first repaired The
to the house of his grandfather Numitor, to whom he made oahfTwi^s
himself known, and after a joyful recognition on both sides by their
the two young men led their tumultuary force, swelled by the faiher.
armed retainers of their grandfather, to the king's palace,
and forcing the entrance slew the usurper in his den. After
that they restored the kingdom to the lawful monarch, their
grandfather Numitor, and returning to the scene which was
endeared to them by all the memories of their youth, they
founded the city of Rome on the pastoral hills by the Tiber,
intending to reign over it jointly as its first kings. Some
people sought to eliminate at least one miraculous element
from the legend by explaining away the story of the suckling
of the twins by the she-wolf According to them, the fable
arose through a simple misunderstanding of the name wolf
{liipa), which in the Latin language denoted a strumpet as well
as the animal, and was appropriately applied to Acca Larcntia,
the nurse of the twins, who had been a woman of loose life.'
' Livy i. 3-6; Ovid, Fas/i, ii. 381 the twins. As to the Capiloline statue
.syv/. ; Plutarch, Romulus, 3-9 ; Diony- of the wolf suckling the twins, see W.
sius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Roman. Helbig, Riihrer dunk die offeutlichen
\. 76-85. Plutarch is the only one of Sai/iiii /unseen klassischer Altertiimer in
these writers who mentions the share Rodi'- (Lei]isic, 1899), i. 429 sqq. No.
of the woodpecker in the nurture of 638.
VOL. Tl 2 G
450
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES
Story of the
exposure
and preser-
vation of
Sargon ,
king of
Babylonia.
Thus in the case of the first king of Rome, as in that of the
first king of Persia, ancient rationalism attempted to reduce
myth to history by the simple expedient of converting the
name of an animal into the name of a woman who nursed
the hero in his infancy. The founder of the Turkish nation
is similarly said to have been exposed in his childhood "and
saved and nourished by a she-wolf, which he afterwards
married.^
Such marvellous tales appear to have been told particu-
larly of the founders of dynasties or of kingdoms, whose
parentage and upbringing were forgotten, the blank thus
left by memory being supplied by the fancy of the story-
teller. Oriental history furnishes \'et another instance of a
similar glamour thrown over the dark beginning of a power-
ful empire. The first Semitic, king to reign over Babylonia
was Sargon the Elder, who lived about 2600 B.C. A
redoubtable conqueror and an active builder, he made a
great name for himself, yet apparently he did not know the
name of his own father. At least we gather as much from
an inscription which is said to have been carved on one of
his statues ; a copy of the inscription was made in the
eighth century before our era and deposited in the royal
library at Nineveh, where it was discovered in modern times.
In this document the king sets forth his own early history
as follows : —
" Sargon, the mighty king, the king of Agade, am /,
Afy mother was lowly, my father I knew not,
And the brother of my father dwells in the moiintaifi.
My city is Azuripanu, which lies ofi the bank of the Euphrates.
My lowly mother conceived me, in secret she brought me forth.
She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitu7nen she closed my door :
She cast me i?tto the river, which rose not over me.
The river bore me up, unto Akki, the irrigator, it carried me.
Akki, the irrigator, with . . . lifted me out,
Akki, the irrigator, as his own son . . . reared me,
Akki, the irrigator, as his gardener appoi7ited me.
While I was a gardener, the goddess Ishtar loved me,
And for . . . four years I ruled the ki7igdom.
The black-headed peoples / ruled, I governed." ^
1 Stanislas Julian, Documents his-
toriques surles Tou-kioue {Turcs), tra-
duits dti chinois (Paris, 1877), pp. isq.,
25 sq.
- R. W. Rogers, Cuneifor?n Parallels
to the Old Testament (Oxford Uni-
versity Press, N.D.), pp. 135 sq. Com-
pare R. F, Harjjer, Assyrian and
CHAP. I MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES 451
This story of the exposure of the infant Sargon in a
basket of rushes on the river closely resembles the story of
the exposure of the infant Moses among the flags of the
Nile/ and as it is to all appearance very much older than
the Hebrew tradition, the authors of Exodus may perhaps
have been acquainted with it and may have modelled their
narrative of the episode on the Babylonian original. But it
is equally possible that the Babylonian and the Hebrew
tales are independent offshoots from the common root of
popular imagination. In the absence of evidence pointing
conclusively in the one direction or the other, dogmatism on
the question would be out of place.
The theory of the independent origin of the Babylonian Story in the
and Hebrew stories is to some extent confirmed by the \harata
occurrence of a parallel legend in the great Indian epic the of the
Maliabharata, since it is hardly likely that the authors of and preser-
that work had any acquaintance with Semitic traditions, nation of
Prince
The poet relates how the king's daughter Kunti or Pritha Kama.
was beloved by the Sun-god and bore him a son " beautiful
as a celestial," " clad in armour, adorned with brilliant golden
ear-rings, endued with leonine eyes and bovine shoulders."
But ashamed of her frailty, and dreading the anger of her
royal father and mother, the princess, " in consultation with
her nurse, placed her child in a waterproof basket, covered
all over with sheets, made of wicker-work, smooth, comfortable
and furnished with a beautiful pillow. And with tearful
eyes she consigned it to (the waters of) the river Asva."
Having done so, she returned to the palace, heavy at heart,
lest her angry sire should learn her secret. But the basket
containing the babe floated down the river till it came to
the Ganges and was washed ashore at the city of Champa
in the Suta territory. There it chanced that a man of the
Suta tribe and his wife, walking on the bank of the river,
Babylonian Lite7-ature (New York, ' The story of the exposure of Moses
1901), p. i; Alfred Jeremias, Das has been compared to certain stories told
Alte Testament im Lichte des -Alien by the Tonga-speaking tribes of North-
Orients^ (Leipsic, 1906), pp. 410 sq. ; Western Rhodesia, but the resemblance
H. Gressuiann, Altorientalische Texte seems too slight to warrant any inference
tmd Bilder (Tubingen, 1909), i. 79; from it. See J. Torrend, S.J., " Like-
(Sir) G. Maspero, Histoire Ancicnne nesses of Moses' Story in the Central
des Peuples de POrient Classique, Les Africa Folk-lore," y3?w/'/^r(9/(?j, v, (1910)
Oiigiites (Paris, 1895), PP- 59^ ^^1- PP- 54-70-
45^
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES takt hi
Story of the
exposure
and preser-
vation of
Trakhan,
king of
Gilgit.
saw the basket, drew it from the water, and on opening it
beheld a baby boy "(beautiful) as the morning sun, clad in
a golden armour, and with a beautiful face adorned with
brilliant ear-rings." Now the pair were childless, and when
the man looked upon the fair infant, he said to his wife,
" Surely, considering that I have no son, the gods have sent
this child to me." So they adopted him, and brought him
up, and he became a mighty archer, and his name was
Kama. But his royal mother had news of him through
her spies.^
A similar story is told of the exposure and upbringing
of Trakhan, king of Gilgit, a town situated at a height of
about five thousand feet above the sea in the very heart of
the snowy Himalayas. Enjoying a fine climate, a central
position, and a considerable stretch of fertile land, Gilgit
seems to have been from ancient times the seat of a suc-
cession of rulers, who bore more or less undisputed sway
over the neighbouring valleys and states. Among them
Trakhan, who reigned about the beginning of the thirteenth
century, was particularly famous." He is said to have been
the strongest and the proudest king of Gilgit, and tradition
still busies itself with his fortunes and doings. The story of
his birth and exposure runs thus. His father Tra-Trakhan,
king of Gilgit, had married a woman of a wealthy family at
X)arel. Being passionately devoted to polo, the king was
in the habit of going over to Darel every week to play his
favourite game with the. seven brothers of his wife. One
day, so keen were they all on the sport, they agreed to play
on condition that the winner should put the losers to death.
The contest was long and skilful, but at last the king won
the match, and agreeably to the compact he, like a true
sportsman, put his seven brothers-in-law to death. When he
came home, no doubt in high spirits, and told the queen the
result of the match, with its painful but necessary sequel, she
was so far from sharing in his glee that she actually resented
1 The Mahabharata, translated liter-
ally from the original Sanskrit text,
edited by Manrnatha Nath Dutt, iii.
Vaua /k;-z'a (Calcutta, 1896), pp. 436-
440. The Indian and Babylonian
parallels have already been indicated
by the late learned scholar T. K.
Cheyne ( Traditions and Beliefs of
Ancient Israel, London, 1907, pp.
-' Major J. Biddulph, Tribes of the
Hindoo Koosh (Calcutta, 18S0), pp.
19-21.
cHAi'. I MOSES IN THE ARK OE BULRUSHES 453
the nniider, or rather the execution, of her seven brothers
and resolved to avenge it. So she put arsenic in the king's
food, which soon laid him out, and the queen reigned in his
stead. Now so it was that, at the time when she took this
strong step, she was with child by the king, and about a
month afterwaitls she gave birth to a son and called his
name Trakhan. But so deeply did she mourn the death of
her brothers, that she could not bear to look on the child of
their murderer ; hence she locked the infant in a wooden box
and secretly threw it into the river. The current swept the
box down the river as far as Hodar, a village in the Chilas
District. Now it chanced that, as it floated by, two poor
brothers were gathering sticks on the bank ; and, thinking
that the chest might contain treasure, one of them plunged
into the water and drew it ashore. In order not to excite
the covetousness of others by a display of the expected
treasure, they hid the chest in a bundle of faggots and
carried it home. There they opened it, and what was their
surprise to discover in it a lovely babe still alive. Their
mother brought up the little foundling with every care ; and
it seemed as if the infant brought a blessing to the house,
for whereas they had been poor before, they now grew richer
and richer, and set down their prosperity to the windfall of
the child in the chest. When the boy was twelve years old,
he conceived a great longing to go to Gilgit, of which he
had heard much. So he went with his two foster-brothers,
but on the way they stayed for a {&\v days at a place called
Baldas on the top of a hill. Now his mother was still queen
of Gilgit, but she had fallen very ill, and as there was none
to succeed her in Gilgit the people were searching for a king
to come from elsewhere and reign over them. One morning,
while things were in this state and all minds were in suspense,
it chanced that the village cocks crew, but instead of saying
as usual " Cock-a-doodle-do " they said " Beldas thani bayi"
which being interpreted means, " There is a king at Baldas."
So men were at once sent to bring down any stranger they
might find there. The messengers found the three brothers
and brought them before the queen. As Trakhan was
handsome and stately, the queen addressed herself to him,
and in course of conversation elicited from him his story.
454
MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES part in
Stories
of the
exposure of
infants on
water may
contain a
reminis-
cence of
a water
ordeal to
test their
legitimacy.
To her surprise and joy she learned that this goodly boy was
her own lost son, whom on a rash impulse of grief and
resentment she had cast into the river. So she embraced
him and proclaimed him the rightful heir to the kingdom
of Gilgit.^
It has been conjectured that in storifes like that of
the exposure of the infant Moses on the water we have
a reminiscence of an old custom of testing the legitimacy of
children by throwing them into the water and leaving them
to swim or sink, the infants which swam being accepted as
legitimate and those which sank being rejected as bastards.^
In the light of this conjecture it may be significant
that in several of these stories the birth of the child is
represented as supernatural, which in this connexion cynics
are apt to regard as a delicate synonym for illegitimate.
Thus in Greek legend the child Perseus and the child Telephus
were fathered upon the god Zeus and the hero Hercules
respectively; in Roman legend the twins Romulus and Remus
were gotten on their virgin mother by the god Mars ; and in
the Indian epic the princess ascribed the birth of her infant to
the embrace of the Sun-god. In the Babylonian story, on the
other hand, King Sargon, less fortunate or more honest than
his Greek, Roman, and Indian compeers, frankly confessed
that his father was unknown. The Biblical narrative of the
birth of Moses drops no hint that his legitimacy was doubt-
ful ; but when we remember that his father Amram married
his paternal aunt, that Moses was the offspring of the
marriage,^ and that later Jewish law condemned all such
marriages as incestuous,* we may perhaps, without being
uncharitable, suspect that in the original form of the story
the mother of Moses had a more particular reason for
exposing her babe on the water than a general command
of Pharaoh to cast all male children of the Hebrews into the
river.^ Be that as it may, it appears that the water ordeal
has been resorted to by peoples far apart for the purpose of
SociHi d' Anthropologie de .Paris, VI.
Serie, iii. (1912) pp. 80-88,
^ Exodus vi. 20 ; compare Numbers
xxvi. 59.
* Leviticus xviii. 12,
^ Ghulam Muhammad, " Festivals
and Folklore of Gilgit," Memoirs of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i.
No. 7 (Calcutta, 1905), pp. 124 sq.
2 R. Cirilli, " Le Jugement du Rhin
et la legitimation des enfants par
ordalie," Btdletins et M^moires de la
Exodus i. 22.
CHAP. 1 MOSES IN THE ARK OF BULRUSHES 455
deciding; whether an infant is legitimate or not, and therefore Water
HI
whether it is to be saved or destroyed. Thus the Celts are unda-gone
said to have submitted the question of the legitimacy of their by infants
offspring- to the judgment of the Rhine ; they threw the ceUs and^
infants into the water, and if the babes were bastards the ^^'^
1 • 1 11 1 •/- 1 Banyoro.
pure and stern river drowned them, but it they were true-
born, it graciously bore them up on its surface and wafted
them gently ashore to the arms of their trembling mothers.^
Similarly in Central Africa the explorer Speke was told
" about Ururi, a province of Unyoro, under the jurisdiction
of Kim^ziri, a noted governor, who covers his children with
bead ornaments, and throws them into the N'yanza, to prove
their identity as his own true offspring ; for should they
sink, it stands to reason some other person must be their
father ; but should they float, then he recovers them." ^
1 Julian, Oral. ii. and Epist. xvi. Eustathius, Cotmnentaiy on Diottysius,
pp. 104 sq., 495, ed. F. C. Hertlein v. 294 (in Geographi Craeci Minores,
(Leipsic, 1875-1876) ; Libanius, Orat. ed. C. Miiller, Paris, 1882, vol. ii.
xii. 48, vol. ii. p. 26, ed. R. Foerster pp. 267 5^.).
(Leipsic, 1905) ; Nonnus, Dionys. ^ John Manning Speke, Journal of
xxiii. 94-96, xlvi. 57-60, pp. 196, the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
382, ed. le Comte de Marcellus (Paris, (London, 19 12), ch. xix. p. 444 [Ezery-
1856) ; Claudian, In Rufinuiii, ii. 112; mati's Library).
CHAPTER II
THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA
The Finding the children of Israel useful in the capacity of
passage boudsmen, Pharaoh longr refused to let them depart ; but at
of the . , , ,
Israelites last Iiis resolution was broken by a series of plagues and
p''°"|^''^^ calamities which Moses, the great champion of Israel, called
down with the divine assistance on the land and people of
Egypt. So, turning their backs gladly on the country where
they had endured oppression for so many years, the Israelites
marched eastwards towards the Red Sea. But hardly were
they gone when Pharaoh repented of having let them go,
and pursued after them with a mighty host of chariots and
horsemen to drag them back to the bondage from which
they had just escaped. He came up with the long train of
fugitives on the shore of the Red Sea. The Israelites were
in a perilous situation. Behind them was the enemy and
in front was the sea. Which way were they to turn ? A
contest between the helpless and unarmed multitude on the
one side and the disciplined army on the other could only
end in a massacre, and to plunge into the waves appeared
to be certain death. However, Moses did not hesitate. At
the bidding of God he stretched out his hand over the sea,
and the waters parted, leaving a broad highway in their
midst, on which the children of Israel marched dryshod to
the farther shore, the billows standing as it were petrified
into walls of translucent blue crystal on the right hand and
on the left. The Egyptians followed them along the lane
of yellow sand ; but when the Israelites had reached the
other bank, and their enemies were yet in the midst of the
waters, Moses stretched out his hand once more over the
456
CUM'. II THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA 457
sea, and at once the blue walls biokc into sheets of curling
foam, which rushing together with a thunderous roar over-
whelmed the Egyptians beneath the waves ; men and horses
and chariots all sank like stones into the depths, not one of
them escaped. Thus did the Lord deliver the Israelites and
smite their enemies.^
In this narrative critics have long laboured to sift the The
miraculous from tlie historical element, for that a kernel of "^^^[^^^
fact underlies the husk of fiction it would be rash to deny. Israelites
,„. . . , ,11 /- .1 T 1-^ through the
There is the less reason to doubt the passage of the Israelites j^g^ ,^^^
through an arm of the Red Sea because there are well- compared
/• • -1 1 ■ u 1 i. with the
authenticated instances of similar passages over which later passage of
generations have thrown a similar veil of mystery and Aiexan^ier
1111. ^^^ Great
romance. After narrating the march of his people through and his
the Red Sea, which according to him. opened a way for ^^J^^j^jj^^
them miraculously on being struck by the rod of Moses, the Pamphy-
Jewish historian Josephus compared an incident in the ^'^'^'^'^'■^■
history of Alexander the Great. When it was God's will,
he tells us, that the Persian Empire should fall before the
invader, the Pamphylian Sea drew back and allowed Alex-
ander and his host to march through its bed." Nor was the
Jewish historian singular in his opinion of the miraculous
interposition of the divinity in favour of the Macedonian
conqueror. Many Greek historians shared his view, and the
Greek comic poet Menander alluded to the .passage of
Alexander through the sea in terms which a Jew might
have applied to the passage of Israel through the Red Sea.^
It is true that Arrian, the historian of Alexander the Great,
so far diminishes the marvel as to explain the di-}ing up of
the sea by a sudden change of wind from south to north,
but this change of wind itself he attributes to an act of
Providence.^ Now if we had only these vague reports of
Alexander's exploit to go upon, they might have been dis-
1 Exodus xiii. 17-xv. 21. The Israelites to cross the dry bed in safety
narrative is believed by the critics to be (chapter xiv. 21).
a compound of elements drawn from - Josephus, Aiitiquit. Jitd. ii. 16. 5.
the Jehovistic, Eiohistic, and Priestly ^ Plutarch, Alexander, 17. Corn-
documents, as to which see above, vol. pare Appian, Civil Wars, ii. 149,
i. pp. 17,1 sqq. The Jehovistic writer where the passage of Alexander through
attempts to rationalize the miracle by the sea is spoken of as if it w ere mir-
the help of a strong east wind which aculous (oUrpfxe Sat/xopiuis).
drove the sea back and allowed the * Arrian, Anabasis, i. 26. I.
458 THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA part iii
missed by a sceptical historian as purely fabulous. Never-
theless we know from more sober and precise narratives
that, stripped of the supernatural halo with which the lovers
of the marvellous invested it, the feat was really performed.
What happened was this. On his expedition against Darius
and his host, Alexander had arrived with his army at Phaselis
in Lycia. Here he had the choice of two routes by which
to pursue his march eastward. Immediately to the north of
the city the mountains, a branch of the great Taurus range,
descended steeply to the sea, leaving at their foot a narrow
strip of beach which, in calm weather or with a north wind
blowing, was bare and passable by travellers, but which,
with a south wind driving the waves on the shore, was deep
under water. This was the direct road to Pamphylia.
Another road lay through the mountains, but it was long,
circuitous, and so steep that it went by the name of the
Ladder. Alexander resolved to divide his forces, and send-
ing a portion of them by the long road over the mountains
he proceeded himself with a detachment by the shore road.
The decision was a bold one, for it chanced that the weather
was stormy, and the waves, sweeping over the narrow beach,
broke in foam against the foot of the cliffs. All day long
the soldiers waded through the water up to their waists, but
at evening they emerged, dripping and weary, on dry land
at the farther end of the pass.^ Such was the exploit which
rumour exaggerated into a passage like that of Moses and
the Israelites through the Red Sea. In his own letters the
conqueror mentioned his march along the beach without,
apparently, making any allusion to the dangers and difficulties
by which it had been beset ; '" and a late historian affirms
that the wind, providentially veering from south to north,
rendered the march along the beach easy and rapid.^ Yet
it is difficult to suppose that in Alexander's adventurous
career this particular feat should have attained so high a
degree of renown if it had not been attended by an unusual
measure of hardship and peril. We may acquiesce then in
the romantic, yet probably true, tale of the hero and his
1 Strabo xiv. 3. 9, pp. 666 sq., ^ Arrian, Afiabasis, i. 26, €k vStcov
ed. Casaubon ; Arrian, Aiial'asis, i. 26. <TK\ripQv ^opeiai itriirvevaavTis, ovk dvev
Tov Oeiov, . . . eufxaprj Kal Taj^etoi' ttjv
2 Plutarch, Alexander, 17. ndpodov trapiax^^-
CHAP. II THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA 459
soldiers wading waist-deep all day through the water, with
an angry sea on the one side and the frowning cliffs above
them on the other.
With this daring deed of the Macedonian king may be Passage of
compared an exploit of the Romans in the second Cartha- ^^°'"^"
ginian war. The centre of the Carthaginian power in Spain party
was the city of New Carthage, situated on a nearly land- [heT^at
locked bay and naturally defended by the sea on two sides the siege
and by a lagoon on the third. On his arrival in Spain as carthage.
commander-in-chief of the Roman armies, Scipio the Elder
resolved to take the enemy's capital by storm, but before
delivering the assault he carefully reconnoitred the situation
of the city. The lagoon, which protected it on the west, was
connected with the sea by an artificial channel, through which
the tide flowed and ebbed daily. From fishermen the Roman
general learned that the lagoon was fordable at ebb-tide, being
no deeper than a man's waist in some places and his knees
in others. Having ascertained this, he laid his plans accord- Scipio's
ingly, and in a speech to the army publicly announced that ^^°TT ^\
the sea-god Neptune had appeared to him in a dream and the sea-god
promised to lend him such assistance in the attack as should j^i^the"^
be manifest to the whole army. The announcement, accom- attack.
panied by a seasonable offer of golden crowns to those who
should be the first to mount the walls, was received by the
army with enthusiasm. Next morning, therefore, the storm-
ing parties, preceded by men with ladders, advanced with
great spirit against the walls, the trumpets sounding the
charge. The ladders were planted, the Romans swarmed
up them, and engaged in hand-to-hand conflict with the
defenders on the battlements. But though the assault was
pressed with great gallantry, it failed. The ladders were
overturned and the assailants overwhelmed under showers of
beams and missiles of all kinds hurled on them from the top
of the wall. So the Roman trumpets sounded the retire,
and the survivors fell sullenly back. By this time the day
was wearing on to noon, the hour when, as Scipio had
learned from the fishermen, the tide would begin to ebb in
the lagoon. In anticipation of the moment he stationed
five hundred men with ladders on the edge of the lagoon,
and ordered fresh troops, provided with more ladders than
46o THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA part hi
before, to renew the attack on the land side. Again, the
trumpets sounded the charge, again the Romans advanced,
planted the ladders, and swarmed up them. And now, while
the whole attention of the besieged was engaged in repelling
this fresh assault, the tide in the lagoon began to ebb, and,
reinforced by a strong north wind, was soon running like a
mill-race through the channel out to sea. Scipio gave the
word : the five hundred men, preceded by the guides, plunged
boldly into the flood, and struggled, splashing and flounder-
ing, through the water to the farther shore. The rest of the
army watched their advance with enthusiasm, remembering
the promise of Neptune to their general, and believing that
the sea-god himself was opening a passage through the deep
for the Roman arms and leading the storming -party in
person. Fired with this belief they locked their shields
together and rushed at the gates to hew them .down with
axes and cleavers. Meantime the five hundred had made
their way through the lagoon to dry land, planted their
ladders, and climbed the walls, which they found deserted,
all the defenders being engaged, in repelling the attack
elsewhere. So, advancing unresisted through the streets,
they opened the gates to their comrades, who were battering
them from without. Thus the assailants obtained possession
of the city, and the resistance of the defenders soon turned
into a massacre.^
Belief of This accouut of the Roman capture of New Carthage is
the Roman jj^g^JQiy derived from Polybius, a careful and accurate historian,
soldiers in -^ ■' ^
the divine who, as a friend of Scipio the Younger, had the best means
interposi- ^ ascertaining the truth. From it we gather that the Roman
tion of'the •^ •=•
sea-god. soldicrs, who saw their comrades wading through the lagoon,
verily believed that the sea-god was indeed opening a way
for them through the water, and if any sceptic had ventured
to doubt the divine interposition in the matter, they would
probably have answered that they preferred to trust the
evidence of their own eyes. Indeed, we may suspect that
I Polybius X. 9-15 ; Livy xxvi. 42- qui ad transitum Rotnanis mare ver-
46; Appian, Ilhpatt. 19-22. As lor lerent et stagna auferirjtt viasque ante
the assistance supposed to be given by nunquam itiitas huviano vestigio aperi-
Neptune, see in p.irticular Livy xxvi. ixtit, Neptimiim jtibebat dttcerii itineris
45, " Hoc cura ac ratione compertiiin sequi ac medio ' stagno eVadere ad
in prodigium ac deos verlens Scipio, vioenia."
CHAP. 11 THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA 4^.1
Scipio himself was secretly more than half convinced of the Scipio's
help which he publicly professed to have received from the I^^''fj°"g^n,
deity, and that as years went on this conviction was deepened
by the unbroken success which attended his undertakings.
Through his eminently practical nature, as through that of
many men of action who have been great and fortunate,
there ran a vein of mysticism, and in later life he would
sometimes retire into the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol,
and shutting the door remain closeted for some time in
solitary communion with the supreme god of his people.
He appears to have succeeded in irnpressing on his country-
men a belief in his supernatural mission, for long after his
death his statue enjoyed the supreme distinction of being
preserved in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, from which it
was brought forth on high days and holidays to be carried
through the streets in procession, while the statues of humbler
mortals, who had deserved well of their country, fell into their
place in the procession from the Forum below, where they
ordinarily stood overlooking the bustle of business in the
market and the law-courts.^ Such a union of soldiership
and statesmanship with religious exaltation is eminently
fitted to attract the reverence of the multitude ; it was one
of the secrets of the Elder Scipio's power, and we can hardly
doubt that it contributed largely to the belief of the Israelites
in the divine legation of Moses.
The Wafipas, an African tribe on the shores of Lake African
Tanganyika, relate a story of one of their kings which bears n^iracuious
some resemblance to the story of the passage of Israel through passages
the Red Sea. Being threatened with death by his enemies aiakfora
the Watwakis and by some of his own tribe, who were hostile '"'ver.
to him, the king fled before them, but his flight was arrested
by the waters of the great lake. Then he sacrificed a sheep,
dipped his staff in the blood of the victim, and struck the
surface of the water with the blood-stained staff. The lake
immediately opened a passage for him, and through it he
escaped from his pursuers." The Bayas of the French Congo,
on the borders of the Cameroons, have a similar tradition.
They say that in the old days tliey were unacquainted with
1 Appian, Hispan. 23.
2 Mgr. Lechaptois, Aux rives dii Tanqaiiika (Algiers, 1913), p. 54.
462 THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE RED SEA part hi
the art of working iron, and sent to another tribe at a distance
to learn the secret. Their messengers had to cross the river
Kadei, and attempted to do so in a bark canoe, but the frail
vessel capsized. So they had recourse to magic ; the river,
mastered by their spells, divided in two, of which one part
flowed back to its source, so that the messengers were able
to traverse its bed without wetting their feet.^
1 A. Poupon, " Etude ethnogra- du M'bimoui," U Anthropologic, xxvi.
pliicjue des Baya de la circonscription (1915) p- 122.
CHAPTER III
THE WATERS OF MERIBAH
After their triumphant passage over the Red Sea, the HowMoses
children of Israel wandered in the desert, and finding no ^.a°e"from
water to drink they murmured against Moses, saying, a rock by
"Wherefore hast thou brought us up out of Egypt, to kill wTth'hfs''
us and our children and our cattle with thirst ? " And ■^'•'^ff-
Moses cried to the Lord, saying, " What shall I do unto
this people ? They be almost ready to stone me." And
the Lord said unto Moses, " Pass on before the people, and
take with thee of the elders of Israel ; and thy rod, where-
with thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go.
Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in
Horeb ; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come
water out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses
did so. He lifted up his hand, and smote the rock with his
rod twice ; and water came forth abundantly, and the people
drank, and their cattle also. And the springs which gushed
from the rock at the stroke of Moses' rod were called the
Waters of Meribah, that is, the Waters of Strife, because the
people had striven with Moses.^
With this story of the magical production of water from How an
the rock we may compare a legend told by the Bare'e- herein
speaking Toradjas of Central Celebes. They say that an Celebes
ancient hero named Dori, the son of the first man Lasaeo, waterfrom
came on his travels with two slaves to a certain place, where a rock by
he lodged for the night in a house. Now Dori was meanly with hts
clad, but his slaves wore fine clothes. So the people of the ^p*^^*"-
house took the slaves for noblemen, and their master they
^ Exodus xvii. 1-7 ; Numbers xx. 1-13.
463
464 THE WATERS OF MERIBAH part iii
took for a slave. Therefore they gave Dori no water to
wash his hands with, and no palm-wine to drink. There-
upon Dori went out and struck the rock with the butt end
of his spear, making a hole in the rock, from which water
gushed out. When Dori had washed his hands with the
water, he struck another rock with his spear, and from the
hole so made palm-wine flowed forth. Having drunk the
wine, the hero closed up the hole ; but the hole from which
the water flowed may be seen to this day. After that the
people perceived that Dori was a great man.^
1 N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De Baie^ e-sprekende Toradja's van Midden-
Ceitbcs (Balavia, 1912-1914), 1. 25.
CHAPTER IV
GIDEON'S MEN
Long after the children of Israel had settled in Palestine, The angels
they continued to be little more than an aggregate of inde- Qj^^^nTo
pendent tribes, whose lack of cohesion and central govern- deliver
ment* exposed them to the encroachments and invasions of ^^'^^ ^^^^
their warlike neighbours. Among the nomads who harried Midianites.
them were the Midianites, a numerous tribe of robbers who,
mounted on camels, emerged in swarms from the desert and
scoured the country in all directions, sweeping it as bare of
food for man and beast as if it had been traversed by an
army of locusts. The miserable inhabitants fled before the
raiders to the caves and dens of the mountains.^ But when
they prayed to the Lord, he sent his angel to Gideon, the
son of Joash, who was threshing a little wheat with a stick
in a winepress to hide it from any prowling Midianites, who
might swoop down on him and rob him of his store. For
the winepress, being a square or oblong vat excavated in the
rock, afforded some concealment, whereas the high windy
threshing-floor, where in ordinary times the wheat was trodden
out by oxen, would have exposed him to the gaze of
passers-by even at a considerable distance. Beside the
winepress grew an oak, and under its shadow the angel
sat down, glad perhaps to rest in the heat of the day and
watch the thresher at his toil for a little time in silence.
Then he called to Gideon and entered into conversation
with him. And when Gideop complained to the courteous
stranger, as he deemed him, of the evil plight to which the
' Judges vi. 1-6.
VOL. II 465 2 II
466 GIDEON'S MEN part hi
whole country was reduced by the ravages of the Midianites,
the angel revealed himself in his true character and com-
manded Gideon to deliver his people Israel out of the hand
of the oppressor.^
How The hero obeyed the divine call, and having mustered
nuist°red ^^^ tribes of Isracl he led them to the valley of Jezreel,
the tribes where the host of the Midianites and their Bedouin allies
an/chose ^^^^ encamped. All along the valley their tents lay and
three their camels were tethered, as multitudinous as locusts
men from or the sand on the sea-shore for number." But the
the host to Lord feared that if the whole army of Israel attacked
fight the r l^ /r • 1 • l •
Midianites, the wholc army of Midian and won the victory, the people
seiectnig rnight be puffed up with carnal pride, and forgetting the
them on sr. r i i > t> fc>
the ground Lord, to wliom alone they could owe the success of their
that they ^rms, might say, "Our own hand hath saved us." To pre-
drank by ' ^ -^ ' >^
scooping vent this deplorable illusion, the deity commanded Gideon
theiV^hn'nds ^° dismiss to their homes all the fearful and craven-hearted
instead of, and to keep by him only the valiant and brave. Two-and-
lilvG the
rest, by twenty thousand recreants gladly availed themselves of the
applying leave of absence so unexpectedly granted them, and there
mouths to remained facing the enemy just ten thousand stalwarts,
the stream, Y.wQ.n that number, however, appeared too large to the
Lord, as he foresaw that in case of a victory these gallant
-.^ men would be apt to claim the credit of it for them-
selves instead of ascribing it to him. This was not
to be thought of, and he therefore, took steps to thin
the ranks to such a point that nothing but a direct inter-
position of Providence could reasonably account for the
triumph of battalions so depleted. The measure by which
the reduction was effected was a singular one. The whole
force was marched down to the river, and the word was
given to drink water. Immediately a marked distinction
was observed in the manner in which the command was
executed. The great majority of the men, or to be exact,
nine thousand and seven hundred of them, knelt down, and
applying their mouths to the water drank it in by suction.
The remainder, on the other hand, scooped the water up in
their hands, and holding it to their mouths lapped it up with
their tongues as dogs lap water. The three hundred were
' Judges vi. 11-24. '' Judges vi. 33-vii. I-I2.
hand.
cHAi>. IV GIDEON'S MEN 467
the men chosen to defeat the Midianites ; the remaining
nine thousand and seven hundred were sent back to their
tents, there to witness from a distance the discomfiture of
the enemy in which they were not to share.'
We may conjecture that the test which Gideon thus similar
employed to sift out his fighting men from the non-com- •n^[h'^''^'°"
batants was based on some well-known distinction in the manner of
manner of drinking adopted by different tribes or by the J^t'er'"^
same people in different circumstances. It may there- recorded
fore be helpful to note corresponding differences in the African
modes of drinking observed by savage tribes. Speaking of tribes :
y~^ . TTT 1 , •! rT-i--ii— \ r • custom of
the Ogieg or vVandorobo, a tribe of British East Africa, throwing
Captain C. H. Sti^and observes that they " drink from a ^ater into
^ 1 1 1 1 'h^ mouth
Stream on all fours, putting their mouths down to the water, with the
Practically every other tribe drink, when no vessel is avail
able, with the hand. They either take up water with one
hand or both, or throw up water with the right hand and
catch it in the mouth. The latter is the way most caravan
porters drink." ^ Among the Bambalas of the Congo valley
" water is the commonest drink, and in the village cups are
used for drinking purposes ; but on a march the water is
thrown into the mouth with the hand ; they lie down on their
stomachs and, bending the fingers, scoop up the water without
spilling a drop, though the hand never touches the mouth in
the process." ^ When the Namaquas, a Hottentot tribe
of South-West Africa, are out hunting, they always drink
by throwing water into their mouths with their fingers, and
they trace the custom to the Hottentot Adam or first man,
who one day, hunting a lion, saw the animal lying in wait
for him under a large mimosa tree beside a pool of water.
^ Tudges vii. 2-22. Commentators move the words " putting their hand
have been a good deal exercised by to their mouth " (c.^"^-'7X era) from the
the attitudes respectively assumed in beginning to the end of verse 6, thus
drinking by the chosen and the rejected making it apply to the men who knelt
champions of Israel. The interpreta- down to drink. But the change is
tion given in the text is the only one negatived by the text both of the
consistent with the Hebrew and Greek Septuagint and of Josephus.
text as it stands in the manuscripts, and 2 Captain C. II. Stigand, The Land
as it is confirmed by Josephus (^«//^/<//. of ZiiiJ, being an Account of British
fud. v. 6. 3), who clearly read it in the East Africa (London, 191 3), pp. 274
same way. Some critics (G. F. Moore sq.
in his commentary and R. Kittel in his 3 £_ Torday, Camp and Tratnp in
edition of the Hebrew text) would re- African Wilds (London, 1913), p. 85.
468
GIDEON'S MEN
The custom
of throwing
water into
the mouth
with the
hand
observed in
Cambodia,
Samoa,
and New
Caledonia.
Custom of
throwing
water into
the mouth
with the
hand in
the New
Hebrides.
The first man's dogs, on coming to the spot, lay down,
lapped up the water, then shook themselves and frisked
about. But the first man, more cautious, knelt down, hold-
ing his spear in his left hand, and drank the water by
throwing it into his mouth with two fingers, while all the
time he kept a sharp eye on the lion. When man and
dogs had thus refreshed themselves, they attacked the lion
and soon made an end of him. Since that time the
Namaquas have always drunk water in the same way when
they are out hunting.^
Again, a native of Cambodia, travelling through the
forest, " ought not to drink by putting his mouth to the
water, if he wishes not to be despised by tigers and other
fierce animals. Let him drink by throwing water into his
mouth with his hand, for then the denizens of the woods will
respect him." ^ So, too, " a thirsty Samoan, in coming to
a stream of water, stoops down, rests the palm of his left
hand on his knee, and, with the right hand, throws the
water up so quickly as to form a continued jet from
the stream to his mouth, and there he laps until he is
satisfied." ^ Similarly, the New Caledonians stoop till their
head is a few inches above the water, and then throw
the liquid into their mouth with one hand till their thirst
is quenched.*
Commenting on the story of Gideon's men, a missionary
to Melanesia observes that " this lapping of the water like
a dog by Gideon's army was unintelligible to me until I
came to the New Hebrides. Standing one day by a stream
I heard a noise behind me like a dog lapping water. I
turned and saw a woman bowing down and throwing the
water rapidly into her mouth with her hand. This satis-
factorily explained the action of Gideon's men. It showed
care and watchfulness ; for they could walk along the
stream lapping the water as they went ; and an enemy was
1 Theophikis Hahn, " Die Nama- (aise, Excursions et Reconnaissances,
Hottentoten," Globus, xii. No. 9, p.
277 ; id., Tsuni-\\ Goain, the Supreme
Being of the KIioi-Khoi (London,
1881), p. 71.
^ E. Aymonier, " Notes sur les
Coutumes et Croyances superstitieuses
des Cambodgiens," Cochinchine Fran-
No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), p. 165.
■^ George Turner, Nineteen Years in
Polynesia (London, 1861), p. 332.
* Labillardiere, Relation du Voyage
a la Rechefxhe de la P^rouse (Paris,
1800), ii. 196.
!
CHAP. IV GIDEON'S MEN 469
less likely to take them unawares than if they bent on their
knees to drink. Most of the natives, however, bend down
and touch the water with their lips as the rejected men of
Gideon's army did." ^
These examples suggest that the custom of drinking Thecustom
water by throwing it into the mouth with the hand, instead °.^\eHnto^
of kneeling or lying down to drink with the lips placed the mouth
close to the stream, has been adopted by certain classes of lyingdown
men. such as hunters or porters, whose occupation renders to drink
„ f , , , . suitable to
it either unsafe or difficult to adopt the other posture m men who
quenching their thirst. It seems, therefore, not impossible "jj^^^igj; "^'^
that Gideon's men were selected on the same principle,
because by standing instead of lying down to drink they
showed themselves more watchful and ready to meet any
sudden emergency.
With the manner in which the God-fearing Gideon Gideons
strengthened his army by reducing its numbers to a mere ^^^^^^^°^
skeleton, we may compare an incident in a war which the God- fighting
fearing colonists of Massachusetts waged with their deadly compared
and still dangerous enemies the Indians. " The different with an
... incident in
colonies had agreed to unite against the common enemy, the wars of
each furnishing a quota of men in proportion to its numbers. ^^^^^^^'^
The troops of Connecticut, which lay most exposed to with the
danger, were soon assembled. The march of those from Indians.
Massachusetts, which formed the most considerable body,
was retarded by the most singular cause that ever in-
fluenced the operations of a military force. When they
were mustered previous to their departure, it was found
that some of the officers, as well as of the private soldiers,
were still under a covenant of works ; and that the blessing
of God could not be implored or expected to crown the
arms of such unhallowed men with success. The alarm
was general, and many arrangements necessary in order
to cast out the unclean, and to render this little band
sufficiently pure to fight the battles of a people who enter-
tained high ideas of their own sanctity." "
Not the least remarkable feature in this curious narrative
1 William Gunn, The Gospel in History of America, Eleventh Edition
Futuna (London, 1914), p. 276. (London, 1806-1808), iv. 308 sq.
2 William Robertson, D.D., The
470 GIDEON'S MEN part hi
is the inability of the reverend narrator, in whom the
learning of an historian would seem to have outweighed the
piety of a divine, to conceive why any force of armed men
should delay their march against the enemy for a reason
so manifestly absurd as a scruple of religion.
CHAPTER V
JOTH Aim's FA15LE
When Gideon had delivered Israel out of the hand of the How
Midianites, the grateful people asked him to be their king, murcicred
and to bequeath the kingdom after him to his son and his ^Uhis
. -11 brothers
son s son. But the magnanimous hero, content with the save
deliverance he had wrought, and unmoved by the prompt- Jo'ham
,. f / and made
ings of vulgar ambition, declined the offer of a crown, and, himself
retiring to his own house at Ophrah, lived there to a good c'u"^u°^
° ^ ' * Shechem.
old age. At his death he left behind him seventy sons,
whom he had by his many wives, as well as a son named
Abimelech, whom he had by a concubine in Shechem.^
When he came to man's estate, Abimelech gave proof of
exorbitant ambition and the most ruthless temper. With
the help of his mother's family at Shechem he intrigued
with the men of that city to elect him their king, and having
received a loan of money from them he hired a band of
ruffians, with whom he hastened to his father's house at
Ophrah and there murdered aH his brothers but one on the
same stone ; only Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon,
escaped the massacre by hiding himself. Having thus
removed his possible rivals, Abimelech returned to Shechem
and was there crowned king beside a sacred oak."
When Jotham, the youngest son, heard in his place of How
concealment that the men of Shechem had made Abimelech cMieand
their king, he went and stood on Mount Gerizim which spoke to
rises on the south side of the city, and there he lifted up shechem
his voice and addressed the people in a parable. For f''°"^ ^'^'^
Shechem, the modern Nablus, lies in a deep valley hemmed Mount
Gerizim.
1 Judges viii. 22-32. ^ Judges ix. 1-6.
472 JOTHAM'S FABLE part in
in by Mount Gerizim on the south and by Mount Ebal on
the north, which rise so steeply and are so near each other,
that standing on the top of Gerizim it is possible to hear
distinctly every word a man speaks on the opposite moun-
tain.^ Indeed people in these mountainous districts, it is
said, are able, from long practice, so to pitch their voices as
to be clearly audible at almost incredible distances. They
will converse with each other across enormous gullies, giving
the most minute directions, which are perfectly understood,
and in doing so they seem hardly to raise their voices above
their usual tone. There is, therefore, no difficulty in sup-
posing that, speaking from one of the overhanging crags of
Gerizim, as from a natural pulpit, Jotham might easily be
heard by the greater part of the inhabitants of Shechem.^
The parable which he addressed to them ran as follows : —
jotham's " The trces went forth on a time to anoint a king over
fable of the ^-j^gj^ . ^j^^^ they said unto the olive-tree, Reign thou over
trees which ' -^ _ ' fc>
asked the US. But. the oHve-trce said unto them. Should I leave my
re^n over° ^^tness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and
them. go to wavc to and fro over the trees ? And the trees said
to the fig-tree. Come thou, and reign over us. But the fig-
tree said unto them, Should I leave my sweetness and my
good fruit, and go to wave to and fro over the trees ? And
the trees said unto the vine. Come thou, and reign over us.
"^ And the vine said unto them. Should I leave my wine,
which cheereth God and man, and go to wave to and fro
over the trees ? Then said all the trees unto the bramble,
Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto
the trees. If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come
and put your trust in my shadow : and if not, let fire come
out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon." ^
The This fable of the trees Jotham then proceeded to apply
of the ^o the base-born and villainous Abimelech, who had clutched
fable to the crown which his noble father Gideon had refused.
and the Having fitted the cap to the crowned head of his half-
men of brother, and hinted darkly at the righteous doom which
Shechem. ' , , ,
would yet overtake both the wicked king and his subjects,
^ H. B. Tristram, The Land of the Book (London. 1859), pp. 473 sq.
Israel'^ (London, 1882), p. 149.
2 W. M. Thomson, The Land and ^ Judges ix. 7-15.
CHAP. V JOTHAM'S FABLE 473
Jotham turned on his heel and fled, before the men of
Shechem could climb up the steep mountain and lay hands
on him.^
In the mouth of Jotham the fable of the trees would The fable
seem to be a democratic or perhaps rather theocratic satire satire'.""
on kingship, for according to him all the noble and useful
trees declined the office, so that in despair the trees were
driven to offer the crown to the meanest and most useless
of their number, who only accepted it on a condition which
practically involved the destruction of the aristocracy of the
woods, the cedars of Lebanon. The distrust of monarchy
which the parable implies was natural enough in the honest
son of an honest patriot, who had refused to rule over his
people, and had declared that the rule of God was better
than the rule of man ; ^ and the same distrust of kings and
the same preference for a theocracy ate expressed still more
plainly by the Hebrew historian who records, with evident
reluctance and regret, the institution of the monarchy under
Saul.^ But apart from any political application the story Rivalry
of the rivalry between the trees for the primacy would seem ^^^^^^2
to have been popular in antiquity. It occurs more than Aesop's
once in the fables of Aesop. Thus the fir-tree, we read, ^ ^"
one day said boastfully to the bramble, " You are good for
nothing, but I am useful in roofs and houses." To which
the bramble replied, " O wretched creature, if you only
remembered the axes and the saws that will chop and cut
you, glad enough would you be to be a bramble instead of
a fir." * Again, a pomegranate and an apple-tree disputed
with each other as to which was the more fruitful, and when
the dispute was at its height, a bramble called out from
a neighbouring hedge, " O my friends, do let us stop
fighting." ^ In both these fables, as in the fable of Jotham,
the bramble intervenes in the discussion between the trees
of higher social pretensions.
The same theme was treated much more elaborately by Poem of
the Alexandrian poet Callimachus in a poem, of which a machus on
the rivalry
' Judges ix. 16-21. flible was versified by Babrius {Fab. of the
^ Judges viii. 23. 64, pp. 63 sq., ed. W. G. Ruthgrford, laurel and
3 I Samuel viii. 4-22. London, 1S83). the olive.
* Fabulae Aesopicae, ed. C. Halm ° Fabulae Aesopicae, ed. C. Halm,
(Leipsic, 1881), p. 63, No. 125. The p. 187, No. 385.
laurel's
speech.
474 JOTHAM'S FABLE part hi
copy, written on papyrus, was discovered in Egypt during
the winter of 1905— 1906. The verses unfortunately are
mutilated and incomplete, but so far as they go they
describe a contest for supremacy between a laurel and an
olive-tree, in which, up to the point where the manuscript
breaks off, the olive-tree appears to get much the better of
the argument. So far as the lines can be read or probably
restored, the fable runs as follows : ^ —
The " Hear, then, the fable. The ancient Lydians say that
once on a time the laurel contended with the olive on
Mount Tmolus. For the laurel was a tall tree and fair,
and fluttering her branches thus she spoke : ' What house
is there at whose doorposts I am not set up ? What sooth-
sayer or what sacrificer bears me not ? The Pythian
prophetess, too, she sits on laurel, eats of laurel,^ lies on
laurel. O foolish olive, did not Branchus heal Ionia's sons
with but a stroke of laurel and a few muttered words, what
time Phoebus was wroth with them ? I go to feasts and to
the Pythian choral dance, I am given as a prize in games,
and the Dorians cut me at Tempe on the mountain tops
and bear me thence to Delphi, whene'er Apollo's rites are
solemnized. O foolish olive, no sorrow do I know, nor
mine the path that the corpse-bearer treads. For I am
pure, and men tread me not under foot, for I am holy.
But with thee they crown themselves whene'er they are
about to burn a corpse or lay it out for burial, and thee
they duly spread under the dead man's ribs.'
The olive's '• So spakc shc boasting ; but the mother of the oil
answered her calmly : ' O laurel, barren of all the things I
bear, thou hast sung like a swan at the end. ... I attend
to the grave the men whom Ares slays, and (under the
1 The Oxyrrliynclms Papyri, Part i-io). In his translation Professor
vii., edited with translations and notes Diels to some extent tacitly supplements
by Arthur S. Hunt (London, 1910), and corrects the Greek text, and in my
pp. 39 sqq. The poem has been trans- version I have availed myself of some
iated into German and accompanied of his suggestions.
with instructive parallels and notes by - The Greek is dd4>vriv 5' deidei,
my learned friend Professor Hermann "sings of laurel." But this should
Diels, who has kindly given me a copy probably be corrected with Professor H.
of his paper (" Orientalische Fabeln in Diels. The prophetess chewed laurel
griechischem Gewande," Internationale as a mode of inspiration. See Lucian,
Wochenschrift fiir Wissenschaft Kitnst Bis Accusatns, I ; J. Tzetzes, Scholia
iind Technik, 6th August 1910, coll. on Lycophron, 6.
reply.
CHAi-. V JOTHAM'S FABLE 475
heads am spread) of heroes who (died gloriously). And
when children bear to the tomb their white-haired grandam
or Tithonus old, I go with them and on the path am laid,
(helping them) more than thou (doest help) the men who
bring thee from Tempe's dale. But as for that thou spakest
of, am not I a better prize than thou ? for are not the
games at Olympia greater than the games at Delphi ? ^
But silence is best. Not a word more concerning thee shall
I so much as mutter, neither good nor bad. Yet lo ! the
birds that perch among my leaves are twittering thus :
" Who fpund the laurel ? It was the earth who brought it
forth as she brings forth the ilex, the oak, the galingale, or
other woodland things. But who found the olive ? Pallas
,it was, when she contended for the shore with him who
dwells amid the sea-weed, and the ancient one gave judg-
ment, he the man with snaky limbs belovv.^ That is one
fall for the laurel ! But of the immortals, who honours the
olive, and who the laurel } Apollo honours the laurel, and
Pallas honours the olive, which she found. In that they
are alike, for I distinguish not between the gods. But what
is the laurel's fruit ? How shall I use it ? It is good
neither to eat nor to drink nor to anoint one's self with.
But pleasing is the olive's fruit in many ways, both as a
food and as an unguent. . . . That is, I think, the laurel's
second fall. And then what is the tree whose leaves the
suppliants hold out ? The olive's leaves. That is the
laurel's third fall." But plague on these birds, will they
never stop? They must still be chattering! Impudent
crow, is thy beak not sore with croaking ? " Whose trunk
is it that the Delians preserve? It is the olive's, which gave
a seat to Leto." ' ... So spake the olive. But the laurel's
rage swelled at the words, and the smart struck deeper than
before. (And now an ancient spreading thorn-bush^) spoke
1 An olive-wrealh was the prize al the usual version of the story, as to
Olympia, a laurel-wreath at Delphi. which I may refer to my note on Pau-
2 An allusion to the contest of sanias i. 24. 3.
Athena and Poseidon for possession of ^ So Professor H. Diels restores the
Attica; according to the version of meaning ("Z)a sprach eiii altes, weit-
the legend followed by the poet it seems verranktes Dornstrdiichhin "). But the
that Erichthonius, half-man, half-ser- corresponding line in the Creek text is
pent, acted as arbiter and gave judg- very fragmentary, and any emendation
ment in the dispute. But this was not must be more or less uncertain.
476
JOTHAAPS FABLE
The poem
incom-
plete:
probable
triumph of
the ohve.
Rivalry
between
the trees
in an
Armenian
fable.
up, for she was not far from the trees. ' O my poor friends,'
quoth she, ' do let us cease, lest we carry the quarrel too far.
Come, let's give over bickering.' But the laurel glared
daggers at the thorn, and thus she spake : ' O cursed
wretch, don't preach patience to me, as if thou wert one of
us. Thy very neighbourhood chokes me. By Phoebus, by
Persephone, talk not of reconciliation ! Slay me rather ! ' "
At this point the poem breaks off in the manuscript, and
we cannot say how the quarrel between the trees ended, but
from the poet's evident partiality for the olive, we may con-
jecture that the subsequent verses described the triumph of
that pacific, fruitful, and useful tree over the bellicose, barren,
and boastful laurel. What tree or shrub it was that attempted
to intervene as peacemaker in the strife, and got small thanks
for its pains from one at least of the disputants, we cannot
say for certain, since the Greek text at this point is mutilated ;
but the analogy of one of Aesop's fables, in which a bramble
attempts to end a dispute between a pomegranate and an
apple-tree,^ suggests that the humble bush may have played
the same benevolent but thankless part in the poem of Calli-
machus, and the suggestion is borne out by the sharp way in
which the proud laurel turns on the would-be mediator, whose
claim to meddle in a quarrel between trees she contemptu-
ously rejects (" as if thou wert one of us ").
The rivalry between the trees appears to be a favourite
theme of Armenian fables. For example, in one of them it
is said that the plants held a council to decide which of them
deserved to reign over the rest. Some proposed the date-palm,
because he is tall and his fruits are sweet. But the vine
resisted the proposal, saying, " It is I who diffuse joy ; it is
I who deserve to reign." The fig-tree said, " It is I, for I am
sweet to the taste." The thorn said, " The honour should be
mine, because I prick." Each of them thought himself
better than the rest, and imagined that he could dispense
with them. As for the date-palm, on reflection he per-
ceived that the trees would not let him reign, because
they were loth to share their honours with others. He
said, " It belongs to me rather than to anybody else to be
king." The other trees admitted his claim to a certain
1 Above, p. 473.
CHAP. V JOTHAM'S FABLE 477
extent. They said, " Thou art tJfll and thy fruits are sweet,
but thou lackest two things. Thou dost not bear fruit at
the same time that we do, and thou art not suitable for
building. Besides, thou art so tall that it is impossible for
many people to enjoy thy fruit." He answered, " I shall
become king and make you princes, and after accomplishing
my time I shall still reign over your sons." He set the
kingdom in order, naming the rest to various offices. The
vine he made chief cupbearer, the fig-tree consul, the thorn
head executioner, the pomegranate head physician ; other
plants were to serve for medicines, the cedars for building,
the forests for fuel, the bushes for prison ; each was assigned
its special task.^
A Malay story tells of a dispute between the plants as to Malay
their respective claims to precedence. Once upon a time, a dispute
we are informed, the maize-plant boasted, saying, "If rice between
should cease to exist, I alone should suffice to sustain man- on t^e
kind." But the liane and the jungle yam each made a like question of
, 1 1 • 1 1 1 precedence
boast, and as the parties could not agree, the case was between
brought before King Solomon. Said Solomon, " All three ^^®'"-
of you are perfectly right, albeit it were perhaps better that
the maize-plant should sustain mankind because of his
comradeship with the bean." Thereat the wrath of the liane
and the yam waxed hot against the maize-plant, and they
went off together to hunt for a fruit-spike of the jungle fig-
tree whereon to impale him, but found none. And mean-
while the maize-plant, hearing news of their quest, set to
work to find arrow-poison. And when he found it he
poisoned the jungle yam therewith, wherefore to this day the
jungle yam has narcotic properties. Then the jungle yam,
being wroth thereat, speared the maize-plant in his turn,
wherefore to this day the cobs of the maize are perforated.
And the maize-plant, reaching out in turn, seized the pointed
shoot of a ivilatig (?) stem and wounded the liane therewith.
At this juncture the parties to the quarrel went before the
1 F. Macler, " Choix de fables Ar- lection of Armenian fables there are
meniennesattribueesaMkhitharGoch," stories of disputes between a thorn and
Journal Asiatiqiie, Neuvieme Serie, xix. a vine, between an apple and a pear,
(Paris, 1902) pp. 467 sq. This fable between a fig and a pomegranate,
hasalready been cited by Professor H. between a mulberry and an olive, etc.
Diels, op. cit. col. 10. In the same col-
478
JOTHAM'S FABLE
Jotham's
fable
inserted in
mediaeval
collections
of fables.
prophet Elias, who said, " This matter is too great for me,
take ye it before Solomon." And Solomon said, " Let them
fight it out between them, that the rage of their hearts may
be appeased," Wherefore there was battle between them
for twice seven days. And when the twice seven days were
ended, the battle being still undecided, the combatants were
parted, and a space was set between them by Solomon. And
the jungle yam he made to sit down, and the liane to lie
down. But the maize-plant and the bean he made to stand
together.^
During the Middle Ages the fable of the trees, which the
Book of Judges puts in the mouth of Jotham, appears to have
been popular, for we find it detached from its Biblical setting
and inserted in miscellaneous collections of fables which were
derived, directly or indirectly, from Phaedrus. In some of
these collections the story is taken with but slight verbal
changes from the Vulgate," but in a Latin version of the
fables which pass under the name of the mediaeval French
poetess Marie de France, the writer has handled the theme
more freely. The trees, so runs the fable, once assembled
and consulted about choosing a king. A tall and spreading
tree proposed the vine for the kingly office, but the vine
refused on the ground that he was weak and could do nothing
without a support. So the trees offered to choose the white-
thorn, saying that he deserved to reign because he was strong
and handsome. But the whitethorn declined the offer,
declaring that he was not worthy to reign because he bore
no fruit. Several other trees were proposed, but they all
excused themselves for various reasons. At last, when no
tree could be found that would consent to be king, the broom
got up and said, " The sceptre is mine by rights, because I
desire to reign and I ought to be king, for my family is most
opulent and noble." But the other trees answered the broom,
" In the whole family of trees we know none meaner or
poorer than thee." The broom replied, " If I am not made
king, never will I honour him whom ye shall elect, neither
will I love those who appoint another than me." The trees
1 Walter Skeat, Fables and Folk-
Tales from an Eastern Forest (Cam-
bridge, 190 1), pp. 13-15. I have
slightly abridged the story.
^ L. Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins,
Phedre et ses Aticiens Imitateurs,
(Paris, 1S84), ii. 589 sq., 761.
CHAP. V JOTHAM'S FABLE 479
said to him, "What, then, will you be able to do to us if you
do not love our king or us ? " The broom answered, " Though
I seem to you mean and needy, yet could I do that which I
had thought to do if I were king." And they all asked him
what that was. He said to them, " I had thought to prevent
any tree from growing that stands under me or over me."
" It is likely enough," replied the others, " that thou couldst
do that to us if thou wert king and powerful ; but what
thinkest thou canst thou do when we are stronger than thou ? "
But the broom did not answer the question, he only said, " I
cannot harm you without injuring myself. Yet I will carry
out my intention. I can cause," said he, " that any herb or
tree that is under me shall cease to grow, and that any that
is above me shall wither. But to do that it is necessary that
I myself should burn. Therefore I wish to be consumed
with fire, with all my kindred that are about me, in order
that those trees which deem themselves great and noble may
perish with me in the flames." ^
This fable is plainly nothing but a feeble expansion of
the fable of Jotham.
' 1,. Ilervieux, Les Fabtilistes Latins, Pludre ei ses Am tens Iinitalezirz^ ii.
5S1 sq.
CHAPTER VI
SAMSON AND DELILAH
incongru- Among the grave judges of Israel the burly hero Samson
filibuster ^^^^ ^ Strange figure. That he judged Israel for twenty
Samson years we are indeed informed by the sacred writer,^ but of the
judges of judgments which he delivered in his judicial character not
Israel. Qj^g ^^s been recorded, and if the tenor of his pronounce-
ments can be inferred from the nature of his acts, we may be
allowed to doubt whether he particularly adorned the bench
of justice. His talent would seem to have lain rather in the
direction of brawling and fighting, burning down people's
corn-ricks, and beating up the quarters of loose women ; in
short, he appears to have shone in the character of a libertine
and a rakehell rather than in a strictly judicial capacity.
Instead of a dull list of his legal decisions we are treated to
an amusing, if not very edifying, narrative of his adventures
in love and in war, or rather in filibustering ; for if we accept,
as we are bound to do, the scriptural account of this royster-
ing swashbuckler, he never levied a regular war or headed a
national insurrection against the Philistines, the oppressors
of his people ; he merely sallied forth from time to time as a
solitary paladin or knight-errant, and mowed them down with
the jawbone of an ass or any other equally serviceable weapon
that came to his hand. And even on these predatory expedi-
tions (for he had no scruple about relieving his victims of
their clothes and probably of their purses) the idea of deliver-
ing his nation from servitude was to all appearance the last
thing that would have occurred to him. If he massacred the
Philistines, as he certainly did in great profusion and with
^ Judges XV. 20, xvi. 31.
480
CHAP. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 481
hearty good will, it was from no high motive of patriotism or
policy, but purely from a personal grudge which he bore them
for the wrongs which they had done to himself, to his wife,
and to his father-in-law. From first to last his story is that
of an utterly selfish and unscrupulous adventurer, swayed by
gusts of fitful passion and indifferent to everything but the
gratification of his momentary whims. It is only redeemed
from the staleness and vulgarity of commonplace rascality by His
the elements of supernatural strength, headlong valour, and •^"'"'^^i"^
I o ' o ' epic,
a certain grim humour which together elevate it into a sort
of burlesque epic after the manner of Ariosto. But these
features, while they lend piquancy to the tale of his exploits,
hardly lessen the sense of incongruity which we experience
on coming across the grotesque figure of this swaggering,
hectoring bully side by side with the solemn effigies of saints
and heroes in the Pantheon of Israel's history. The truth
seems to be that in the extravagance of its colouring the
picture of Samson owes more to the brush of the story-teller
than to the pen of the historian. The marvellous and divert-
ing incidents of his disreputable career probably floated about
loosely as popular tales on the current of oral tradition long
before they crystallized around the memory of a real man, a
doughty highlander and borderer, a sort of Hebrew Rob Roy, A Hebrew
whose choleric temper, dauntless courage, and prodigious ° °^'
bodily strength marked him out as the champion of Israel in
many a wald foray across the border into the rich lowlands of
Philistia. For there is no sufficient reason to doubt that a
firm basis of fact underlies the flimsy and transparent super-
structure of fancy in the Samson saga. The particularity
with which the scenes of his life, from birth to death, are laid
in definite towns and places, speaks strongly in favour of a
genuine local tradition, and as strongly against the theory
of a solar myth, into which some writers would dissolve the
story of the brawmy hero.^
The home country of Samson, about Zorah, on the The home
Philistine border, has been described by Sir George Adam y°n"son°^
1 H. Steinthnl, "The Legend of O/vVm/j- 2 (Lgipsic, 1906), pp. 478-482 ;
Samson," in Ignaz Goldziher's Jllylho- Paul Carus, The Story of Saftison
logy among the Hebrews (London, (Chicago, 1 907) ; A. Smythe Palmer,
1S77), pp. 392-446 ; A. Jeremias, Z'ai' D.D., The Samson-Saga (London,
Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten 1913).
VOL. II 2 1 ^^.,
482
SAMSON AND DELILAH
How
Samson's
great
strength
Smith with characteristic sympathy and grace. " It is as fair
a nursery for boyhood as you will find in all the land — a
hillside facing south against the sunshine, with corn, grass,
and olives, scattered boulders and winter brooks, the broad
valley below with the pebbly stream and screens of oleanders,
the south-west wind from the sea blowing over all. There
the child Samson grew up ; and the Lord blessed hini^ and
the Spirit of the Lord began to move him in the camp of Dan
between ZoraJi and Eshtaol. Across the valley of Sorek, in
full view is Beth-Shemesh, now 'Ain Shems, House and Well
of the Sun, with which name it is so natural to connect his
own — Shimshon, ' Sun-like.' Over the low hills beyond
is Timnah, where he found his first love and killed the
young lion. Beyond is the Philistine plain, with its
miles upon miles of corn, which, if as closely sown
then as now, would require scarce three, let alone three
hundred foxes, with torches on their tails, to set it all
afire. The Philistine cities are but a day's march away, by
easy roads. And so from these country braes to yonder plains
and the highway of the great world — from the pure home and
the mother who talked with angels, to the heathen cities, their
harlots and their prisons — we see at one sweep of the eye all
the course in which this uncurbed strength, at first tumbling
and sporting with laughter like one of its native brooks, like
them also ran to the flats and the mud, and, being darkened
and befouled, was used by men to turn their mills." ^
The hand of the storyteller reveals itself most clearly in
the account of the catastrophe which befel his hero through
the wiles of a false woman, who wormed from him the secret
of his great strength and then betrayed him to his enemies.
The account runs as follows : —
" And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman
in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the
lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her,
1 (Sir) George Adam Smith, The interpret them as phases or influences
Historical Geogi-apky of the Holy Land
(London, 1894), pp. 221 sq. While
he mentions the possible connexion of
Samson's name with the Hebrew word
for sun, Sir George Adam Smith rightly
rejects the solar theory of his adven-
tures. " The attempts," he says, "to
of the sun, or to force them into a cycle
like the labours of Hercules, have
broken down. " Nevertheless the break-
down has not deterred subsequent
writers from attempting to set the
mythical Humpty-Dumpty up again.
ciiAi'. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 483
'Entice him, and see wherein his great strength h'eth, and by was in his
what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind '!;"/,; ,^°*
him to afflict him : and we will give thee every one of us Deiiiah
eleven hundred pieces of silver.' And Delilah said to Samson, the'^"ecret
' Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and fiom 'I'm.
wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.' And shavedoff^
Samson said unto her, 'If they bind me with seven green his hair,
withes that were never dried, then shall I become weak, and him^to his
be as another man.' Then the lords of the Philistines brought enemiesthe
Philistines*
up to her seven green withes which had not been dried, and
she bound him with them. Now she had Hers in wait abidin":
in the inner chamber. And she said unto him, ' The Philis-
tines be upon thee, Samson.' And he brake the withes, as
a string of tow is broken when it touchcth the fire. So his
strength was not known. And Delilah said unto Samson,
' Behold, thou hast mocked me, and told me lies : now tell
me, I pray thee, wherewith thou mightest be bound.' And
he said unto her, ' If they only bind me with new ropes
wherewith no work hath been done, then shall I become
weak, and be as another man.' So Delilah took new ropes,
and bound him therewith, and said unto him, ' The Philistines
be upon thee, Samson.' And the Hers in wait were abiding
in the inner chamber. And he brake them from off his arms
like a thread. And Delilah said unto Samson, ' Hitherto
thou hast mocked me, and told me lies : tell me wherewith
thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, ' If thou
weavest the seven locks of my head with the web, and
inakest {the wJiole) fast ivith the pin, then shall I become weak
and like any other man! A nd Delilah made him sleep, and
zuove the seven locks of his head zuith the iveb} and she fastened
' The words printed in italics have that she pegged them into the earth
been accidentally omitted from the (".S/ septevi crines capitis met cum
Hebrew text, but they can be restored licio plexueris, el claviim his circuin-
from the Greek versions. See the ligatuin terrae fixeris^''). But what she
commentaries of G. Y. Moore (^The really did was to weave his hair, like
International Critical Cojnmentary) threads, into the web on the loom, so
and G. W. Thatcher (7~he Century that every single hair was fastened
Bible), and R. Kittel's critical edition separately. This gave a far stronger
of the Hebrew text (Leipsic, 1905- hold on Samson than if his hair had
1906). The Greek translator seems been pegged in a bunch into the wall
to have thought that Delilah pegged or the earth ; and in wrenching it away
Samson's locks into the wall (en-ij^e rip he wrenched with it the web and the
TracrcrdXcfj eh tov toixo"), and Jerome loom, or part of it ("the beam").
484 SAMSON AND DELILAH part hi
it with the pin, and said unto him, ' The Phih'stines be upon
thee, Samson.' And he awaked out of his sleep, and plucked
away the pin of the beam, and the web. And she said unto
him, ' How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not
with me ? thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not
told me wherein thy great strength lieth.' And it came to pass,
when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him,
that his soul was vexed unto death. And he told her all his
heart, and said unto her, ' There hath not come a razor upon
mine head ; for I have been a Nazirite unto God from my
mother's womb : if I be shaven, then my strength will go
from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other
man.' And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his
heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines,
saying, ' Come up this once, for he hath told me all his heart.'
Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and
brought the money in their hand. And she made him sleep
upon her knees ; and she called for a man, and shaved off
the seven locks of his head ; and she began to afflict him,
and his strength went from him. And she said, ' The Philis-
tines be upon thee, Samson.' And he awoke out of his
sleep, and said, * I will go out as at other times, and shake
myself.' But he wist not that the Lord was departed from
him. And the Philistines laid hold on him, and put out
his eyes ; and they brought him down to Gaza, and bound
him with fetters of brass ; and he did grind in the prison
house." '
Belief in Thus it was supposed that Samson's great strength re-
the East sj^ed in his hair, and that to shave the long shaggy locks,
Indies that ' , . , , , 111 •
a persons which flowcd dowu ou his shouldcrs and had remamed un-
strength is gj-|Qj.j-, {^q^ infancy, would suffice to rob him of his super-
in his or -' ' _ _ i
her hair. human vigour and reduce him to impotence. In various
parts of the world a similar belief has prevailed as to living
men and women, especially such as lay claim, like vSamson,
to powers above the reach of common mortals. Thus the
natives of Amboyna, an island in the East Indies, used to
think that their strength was in their hair and would desert
them if their locks were shorn. A criminal under torture in
a Dutch court of that island persisted in denying his guilt
1 Judges xvi. 4-22.
CHAP. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 485
till .his hair was cut off, when he immediately confessed.
One man, who was tried for murder, endured without flinch-
ing the utmost ingenuity of his torturers till he saw the
surgeon standing by with a pair of shears. On asking what
they were for, and being told that it was to shave his hair, he
begged that they would not do it, and made a clean breast.
In subsequent cases, when torture failed to wring a confession
from a prisoner, the Dutch authorities made a practice of
cutting off his hair.^ The natives of Ceram, another East
Indian Island, still believe that if young people have their
hair cut they will be weakened and enervated thereby.^
Here in Europe it used to be thought that the maleficent Belief Id
powers of witches and wizards resided in their hair, and that j^^^^j^^g
nothing could make any impression on these miscreants so maleficent
long as they kept their hair on. Hence in France it was w°tchesand
customary to shave the whole bodies of persons charged with wizards
sorcery before handing them over to the tormentor. Millaeus their hair,
witnessed the torture of some persons at Toulouse, from whom
no confession could be wrung until they were stripped and
completely shaven, when they readily acknowledged the truth
of the charge. A woman also, who apparently led a pious
life, was put to the torture on suspicion of witchcraft, and
bore her agonies with incredible constancy, until complete
depilation drove her to admit her guilt. The noted inquisitor
Sprenger contented himself with shaving the head of the
suspected witch or warlock ; but his more thoroughgoing
colleague Cumanus shaved the whole bodies of forty -one
women before committing them all to the flames. He had
high authority for this rigorous scrutiny, since Satan himself,
in a sermon preached from the pulpit of North Berwick
church, comforted his many servants by assuring them that
no harm could befall them " sa lang as their hair wes on, and
1 Fran9ois Valentyn, Oiid en Nieiiw Most of the following parallels have
Oest-Indien (Dordrecht and Amster- already been cited by me elsewhere
dam, 1724-1726), ii. 143 sq. These {Balder ihe Beaittifoil, ii. lOT, sq., 108
facts and other of the folk-lore parallels ^^.-113, 126-129, 148, 1585^.; Pas-
cited below were first adduced in illus- sages of the Bible chosen for their liter'
tration of the Samson story by the late ary beauty and if tterest, Second Edition,
Dutch scholar, G. A. Wilken. See his London, 1909, pp. 471 sq.).
instructive essay " De Simsonsage,"
Be Gids, No. 5, reprinted in his col- - J. G. F. Riedel, De sliiik- en
lected writings, De verspreide Geschrif- kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en
ten (The Hague, 1912), iii. 551-579. Papua (The Hague, 1886), p. 137.
486 SAMSON AND DELILAH part in
Similar sould nevvir latt ane teir fall fra thair ene." ^ Similarly in
wftdiesand l^^^tar, a province of India, " if a man is adjudged guilty of
wizards in witchcraft, he is beaten by the crowd, his hair is shaved, the
Mextco" '^'^•^' being supposed to constitute his power of mischief, his
front teeth are knocked out, in order, it is said, to prevent
him from muttering incantations. . . . Women suspected of
sorcery have to undergo the same ordeal ; if found guilty,
the same punishment is awarded, and after being shaved,
their hair is attached to a tree in some public place," ^ So
among the Bhils, a rude race of Central India, when a woman
was convicted of witchcraft and had been subjected to various
forms of persuasion, such as hanging head downwards from
a tree and having pepper rubbed into her eyes, a lock of hair
was cut from her head and buried in the ground, " that the
last link between her and her former powers of mischief
might be broken."^ In like manner among the Aztecs of
Mexico, when wizards and witches " had done their evil
deeds, and the time came to put an end to their detestable
life, some one laid hold of them and cropped the hair on the
crown of their heads, which took from them all their power
of sorcery and enchantment, and then it was that by death
they put an end to their odious existence." ^
Story told It is no wouder that a belief so widespread should find
island of ^''^ ^^^ ^'^^^ fairy tales which, for all the seeming licence of
Nias about fancy, reflect as in a mirror the real faith once held by the
whose life People among whom the stories circulated. The natives of
was in his Nias, an island off the west coast of Sumatra, relate that
hair, and . . , . ^ i t i t\ t
whose fatal once upon a time a certam chief named J^aubo Maros was
secret was clrivcn by an earthquake from Macassar, in Celebes, and
betrayed
by his migrated .with his followers to Nias. Among those who
treacherous followed his fortunes to the new land were his uncle and
daughter
to his his uncle's wife. But the rascally nephew fell in love with
enemies. j^j^ yj-,(;ig'g ^yjfg ^^^ contrived by a stratagem to get possession
of the lady. The injured husband fled to Malacca and
besought the Sultan of Johore to assist him in avenging his
"^ ^-Qx-Yi-xXyitW, The Darker Stipersti- Folk-lore of Northern India (West-
tions of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1834), minster, 1896), ii. 281.
pp. 637-639 ; C. de Mensignac, Re- ^ W. Crooke, op. cit. ii. 281 sg,
' cherches ethnographiques stir la Salive "* B. de Sahagun, Histoire des choses
et le Crachat (Bordeaux, 1892), p. 49 de la Noiivelle Espagne, traduite par
note. D. Jourdanet et R. Simeon (Paris,
'^ W. Cruoke, Popular Religion and 1880), p. 274.
CHAP. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 487
wrongs. The Sultan consented and declared war on I.aubo
Maros. Meanwhile, however, that unscrupulous chief had
fortified his settlement with an impenetrable hedge of prickly
bamboo, which defied all the attempts of the Sultan and his
troops to take it by storm. Defeated in open battle, the
wily Sultan now had recourse to stratagem. He returned
to Johore and there laded a ship with Spanish mats. Then
he sailed back to Nias, and anchoring off his enemy's fort
he loaded his guns with the Spanish mats instead of with
shot and shell, and so opened fire on the place. The mats
flew like hail through the air and soon were lying thick on the
prickly hedge of the fort and on the shore in its neighbour-
hood. The trap was now set and the Sultan waited to see
what would follow. He had not long to wait. An old
woman, prowling along the beach, picked up one of the
mats and saw the rest spread out temptingly around her.
Overjoyed at the discovery she passed the good news among
her neighbours, who hastened to the spot, and in a trice the
prickly hedge was not only stripped bare of the mats but
torn down and levelled with the ground. So the Sultan of
Johore and his men had only to march into the fort and
take possession. The defenders fled, but the wicked chief
himself fell into the hands of the victors. He was condemned
to death, but great difficulty was experienced in executing
the sentence. They threw him into the sea, but the water
would not drown him ; they laid him on a blazing pyre, but
the fire would not burn him ; they hacked at every part of
his body with swords, but steel would not pierce him. Then
they perceived that he was an enchanter, and they consulted
his wife to learn how they might kill him. Like Delilah,
she revealed the fatal secret. On the chief's head grew a
hair as hard as a copper wire, and with this wire his life was
bound up. So the hair was plucked out, and with it his
spirit fled.^ In this and some of the following tales it is not
merely the strength but the life of the hero which is supposed
to have its scat in his hair, so that the loss of the hair in-
volves his death.
1 J. T. Nieuwenhuisen en H. C. B. e7i IVetenschappen, xxx. (Batavia, 1863)
von Rosenberg, "Verslag omtrent het pp. wosq. Compare H. Sundermann,
eiland Nias," Verhandeli7igen van het Die Iiisel N'ias (BdirmQU, 1905), p. 71.
Bataviaasch Genootscliap van Kunsten
488 SAMSON AND DELILAH part hi
Scottish With the vain attempts to kill the wizard and the fruit-
about'°he ^^^s efforts to bind Samson, so long as the fateful hair was
wizard unshorn, we may compare the Scottish tradition as to the
Souiis death of the wicked Lord Soulis, a wizard who bore a charmed
chimed ^^^^ ^"*^ ^^^ "^ ^^^ service a familiar spirit called Redcap.
hfe. The story is told in a ballad by John Leyden, from which
the following verses are extracted : —
" Lo?-d Soil lis he sat in Ner/nifage Castle,
A fid beside him Old Redcap sly ;
' Now tell me, thou spj He, who art meikle of might.
The death that I must die ? ' —
While thou shalt bear a charmed life,
Atid hold that life of me,
^Gainst lance attd arrow, sword and knife,
I shall thy warrant be.
' Nor forged steel, nor hempeti band,
Shall ^er thy limbs confiiie,
Till threefold ropes of sifted sand
Around thy body twine.^
''Ay, many may come, but few return^
Quo' Soulis, the lord of gramarye j
* No warriot 's hand in fair Scotland
Shall ever dint a wound on tne ! ' —
* Now by my sooth,'' quo' bold Walter,
' If that be true we soon shall see? —
His befit bow he drew, and his arrow was true.
But never a wound or scar had he.
Then up bespake Jiiiii /; uc Thomas,
He was the lord of Ersyltoun ;
' 77/1? wizard's spell no steel can quell.
Till once your lances bear him down.' —
They bore him down %vith lances bright.
But never a wound or scar had he;
With hempen bands they bound him tight.
Both hands and feet, on the Nine-stane lee.
That wizard accurst, the bands he burst;
They moulder' d at his magic spell ;
And neck and heel, in the forged steel.
They bound him against the charms of hell.
SA^fSON AND DELILAH 489
T/tat 7uizafd acciersf, ilic bands he burst ;
No forged steel his charms could bide ;
Then up bespake him true Thouuis,
* We'll bind him yet, whaie'er betide!
The black spae-book from hi'; breast he took,
A?id tur/i'd the leaves ivith a curious hand ;
No ropes, did he find, the ivizard could bind.
But threefold ropes of sifted satid.
They sifted the sand from the Ni?ie-stane burn.
And shaped the ropes sae curiouslie ;
But the ropes would neither twist tior twitie.
For Thomas true afui his gramarye."
At last, so the ballad proceeds to tell, when even the How the
hopeful plan of binding the enchanter with ropes of twisted ''^^^^l^^^^^
sand, reinforced by barley chaff, had failed disappointingly, overcome.
true Thomas discovered from his black spae-book that the
only way of quashing the wizard's spells was by boiling
him in lead. So they heated a cauldron, wrapped the foul
magician in a sheet of lead, and heaved him in. This had
the desired effect ; the body and bones of Lord Soulis were
soon melted down, and that was the miserable end of the
enchanter.^
The ruins of the wicked lord's stronghold, the Castle of Lord
Hermitage, still stand in a hollow of the hills of Liddesdale, ^°'f'^: ^F"
c> ' ' historical
and the circle of stones where he is said to have been boiled personage,
alive is still pointed out on a declivity which descends from 'p^uf^^r^ ^
the hills to the Water of Hermitage and bears the name of tradition
the Nine-stane Rig. Yet the story of his tragic death, like ^eath is
that of his invulnerability, has no foundation in fact. William, labuioiis
Lord Soulis, a powerful baron and the owner of great
estates, entered into a conspiracy against King Robert the
Bruce, but the plot was discovered by the Countess of
Strathern, and the traitor was seized at Berwick. Having
confessed his guilt in full Parliament he received his life at the
king's hand, but his domains were forfeited, and he was confined
in the castle of Dumbarton, a strong fortress which crowns
the summit of a huge isolated rock situated at the point
1 Sir Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the the collected edition of Scott's Poetical
Scottish Border, iv. 244, 255-257 (in Works, Edinburgh, 1 833).
490
SAMSON AND DELILAH
Ancient
Greek
stories like
those of
Samson
and
Delilah.
where the Vale of the Leven joins the Vale of the Clyde.
There the traitor died in prison, and with him the noble
family of Soulis ceased to make a figure in Scottish history.^
This instance serves to show how rash it may be to infer the
mythical character of the hero of a folk-tale from the mythical
nature of the incidents which are related of him. The
magical powers ascribed to Lord Soulis and the traditional
manner of his death, in spite of the circumstantial local
evidence by which the tradition appears to be supported,
are purely fabulous ; yet the man was an historical person-
age, who played a notable part in his time, and for that
very reason became the theme of fable, popular fancy
weaving its many-coloured web about his tragic figure, so
as to disguise and almost obliterate its true outlines. His
example warns us against discrediting the historical reality
of Samson on account of the unhistorical elements in his
story.
Tales like that of Samson and Delilah were current in
the legendary lore of ancient Greece. It is said that Nisus,
king of Megara, had a purple or golden hair on the middle
of his head, and that he was doomed to die whenever that
hair should be plucked out. When Megara was besieged by
the Cretans, the king's daughter Scylla fell in love with
Minos, their king, and pulled out the fatal hair from her
father's head. So he died." According to one account it
was not the life but the strength of Nisus that was in his
golden hair ; when it was pulled out, he grew weak and was
slain by Minos.^ In this form the story of Nisus resembles
still more closely the story of Samson. Again, Poseidon is
said to have made Pterelaus immortal by giving him a
golden hair on his head. But when Taphos, the home of
Pterelaus was besieged by Amphitryo, the daughter of
Pterelaus fell in love with Amphitryo and killed her father
by plucking out the golden hair with which his life was
bound up.^ In a modern Greek folk-tale a man's strength
1 Sir Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border (Edinburgh, 1833), iv.
239 sqq.
2 Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, iii. 15.
8; Aeschylus, Choeph. 612 sqq.; Pau-
sanias, i. 19. 4 ; Ciris, 1 16 sqq. ; Ovid,
J\Ictamo7-ph. viii. 8 sqq.
^ J. Tzetzes, Scholia on Lycophron,
650.
^ Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, ii. 4. 5
and 7.
CHAP. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 491
lies in three golden hairs on his head. When his mother
pulls them out, he grows weak and timid and is slain by his
enemies.^ Another Greek story, in which we may perhaps
detect a reminiscence of Nisus and Scylla, relates how a
certain king, who was the strongest man of his time, had
three long hairs on his breast. But when he went to war
with another king, and his own treacherous wife had cut off
the three hairs, he becamei.the weakest of men.^
The story how Samson was befooled by his false leman Parallels
Delilah into betraying the secret of his strength has close o^s^msoif
parallels in Slavonic and Celtic folk-lore, with this difference, and
,.,r-i • i^i'ii 1 r)elilah in
however, that m the Slavonic and Celtic tales the strength Slavonic
or the life of the hero is said to reside, not in his hair, but ^"'i Celtic
folk-lore.
in some external object such as an egg or a bird. 1 hus a
Russian story relates how a certain warlock called Kashtshei Russian
or Koshchei the Deathless carried off a princess and kept Koshchei
her prisoner in his golden castle. However, a prince made the
up to her one day as she was walking alone and disconsolate whose
in the castle grarden, and cheered by the prospect of escaping death was
with him she went to the warlock and coaxed him with false
and flattering words, saying, " My dearest friend, tell me, I
pray you, will you never die ? " " Certainly not," says he.
" Well," says she, " and where is your death ? Is it in your
dwelling ? " " To be sure it is," says he, " it is in the broom
under the threshold." Thereupon the princess seized the
broom and threw it on the fire, but although the broom
burned, the deathless Koshchei remained alive ; indeed not
so much as a hair of him was singed. Balked in her first
attempt, the artful hussy pouted and said, " You do not love
me true, for you have not told me where your death is ; yet
I am not angry, but love you with all my heart." W^ith
these fawning words she besought the warlock to tell her
truly where his death was. So he laughed and said, " Why
* J. G. .von Hahn, Griechische und and that it vanished whenever these
alhanesische Mdrchen (Leipsic, 1864), hairs were cut; but if the hairs were
i. 217; a similar story, op. cit. ii. 282. allowed to grow again their strength
^ B. Schmidt, Griechische Miirchen, returned (B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben
Sagen iiiid Volkslieder (Le^^sic, l^Tj), der Nengriechev, Leipsic, 187 1, p.
pp. 91 sq. The same writer found in 206). Similarly the strength of Sam-
the island of Zacynthus a belief that son is said to have returned as his hair
the whole strength of the ancient Greeks grew again after being cut (Judges xvi.
resided in three hairs on their breasts, 22 sqq.).
492 SAMSON AND DELILAH part hi
do you wish to know ? Well then, out of love I will tell
you where it lies. In a certain field there stand three green
oaks, and under the roots of the largest oak is a worm, and
if ever this worm is found and crushed, I shall die." When
the princess heard these words, she went straight to her
lover and told him all ; and he searched till he found the
oaks and dug up the worm and crushed it. Then he hurried
to the warlock's castle, but only to learn that the w^arlock
was still alive. Then the princess fell to wheedling and
coaxing Koshchei once more, and this time, overcome by
her wiles, he opened his heart to her and told her the truth.
" My death," said he, " is far from here and hard to find, on
the wide ocean. In that sea is an island, and on the island
grows a green oak, and beneath the oak is an iron chest,
and in the chest is a small basket, and in the basket is a
hare, and in the hare is a duck, and in the duck is an q%% ;
and he who finds the egg and breaks it, kills me at the
same time." The prince naturally procured the fateful egg
and with it in his hands he confronted the deathless w^arlock.
The monster would have killed him, but the prince began
to squeeze the &g%. At that the warlock shrieked with
pain, and turning to the false princess, who stood smirking
and smiling, " Was it not out of love for you," said he, " that
I told you where my death was ? And is this the return
you make to me ? " With that he grabbed at his sword,
which hung from a peg on the wall ; but before he
could reach it, the prince had crushed the o^'g^, and sure
enough the deathless warlock found his death at the same
moment.^
Another In another version of the same story, when the cunning
version of ^yarlock deccivcs the traitress by telling her that his death is
the story of ,.,,,, , , 11
Koshchei in the broom, she gilds the broom, and at supper the warlock
il^^ v., sees it shining under the threshold and asks her sharply,
Deathless. ° '^ "^
" What's that ? " " Oh," says she, " you see how I honour
you." " Simpleton ! " says he, " I was joking. My death is
out there fastened to the oak fence." So next day, when
the warlock w^as out, the prince came and gilded the whole
fence ; and in the evening, when the warlock was at supper,
he looked out of the window and saw the fence glistering
1 Anton Dietrich, Russian Popular Tales (London, 1857), pp. 21-24.
CHAP. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 493
like gold. "And pray what may that be?" said he to the
princess. "You see," said she, "how I respect you. If you
are dear to me, dear too is your death. That is why I have
gilded the fence in which your death resides." The speech
pleased the warlock, and in the fulness of his heart he revealed
to her the fatal secret of the egg. When the prince, with
the help of some friendly animals, obtained possession of the
egg, he put it in his bosom and repaired to the warlock's
house. The warlock himself was sitting at the window in a
very gloomy frame of mind ; and when the prince appeared
and showed him the &gg, the light grew dim in the warlock's
eyes, and he became all of a sudden very meek and mild.
But when the prince began to play with the &ig% and to
throw it from one hand to the other, the deathless Koshchei
staggered from one corner of the room to the other, and when
the prince broke the ^%% Koshchei the Deathless fell down
and died.^
A Serbian story relates how a certain warlock called Serbian
True Steel carried off a prince's wife and kept her shut up Jyado^k^
in his cave. But the prince contrived to get speech of her, called True
and told her that she must persuade True Steel to reveal to ^^^05'^
her where his strength lay. So when True Steel came home, strength
the prince s wife said to him, " Tell me, now, where is your bird.
great strength?" He answered, "My wife, my strength is
in my sword." Then she began to pray and turned to his
sword. When True Steel saw that, he laughed and said,
" O foolish woman ! my strength is not in my sword, but in
my bow and arrows." Then she turned towards the bow and
arrows and prayed. But True Steel said, " I see, my wife,
you have a clever teacher who has taught you to find out
where my strength lies. I could almost say that your
husband is living, and it is he who teaches you." But she
assured him that nobody had taught her. When she found
he had deceived her again, she waited for some days and
then asked him again about the secret of his strength. He
answered, " Since you think so much of my strength, I will
tell you truly where it is. Far away from here there is a
very high mountain ; in the mountain there is a fox ; in the
1 '\zxQmvA!{\ C\\x\\n, Myths and Folk- a«aryl/aj^'a;-.f (London^ iS^i), pp. ug-
tales of the Russians, Westerti Slavs, 122.
494
SAMSON AND DELILAH
Serbian
story of
a dragon
whose
strength
was in a
pigeon.
fox there is a heart ; in the heart there is a bird, and in this
bird is my strength. It is no easy task, however, to catch
the fox, for she can transform herself into a multitude of
creatures." Next day, when True Steel went forth from
the cave, the prince came and learned from his wife the true
secret of the warlock's strength. So away he hied to the
mountain, and there, though the fox, or rather the vixen,
turned herself into various shapes, he contrived, with the help
of some friendly eagles, falcons, and dragons, to catch and
kill her. Then he took out the fox's heart, and out of the
heart he took the bird and burned it in a great fire. At that
very moment True Steel fell down dead.^
In another Serbian story we read how a dragon resided
in a water-mill and ate up two king's sons, one after the
other. The third son went out to seek his brothers, and
coming to the water-mill he found nobody in it but an old
woman. She revealed to him the dreadful character of the
being that kept the mill, and how he had devoured the
prince's two elder brothers, and she implored him to go away
home before a like fate should overtake him. But he was
both brave and cunning, and he said to her, " Listen well to
what I am going to say to you. Ask the dragon whither he
goes and where his great strength is ; then kiss all that place
where he tells you his strength is, as if you loved it dearly,
till you find it out, and afterwards tell me when I come." So
when the dragon came home the old woman began to question
him, " Where in God's name have you been ? Whither do
you go so far? You will never tell me whither you go."
The dragon replied, " Well, my dear old woman, I do go far."
Then the old woman coaxed him. saying, " And why do you
go so far ? Tell me where your strength is. If I knew
where your strength is, I don't know what I should do for
love ; I would kiss all that place." Thereupon the dragon
smiled and said to her, " Yonder is my strength in that fire-
place." Then the old woman began to kiss and fondle the
fireplace ; and the dragon on seeing it burst into a laugh.
" Silly old woman," he said, " my strength is not there. It is
^ Madame Csedomille Mijatovich,
Serbian Folk-lore, etlited by the Rev.
W. Denton (London, 1874), pp. 167-
172; F. S. Krauss, Sagen und Marchen
der Siidslavcn (Leipsic, 1883-1884), i.
164-169.
CHAI-. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 495
in the tree-fungus in front of the house." Then the old
woman began to fondle and kiss the tree ; but the dragon
laughed again and said to her, " Away, old woman ! my
strength is not there." " Then where is it ? " asked the old
woman. " My strength," said he, " is a long way off, and you
cannot go thither. Far in another kingdom under the king's
city is a lake ; in the lake is a dragon ; in the dragon is a
boar ; in the boar is a pigeon, and in the pigeon is my
strength." The secret was out ; so next morning, when the
dragon went away from the mill to attend to his usual busi-
ness of gobbling people up, the prince came to the old woman
and she let him into the mystery of the dragon's strength.
Needless to say that the prince contrived to make his way
to the lake in the far country, where after a terrible tussle he
slew the water-dragon and extracted the pigeon, in which was
the strength of the other unscrupulous dragon who kept the
mill. Having questioned the pigeon, and ascertained from
it how to restore his two murdered brothers to life, the prince
wrung the bird's neck, and no doubt the wicked dragon
perished miserably the very same moment, though the story-
teller has omitted to mention the fact.^
Similar incidents occur in Celtic stories. Thus a tale, Celtic
told by a blind fiddler in the island of Islay, relates how a fs^iay'storv
giant carried off a king's wife and his two horses, and kept of a' giant'
them in his den. But the horses attacked the giant and wasln ml'
mauled him so that he could hardly crawl. He said to the egg-
queen, " If I myself had my soul to keep, those horses would
have killed me long ago." " And where, my dear," said she,
" is thy soul ? By the books I will take care of it." " It is
in the Bonnach stone," said he. So on the morrow when the
giant went out, the queen set the Bonnach stone in order
exceedingly. In the dusk of the evening the giant came
back, and he said to the queen, " What made thee set the
Bonnach stone in order like that ? " " Because thy soul is in
it," quoth she. " I perceive," said he, " that if thou didst
know where my soul is, thou wouldst give it much respect."
" That I would," said she. " It is not there," said he, " my
soul is ; it is in the threshold." On the morrow she set the
1 A. H. Wratislaw, Sixty Folk-Tales from exclusively Slavonic Sources
(London, 1889), pp. 224-231.
496 SAMSON AND DELILAH part hi
threshold in order finely, and when the giant returned he
asked her, " What brought thee to set the threshold in order
like that ? " " Because thy soul is in it," said she. " I
perceive," said he, " that if thou knewest where my soul is,
thou wouldst take care of it." " That I would," said she,
" It is not there that my soul is," said he. " There is a great
flagstone under the threshold. There is a wether under
the flag ; there is a duck in the wether's belly, and an q^%
in the belly of the duck, and it is in the &^^ that my soul is."
On the morrow when the giant was gone, they raised the
flagstone and out came the wether. They opened the wether
and out came the duck. They split the duck, and out came
the &g^. And the queen took the ^g'g and crushed it in her
hands, and at that very moment the giant, who was coming
home in the dusk, fell down dead.-^
Arg>ieshire Once more, in an Argyleshire story we read how a big
ag"iam gi^nt, King of Sorcha, stole away the wife of the herdsman
whose life of Cruachan, and hid her in the cave in which he dwelt. But
thorn of by the help of some obliging animals the herdsman contrived
blackthorn, j-q discover the cave and his own lost wife in it. Fortunately
the giant was not at home ; so after giving her husband
food to eat, she hid him under some clothes at the upper end
of the cave. And when the giant came home he sniffed
about and said, " The smell of a stranger is in the cave."
~v But she said no, it was only a little bird she had roasted.
*' And I wish you would tell me," said she, " where you keep
your life, that I might take good care of it." " It is in a
grey stone over there," said he. So next day when he went
away, she took the grey stone and dressed it well, and placed
it in the upper end of the cave. When the giant came home
in the evening he said to her, " What is it that you have
dressed there?" "Your own life," said she, "and we must
be careful of it." " I perceive that you are very fond of me,
but it is not there," said he. " Where is it ? " said she. " It
is in a grey sheep on yonder hillside," said he. On the
morrow, when he went away, she got the grey sheep, dressed
it well, and placed it in the upper end of the cave. When
he came home in the evening, he said, " What is it that you
1 J. F. Campbell, Fopula?- Tales of (he IVest Highlands^ New Edition
Paisley and London, 1890), i. 7-1 1.
CHAP. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 497
have dressed there ? " " Your own life, my love," said she.
" It is not there as yet," said he. " Well ! " said she, " you are
putting me to great trouble taking care of it, and you have
not told me the truth these two times." He then said, " I
think that I may tell it to you now. My life is below the
feet of the big horse in the stable. There is a place down
there in which there is a small lake. Over the lake are
seven grey hides, and over the hides are seven sods from the
heath, and under all these are seven oak planks. There is a
trout in the lake, and a duck in the belly of the trout, an (t^'g
in the belly of the duck, and a thorn of blackthorn inside of
the Qg'g, and till that thorn is chewed small I cannot be
killed. Whenever the seven grey hides, the seven sods from
the heath, and the seven oak planks are touched, I shall feel
it wherever I shall be. I have an axe above the door, and
unless all these are cut through with one blow of it, the lake
will not be reached ; and when it will be reached I shall feel
it." Next day, when the giant had gone out hunting on the
hill, the herdsman of Cruachan contrived, with the help of
the same friendly animals, which had assisted him before, to
get possession of the fateful thorn, and to chew it before the
giant could reach him ; and no sooner had he done so than
the giant dropped stark and stiff, a corpse.^
A story of the same sort is told by the natives of Gilgit Indian
in the highlands of North- Western India. They say that o°rJking"
once on a time Gilgit was ruled by an ogre king named of Gilgit
Shri Badat, who levied a tax of children on his subjects and was made
had their flesh regularly served up to him at dinner. Hence of butter,
he went by the surname of the Man-Eater. He had a
daughter called Sakina or Miyo Khai, who used to spend the
summer months at a pleasant spot high up in the mountains,
while Gilgit sweltered in the sultry heat of the valley below.
One day it chanced that a handsome prince named Shamsher
was hunting in the mountains near the summer quarters of
the princess, and being fatigued by the chase he and his men
lay down to sleep beside a bubbling spring under the
grateful shade of trees ; for it was high noon and the sun
was hot. As chance or fate would have it, a handmaid of
the princess came just then to draw water at the spring, and
1 Rev. Ti.Vii.c\x\T\^?,, Folk and Hero 7a/£5 (London, 1890), pp. 1 03-121.
VOL ri 2 K
498
SAMSON AND DELILAH
How the
ogre's
treacherous
daughter
wormed
from him
the secret
of his soul.
seeing the strangers sleeping beside it she returned and
reported the matter to her mistress. The princess was very-
angry at this intrusion on her chace, and caused the intruders
to be brought before her. But at sight of the handsome
prince, her anger fled ; she entered into conversation with
him, and though the day wore on to afternoon and even-
ing, and the prince requested to be allowed to descend
the mountains, the princess detained him, hanging on his
lips as he recounted to her his adventures and deeds of
valour. At last she could hide her feelings no longer ; she
told her love and offered him her hand. He accepted it not
without hesitation, for he feared that her cruel father the
king would never consent to her union with a stranger like
himself So they resolved to keep their marriage secret,
and married they were that very night
But hardly had the prince won the hand of the princess
than his ambition took a higher flight, and he aimed at
making himself master of the kingdom. For that purpose
he instigated his wife to murder her father and to raise a
rebellion against him. Infatuated by her love of her husband,
the princess consented to plot against her royal father's life.
But there was an obstacle to the accomplishment of their
design ; for Shri Badat, the king, was a descendant of the
giants, and as such had no fear of being attacked by sword
or arrow, because these weapons could make neither scratch
nor dint on his body, and nobody knew what his soul was
made of. Accordingly the first thing the ambitious prince
had to do was to learn the exact nature of his father-in-law's
soul ; and who so well able to worm the king's secret from
him as his daughter ? So one day, whether to gratify a
whim or to prove his wife's fidelity, he told her that no
sooner should the leaves of a certain tree fade and turn
yellow than she should see her father no more. Well, that
autumn — for summer was now passing — it chanced that the
leaves of the tree faded and turned yellow earlier than usual ;
and at sight of the yellow leaves the princess, thinking that
her father's last hour was come, and touched perhaps with
remorse for the murder she had been revolving in her
heart, went down the hill lamenting, and so returned to
Gilgit. But in the castle, to her surprise, she found her
CHAP. VI SAMSON AND DELILAH 499
royal sire in the enjoyment of his usual robust health and
cannibal appetite. Taken somewhat aback, she excused her
abrupt and unexpected return from her summer quarters in
the hills by saying that a holy man had foretold how with
the fading leaves of a certain tree her dear father also would
fade and die. " This very day," she said, " the leaves turned
yellow, and I feared for you, and came to throw myself at
your feet. But I thank God that the omen has not come
true, and that the holy man has proved a false prophet."
The paternal heart of the ogre was touched by this proof of
filial affection, and he said, " O my affectionate daughter,
nobody in the world can kill me, for nobody knows of what
my soul is made. How can it be injured until some one
knows its nature? It is beyond a man's power to inflict
harm on my body." To this his daughter replied that her
happiness depended on his life and safety, and as she was
dearest to him in all the wide world, he ought not to fear to
tell her the secret of his soul. If she only knew it, she
would be able to forestall any evil omens, to guard against
any threatened danger, and to prove her love by devoting
herself to the safety of her kind father. Yet the wary ogre
distrusted her, and, like Samson and the giants of the fairy
tales, tried to put her off by many false or evasive answers.
But at last, overcome by her importunity or mollified by her
cajoleries, he revealed the fatal secret. He told her that his
soul was made of butter, and that whenever she should see a
great fire burning in or around the castle, she might know
that his last day was come ; for how could the butter of his
soul hold out against the heat of the conflagration ? Little
did he wot that in saying this he was betraying himself into
the hands of a weak woman and an ungrateful daughter who
was plotting against his life.
After passing a few days with her too confiding sire, the How the
traitress returned to her abode in the hills, where she found ^au^hter"^
her beloved spouse Shamsher anxiously expecting her. and her
Very glad was he to learn the secret of the king's soul, for .,"011^^ 10
he was resolved to spare no pains in taking his father-in- melt her
law's life, and he now saw the road clear to the accomplish- soul of
ment of his design. In the prosecution of the plot he t)utter.
counted on the active assistance of the king's own subjects,
500 SAMSON AND DELILAH part hi
who were eager to rid themselves of the odious ogre and so
to save the Hves of their remaining children from his ravening
maw. Nor was the prince deceived in his calculation ; for
on learning that a deliverer was at hand, the people readily
gave in their adhesion to him, and in collusion with them the
plot was laid for bearding the monster in his den. The
plan had the merit of extreme simplicity. A great fire was
to be kindled round about the royal castle, and in the heat
of it the king's soul of butter was expected to melt away
and dissolve. A few days before the plot was to be put into
execution, the prince sent down his wife to her father at
Gilgit, with strict injunctions to keep their secret and so to
lull the doating ogre into a sense of false security. All was
now ready. At dead of night the people turned out of their
homes with torches and bundles of wood in their hands.
As they drew near the castle, the king's soul of butter began
to feel uneasy ; a restlessness came over him, and late as
the hour was he sent out his daughter to learn the source of
his uneasiness. The undutiful and faithless woman accord-
ingly went out into the night, and after tarrying a while, to
let the rebels with their torches draw nearer, she returned to
the castle and attempted to reassure her father by telling
him that his fears were vain, and that there was nothing the
matter. But now the presentiment of coming evil in the
king's mind was too strong to be reasoned away by his
wheedling daughter ; he went out from his chamber himself
only to see the darkness of night lit up by the blaze of fires
surrounding the castle. There was no time to hesitate or
loiter. His resolution was soon taken. He leaped into the
air and winged his way in the direction of Chotur Khan, a
region of snow and ice among the lofty mountains which
encircle Gilgit. There he hid himself under a great glacier,
and there, since his butter soul could not melt in ice, he
The remains down to this day. Yet still the people of Gilgit
annual bcHeve that he will come back one day to rule over them
commemo- •'
ration of and to devour their children with redoubled fury ; hence
flight^'^'^^ every year on a night in November — the anniversary of the
day when he was driven from Gilgit — they keep great fires
burning all through the hours of darkness in order to repel
his ghost, if he should attempt to return. On that night no
CHAr. VI SAMSON AND DEL/LyUl ■ 501
one would dare to sleep ; so to while away the time the
people dance and sing about the blazing bonfires.^
The general conformity of this Indian story to the Resem-
Samson legend and the Slavonic and Celtic tales is sufficientK' ,,^"t'^^°
•=• ' the Indian
obvious. Its resemblance to them would probably be still 10 the
closer if the story-teller had recorded the false and evasive and Celtic
answers which the ogre gave to his daughter in regard to tales and
the secret of his soul ; for on the analogy of the Hebrew, samson
Slavonic, and Celtic parallels we may suppose that the legend.
wily monster attempted to deceive her by pretending that
his soul was stowed away in things with which in reality
it had no connexion. Perhaps one of his answers was that
his soul was in the leaves of a certain tree, and that when
they turned yellow it would be a sign of his death, though
as the story now runs this false prediction is put in the
mouth of a third person instead of in that of the ogre
himself.
While these Slavonic, Celtic, and Indian tales resemble the But in the
story of Samson and Delilah in their general scheme or plot, ^f^^"^- .
•' o r- > Slavonic,
they differ from it in at least one important respect. For in and Indian
the Samson story the reader's sympathy is all enlisted on the p°r'ts^of'^*^
side of the betrayed warlock, who is represented in an amiable the hero
h'ght as a patriot and champion of his people : we admire villain are
his marvellous feats ; we pity his sufferings and death ; we transposed:
abhor the treachery of the artful hussy whose false protesta- the
tions of affection have brought these unmerited calamities on betrayed
her lover. On the other hand, in the Slavonic, Celtic, and and
Indian stories the dramatic interest of the situation is exactly applaud his
betrayer.
reversed. The betrayed warlock is represented in a very
unamiable light as a wretch who abuses his great power for
wicked purposes ; we detest his crimes, we rejoice at his
downfall, and we applaud or condone the cunning of the
woman who betrays him to his doom, because in doing
so she merely avenges a great wrong which he has done
to her or to a whole people. Thus in the two different
renderings of the same general theme the parts of the
villain and the victim are transposed : in the one rendering
1 Ghulam Muhammad, "Festivals No. 7 (Calcutta, 1905), pp. 114 sg.,
and Folklore of Gilgit," Memoirs of 115-118. I have considerably abridged
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i. the story.
The
502 SAMSON AND DELILAH part hi
the part of the innocent victim is taken by the warlock,
and the part of the artful villain by the woman ; in the
other rendering it is the warlock who figures as the artful
villain, and it is the woman who plays the part of the
innocent victim, or at all events, as in the Indian tale,
of the fond wife and national deliverer. There can be
little doubt that if we had the Philistine version of the
story of Samson and Delilah, we should find in it the
parts of the villain and the victim transposed : we should
see Samson figuring as the unscrupulous villain who
robbed and murdered the defenceless Philistines, and we
should see Delilah appearing as the innocent victim of his
brutal violence, who by her quick wit and high courage con-
trived at once to avenge her own wrongs and to deliver her
people from the monster who had so long and so cruelly
afflicted them. It is thus that in the warfare of nations and
harlequins ^^ factions the parts of the hero and the villain are apt to
'^""^^ shift according to the standpoint from which we view them :
seen from one side the same man will appear as the whitest
of heroes ; seen from the other side he will appear as the
blackest of villains ; from the one side he will be greeted
with showers of roses, from the other side he will be pelted
with volleys of stones. We may almost say that every man
who has made a great figure in the turbulent scenes of history
is a harlequin, ^vhose parti-coloured costume differs according
as you look at him from the front or the back, from the
rio-ht or the left. His friends and his foes behold him from
opposite sides, and they naturally see only that particular
hue of his coat which happens to be turned towards them.
It is for the impartial historian to contemplate these harle-
quins from every side and to paint them in their coats of many
colours, neither altogether so white as they appeared to their
friends nor altogether so black as they seemed to their
enemies.
CHAPTER VII
THE BUNDLE OF LIFE
The traveller who, quitting the cultivated lands of central The
Judea, rides eastwards towards the Dead Sea, traverses at
first a series of rolling hills and waterless valleys covered by-
broom and grass. But as he pursues his way onward the
scenery changes ; the grass, and thistles disappear, and he
gradually passes into a bare and arid region, where the wide
expanse of brown or yellow sand, of crumbling limestone,
and of scattered shingle is only relieved by thorny shrubs
and succulent creepers. Not a tree is to be seen ; not a
human habitation, not a sign of life meets the eye for mile
after mile. Ridge follows ridge in monotonous and seem-
ingly endless succession, all equally white, steep, and
narrow, their sides furrowed by the dry beds of innumerable
torrents, and their crests looming sharp and ragged against
the sky above him as the traveller ascends from the broad
flats of soft white marl, interspersed with flints, which divide
each isolated ridge from the one beyond it. The nearer
slopes of these desolate hills look as if they were torn and
rent by waterspouts ; the more distant heights present the
aspect of gigantic dustheaps. In some places the ground
gives out a hollow sound under the horse's tread ; in others
the stones and sand slip from beneath the animal's hoofs ;
and in the frequent gullies the rocks glow with a furnace
heat under the pitiless sun which beats down on them out
of the cloudless firmament. Here and there, as We proceed
eastward, the desolation of the landscape is momentarilj'-
lightened by a glimpse of the Dead Sea, its waters of a
deep blue appearing in a hollow of the hills and con-
503
wilderness
of Judea.
504 THE BUNDLE OF LIFE part hi
trasting refreshingly with the dull drab colouring of the
desert foreground. When the last ridge is surmounted and
he stands on the brink of the great cliffs, a wonderful
panorama bursts upon the spectator. Some two thousand
feet below him lies the Dead Sea, visible in its whole length
from end to end, its banks a long succession of castellated
crags, bastion beyond bastion, divided by deep gorges, with
white capes running out into the calm blue water, while
beyond the lake rise the mountains of Moab to melt in
the far distance into the azure of the sky. If he has struck
the lake above the springs of Engedi, he finds himself on
the summit of an amphitheatre of nearly vertical cliffs, down
which a rugged winding track, or rather staircase, cut in the
face of the precipice, leads to a little horse-shoe shaped
plain sloping to the water's edge. It is necessary to dis-
mount and lead the horses carefully down this giddy
descent, the last of the party picking their steps very
warily, for a single slip might dislodge a stone, which,
hurtling down the crag, and striking on the travellers below,
would precipitate them to the bottom. At the foot of the
cliffs the copious warm fountain of Engedi, " the spring of
the kid," bursts in a foaming cascade from the rock amid a
verdurous oasis of luxuriant semi-tropical vegetation, which
strikes the wayfarer all the more b}- contrast with the dreary
waterless wilderness through which he has been toiling for
many hours. That wilderness is what the ancient Hebrews
called Jeshimmon, or desolation, the wilderness of Judea.
From the bitter but brilliant water of the Dead Sea it
stretches right up into the heart of the country, to the roots
of the Mount of Olives, to within two hours of the gates of
Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem.^
David and To thcse dismal wilds the hunted David fled for refuge
'^'^'' from the pursuit of his implacable enemy Saul.^ While he
was in hiding there with the band of broken men he had
gathered round him, he was visited by Abigail, the wise and
^ (Sir) George Adam Smith, The Second Edition (London, 1874), pp.
Historical Geography of the Holy Land 23 sqq.\ R. C. Conder, Tent Work
(London, 1894), pp. 269 sqq., 312 in Palestitie, New Edition (London,
sqq.; H. B Tristram, The Land of 1885), pp. 262 sqq.
Ara^/, Fourth Edition (London, 1882), ^ j Samuel xxiii. 14 sq., 24 sq.,
pp. 193 sqq.; id.. The Land of Moab, 29, xxiv. I.
CHAP. VII THE BUNDLE OF LIFE 505
beautiful wife of the rich sheep-farmer Nabal, whom the
gallant outlaw had laid under a deep obligation by not
stealing his sheep. Insensible of the services thus rendered
to him by the caterans, the surly boor refused with con-
tumely a request, couched in the most polite terms, which
the captain of the band had sent in for the loan of pro-
visions. The insult touched the captain's nice sense of
honour to the quick, and he was marching over the hills at
the head of four hundred pretty fellows, every man of
them with his broadsword buckled at his side, and was
making straight for the farm, when the farmer's wife The
met him on the moor. She had soft words to soothe [5rnioor°°
the ruffled pride of the angry chieftain, and, better perhaps
than words, a train of asses laden with meat and drink
for the sharp-set brigands. David was melted. The
beauty of the woman, her gentle words, the sight of the
asses with their panniers, all had their effect. He received
the wife, pleading for her husband, with the utmost courtesy,
promised his protection, not without dark hints of the sight
that the sun would have seen at the farm next morning if
she had not met him, and so dismissed her with a blessing.
The word was given. The outlaws faced to the right-about,
and, followed no doubt by the asses with their panniers,
marched off the way they had come. As she watched
those stalwart, sunburnt figures stepping out briskly till the
column disappeared over the nearest ridge, Abigail may
have smiled and sighed. Then, turning homeward, she
hastened with a lighter heart to the house where her boorish
husband and his hinds, little wotting of what had passed on
the hills, were drinking deep and late after the sheepshear-
ing. That night over the wine she wisely said nothing.
But next morning, when he was sober, she told him, and
his heart died within him. The shock to his nervous
system, or perhaps something stronger, was too much for
him. Within ten da}'s he was a dead man, and after a
decent interval the widow was over the hills and far away
with the captain of the brigands.^
Among the compliments which the charming Abigail The bundle
paid to the susceptible David at their first meeting, there is°^''^'^-
^ I Samuel xxv. 1-42.
5o6 THE BUNDLE OF LIFE part hi
one which deserves our attention. She said, " And though
man be risen up to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul, yet
the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life
with the Lord thy God ; and the souls of thine enemies,
them shall he sling out, as from the hollow of a sling." ^
No doubt the language is metaphorical, but to an English
writer the metaphor is strange and obscure. It implies that
the souls of living people could be tied up for safety in a
bundle, and that, on the contrary, when the souls were those
of enemies, the bundle might be undone and the souls
scattered to the winds. Such an idea could hardly have
occurred to a Hebrew even as a figure of speech, unless he
were familiar with an actual belief that souls could thus be
treated. To us, who conceive of a soul as immanent in
its body so long as life lasts, the idea conveyed by the verse
in question is naturally preposterous. But it would not be
so to many peoples whose theory of life differs widely from
Wide- ours. There is in fact a widespread belief among savages
belief that that the soul Can be, and often is, extracted from the body
souiscanbe during the lifetime of its owner without immediately causing
extracted . . . / fc>
from their his death. Commonly this is done by ghosts, demons, or
bodies in evil-disposed persons, who have a grudge at a man and steal
the hfetime r r > ir. &
of their his soul for the purpose of killing him ; for if they succeed
in their fell intent and detain the truant soul long enough,
the man will fall ill and die." For that reason people who
identify their souls with their shades or reflections are often
in mortal terror of a camera, because they think that the
photographer who has taken their likeness has abstracted
their souls or shades along with it. To take a single
instance out of a multitude. At a village on the lower
Yukon River, in Alaska, an explorer had set up his camera
to get a picture of the Eskimo as they were moving
^ I Samuel xxv. 29. I have to thank editors, to be changed into ns
my dear and lamented friend, the late ("balm"). See Professor A. A.
Professor J. H. Moulton, D.D., for Bevan, in Journal of Theological
directingmyattentiontothispassageand Studies, October, 1899, p. 140.
suggesting what I believe to be its true
interpretation. The same expression 2 -pahoo and ike Perils of tlie Soul,
"bundle of life" (o^n nm) is applied pp. 30 sqq. {The Golden Bous^h, Third
to a faithful friend in the Hebrew Edition, Part ii.) ; A. C. Kruijt, Hci
text of Ecclesiasticus vi. 16, where Animis7nc in den Indischen Archipel
n'ra ("bundle") ought not, with some (The Hague, 1906), pp. 77 sqq.
owners.
CHAP. VII THE BUNDLE OF LIFE 507
about among their houses. While he was focussing the
instrument, the headman of the village came up and insisted
on peeping under the cloth. Being allowed to do so he
gazed agog for a minute at the moving figures on the
ground-glass ; then jerking his head from under the cloth
he bellowed out to his people, " He has got all your shades
in this box." A panic ensued among the group, and in a
twinkling they disappeared helter-skelter into their houses.^
On this theory a camera or a packet of photographs is a
box or bundle of souls, packed ready for transport like
sardines in a tin.
But sometimes souls are extracted from their bodies Souls
with a kindly intention. The savage seems to think that fr^om^their
nobody can die properly so long as his soul remains intact, bodies at
whether in the body or out of the body ; hence he infers reasons in
that if he can contrive to draw out his soul and stow it o'"^er to
. . . , -111 keep them
away in some place where nothmg can injure it, he will be out of
for all practical purposes immortal so long as his soul re- harm's
mains unharmed and undisturbed in its haven of refuge.
Hence in time of danger the wary savage will sometimes
carefully extract his own soul or the soul of a friend and
leave it, so to say, at deposit account in some safe place till
the danger is past and he can reclaim his spiritual property.
For example, many people regard the removal to a new
house as a crisis fraught with peril to their souls ; hence in
Minahassa, a district of Celebes, at such critical times a
priest collects the souls of the whole family in a bag, and
keeps them there till the danger is over, when he restores
them to their respective owners.^ Again, in Southern
Celebes, when a woman's time is near, the messenger who
goes to fetch the doctor or midwife takes with him a
chopping-knife or something else made of iron. The thing,
whatever it is, represents the woman's soul, which at this
dangerous time is believed to be safer outside of her body than
in it. Hence the doctor must take great care of the thing,
1 E. W. Nelson, " The Eskimo kennis van de zeden en gewoonten der
about Behring Straits," Eighteenth Alfoeren in de Minahassa," Mededeel-
Annual Report of the Bureau of I'ttgen van wege het Ncderlandsche
American Ethtiology, Part i. (Wash- Zendelinggenootschap, vii. (1863) pp.
ington, 1899) p. 422. 146 ^q.
'^ P. N. Wilken, " Bijdragen tot de
5o8 THE BUNDLE OF LIFE part hi
for were it lost the woman's soul would with it be lost also.
So he keeps it in his house till the confinement is over,
when he gives back the precious object in return for a
fee.^ In the Kei Islands a hollowed-out coco-nut, split in
two and carefully pieced together, may sometimes be seen
hanging up. This is a receptacle in which the soul of a
newly -born infant is kept lest it should fall a prey to
demons. For in those parts the soul does not permanently
lodge in its tabernacle of clay, until the clay has taken
a firm consistency. The Eskimo of Alaska adopt
a similar precaution for the soul of a sick child. The
medicine-man conjures it into an amulet and then stows the
amulet in his medicine-bag, where, if anywhere, the soul
should be out of harm's way." In some parts of South-
Eastern New Guinea, when a woman walks abroad carrying
her baby in a bag, she " must tie a long streamer of vine of
some kind to her skirt, or better still to the baby's bag, so
that it trails behind her on the ground. For should, by
chance, the child's spirit wander from the body it must have
some means of crawling back from the ground, and what so
convenient as a vine trailing on the path ? " ^
Bundles of But perhaps the closest analogy to the " bundle of life "
sticks^and ^5 furnished by the bundles of churinga, that is, flattened
stones and elongated stones and sticks, which the Arunta and
witHv^kh other tribes of Central Australia keep with the greatest care
the spirits and secrccy in caves and crevices of the rocks. Each of
Central these mysterious stones or sticks is intimately associated
Australian ^^,j{.j-j ^j^g spirit of a member of the clan, living or dead ; for
aborigines ^ ...,.,, . ,
are thought as soou as the spirit of a child enters into a woman to be
^? ^': born, one of these holy sticks or stones is dropped on the
closely ' ■' • 1 1 -TN- J
associated, spot where the mother felt her womb quickened. Directed
by her, the father searches for the stick or stone of his
child, and having found it, or carved it out of the nearest
hard-wood tree, he delivers it to the headman of the dis-
trict, who deposits it with the rest in the sacred store-house
among the rocks. These precious sticks and stones, closely
bound up with the spirits of all the members of the clan,
1 B. F. Matthes, Bijdragen tot de Insehvelt des Banda-Meeres (Berlin,
Ethnologic van Zuid - Celebes (The 1896), p. 199.
Hague, 1873), p. 54. ^ Henry Newton, In Far New
^ J. A. Jacobsen, Reisen in die Guinea (London, 1914), p. 186.
CHAP. VII THE BUNDLE OF LIFE 509
are often carefully tied up in bundles. They constitute the
most sacred possession of the tribe, and the places where
they are deposited are skilfully screened from observation,
the entrance to the caves being blocked up with stones
arranged so naturally as to disarm suspicion. Not only
the spot itself but its surroundings are sacred. The plants
and trees that grow there are never touched : the wild
animals that find their way thither are never molested.
And if a man fleeing from his enemies or from the avenger
of blood succeeds in reaching the sanctuary, he is safe so
long as he remains within its bounds. The loss of their
cJiuringa, as they call the sacred sticks and stones thus
associated with the spirits of all the living and all the dead
members of the community, is the most serious evil that can
befall a tribe. Robbed of them by inconsiderate white men,
the natives have been known to stay in camp for a fort-
night, weeping and wailing over their loss and plastering
their body with white pipeclay, the emblem of mourning for
the dead.^
In these beliefs and practices of the Central Australians in these
with regard to the churmga we have, as Messrs. Spencer ^'^^'^^
and Gillen justly observe, "a modification of the idea which stones the
finds expression in the folklore of so many peoples, and of the ""^^
according to which primitive man, regarding his soul as a Central
concrete object, imagines that he can place it in some secure aborigines
spot apart, if needs be, from his body, and thus, if the latter seem
, . , , , . . r ^ • -11 • formerly
be m any way destroyed, the spirit part 01 him still pers;sts to have
unharmed. " ^ Not that the Arunta of the present day deposited
their
believe these sacred sticks and stones to be the actual recep- spirits,
tacles of their spirits in the sense that the destruction of one
of the sticks or stones would of necessity involve the destruc-
tion of the man, woman, or child whose spirit is associated
with it. But in their traditions we meet with clear traces of a
belief that their ancestors did really deposit their spirits in
these sacred objects. For example, we are told that some
men of the Wild Cat totem kept their spirits in their
1 (Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J. 1904), pp. 257-282.
Gillen, The Native T7-ibes of Central
Australia (London, 1899), pp. 12S- ^ (Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J.
136. Compare id.. The Northern Gillen, Tlie Native Tribes of Central
Tribes of Central Australia (London, Australia, p. 137. •
5IO
THE BUNDLE OF LIFE
Analogy
between
a bundle
of these
sacred
sticks and
stones and
"the
bundle of
life."
Ezekiel's
denuncia-
tion of the
women
who hunt
and catch
souls.
churinga, which they used to hang up on a sacred pole in
the camp when they went out to hunt ; and on their return
from the chase they would take down the cJiuringa from the
pole and carry them about as before.^ The intention of thus
hanging up the cJmringa on a pole when they went out
hunting may have been to put their souls in safe keeping
till they came back.
Thus there is fair ground to think that the bundles of
sacred sticks and stones, which are still treasured so carefully
in secret places by the Arunta and other tribes of Central
Australia, were formerly believed to house the souls of every
member of the community. So long as these bundles
remained securely tied up in the sanctuary, so long, might
it be thought, was it well with the souls of all the people ;
but once open the bundles and scatter their precious contents
to the winds, and the most fatal consequences would follow.
It would be rash to assert that the primitive Semites ever
kept their souls for safety in sticks and stones which they
deposited in caves and crannies of their native wilderness ;
but it is not rash to affirm that some such practice would
explain in an easy and natural way the words of Abigail to
the hunted outlaw, " And though man be risen up to pursue
thee, and to seek thy soul, yet the soul of my lord shall be
bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God ; and
the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as from
the hollow of a sling."
Be that as it may, the Hebrews would seem even down
to comparatively late times to have been familiar with a
form of witchcraft which aimed at catching and detaining
the souls of living persons with the intent to do them
grievous hurt. The witches who practised this black art
were formally denounced by the prophet Ezekiel in the
following terms : —
" And thou, son of man, set thy face against the
daughters of thy people, which prophesy out of their own
heart ; and prophesy thou against them, and say. Thus
saith the Lord God: Woe to the women that sew fillets
upon all elbows, and make kerchiefs for the head of persons
1 (Sir) Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central
Australia, p. 138.
CHAP. VII THE BUNDLE OF LIFE 511
of ewcvy stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of
my people, and save souls alive for yourselves ? And ye
have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley
and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die,
and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your
lying to my people that hearken unto lies. Wherefore
thus saith the Lord God : Behold I am against your fillets,
wherewith ye hunt the souls, and I will tear them from your
arms ; and I will let the souls which ye hunt go free like
birds. Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver my
people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in
your hand to be hunted ; and ye shall know that I am
the Lord." '
The nefarious practices of these women, which the The art of
prophet denounces, apparently consisted in attempts to catch ^nd""^
stray souls in fillets and cloths, and so to kill some people catching
, . , - 1 -1 1 i ii souls in
by keepmg their souls m durance vile, and to save the traps and
lives of others, probably ot sick people, by capturing their snares
vagabond souls and restoring them to their bodies. Similar inVarious
devices have been and still are adopted for the same purpose ^^^jj^^"^^^^^
by sorcerers and witches in many parts of the world. For
example, Fijian chiefs used to whisk away the souls of
criminals in scarves, whereupon the poor wretches, deprived
of this indispensable part of their persons, used to pine and
die." The sorcerers of Danger Island, in the Pacific, caught Trapping
the souls of sick people in snares, which they set up near Danger
the houses of the sufferers, and watched till a soul came inland.
fluttering into the trap and was entangled in its meshes,
after which the death of the patient was, sooner or later,
inevitable. The snares were made of stout cinet with loops
of various sizes adapted to catch souls of all sizes, whether
^ Ezekiel xiii. 17-21. Many years and omit the first ninisV (" like birds ")
ago my friend W. Robertson Smith as a doublet of the second, if indeed
suggested to me the true interpretation both should not be omitted as a gloss.
of this passage, which seems to have The word (mp) is Aramaic, not Heb-
escaped the commentators. Robertson j-ew. Further, for c-z-B} nx ("the
Smith's explanation is accepted by A. souls," an unheard-of pluraf of c'aj)
Lods, La Croyance h la Vie Future et j ^^^^ ^,^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ „j ^^
le Culte des Moris dans V Antiquity ' T .1
,,.,„. ,, . „ "' T CorniU and other critics.
Israihte (Pans, 1906), 1. 47 sq. In
verse 20, following I. W. Rothstein
(in R. Kittel's Biblia Hebraica, ii. "^ 'Y\i.^\\X\'A.ms, Fiji and the Fijians,
761), I read d3 for db* ("there") Second Edition (London, i860), i. 250.
512
THE BUNDLE OF LIFE
Trapping
souls in
West
Africa.
Trappins
souls in
Celebes.
large or small, whether fat or thin.^ Among the negroes of
West Africa " witches are continually setting traps to catch
the soul that wanders from the body when a man is sleep-
ing ; and when they have caught this soul, they tie it up
over the canoe fire and its owner sickens as the soul shrivels.
This is merely a regular line of business, and not an affair of
individual hate or revenge. The witch does not care whose
dream-soul gets into the trap, and will restore it on payment.
Also witch-doctors, men of unblemished professional reputa-
tion, will keep asylums for lost souls, i.e. souls who have been
out wandering and found on their return to their body that
their place had been filled up by a Sisa, a low-class soul. . . .
These doctors keep souls, and administer them to patients
who are short of the article." " Among the Baoules of the
Ivory Coast it happened once that a chief's soul was ex-
tracted by the magic of an enemy, who succeeded in shutting
it up in a box. To recover it, two men held a garment of
the sufferer, while a witch performed certain enchantments.
After a time she declared that the soul was now in the
garment, which was accordingly rolled up and hastily
wrapped about the invalid for the purpose of restoring his
spirit to him.^ Malay wizards catch the souls of women
whom they love in the folds of their turbans, and then go
about with the dear souls in their girdles by day and sleep
with them under their pillows by night.* Among the
Toradjas of Central Celebes the priest who accompanied an
armed force on an expedition used to wear a string of sea-
shells hanging down over his breast and back for the purpose
of catching the souls of the enemy ; the shells were branched
and hooked, and it was supposed that, once the souls were
conjured into the shells, the branches and hooks would pre-
vent them from escaping. The way in which the priest
set and baited this soul-trap was as follows. When the
1 V\ .V<[ . G\\\, illylhs and Songs from 461 sg.
the South Pacific (London, 1876), p.
171 ; id.. Life in the Soiithon Isles
(London, N.D. ), pp. 181 sqq. Cinet
is cordage made from the dried fibre
of coco-nut husk. See Th. Williams,
Fiji and the Fijians,^ i. 69.
2 Miss Mary H. Kingsley, Travels
in West Africa (London, 1897), pp.
^ Maurice Delafosse, " Sur des
traces probables de civilisation Egyp-
tienne et d'hommes de race blanche a
la Cote d'lvoire," V AiUhropologie, xi.
(1900) p. 558.
* W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic (Lon-
don, 1900), pp. 576 sg.
CHAP. VII THE BUNDLE OF LIFE 513
warriors had entered the hostile territory, the priest went b}'
night to the village which they intended to attack, and there,
close by the entrance, he laid down his string of shells on
the path so as to form a circle, and inside of the circle he
buried an tg^ and the guts of a fowl, from which omens had
been drawn before the troop set out from their own land.
Then the priest took up the string of shells ahd waved it
seven times over the spot, calling quietly on the souls of the
enemy and saying, " Oh, soul of So-and-So," mentioning the
name of one of the inhabitants of the village, " come, tread
on my fowl ; thou art guilty, thou hast done wrong, come ! "
Then he waited, and if the string of shells gave out a
tinkling sound, it was a sign that the soul of an enemy had
really come and was held fast by the shells. Next day the
man, whose soul had thus been ensnared, would be drawn,
in spite of himself, to the spot where the foes who had
captured his soul were lying in wait, and thus he would fall
an easy prey to their weapons.^
Such practices may serve to explain those proceedings Hebrew
of the Hebrew witches against which Ezekiel fulminated. ^^'^^^^^
° caught
These abandoned women seem to have caught vagrant souls souls in
in kerchiefs which they threw over the heads of their victims, ^'^'^ '^'^^'
and to have detained their spiritual captives in fillets which
they sewed to their own elbows.
Thus the Hebrews apparently retained down to his- "Houses
torical times the conception of the soul as a separable ^e^oy^^g^^j
thing, which can be removed from a man's body in his life- by isaiah.
time, either by the wicked art of witches, or by the owner's
voluntary act in order to deposit it for a longer or shorter
time in a place of safety. If one great prophet reveals to
us the Hebrew witch at her infernal business of decoying
the souls of others, another great prophet perhaps affords us
a glimpse of a fine lady of Jerusalem carrying her own soul
about with her in a little casket. After describing, in a
strain of Puritan invective and scorn, the haughty daughters
of Zion who tripped about with languishing eyes, mincing
steps, and tinkling feet, Isaiah proceeds to give a long cata-
logue of the jewels and trinkets, the robes and shawls, the
1 N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De Celebes (Batavia, 191 2-19 14), i. 233
Bare" e-sprekeiideToradja's van Midden- sq., 236 j^.
VOL. 11 2 L
514
THE BUNDLE OF LIFE
veils and turbans, all the finery and frippery of these fashion-
able and luxurious dames.^ In his list of feminine gauds
he mentions " houses of the soul." ^ The expression thus
literally translated is unique in the Old Testament. Modern
translators and commentators, following Jerome, render it
" perfume boxes," " scent-bottles," or the like.^ But it may
well be that these " houses of the soul " were amulets in
which the soul of the wearer was supposed to lodge.* The
commentators on the passage recognize that many of the
trinkets in the prophet's list were probably charms, just as
personal ornaments often are in the East to the present day.*
^ Isaiah iii. 16-24.
2 Isaiah iii. 20, u'sj.T 'ri3.
3 "Perfume boxes" (English Re-
vised Version). Similarly Kautsch,
Dillmann, Duhm, Skinner, Whitehouse.
Jerome's rendering in the Vulgate is
olfactoriola.
* The Egyptians placed little models
of houses, made of pottery, on the
tombs for the souls of the dead to lodge
in. Many of these miniature houses
of the soul were discovered by Pro-
fessor W. M. Flinders Petrie at Rifeh,
in Upper Egypt. See W. M. F'linders
Petrie, Gizeh attd Rifeh (l^onAon, 1907),
pp. 14-20, with Plates I., XV.-XXII.
The hut-urns containing the ashes of
the dead, which have been found in
ancient Italian, German, and Danish
graves, were probably in like manner
intended to serve as houses of the soul.
See W. Helbig, Die Italiker in dcr
Poebene (Leipsic, 1879), p. 50; O.
Schrader, Reallexikon der Indoger-
manischen Alterttimskttnde (Strasburg,
1901), pp. 337, 339. The custom of
erecting small huts or shrines for the
souls of the dead appears to be common
in African tribes. See J. Roscoe,
" Further Notes on the Manners and
Customs of the Baganda," yi^wrwa/ of
the Anlkropoloi^ical Institute, xxxii.
(1902) p. 41 ; id., The Baganda
(London, 1911), pp. 123, 286; id..
The Northern Bantu (Cambridge,
1915), pp. 130, 229; L. Tauxier, Le
Noir du Soudan (Paris, 19 1 2), pp.
104, 189, 236, 269, 322, 356; E.
Torday, Camp and Tramp in African
Wilds {London, 1913), p. 137 ; Donald
Fraser, Winning a Primitive People
(London, 1914), p. 128; The Last
Journals of David Livirtgstone (Lon-
don, 1874), i. 156, 168, 353. Among
the Iban or Sea Dyaks of Borneo it is
customary to erect a miniature house
on th.e grave one or two years after the
death, and to place in this miniature
house miniature hats, mats, and baskets
for the use of the dead. See L. Nyuk,
"Religious Rites and Customs of the
Iban or Dyaks of Sarawak," Anthropos,
i. (1906) pp. 171 sq. Among the
Bare 'e- speaking Toradjas of Central
Celebes, when a new house is being
dedicated, the priestesses make a little
model of a house for the souls of the
dead and hang it up in a corner of the
new dwelling. See N. Adriani en
Alb. C. Kruijt, De Bare'e-sprekende
Toradja's van Midden-Celebes (Batavia,
1912-1914), i. 281. In the island
of Gaman, off Western New Guinea,
miniature houses are placed on the
graves, and food is set beside them for
the spirits of the dead. See J- W.
van Hille, " Reizen in West-Nieuw-
Guinea," Tijdschrift van het Neder-
lands ch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap,
Tweede Serie, xxiii. (1906) p. 482.
However, all such little houses for the
souls of the dead stand on a different
footing from houses for the souls of the
living.
^ Dillmann, Skinner, and White-
house, on Isaiah iii. 18 and 20. Com-
pare B. Winer, Piblisches Realivorter-
buch"^ (Leipsic, 1833-1838), i. 65, s.v.
' Amulete." The peoples of the eastern
horn of Africa (the Somali, Gallas, and
Danakil), especially the Mohammedan
part of them, wear many ornaments
TJIE BUNDLE OF IJFE
515
The veiy word which follows " houses of the souls " in the
text is rendered " amulets " in the English Revised Version ;
it is derived from a verb meaning " to whisper," " to charm." ^
But this view of the " houses of the soul " does not
necessarily exclude their identification with scent-bottles.
In the eyes of a people who, like the Hebrews, identified
the principle of life with the breath," the mere act of smell-
ing a perfume might easily assume a spiritual aspect ; the
scented breath inhaled might seem an accession of life, an
addition made to the essence of the soul. Hence it would
be natural to regard the fragrant object itself, whether a
scent-bottle, incense, or a flower, as a centre of radiant
spiritual energy, and therefore as a fitting place into which
to breathe out the soul whenever it was deemed desirable to
do so for a time. Far-fetched as this idea may appear to
us, it may seem natural enough to the folk and to their
best interpreters the poets : —
" / se7it thee late a rosy wreath.
Not so much hojiourttig thee
As givitig it a hope that there
It could tiot witheT^d be ;
But thou thereofi didst 07ily breathe
And sent'st it back to me ;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear.,
Not of itself but thee ! " ^
' ' Houses
of the soul'
perhaps
scent-
bottles.
which, at the same time, serve as
amulets. See Ph. Paulitschke, Ethno-
graphic Nordost-Afrikas, Die niaterielle
Cidtiir der Dandkil, Galla, und
Somdl (Berlin, 1893), pp. 95 sq.
Compare F. Stuhlmann, Mit Eniin
Pascha ins Hertz von Afrika (Berlin,
1894), p. 518. On the relation of
jewellery to magic, see Professor W.
Ridgeway, in Report of the British
Association for the Adva^icenient of
Science, Meeting held at Sotithport,
igo3, pp. 815 sq.
1 Fr. Brown, S. R. Driver, and Ch.
A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon
(Oxford, 1906); p. 538. Similarly
Kautsch in his German translation, and
Dillmann and Skinner in their com-
mentaries on Isaiah. In another pas-
sage (xxvi. 16) Isaiah uses the same
word (v^rh\ in the phrase " compulsion
of a spell," where we must read jips
for pps with many critics. See Brown,
Driver, and Briggs, op. cit. pp. 538,
848.
2 Genesis ii. 7. Compare C. Grunei-
sen, Der Ahnenkidtus und die Ur-
religion Israels (Halle, a. S., 1 900),
pp. 23 sqq. ; B. Stade, Biblische Theo-
logie des Alten Testaments, i. (Tiibin-
gen, 1905) pp. i?ti sq. ; A. Lods,
La Croyance a la Vie Future et le Cidte
des Marts dans I Antiquitd Israelite
(Paris, 1906), i. 51 S(jq. The last of
these writers appears, however, to be
right in holding that the Hebrews had
no single consistent theory as to the
nature of the soul.
^ "Jonson's learned sock" was on
when he wrote these beautiful verses.
See Philostratus, Epist. 2, lUiro/x<pd croi
<TTi(pavov p65uv, ou ae ti/jlQv, /cai tovto
5i6 THE BUNDLE OF LIFE *art iii
Or again :
" Ihr verbliihet^ siisse Rosen,
Meine Liebe trug euch ntcht."
Folk-lore But if beauty can thus be thought to give of her life,
poery. ^^^ soul, to the soul of the rose to keep it fadeless, it is not
extravagant to suppose that she can breathe her soul also
into her scent-bottle. At all events these old-world fancies,
if such indeed they are, would explain very naturally why a
scent-bottle should be called a " house of the soul." But
the folk-lore of scents has yet to be studied. In investigat-
ing it, as every other branch of folk-lore, the student may
learn much from the poets, who perceive by intuition what
most of us have to learn by a laborious collection of facts.
Indeed, without some touch of poetic fancy, it is hardly
possible to enter into the heart of the people. A frigid
rationalist will knock in vain at the magic rose-wreathed
portal of fairyland. The porter will not open to Mr.
Gradgrind.
H^v yd.p, dW airoii rt xopifi/tei'os wpoffip^povffa ir\i}pov <pi\ri/jia.Tuv to Ik-
Toh p6boLS, 'iva p-ri fiapavdrj. And again, ww/xa kul ovtus didov toIj deofi^vois.
Epist. 46, ED TrewoiijKas arpojfj.i'ri xpv<^°-- Elsewhere Philostratus whose fancy,
yuevos Toh pSdois . . . ei Se ^ovXei ti like that of Herrick, seems to have
<f>i\ip x°-pig€crdaL. TO. \ei\pava avrQi' olvtI- run much on love and roses, plays on
Tr€/j.\f/ov firiK€Ti irvioPTa pbSusv /xovov, aWa the same thoughts i^Epist. 60 and 63).
KoX ao\J. And the thought of the first Another passage in his letters(^/z.y/. 55,
stanza of the same song, uapaiverai. Kal yvvrj fierd, pbSuv, hv
^paduvrj. M?) /xeWe, S) /caXi} ' ffvfi-
'^ Dritik to 7ne only with thine eyes^ trai^wfiev, (TT€<pav(jiffiJb/j.e6a to(J p68oLS,
And I will pledge with mine ; i^vvlp6.ixij3p.ev) might have served as a
Or leave a kiss but in tlie cup ^^^^ j-qj. Herrick's
And I'll not look for wine," ,, ,-. ^ i ,
■' " Gather ye rose-buds while ye 7nay.
is also borrowed from the same elegant But without doubt the English poet
writer. See Philostratus, Epist. 33, drew his inspiration from living roses
'Ejaoi 5^ ixbvois irplnvu'e rols 6fifjLa<rLV ... in English gardens and English hedges,
et 5^ ^ov\ei, rbf /xev olvov pt-rj TrapaTroWve, not from dead Greek roses in the dusty
jxbvov 0 eii^aXovffa iidaros Kal Tois x^'^^c' pages of Philostratus.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
One of the most tragic figures in the history of Israel is Saui and
that of Saul, the first king of the nation. Dissatisfied with S=*™"^'-
the rule of pontiffs who professed to govern them in the
name and under the direct guidance of the deity, the people
had clamoured for a civil king, and the last of the pontiffs,
the prophet Samuel, had reluctantly yielded to their im-
portunity and anointed Saul king of Israel. The revolution
thus effected was such as might have taken place in the
Papal States, if ever the inhabitants, weary of ecclesiastical
oppression and misgovernment, had risen against the Popes,
and compelled the reigning pontiff, while he still clutched
the heavenly keys, to resign the earthly sceptre into the
hands of a secular monarch. A shrewd man of affairs as
well as an ecclesiastic of the most rigid type, Samuel had
dexterously contrived not only to anoint but to nominate
the new king on whom the hopes of Israel now centred.
The man of his choice was well fitted to win the admiration The
and attract the homage of the crowd. His tall and stately ^f sTuJ^"^
form, his gallant bearing, his skilful generalship and daunt-
less courage on the field of battle, all marked him out as a
natural leader of men. Yet, under a showy exterior, this
dashing and popular soldier concealed some fatal infirmities, —
a jealous and suspicious disposition, a choleric temper, a weak-
ness of will, a vacillation of purpose, and, above all, a brooding
melancholy under which his intellect, never of a high order,
sometimes trembled on the verge of insanity. In such dark
hours the profound dejection which clouded his brain could
only be lightened and dispelled by the soothing strains of
517
5i8
THE WITCH OF EN DOR
Saul the
tool of
Samuel.
The
breach
between
Saul and
Samuel.
.solemn music ; and one of the most graphic pictures painted
for us by the Hebrew historian is that of the handsome king
sitting sunk in gloom, while the minstrel boy, the ruddy-
cheeked David, stood before him discoursing sweet music on
the trembling strings of the harp, till the frown passed from
the royal brow and the sufferer found a truce to his uneasy
thoughts.
Perhaps with his keen eye Samuel had detected and
even counted on these weaknesses when, bowing to the
popular will, he ostensibly consented to be superseded in the
supreme direction of affairs. He may have reckoned on
setting up Saul as an ornamental figure-head, a florid mask,
which, under the martial features of the brave but pliable
soldier, should conceal the stern visage of the inflexible
prophet ; he may have expected to treat the king as a
crowned and sceptred puppet, who would dance on the
national stage to the tune played by his ghostly adviser
behind the scenes. If such were his calculations when he
raised Saul to the throne, they were fully justified by the
event. For so long as Samuel lived, Saul was little more
than a tool in hands far stronger than his own. The prophet
was indeed one of those masterful natures, those fanatics
cast in an iron mould, who, mistaking their own unbending
purpose for the will of heaven, march forward unswervingly to
their goal, trampling down all opposition, their hearts steeled
against every tender emotion of humanity and pity. While
Saul was content to do the bidding of this imperious mentor,
committing his conscience to him as to a father confessor, he
was graciously permitted to strut before the eyes of the vulgar
wearing his shadowy crown ; but no sooner did he dare to
diverge by a hair's breadth from the ruthless commands laid
on him by his spiritual director, than Samuel broke his puppet
king and threw him away as an instrument that had ceased
to serve his purpose. The prophet secretly appointed a
successor to Saul in the person of the minstrel David, and
indignantly turning his back on the now repentant and con-
science-stricken king, he refused to see him again and con-
tinued to mourn over him as dead till the end of his life.^
After that, things went ill with Saul. Deprived of the
1 I Samuel xv., compare xiii. 8-14.
CHAP, vin THE WITCH OF ENDOR 51^
strong arm on which he had long trustfully leaned, he followed Moral
a course ever more wayward and erratic. His melancholy 11000^^
deepened. His suspicions multiplied. His temper, always Saui.
uncertain, became uncontrollable. He gave way to outbursts
of fury. He attempted the life, not only of David, but of
his own son -Jonathan, and though these fits of passionate
anger were sometimes followed by fits of as passionate re-
morse, the steady deterioration of his once noble nature was
unmistakeable.
While the clouds thus gathered thick about his setting The eve of
sun, it happened that the Philistines, against whom he had
waged a lifelong war, invaded the land in greater force than
ever. Saul mustered the militia of Israel to oppose them,
and the two armies encamped on opposite hill-slopes with
the broad valley of Jezreel lying between them. It was the
eve of battle. The morrow would decide the fate of Israel.
The king looked forward to the decisive struggle with deep
misgiving. A weight like lead hung on his drooping spirits, saui's
He deemed himself forsaken of God, for all his attempts to disquiet,
lift the veil and pry into the future by means of the legiti-
mate forms of divination had proved fruitless. The prophets
.were silent : the oracles were dumb : no vision of the night
brightened with a ray of hope his heavy and dreamless sleep.
Even music, which once could charm away his cares, was no
longer at his command. His own violence had banished the
deft musician, whose cunning hand had so often swept the
strings and wakened all their harmonies to lap his troubled
soul in momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. In his despair He resolves
the king's mind reverted irresistibly to Samuel, the faithful [J^'gJ^^^'
counsellor to whom in happier days he had never looked in of Samuel.
vain for help. But Samuel was in his grave at Ramah.
Yet a thought struck the king. Might he not summon up
the dead seer from the grave and elicit words of hope and
comfort from his ghostly lips ? The thing was possible, but
difficult ; for he had himself driven into exile all the practi-
tioners of the black art. He inquired of his servants, and
learned from them that a witch still lived at the village of
Endor, not many miles away to the north, among the hills
on the farther side of the valley. The king resolved to con-
sult her and, if possible, to set his harassing doubts and fears
'^^
520
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
PART III
Saul sets
out for
Endor.
Saul and
the witch
of Endor.
at rest. It was a hazardous enterprise, for between him and
the witch's home lay the whole army of the Philistines. To
go by day would have been to court death. It was necessary
to wait for nightfall.
Having made all his dispositions for battle, the king
retired to his tent, but not to sleep. The fever in his blood
forbade repose, and he impatiently expected the hour when
he could set out under cover of darkness. At last the sun
went down, the shadows deepened, and the tumult of the
camp subsided into silence. The king now laid aside the
regal pomp in which he had but lately shown himself to
the army, and muffling his tall figure in a common robe he
lifted the flap of the tent and, followed by two attendants,
stole out into the night. Around him in the starlight lay
the slumbering forms of his soldiers, stretched in groups on
the bare ground about their piled arms, the dying embers of
the fires casting here and there a fitful gleam on the sleepers.
On the opposite hillside, far as the eye could see, twinkled
the watch-fires of the enemy, and the distant sounds of revelry
and music, borne across the valley on the night wind, told
of the triumph which the insolent foe anticipated on the
morrow.
Striking straight across the plain the three adventurers
came to the foot of the hills, and giving a wide berth to the
last outpost of the Philistine camp, they began the ascent.
A desolate track led them over the shoulder of the hill to
the miserable village of Endor, its mud-built hovels stuck to
the side of the rocks on the bare stony declivity. Away
to the north Mount Tabor loomed up black and massive
against the sky, and in the farthest distance the snowy top
of Hermon showed pale and ghost-like in the starlight. But
the travellers had neither leisure nor inclination to survey the
nocturnal landscape. The king's guide led the way to a
cottage ; a light was burning in the window, and he tapped
softly at the door. It seemed that the party was expected,
for a woman's voice from within bade them enter. They
did so, and closing the door behind them, they stood in the
presence of the witch. The sacred writer has not described
her appearance, so we are free to picture her according to
our fancy. She may have been young and fair, with raven
CHAP. VIII THE WITCH OF EN DOR 521
locks and lustrous eyes, or she may have been a wizened,
toothless hag, with meeting nose and chin, blear eyes and
grizzled hair, bent double with age and infirmity. We cannot
tell, and the king was doubtless too preoccupied to pay much
attention to her aspect. He bluntly told her the object of
his visit. " Divine unto me," he said, " I pray thee, by the
familiar spirit, and bring me up whomsoever I shall name
unto thee." But the beldame protested, and reminded her
visitor, in whom she did not recognize the king, of the royal
proclamation against witches and warlocks, asserting that it
was as much as her life was worth to comply with the request.
Only when the tall stranger, with an air between entreaty and
command, assured her on his honour that no harm should •
befall her, did she at last consent to exert her uncanny powers
on his behalf. She asked, " Whom shall I bring up unto
thee ? " And he said, " Bring me up Samuel." The demand The ghost
startled the necromancer, and looking hard at her visitor she °^^'^'""^'
o announces
discerned him to be the king. In great alarm, believing she the
had been caught in a trap, she cried out, " Why hast thou fn^g^defeai
deceived me? for thou art Saul." But the king pacified her ofSaui.
with an assurance of his royal clemency and bade her pro-
ceed with her incantations. She settled herself to her task
accordingly, and gazing intently into what seemed to her
visitors mere vacancy, it was soon manifest by her wild and
haggard look that she saw something invisible to them. The
king asked her what she saw. " I see," said she, " a god
coming up out of the earth." Saul asked, "What form is
he of?" And she answered, " An old man cometh up ; and
he is covered with a robe." So the king perceived that it
was the ghost of Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the
ground, and did obeisance. But the ghost asked sternly,
" Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up ? " The
king replied, " I am sore distressed ; for the Philistines make
war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth
me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams : therefore
I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me
what I shall do." But the unhappy monarch found the ghost
as hard and implacable as the living prophet had been when
he turned his back in anger on the king who had presumed
to disobey his behest, tin pitiless tones the inexorable old
522
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
Necro-
mancj'
among the
ancient
Hebrews.
man demanded of the trembling suppliant how he dared, he
the forsaken of God, to consult him, the prophet of God ?
He upbraided him once more with his disobedience : he
reminded him of his prophecy that the kingdom should be
rent from him and given to David : he announced the fulfil-
ment of the prediction ; and he wound up his fierce invective
by declaring that to-morrow should witness the defeat of
Israel by the Philistines, and that before another sun had set
Saul and his sons should be with him in the nether world.
With these dreadful words the grim spectre sank into the
earth, and Saul fell to the ground in a faint.^
From this graphic narrative we learn that the practice of
necromancy, or the evocation of the spirits of the dead for
the purpose of consulting them oracularly, was familiar in
ancient Israel, and that severe legislative prohibitions were
unable wholly to suppress it. How deeply rooted the custom
was in the popular religion or superstition of the people we
can see from the behaviour of Saul, who in his dire distress
did not hesitate to call in the services of the very same
necromancers whom in the days of his prosperity he had laid
under a ban. His example is typical of that tendency to
relapse into heathenism which the prophets of Israel observed
1 I Samuel xxviii. 3-20. In verse
12 it seems that we must read "And
when the woman saw Saul " with six
manuscripts of the Septuagint and some
modern critics, instead of "And when
the woman saw Samuel." See S. R.
Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and
the Topography of the Books of Samuel,
Second Edition (Oxford, 191 3), p.
215 ; A. R. S. Kennedy, Samuel
(Edinburgh and London, 1905), pp.
178 sq. (The Century Bible). The
change is approved by R. Kittel in his
edition of the Hebrew text (Btblia
Hebraica, Leipsic, 1905-1906,1.411).
As to the topography of the battlefield
and of Endor, see A. P. Stanley, Sinai
and Palestine, Second Edition (London,
1856), pp. 331 sqq. ; W. M. Thomson,
The Land and the Book (London,
1859), pp. 445 sqq. ; H. B. Tristram,
The Land 0/ Israel, Fourth Edition
(London, 1882), pp. 123 sqq.; C. R.
Conder, Tent Work in Palestine, New
Edition (London, 1885), pp. 62 sqq.;
(Sir) G. A. Smith, The Historical
Geography of the Holy Zaw<f (London,
1894), pp. 379 sqq. I have ventured
to transfer to antiquity the modern de-
scriptions of Endor. Compare in parti-
cular H. B. Tristram, op. cit. pp. 124
sq.: " It might be fancy, but the place
has a strange, weird-like aspect — a
miserable village on the north side of
the hill, without a tree or a shrub to
relieve the squalor of its decaying
heaps. It is full of caves, and the
mud-built hovels are stuck on to the
sides of the rocks in clusters, and are,
for the most part, a mere continuation
and enlargement of the cavern behind,
which forms the larger portion of this
human den. The inhabitants were the
most filthy and ragged we had seen,
and as the old crones, startled at Jhe
rare apparition of strangers strolling
near their holes, came forth and cursed
us, a Holman Hunt might have im-
mortalised :)n canvas the very features
of the necromancer of IsraeL"
CHAP. VIII THE WITCH OF ENDOR 523
and deplored in their countrymen, and which always mani-
fested itself most prominently in seasons of extraordinary
calamity or danger when the ordinances of the orthodox
religion appeared to be unavailing. A law of Israel, which
in its existing form is probably much later than the time of
Saul but may nevertheless embody a very ancient usage,
denounced the penalty of death by stoning against all who
had familiar spirits or were wizards, that is, apparently,
against all who professed to evoke the souls of the dead for
the sake of consulting them oracularly.^ Yet among the
pagan practices revived long after the days of Saul by King
Manasseh was that of necromancy ; from the holes and
corners into which the practitioners of that black art had
been driven by the terror of the law, the superstitious monarch
brought them forth and established them publicly in the light
of day.^ However, in his sweeping reformation of the national
religion the pious King Josiah soon afterwards relegated all
necromancers, witches, and wizards to the criminal classes,
from which they had for a short period emerged.^
The account of the interview of Saul with the ghost of The voice
Samuel clearly implies that the phantom was visible only to ^j^^^j^
the witch, but that the king, though he did not see it, was
able to hear its voice and to answer it directly. We may
safely conclude that this was one of the regular ways in
which Israelitish witches and wizards professed to hold
converse with the dead ; they pretended to conjure up and
to see the ghost, while their dupes saw nothing but heard
^ Leviticus xx. 27, compare xix. 31, duction to the Literature of the Old
XX. 6. The words which in these Testament, Ninth Edition (Edinburgh,
verses are translated "familiar spirit" 1913), pp- 47 sqq., 145 sqq. ; A. R. S.
(aix) and " wizard " ('^i'T) are the same Kennedy, Leviticus and Niiiithers, pp.
with those similarly translated in Samuel 25-28 ( The Centtuy Bible).
xxviii. 3, 7, 8, 9, where the reference " 2 Kings xxi. 6. The verb (nb^)
is clearly to necromancers. This pro- should be translated "appointed," the
hibition of necromancy in Leviticus marginal rendering of the English Re-
forms part of what the critics call the vised Version, rather than " dealt with."
Holiness Code, a body of law which The words for necromancers in this
probably included the ancient usages passage are the same as in Leviticus
of the local sanctuaries before the great xix. 31, xx. 6, 27, and in Samuel xxviii.
Deuteronomic reformation of King 3, 7, 8, 9.
Josiah in 621 B.C., though the com- ^ Deuteronomy xviii. 10-12. That
pilation of the code probably fell some- the book of Deuteronomy embodies the
what later, near the end of the Jewish legislation of Josiah is now generally
monarchy. See S. R. Driver, Inti-o- recognized by the critics.
524 THE WITCH OF ENDOR part hi
a voice speaking, which, in their simplicity, they took to be
that of the spirit, though in reality it would commonly be
the voice either of the wizard himself or of a confederate.
In such cases, whatever the source of the sound, it appeared
to proceed not from the mouth of the wizard, but from a
point outside him, which the credulous inquirer supposed to
be the station of the invisible ghost. Such audible effects
could easily be produced by ventriloquism, which has the
advantage of enabling the necromancer to work without the
assistance of a confederate, and so to lessen the chance of
detection. ,
The place The witch told Saul that the ghost of Samuel rose out
the'^okeS °^ ^^^ earth, and through the exertion of her vocal talent she
the ghost may have caused to issue apparently from the ground a
to proceed, hollow and squeakv voice which the king mistook for the
accents of the deceased seer ; for in such hollow, squeaky
tones were ghosts commonly supposed to discourse from the
ground.^ However, the necromancer did not always take
the trouble of projecting his voice out of himself; he was
often content to bring it up from his own inside and to palm
it off on his gullible hearers as the voice of his familiar spirit
or of the worshipful ghost. Hence the familiar spirit or the
ghost was said to be inside the necromancer : ^ the super-
natural accents appeared to issue from his stomach.^ But
wherever the voice may have seemed to come from, whether
from the bowels of the earth or from the bowels of the
conjuror, it is probable that the ghost himself always modestly
kept in the background ; for we can hardly suppose that in
the rudimentary state of Hebrew art Hebrew wizards were
able, like their brethren of a later age, to astonish and terrify
1 Isaiah xxix. 4. Hebrew modes of consulting the dead,
2 Leviticus XX. 27, n;n; '3 nrx ix aJ-Ni compare W. Robertson Smith, "On
'3in; IN 3ix Dna "a man also or a the forms of Divination and Magic
woman in whom' is a ghost or a familiar enumerated in Deut. xviii. 10, 11,"
spirit." However, the phrase might Journal of Philology, xiv. (1885) pp.
be otherwise rendered, "a man or a 127 sq. ; S. R. Driver, Critical and
woman, if there should be among them Exegetical Cotnmentary on Deutero-
a necromancer or wizard," as the words w^wy, Third Edition(Edinburgh, 1902),
are translated in the Oxford Hebrew pp. 225 ^j'^'.; C. Gruneisen,Z><?r ^/z«f«-
and English Lexicon, s.v. 3ix, p. 15. ktiltus und die Urreligion Israels (lisWe,
3 Isaiah viii. 19 (Septuagint), tovs ^■'^■' ^900), pp. 148 sgq. ; A. Lods,
iyyaarpi/xOdovs Kal tovs dirb ttjs 7^5 ^^ Croyance a la Vie Future et le
(poovovvrai rovi KevoXoyovvras ot £k ttjs Culte des Marts dans r Antiquity
KoiMas (pwvovaiv. On the various Israelite (Paris, 1906), pp. 242 sqq.
CHAP. VIII THE WITCH OF ENDOR 525
believers by exhibiting to them in a dark room the figures
of hobgoblins, which, painted in inflammable pigments on the
walls, and ignited at the proper moment by the application
of a torch, suddenly burst out from the gloom in lurid
splendour to confirm the mysteries of faith by the demon-
strations of science/
The practice of necromancy was probably common to Xecro-
the Hebrews with other branches of the Semitic race. A "^^""^y '"
the
clear reference to it appears to be contained in the twelfth Giigamesh
canto of the Giigamesh epic. There the hero Giigamesh is Tostl!?
represented mourning for his dead friend Eabani. In his Eabani
sorrow he appeals to the gods to bring up for him the soul ^^° '
of his departed comrade from the nether world. But one
after another the deities confess themselves powerless to grant
his request. At last he prays to Nergal, the god of the dead,
saying, " Break open the chamber of the grave and open the
ground, that the spirit of Eabani, like a wind, may rise out of
the ground." The deity graciously listened to his prayer.
" He broke open the chamber of the grave and opened the
ground ; and caused the spirit of Eabani to rise out of the
ground like a wind," With the ghost thus summoned from
the vasty deep Giigamesh converses, and learns from him the
mournful state of the dead in the nether world, where is the
devouring worm and all things are cloaked in dust. How-
ever, the gloominess of the picture is a little relieved by the
information which the apparition vouchsafes as to the solace
which the rites of burial afford to the souls of warriors fallen
in battle, compared with the deplorable condition of those
whose corpses have been suffered to welter unburied on the
field.-
The ancient Greeks were familiar with the practice of Necro.
evoking the souls of the dead in order either to obtain infor- '"^"'^y ^
"^ among the
mation from them or to appease their wrath. The first ancient
instance of necromancy in Greek literature occurs in the '^^^'""
' Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium 1 901), pp. 363-367. Compare P.
Haeresium, iv. 35, p. 102, ed. L. ^tnstn, Assyrisck-Babyhnisihe Mytken
Duncker and F. G. Schneidewin (Got- tmd Epen (Berlin, 1900), pp. 257 sqq. ;
tingen, 1859). P. Dhorme, Choix de Textes Religieux
2 L. W. King, Babylonian Religion Assyro-Babyloniens (Paris, 1907), pp.
and Mythology (London, 1899), pp. 317 sqq. ; A. Ungnad und H. Gress-
174-176; R. F. Harper, ^jjryr?a« a«rf mann, Das Gilgamesch-Epos (Got-
Babylonian Literature (New York, tingen, 19 n), pp. d^ sqq.
526
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
The
evocation
of the
ghosts by
Ulysses.
Ancient
Greek
oracles of
the dead.
Oracle of
the dead at
Aornum in
Thesprotis
consulted
by
Periander,
tyrant of
Corinth.
famous passage of the Odyssey, where Ulysses sails to the
gloomy land on the utmost verge of Ocean, and there
summons up the ghosts from the underworld. In order that he
may get speech of them, he has to dig a trench and sacrifice
sheep over it, allowing their blood to drain into its depth.
Thereupon the weak and thirsty ghosts gather at the trench,
and, after quafifing the blood, say their sooth to the hero, who
sits beside it, drawn sword in hand, keeping order among the
shades and suffering none to gulp the precious liquid out of
his turn. The first whom he allows to approach and drink
is the ghost of the Theban soothsayer Tiresias, whom Ulysses
desired to consult as to his return home after all his long
wanderings on the sea. Only when the seer has satisfied his
curiosity on that point does the war-worn and way-weary
soldier enter into conversation with the souls of other famous
men and fair ladies in the sunless land.^ However, this
interview with the ghosts in what may be called their home
country is somewhat different from necromancy in the ordinary
sense, or the evocation of the dead in the land of the living.
In ancient Greece it would seem that the practice of
calling up the shades from the nether regions was not carried
on by necromancers at any place indiscriminately, but was
restricted to certain definite spots which were supposed to
communicate directly with the underworld by passages or aper-
tures, through which the spirits could come up and go down
as they were summoned or dismissed. Such spots were called
oracles of the dead,^ and at them alone, so far as appears,
could legitimate business with the shades of the departed be
transacted.
Of these oracles of the dead there was one at Aornum
in Thesprotis, where the legendary musician Orpheus is said
to have called up, but called in vain, the soul of his loved
and lost Eurydice.^ In a later age the tyrant Periander
of Corinth sent to the same oracle to consult the ghost of
his dead wife Melissa about a deposit which a stranger
had left in his charge, and which had been mislaid. But
the ghost refused to answer his question, declaring that she
was cold and naked, because the clothes which he had
^ Homer, Odyssey, x. 487 sqq., xi.
2 Ne/cuo/uavreia, less commonly i/fKpo-
fxavreta, \j/vxofx.avTfta.
^ Pausanias ix. 30. 6.
CHAP. VIII THE WITCJI OF ENDOR 527
buried with her body were of no use to her, not having been
burnt. On receiving this answer Periander issued a pro-
clamation that all the women of Corinth should assemble in
the sanctuary of Hera. They did so accordingly in all their
finery as for a festival ; but no sooner were they gathered
than the tyrant surrounded the gay assembly with his guards,
and caused every woman in it, mistress and maid alike, to be
stripped of her clothes, which he thereupon piled up in a
pit and burned for the benefit of his deceased spouse.
Transmitted by the medium of fire, the garments reached
their address ; for when Periander afterwards sent again to
the oracle and repeated his question about the deposit, his
wife's ghost, now warm and comfortable, answered readily.^
The whole vicinity of this oracular seat w^ould seem to The seat of
have been associated with, if not haunted by, the spirits of
the dead ; for the names of the infernal rivers were given to
the neighbouring waters. Beside it ran the Acheron," and
not far off flowed the Cocytus,'^ " named of lamentation loud
heard on the rueful stream." The exact spot where this
commerce with the other world was maintained is perhaps
to be identified with a hamlet now called Glyky, where some
fragments of granite columns and pieces of a w'hite marble
cornice may mark the site of an ancient temple. The river The
Acheron, now called the Suliotiko or Phanariotiko river, ^^^^^J
here issues from the wild and barren mountains of the once country.
famous Suli, to wander, a sluggish, turbid, weedy stream,
through a wide stretch of swampy plain till it falls into the
sea. Before entering the plain from the mountains, which
stand up behind it like a huge grey wall, the river traverses
a profound and gloomy gorge, one of the darkest and deepest
of the glens of Greece. On either side precipices rise sheer
from the water's edge to a height of hundreds of feet, their
ledges and crannies tufted with dwarf oaks and shrubs.
Higher up, where the sides of the glen recede from the
perpendicular, the mountains soar to a height of over three
thousand feet, the black pine-woods which cling to their
precipitous sides adding to the sombre magnificence of the
scene. A perilous footpath leads along a narrow ledge high
1 Herodotus v. 92. 7. - Herodotus v. 92. 7.
■* Pausanias i. 17. 5.
528 THE WITCH OF ENDOR part hi
up on the mountain side, from which the traveller gazes
down into the depths of the tremendous ravine, where the
rapid river may be seen rushing and foaming along, often
plunging in a cascade into a dark abyss, but so far below him
that even the roar of the waterfall is lost in mid-air before it
can reach his ear/ The whole landscape combines the
elements of grandeur, solitude, and desolation in a degree
that is fitted to oppress the mind with a sense of awe and
gloom, and thereby to predispose it for communion with
supernatural beings. No wonder that in these rugged moun-
tains, these dreary fens, these melancholy streams, the ancients
fancied they beheld the haunts of the spirits of the dead.
Oracle of Another oracle of the dead was established at Heraclea
Heracrea^' in Bitliynia. The Spartan King Pausaiiias, who defeated the
inBithynia. Persians in the battle of Plataea, resorted to this oracle, and
there attempted to summon up and propitiate the ghost of a
Byzantine maiden name Cleonice, whom he had accidentally
killed. Her spirit appeared to him and announced in ambigu-
ous language that all his troubles would cease when he should
return to Sparta. The prophecy was fulfilled by the king's
speedy death.^
Oracles We have no information as to the mode in which the
h"'^w'^ ghosts were supposed to appear and reply to questions at
in dreams, these places ; hence we cannot say whether the phantoms
revealed themselves to the inquirer himself or only to the
wizard who conjured them up ; nor again do we know
whether the person who was favoured with these manifesta-
tions beheld them awake or in dreams. However, at some
Greek oracles of the dead the communication with the souls of
the departed is known to have taken place in sleep. Such,
The oracle for example, was the custom at the oracle of the soothsayer
ofMopsus ]y[Qpsus in Cilicia. Plutarch tells us that on one occasion
in Cilicia. "
the governor of Cilicia, a sceptic in religion and a friend of
Epicurean philosophers, who derided the supernatural, resolved
to test the oracle. For that purpose he wrote a question on
^ W. M. Leake, Travels in N'oiihcru i. 27-29 ; Gtiides -Joanne, Grece, ii.
Greece (London, 1835), i. 231-242, (Paris, 1891) pp. 105 sqq.
iv. 50-66 ; Christopher Wordsworth,
Greece, New Edicion (London, 1882), ^ Plutarch, Ciinon, 6; id., De sera
pp. 332-339 ; C. Bursian, Geographic mcminis vindicta, 10. Compare Pau-
von Gi-iechen/and (L.^\-ps\c, 1 862- 1 872), sanias iii. 17. 8 sq.
CHAP. VIII THE WITCH OF ENDOR 529
a tablet, and without revealing what he had written to any-
body he sealed up the tablet and entrusted it to a freedman,
with orders to submit the question to the ghostly seer.
Accordingly the man slept that night, according to custom,
in the shrine of Mopsus, and next morning he reported to
the governor that he had dreamed a dream. He thought he
saw a handsome man standing by him, who opened his
mouth, and, having uttered the single word " Black," imme-
diately vanished. The friends of the governor, who had
assembled to hear and to quiz the messenger from the other
world, were at a loss what to make of this laconic message,
but no sooner did the governor himself receive it than he fell
on his knees in an attitude of devotion. The reason for this
very unusual posture was revealed when the seal of the tablet
was broken and its contents read aloud. For the question
which the governor had written therein was this, " Shall I
sacrifice a white bull or a black ? " The appropriateness of
the answer staggered even the incredulous Epicurean philo-
sophers, and as for the governor himself, he sacrificed the
black bull and continued to revere the dead soothsayer
Mopsus to the end of his days.^
The pious Plutarch, who reports with obvious satisfaction Dream
this triumphant refutation of shallow infidelity, has related °he*dead i
another incident of the same sort which was said to have Italy.
occurred in Italy. A certain very rich man named Elysius, a
native of the Greek city of Terina in Bruttium, lost his son and
heir, Euthynus, by a sudden and mysterious death. Fearing
that there might have been foul play- in this loss of the heir to
all his riches, the anxious father had recourse to an oracle of
the dead. There he offered a sacrifice, and then, in accordance
with the custom of the sanctuary, he fell asleep and dreamed a
dream. It seemed to him that he saw his own father, and
begged and prayed him to help in tracking down the author of
his son's death. " For that very purpose am I come," answered
the ghost, " and I beg you will accept my message from this
young man," pointing, as he said so, to a youth who followed
at his heels, and who resembled to the life the son whose
loss Elysius mourned. Startled by the likeness, Elysius
asked the young man, " And who are you ? " to wnich the
1 Plutarch, De defectic oractiloriim, 45.
VOL. II 2 M
530
THE WITCH OF EN DOR
Dream
oracles on
graves in
North
Africa in
ancient and
modern
times.
Dream
oracles on
graves in
Celebes.
Aeschylus's
description
of the
evocation
of the ghost
of King
Darius.
phantom answered, " I am your son's genius. Take that."
So saying, he handed to Elysius a tablet inscribed with some
verses, which declared that his son had died a natural death,
because death was better for him than life.^
In antiquity the Nasamones, a tribe of northern Libya,
used to seek for oracular dreams by sleeping on the tombs of
their ancestors ; - probably they imagined that the souls of
the departed rose from their graves to advise and comfort
their descendants. A similar custom is still practised by
some of the Tuaregs of the Sahara. When the men are away
on distant expeditions, their wives, dressed in their finest
clothes, will go and lie on ancient tombs, where they call .up
the soul of one who will give them news of their husbands.
At their call a spirit named Idebni appears in the form of
a man. If the woman contrives to please this spirit, he tells
her all that has happened on the expedition ; but if she fails to
win his favour, he strangles her.^ Similarly, " near the Wady
Augidit, in the Northern Sahara, is a group of great elliptical
tombs. The Azgar woman, when desiring news of an
absent husband, brother, or lover, goes to these graves and
sleeps among them. She is thought to be sure to receive
visions which will give her the news she seeks." ^ So, too,
the Toradjas of Central Celebes will sometimes go and sleep
upon a grave in order to receive advice from the ghost in a
dream.^
The most elaborate description of the evocation of a
ghost in Greek literature is to be found in Aeschylus's
tragedy. The Persia?ts. The scene of the play is laid at the
tomb of King Darius, where Queen Atossa, the wife of
Xerxes, is anxiously waiting for news of her husband and the
mighty host which he had led against Greece, A messenger
arrives with tidings of the total defeat of the Persians at
Salamis. In her grief and consternation the queen resolves
to summon up the ghost of Darius from the grave, and to
seek counsel of him in the great emergency. For that
1 Plutarch, Cotisolatioad Apolloiiiiivt,
14.
2 Herodotus iv. 172. Compare
Pomponius Mela, Chotoi^raph'<i, i. 46.
3 Henri Duveyrier, Exploration du
Sahara : hs Touareg du Nord (Paris,
1864), p. 415.
•* Oric Bates, The Eastern Libyans
(London, 1914), pp. 1785^., referring
to E. von Bary, Gh&t et les Touareg de
PAir, p. 63.
° N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De
Bare'' e-sprekende Toradjds van Midden-
Celebes (Batavia, 1912-1914), i. 253.
CHAP, vni THE WITCH OF ENDOR 531
purpose she offers libations of milk, honey, water, wine, and
olive oil at the tomb, while at the same tim.e the chorus
chants hymns calling on the gods of the nether world to
send up the soul of the dead king to the light of day. The
ghost accordingly emerges from the earth, and learning of
the disaster that has befallen the Persian arms, he gives
advice and warning to his afflicted people.^ In this account
it is clearly implied that the ghost appears in broad daylight,
and not merely in a dream, to those who have evoked it ;
but whether the poet is describing a Greek or a Persian form
of necromancy, or is simply drawing on his own imagination,
we cannot say for certain. Probably the description is based
on rites commonly performed by Greek necromancers, either
at the regular oracles of the dead, or at the graves of the
particular persons whose ghosts they desired to consult. The
Pythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana is reported by Evocation
his biographer Philostratus to have conjured up the soul of °f ^^^j^^l]"/
Achilles from his grave in Thessaly. The hero appeared and
from the barrow in the likeness of a tall and handsome
young man, and entered into conversation with the sage in
the most affable manner, complaining that the Thessalians
had long since ceased to bring offerings to his tomb, and
begging him to remonstrate with them on their negligence.^
In Pliny's youth a certain grammarian named Apion professed
to have evoked the shade of Homer and questioned the poet
as to his parents and his native land, but he refused to reveal
the answers which he received from the ghost ; hence later
ages have not benefited by this bold attempt to solve the
Homeric problem at the fountain head.^
The poet Lucan has given us, in his usual tawdry bom- mean's
bastic style, a tedious report of an interview which, according q"^"^^'°"
to the bard, Sextus Pompeius, son of Pompey the Great, had evocation
with a Thessalian witch before the battle of Pharsalia. Anxious ""^^^^ ^^"^
to learn the issue of the war, the unworthy son of a great Thessalian
father, as Lucan calls him, has recourse, not to the legitimate
oracles of the gc^ds, but to the vile arts of witchcraft and
necromancy. At his request a foul hag, whose dwelling is
among the tombs, restores an unburied corpse to life, and
1 Aeschylus, Persians, 600-838. ^ Philostratus, Vit. ApoUon. iv. 16.
3 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 18.
witch.
532 THE WITCH OF ENDOR part hi
the soul thus temporarily replaced in its earthly tabernacle
tells of the commotion which it has witnessed among the
shades at the prospect of the catastrophe so soon to befall
the Roman world. Having delivered his message, the dead
man requests as a particular favour to be allowed to die a
second time for good and all. The witch grants his- request,
and considerately erects a pyre for his convenience, to which
the corpse walks unassisted and is there comfortably burnt
to ashes.^ Thessalian witches were certainly notorious in
antiquity, and it is likely enough that necromancy was one
of the black arts which they professed ; but no reliance can
be placed on Lucan's highly coloured description of the rites
which they observed in evoking the ghosts. More probable
Horaceand is the account which Horace gives of the proceedings of two
on the'^^ witches, whom he represents as pouring the blood of a black
evocation lamb into a trench for the purpose of calling up ghosts to
answer questions." Tibullus speaks of a witch who conjured
up the shades from their tombs by her chants ; ^ and in the
reign of Tiberius a high-born but feeble-minded youth,
named Libo, who dabbled in the black arts, requested a
certain Junius to evoke the spirits of the dead for him by
incantations.^
Evocation More than one of the wicked Roman emperors are said
by the ^^ ^° have had recourse to necromancy in the hope of allaying
Emperors thosc terrors with which the memor}' of their crimes, like
Caracaiia. avenging spirits, visited their uneasy consciences. We are
told that the monster Nero never knew peace of mind again
after he had murdered his mother Agrippina : he often con-
fessed that he was haunted by her spectre and by the Furies
with whips and burning torches, and it was in vain that by
magic rites he conjured up her ghost and attempted to
appease her anger.^ Similarly, the crazed and bloody tyrant
Caracaiia imagined that the phantoms of his father Severus
and of his murdered brother Geta pursued him with drawn
swords, and to obtain some alleviation of these horrors he
called in the help of wizards. Among the ghosts which
they evoked for him were those of the emperor's father and
1 Lucan, Pharsalia, vi. 413-830. * Tacitus, Annals, ii. 27 stj.
2 Horace, Sat. i. 26-29.
3 Tibullus i. 2. 47 sq. ^ Suetonius, Nero, xxxiv. 4.
CHAP. VIII THE WITCH OF ENDOR 533
the Emperor Commodus. But of all the shades thus summoned
to his aid none deigned to hold converse with the imperial
assassin except the kindred spirit of Commodus, and even
from him no words of consolation or hope could be elicited,
nothing but dark hints of a fearful judgment to come, which
only served to fill the guilty soul of Caracalla with a fresh
access of terror.^
The art of necromancy has been practised by barbarous Necro-
as well as civilized peoples. In some African tribes the^^"^^*°
practice has prevailed of consulting the ghosts of dead kings Oracles of
or chiefs as oracles through the medium of a priest or priestess, fmong the
who professed to be inspired by the soul of a deceased ruler Baganda
and to speak in his name. For example, among the
Baganda of Central Africa a temple was built for the ghost
of each dead king, and in it his lower jawbone was reverently
preserved ; for curiously enough the part of his body to
which the ghost of a dead Baganda man clings most per-
sistently is his jawbone. The temple, a large conical hut of
the usual pattern, was divided into two chambers, an outer
and an inner, and in the inner chamber or holy of holies the
precious jawbone was kept for safety in a cell dug in the
floor. The prophet or medium, whose business it was from
time to time to be inspired by the ghost of the dead
monarch, dedicated himself to his holy office by drinking a
draught of beer and a draught of milk out of the royal skull.
When the ghost held a reception, the jawbone, wrapt in a
decorated packet, was brought forth from the inner shrine
and set on a throne in the outer chamber, where the people
assembled to hear the oracle. On such occasions the prophet
stepped up to the throne, and addressing the spirit in-
formed him of the business in hand. Then he smoked one
or two pipes of homegrown tobacco, and the fumes bringing
on the prophetic fit he began to rave and speak in the
very voice and with the characteristic turns of speech of the
departed monarch ; for the king's soul was now supposed to
be in him. However, his rapid utterances were hard to
understand, and a priest was in attendance to interpret them
to the inquirer. The living king thus consulted his dead
predecessors periodically on affairs of state, visiting first one
^ Dio Cassius Ixxvii. 15-
534 THE WITCH OF EN DOR part hi
and then another of the temples in which their sacred relics
were preserved with religious care.^
Oracles of Again, among the Banyoro, another tribe of Central
amo'lg the Africa, in the Uganda Protectorate, the ghosts of dead kings
Banyoro. were Consulted as oracles by their living successors. Over
the king's grave a mound of earth was raised, with a flat
top which was covered with a grass carpet and overlaid with
cow-skins and leopard-skins. This served as the throne
where the king's ghost was supposed to take its seat at any
ceremony. Before this throne offerings were presented to the
ghost, and there also requests were made, when the reigning
king wished to consult his father on matters of state or
when sickness appeared in the royal household. At the
grave a large hut was built, and in it were lodged guards,
whose duty it was to watch over the tomb and to present the
offerings to the worshipful ghost."
Oracles of Among the Basoga of the Central District, in the
among the^ Uganda Protectorate, the souls of dead chiefs are in like
Basoga. manner consulted as oracles through the medium of women,
who act as their interpreters or prophets. When a chief
has been dead and buried for some months, his ghost appears
to one of his kinsmen and tells him, " I wish to move." On
being informed of the ghost's desire, the new chief orders
the grave of his predecessor to be opened and the skull
removed. When the skull has been dried and enclosed in
skins, the chief sends for a woman, who must be a member
of the clan to which the nurse of the late chief belonged.
To her he commits the duty of guarding the skull, inter-
preting the wishes of the ghost, and attending to its wants.
She also receives a she-goat, a cow, and a hen, which are
to provide food for the ghost. Having received her com-
mission and the provender, the woman is escorted to a place
called Nakazungu, on the Mpologoma river, where a large
house is built for her. There the skull is deposited in a
^ J. Roscoe, " Notes on the Manners 1911), pp- 109-113, 283-285; id.,
and Customs of the Baganda,"y(?w;v/a/ " Worship of the Dead as practised by
of the Anthropological Institute, xxxi. some African tribes," Z^<7;t'(7;-</^/;7V<z«
(1901) pp. 129 sq. ; id., " Further Studies, i. (1917) pp. 39 sq. Corn-
Notes on the Manners and Customs of pare Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Third Edi-
tlie Baganda," Jottrnal of the Anthro- tion, ii. 167 sqq.
pological Instit7ite,-x.K\\'\. (\<)02) Y>T[>. 44 - J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu
S'jq. ; id., The Baganda (London, (Cambridge, 1915), p. 53.
CHAf. viir THE WITCH OF ENDOR 535
shrine or temple, which is deemed the house of the ghost,
and there the woman becomes possessed by the ghost and
reveals his wishes. Thither, too, the new chief sends offer-
ings to the spirit of his father. However, the skull and the
ghost remain in this place of honour only during the life of
his successor. When the next chief dies, the old skull and
the old ghost are compelled to vacate the premises and shift
their quarters to a wooded island in the river, where the
skulls and ghosts of all former chiefs are permanently lodged.
No house there shelters them from the inclemency of the
weather. Each skull is simply deposited in the open, with
a spear stuck in the ground beside it. The prophetess who
attended to its wants in the temple accompanies the skull
to its long home in the island, and there she may continue
to interpret the wishes and views of the ghost to any who
care to consult it. But few people think it worth while to
make a pilgrimage to the old ghosts in this oracular Golgotha
or Place of Skulls in the forest ; most persons prefer to ask
the advice of the new ghost in the temple. Thus fashion
runs after novelty in the world of the dead as in the world
of the living.^ Among the Basoga of the North-Western The lower
District, as among the Baganda, it is not the skull but the J^^^bone
lower jawbone of a dead chief which is kept to serve as the means of
means of communication with his spirit. It is cleansed, '^o"^'"""!-
^ ' cation with.
wrapt in a skin decorated with cowry-shells, and conveyed the spirit of
to a temple in a remote part of the district, where the jaw- ^"^^ '^^'^^'
bones of all former chiefs are preserved. The guardian is a
priest and medium ; he holds converse with the ghost, and
conveys any message to the ruling chief'
Among the Bantu tribes who inhabit the great table- Oracles of
land of Northern Rhodesia the spirits of dead chiefs some- among the^
times take possession of the bodies of live men or women Bantu
and prophesy through their mouths. When the spirit thus Northern
comes upon a man, he begins to roar like a lion, and the Rhodesia.
women gather together and beat the drums, shouting that
the chief has come to visit the village. The possessed
person will predict future wars, and warn the people of
approaching visitations by lions. W^hile the inspiration
^ J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu - J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu,
(Cambridge, 1915), pp. 227 sq. pp. 226 sq.
536
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
Barots^
of the
Zambesi.
lasts, the medium may eat nothing cooked by fire, but only
unfermented dough. However, this gift of prophecy usually
descends on women rather than on men. Such prophetesses
give out that they are possessed by the soul of some dead
chief, and when they feel the divine afflatus they whiten
their faces to attract attention, and they smear themselves
with flour, which has a religious and sanctifying potency.
One of their number beats a drum, and the others dance,
singing at the same time a weird song, with curious intervals.
Finally, when they have worked themselves up to the
requisite pitch of religious exaltation, the possessed woman
drops to the ground, and bursts out into a low and almost
inarticulate chant, which amid the awestruck silence of the
bystanders is interpreted by the medicine-men as the voice
of the spirit.^
Oracles of Again, among the Barotse, a Bantu tribe of the Upper
dead kings Zambesi, the souls of dead kings are consulted and give
among the ' ° . Jz .
their responses through the mouth of a priest. Each
royal tomb is indeed an oracle of the dead. It stands in a
beautiful grove, and is enclosed by a palisade covered with
fine mats, like the palisade which surrounds the residence of
a living king. Such an enclosure is sacred ; the people are
forbidden to enter it, lest they should disturb the ghost of
him who sleeps below. A priest acts as intermediary
between the royal ghost and the people who come to pray
to him at the shrine. He alone has the right to enter the
sacred enclosure ; the profane multitude must stand at a re-
spectful distance. Even the king himself, when he comes to
consult one of his ancestors, is forbidden to set foot on the
holy ground. He kneels down at the entrance, claps his
hands, and gives the royal salute, which is solemnly returned
by the priest from within the enclosure. Then the suppliant,
whether king or commoner, makes his petition to the wor-
shipful spirit and deposits his offering ; for no man may
pray at the shrine with empty hands. Inside the enclosure,
near the entrance, is a hole, which is supposed to serve as a
channel of communication with the spirit of the deified king.
In it the offerings are deposited. Often they consist of
1 CuUen Gouklsbury and Hubert Sheane, The Great Plateau of Northern
Rhodesia (London, 191 1), p. 83.
CHAP. VIII THE WITCH OF EN DOR 537
milk, which is poured into the hole ; more solid offerings,
such as flesh, clothes, and glass beads, become the property
of the priest after they have lain for a decent time beside
the sacred aperture. The spirits of dead kings are thus
consulted on matters of public concern as well as by private
persons on their own affairs. All over the country these
temple-tombs may be seen, each in its shady grove ; hence
no man rieed have far to go to seek for ghostly counsel at
an oracle of the dead.^
Among the Ewe-speaking negroes of South Togoland, Evocation
when the funeral celebration is over, it is customary to amVng the
summon up the soul of the deceased. His relations take negroes of
cooked food to the priest and tell him that they wish to Africa.
bring water for the spirit of their departed brother. The
priest accordingly receives food, palm-wine, and cowry-shells
at their hands, and with them retires into his room and
shuts the door behind him. Then he evokes the ghost,
who on his arrival begins to weep and to converse with the
priest, sometimes making some general observations on the
difference between life in the upper and in the under world,
sometimes entering into particulars as to the manner of his
own death ; often he mentions the name of the wicked
sorcerer who has killed him by his enchantments. When
the dead man's friends outside hear the lamentations and
complaints of his ghost proceeding from the room, they are
moved to tears and cry out, " We pity you ! " Finally, the
ghost bids them be comforted and takes his departure.^
Amoner the Kissi, a tribe of negroes on the border of Consuita-
Liberia, the souls of dead chiefs are consulted as oracles dead°by ^
by means of the statuettes which are erected on their graves, means of
For the purpose of the consultation the statuettes are placed images.
on a board, which is carried by two men on their heads ;
if the bearers remain motionless, the answer of the spirit is
assumed to be " No " ; if they sway to and fro, the answer
is "Yes."^ In the island of Ambrym, one of the New
Hebrides, wooden statues representing ancestors are simi-
^ Eugene Beguin, Les Ma-rotsi in Siid-Togo (Leipsic, 191 1), p. 238.
(Lausanne and Fontaines, 1903), pp. ^ Dr. H. Neel, "Note sur deux
120-123. peuplades de la frontiere Liberienne,
les Kissi et les Toma," U Anthj-opologie,
'^ J. Spieth, Die Religion der Eweer x.xiv. (1913) p. 46 1.
538 THE WITCH OF ENDOR part in
larly employed as a means of communicating with the
souls of the dead. When a man is in trouble, he blows a
whistle at nightfall near the statue of an ancestor, and if he
hears a noise, he believes that the soul of the dead kinsman
has entered into the image ; thereupon he recounts his woes
to the Q-^^y and prays the spirit to help him.^
Evocation The Maoris of New Zealand feared and worshipped the
among the Spirits of their dead kinsfolk, especially dead chiefs and
Maoris warriors, who were believed to be constantly watching over
Zealand. ^he living tribesmen, protecting them in war and marking
any breach of the sacred law of taboo. These spirits dwelt
normally below the earth, but they could return to the upper
air at pleasure and enter into the bodies of men or even into
the substance of inanimate objects. Some tribes kept in
their houses small carved images of wood, each of which
was dedicated to the spirit of an ancestor, who was supposed
to enter into the image on particular occasions in order to hold
converse with the living. Such an ancestral spirit {atua)
might communicate with the living either in dreams or more
directly by talking with them in their waking hours. Their
voice, however, was not like that of mortals, but a mysterious
kind of sound, half whistle, half whisper. The English
writer, to whom we owe these particulars, was privileged
thus to converse with the souls of two chiefs who had been
dead for several years. The interview took place through
A Maori the agency of an old woman, a Maori witch of Endor, at
whose bidding the ancestral spirits of the tribe were supposed
to appear. She dwelt in a solitary hut, where the English-
man, accompanied by two Maoris, found her seated com-
posedly by a blazing fire, while two female slaves opposite
her were busy talking and weaving potato baskets. It was
night, and when the witch, after making some objections,
consented to exert her necromantic powers, she began by
removing all the blazing sticks from the fire, till only the
glowing embers spread a dim light through the room. Then
she sat quite still, and the two slave women imitated her
example, ceasing to ply both their fingers and their tongues.
In the silence which ensued a sound was heard, as if some-
' Felix Speiser, T'lCo Years loith the Natives in the Western Pacific (London,
I913), p. 206.
witch of
Endor.
CHAP, vni THE WITCH OF EN DOR 539
thing heavy had fallen on the roof of the hut, and then a
rustling noise, such as might have been made by a rat, crept
along the thatch till it stopped just over the heads of the
inmates. The old woman now covered her head and face
in her blanket, and bent herself nearly double, with her head
resting on her knees. And immediately from the spot where
the rustling noise had ceased there issued sounds imitative
of a voice, but whistled instead of being articulated in
ordinary tones. The moment it was heard, it was recognized
as the voice of a certain dead chief, the father of one of the
two Maoris who had accompanied the Englishman to the
witch's cottage. The ghost welcomed the stranger after
the usual manner of the tribe. But when at the whispered
suggestion of the chiefs son, who was a Christian, the
Englishman had clapped his hand on the witch's mouth,
the whistling voice demanded, " Who has put his hand to
touch me ? " This seemed to the sceptical Englishman a
proof that the voice came from the mouth of the old woman ;
and he noticed that whenever the whistling voice was heard,
he could not distinguish her breathing, but that immediately
on the voice ceasing her breathing was heard accelerated, as
if after an exertion. However, concealing his doubts, he
gravely addressed the supposed owner of the voice, and
requested him to enter the hut and allow himself to be seen
as well as heard. But the voice replied that he was a lizard,
and could not come nearer for fear of injuring the inquirer.
Neither persuasions nor taunts could move him from his
fixed resolution not to harm his son's friend, which was the
only reason he assigned for not revealing himself to the eyes
of the doubting Englishman ; and he changed the subject
of discourse by observing, " Now that you have given me
the trouble to come so far to visit you, it is surely }'our
intention to make me a fine present — a cask of tobacco, or
perhaps a coat." " Of what possible service will a coat be
to a spirit ? " rejoined the ghost's son, laughing, " how will
you be able to put it on ? " To this pointed question the
ghost made no reply, and presently took his leave, promising
to send another spirit, who might feel less scruple at exhibit-
ing himself to the gaze of the stranger. After a short pause
of silent expectation, something was heard to fall plump
540 THE WITCH OF EN DOR part hi
like a stone on the roof of the hut. Then there was again
a rustHng noise, as before, which, after travelHng along the
roof and down the walls, reascended the roof and halted
nearly over the old woman. Being entreated to enter the
hut and show himself, this second spirit declined to comply
with the request, alleging that he was a spider and that he
could not do as requested without danger to the inquirer.
After a conversation in which the ghost's supernatural know-
ledge did not save him from telling a direct falsehood, he
too departed, and in a few minutes a small squeaking voice,
like that of an infant, was heard, which, after perpetrating
and laughing at a ribald jest, appeared to retreat and die
away till it was lost in the distance. No more spirits spoke
after that, and the old woman, removing her blanket from
her face, and raising her head, as though she had just
awaked from a trance, asked the Englishman if he was
satisfied.^
Evocation An Irishman, who lived long among the Maoris and
of a^MaoH* kucw them intimately, witnessed many such exhibitions of
chief. necromancy, and has described one of them in detail. The
priests, he tells us, undertook to call up the spirit of any
dead person for a proper fee. On this particular occasion the
ghost evoked was that of a very popular young chief {I'anga-
tira), whom the Irishman had known intimately, and who had
been killed in battle. At the request of his nearest friends,
a priest engaged to call up the dead man's spirit to speak
to them and answer certain questions which they wished to
put. The interview took place at night in a large house
common to the whole population, where fires cast a flicker-
ing light through the gloom. The priest retired to the
darkest corner. All was expectation, and the silence was
broken only by the sobbing of the sister and other female
relations of the dead man. About thirty persons were
seated on the rush-strewn floor. At last, when the fire had
died down, leaving only a heap of glowing charcoal, a voice
issued from the darkness solemnly saluting the assembly.
It was answered by a cry of affection and despair from the
dead chief's sister, a fine handsome young woman, who
1 Y,(\\\a.x([Shoxi\a.Vid, Traditions and Second Edition (London, 1856), pp.
Superstitions of the New Zealanders, 81-96.
CHAP. VIII THE UITCH OF ENDOR 541
rushed, with both arms distended, into the darkness from
which the voice proceeded. She was instantly seized round
the waist and restrained by main force by her brother, till,
moaning and fainting, she lay still on the ground. At the
same instant another female voice was heard from a young
girl, who was held by the wrists by two young men, her
brothers, "Is it you ? is it you .'' truly is it you ? ane ! atie !
they hold me, they restrain me ; wonder not that I have
not followed you ; they restrain me, they watch me,
but I go to you. The sun shall not rise, the sun shall
not rise, ane! ane!" Here she fell insensible on the
floor, and with the sister was carried out. Afterwards the
ghost conversed with his brother in strange melancholy
tones, like the sound of the wind blowing into a hollow
vessel, and he answered a woman's inquiry about her dead
sister. Having satisfied her affectionate anxiety, the ghost
next requested that his tame pig and his double-barrelled
gun might be given to the priest. The Irishman now struck
in and questioned the ghost as to a book which the dead
chief had left behind him. The ghost indicated correctly
the place where the volume had been deposited, but on
being pressed to mention some of its contents he took an
abrupt leave of the assembly, his farewell sounding first
from the room, next from deep beneath the ground, then
from high in air, and finally dying away in the darkness of
night. The company broke up after midnight, and the
Irishman retired to rest. But he was soon wakened by the
report of a musket, followed by the shouts of men and the
screams of women. Hastening in the direction from which
the sounds proceeded, he saw in the midst of a crowd, by
the light of a burning house, the lifeless and bleeding body
of the young girl who had said that she would follow the
spirit to the spirit land. She had kept her word, having
secretly procured a loaded musket and blown herself to
pieces. The voice of the priest said, close to the Irishman,
" She has followed her rangatira." ^
In Nukahiva, one of the Marquesas Islands, the priests Evocation
and priestesses claimed to possess the power of evoking the ^^^^l^-^^
1 Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Earl of Pembroke (London, 1884), pp. one of the'
Maori, with an Introduction by the 122-128. Marquesas
Islands.
542 THE WITCH OF ENDOR part hi
spirits of the dead, who took up their abode for the time
being in the bodies of the mediums and so conversed with
their surviving relatives. The occasion for summoning up
a ghost was usually the sickness of a member of the family,
on whose behalf his friends desired to have the benefit of
ghostly advice. A French writer, who lived in the island
in the first half of the nineteenth century, was present at
one of these interviews with a departed spirit and has
described it. The meeting took place at night in the house
of a sick man, for the purpose of ascertaining the issue of
his illness. A priestess acted as medium, and by her direc-
tion the room was darkened by the extinction of the fires.
The spirit invoked was that of a lady who had died a few
years before, leaving no less than twelve widowed husbands
to mourn her loss. Of these numerous widowers the sick
man was one ; indeed he had been her favourite husband,
but her ghost now announced to him his approaching death
without the least ambiguity or circumlocution. Her voice
appeared at first to come from a distance and then to
approach nearer and nearer, till it settled on the roof of
the house.^
Evocation At the initiation ceremonies, which they observe every
hi New^^ year, the Marindineeze, a tribe on the southern coast of
Guineaand Dutch New Guinea, summon up the souls of their fore-
fathers from the underworld by knocking hard on the
ground with the lower ends of coco-nut leaves for an hour
together. The evocation takes place by night.- Similarly
at their festivals the Bare'e-speaking Toradjas of Central
Celebes evoke the souls of dead chiefs and heroes, the
guardian spirits of the village, by beating on the floor of
the temple with a long stick.^
Evocation The Sea Dyaks of Borneo believe that the souls of their
of the dead ^^^^ friends live and revisit them on earth. They are
among the •'
ea ya s j ^yj^j^ i^a,diguet, Les Derniers Sail- iundio Genoo(scAap,TweedeSene,xx\\.
TT ^ vages, la Vie et les Mceurs aux lies (191 2) p. 149; A. J, Gooszen, " De
of Borneo Marquises, Noiivelle Edition (Paris, Majo-mysterien ter Nieuw- Guinea's
1882), pp. 226-232. The writer first Zuidkust," Bijdragen tot de Taal-
went to the Marquesas Islands in 1842. Land- enVolkenkmidevan Nedei-landsch-
- Jos. Viegen, " Oorsprongs- en Af- Indie, Ixix. (1914) p. 377.
stammingslegendenvandenMarindinees ^ N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De
(Zuid Nieuw-Guinea)," Tijdschrijt van Bare''e-sprekende Toradja^ s van Midden-
het Koninklijk Nederlandsch Aardrijks- Celebes {^zX.z.s\2., 1912-1914), i. 330,
CHAP. VIII THE WITCH OF ENDOR 543
invoked in times of peril and distress ; and on the hilltops
or in the solitude of the jungle a man will often go by
himself and spend the night, hoping that the spirit of a
dead relative may visit him and reveal to him in a dream
some charm by which he may extricate himself from his
difficulties and grow rich and great.' Among the Kayans
of Borneo, when a dispute has arisen concerning the division
of a dead man's property, recourse is sometimes had to a
professional wizard or witch, who summons up the ghost of
the deceased and questions him as to his intentions in the
disposal of his estate. The evocation, however, cannot take
place until after the harvest which follows upon the death.
When the time comes for it, a small model of a house is
made for the temporary accommodation of the ghost and is
placed in the gallery of the common house, beside the door
of the dead man's chamber. For the refreshment of the
spirit, moreover, food, drink, and cigarettes are laid out in
the little house. The wizard takes up his post beside the
tiny dwelling and chants his invocation, calling upon the
soul of the deceased to enter the soul-house, and mention-
ing the names of the members of his family. From time to
time he looks in, and at last announces that all the food
and drink have been consumed. The people believe that
the ghost has now entered the soul-house ; and the wizard
pretends to listen to the whispering of the soul within the
house, starting and clucking from time to time. Finally,
he declares the will of the ghost in regard to the distribu-
tion of the property, speaking in the first person and
mimicking the mode of speech and other peculiarities of the
dead man. The directions so obtained are usually followed,
and thus the dispute is settled."
Among the Milanos of Sarawak, a few days or weeks Evocation
after a death an old man or woman will sometimes dream L,L?,r ^\t.
that the soul of the deceased lacks food or clothing, which Miianos of
appear to be as necessary in the other world as they are in
this. Accordingly a medium, in the shape of a medicine-
man or medicine-woman, is called in to communicate with
* Edwin H. Gomes, Seventeen Years '^ Charles Hose and William
among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo (Lon- McDougall, The Pagan Tribes 0/
don, 191 1), p. 142. Borneo (London, 1912), ii. 38 sq.
544 THE WITCH OF ENDOR part hi
the poor ghost and to supply his wants. The ceremony
takes place after sunset in the presence of a number of
friends. An Englishman, who witnessed one such ghostly
interview, has described it for us. On this occasion there
were two mediums, both men. With their heads completely
shrouded in a cloth, they took up their position side by side
Thevoyage on a small mat, on which they were supposed to float down
River of the Rivcr of Death in the nether world. Each of them
Death. ^^d provided himself with a paddle for the voyage,
and sitting on the mat went through all the motions of
paddling. As they paddled, they talked, remarking on the
swiftness of the stream, noticing the overhanging trees past
which they shot, and hurriedly warning each other of sunken
rocks. Then came an upset ; the two men, amid the excite-
ment of the spectators, swam for their lives, splashing about
real water which had been introduced into the room for the
purpose. However, they succeeded in righting the bark,
and resumed the voyage with nothing worse than a wetting.
At last they landed in the under world. Then the tenor
of their conversation changed. They now remarked on the
departed spirits whom they recognized and some of whom
they accosted. " There goes So-and-So," they would say,
" as lame as ever." " What an awful wound Such-and-Such
a man has !" And from time to time they would grasp at
some imaginary object in the air and exhibit a little tobacco
or sireh leaf to the wondering and credulous onlookers.
After about half an hour of this pantomime they dropped
on their knees and went groping about the room, clutching
at various things, till one of them announced that he had
caught the soul they were looking for. Having secured the
spirit between his hands, he went and clapped it on the
head of the nearest relative of the deceased, tying a cloth
on the man's head to prevent the fluttering thing from
escaping. Thus the most difficult part of the task imposed
on the mediums was now accomplished — they had captured
the ghost ; to converse with the captive was comparatively
easy, and though his replies were not audible to the
assembly, they were perfectly so to the mediums. " So
sorry to see you ill," one of them would remark to the
spirit, " is there anything we can do for you ? " or again.
CHAP. VIII THE ]\'ITCn OF KNDOR 545
" What sort of a time have you had latterly ? " and so forth.
Finally, the mediums unmuffled their heads and informed
the relatives concerning the w^elfare of the deceased, in-
structing them to lay a garment, a cooking-pot, or perhaps
still better some dollars on the grave for the use of their
departed kinsman in the other world, after which his spirit
would rest in peace.^
The Bataks of Central Sumatra believe that the souls Evocation
of the dead, being incorporeal, can only communicate with amono-'^ihe^
the living through the person of a living man, and for the Bataks of
purpose of such communication they choose an appropriate ""^'^"'*-
medium, who, in serving as a vehicle for the ghostly message,
imitates the voice, the manner, the walk, and even the dress
of the deceased so closely, that his surviving relations are
often moved to tears by the resemblance. By the mouth of
the medium the spirit reveals his name, mentions his relations,
and describes the pursuits he followed on earth. He dis-
closes family secrets which he had kept during life, and the
disclosure confirms his kinsfolk in the belief that it is really
the ghost of their departed brother who is conversing with
them. When a member of the family is sick, the ghost is
consulted as to whether the patient will live or die. When
an epidemic is raging, the ghost is evoked and sacrifices are
offered to him, that he may guard the people against the
infection. When a man is childless, he inquires of a ghost
through a medium, how he can obtain offspring. When
something has been lost or stolen, a ghost is conjured up to
tell whether the missing property will be recovered. When
any one has missed his way in the forest or elsewhere and
has not returned home, it is still to a ghost, through the
intervention of a medium, that the anxious friends apply in
order to learn where the strayed wayfarer is to be sought.
If a medium is questioned as to how the ghost takes possession
of him, he says that he sees the ghost approaching and feels
as if his body were being dragged away, his feet grow light
and leap about, human beings seem- small and reddish in
colour, the houses appear to be turning round. But the
' Rev. Fr. Bernard Mulder and John Journal of the Straits Branch of the
Hewitt, "Two religious Ceremonies in Royal Asiatic Society. No. S7r J^inuary,
vogue among the Milanos of Sarawak," 1911 (Singapore, 191 1), pp. i^g sq.
VOL. II 2 N
546
THE WITCH OF EN DOR
Evocation
of the dead
among the
Eskimo.
Necro-
mancy in
China.
Evocation
of the dead
in Canton.
possession is not continuous ; from time to time during the
fit the ghost leaves the medium and plays about. When
the fit is over, the medium is often sick and sometimes dies.^
Necromancy has been practised by man amid i\rctic
snow and ice as well as in tropical forests and jungles.
Among the Eskimo of Labrador we read of a shaman who
used to oblige his friends by calling up the spirits of the
dead, whenever the living desired to inquire concerning the
welfare of the departed, or the whereabouts of absent relatives
at sea. He would first blindfold the questioner, and then
■rap thrice on the ground with a stick. On the third rap
the spirit appeared and answered the shaman's questions.
Having supplied the information that was wanted, the ghost
would be dismissed to his own place by three more raps on
the ground. This sort of necromancy was called " conjuring
with a stick " {kibixiri). A similar method of evoking the
souls of the dead is employed by the Eskimo of Alaska.
They believe that the spirits ascend from the under world
and pass through the body of the shaman, who converses
audibly with them and, having learned all he desires, sends
them back to their subterranean abode by a stamp of his foot.
The answers of the ghosts to his questions are supposed by
sceptics to be produced by ventriloquism.^
In China, where the worship of the dead forms a
principal part of the national religion, the practice of
necromancy is naturally common, and the practitioners at
the present day appear to be chiefly old women. Such
necromancers, for example, abound in Canton and Amoy.
During his residence at Canton, Archdeacon Gray witnessed
many exhibitions of their skill, and he describes one of
them as follows : "One day, in the month of January 1867,
I was the guest of an old lady, a widow, who resided in the
western suburb of the city. She desired to confer with her
departed husband, who had been dead for several years.
The witch who was called in, was of prepossessing appear-
ance and well-dressed ; and she commenced immediately to
discharge the duties of her vocation. Her first act was to
^ Joh. Warneck, Die Religion der Eskimo (Ottawa, 1916), p. 132
Batak (Leipsic, 1909), pp. 89 sq. {Canada, Department of Alines, Geo-
2 E. W. Hawes, The Labrador logical Siirvej, Alemoir gr).
CHAP. VIII THE VVirCH OF EN DOR 547
erect a temporary altar at the head of the hall in which
we were assembled. Upon this she placed two burning
tapers, and offerings of fruits and cakes. She then sat on the
right side of the altar, and, burying her face in her hands,
remained silent for several minutes. Having awakened
from her supposed trance or dream, she began to utter in a
singing tone some words of incantation, at the same time
sprinkling handfuls of rice at intervals upon the floor. She
then said that the spirit of the departed was once more in
the midst of his family. They were greatly moved, and
some of them burst into a flood of tears. Through tho
witch as a medium, the spirit of the old man then informed
the family where he was, and of the state of happiness he
was permitted to enjoy in the land of shades. He spoke
on several family topics, and dwelt upon the condition of
one of his sons who, since his death, had gone to the
northern provinces of China — references which evidently
astonished the members of the family who were present,
and confirmed their belief in the supernatural powers of the
female impostor before them. There can be no doubt that
she had made suitable inquiries beforehand. After exhort-
ing his widow to dry her tears, and on no account to
summon him again from the world of shades, in which he
was tolerably happy, the spirit of the old man retired." ^
According to the account of a native Chinese author, it Evocation
is customary in the province of Shantung to consult the ^^ [j^^ ^'^^^
ancestral spirits {sJien)^ in the female apartments, when a province of
member of the family is sick. The medium employed for ^" ""^'
the purpose is an old witch who dances, playing a tam-
bourine and making grimaces, and is therefore called the
dancing spirit. " But this practice," he proceeds, " flourishes
specially in the capital of the empire, where even young
married women in respectable families perform it from time
to time. In the hall of the house they place on the table
stands which are filled with meat, and goblets full of spirits,
and they light large candles, so that it is clearer there than
in the daytime ; then the woman, tucking up her petticoat,
draws up one leg and hops like a shang-yangf while two
1 J. II. Gray, China (London, 1 878), ii. 22 sq.
2 "A fabulous one-lee;sjed bird." '^ *
548 THE WITCH OF ENDOR part hi
grasp her arms, and support her on either side. She babbles
in a monotonous tedious way, now in a sing song, now as if
uttering conjurations, now with a flow of words, then with
only a few, without any modulation or tune. Meanwhile
drums are wildly banged in the apartment, so that their
thunder stuns one, and in their noise the words which come
from her opening and closing lips are far from distinct. In
the end she droops her head, looks askance, and wants help
to stand erect ; but for her supporters she would tumble.
But suddenly she stretches out her neck and jumps one or
two feet into the air, and all the women in the apartment
shiver and regard her with terror ; thereupon she exclaims,
' The ancestor comes and eats ! ' Now they blow out the
lights, so that it is pitch dark everywhere. Silent the
bystanders stand in the dark, and speak not a word to each
other ; indeed, owing to the confused noise, nothing they
might say would be understood. After a while they hear
the woman mention with a shrill voice the (deceased) father
or mother-in-law, or the husband or sister-in-law, by the
name by which he or she was familiarly known, this being
a sign to the whole company to re-light the candles. With
outstretched necks they now ask the medium whether good or
evil is to be expected, and in the mean time they inspect the
goblets, baskets and cups, to find them altogether emptied ;
and they try to read on her face whether the spirit is
contented or not ; and, full of respect, they address a series of
questions to her, which she answers as readily as an echo." ^
Evocation The practice of calling up the spirits of the dead for con-
of the dead gyit-^tion is Said to be very common in Amoy, where the necro-
mancers are professional women. Among the male sex the
reputation of these ladies for strict veracity seems not to
stand very high, for to tell a man, in common parlance, that
he is " bringing up the dead " is almost equivalent to saying
that he is telling a lie. Hence these female necromancers
often prefer to confine their ministrations to their own sex,
lest they should expose their high mysteries to the derision
of masculine sceptics. In that case the session is held with
closed doors in the private apartments of the women ; other-
1 J. J. M. de Groot, The Religious System of C/iiiia, vi. (Leyden, 1910)
pp. 13305,7.
CHAP. VIII THE WITCH OF RNDOR 510
wise it takes place in the main hall, at tlic domestic altar,
and all inmates of the house are free to attend. Many
families, indeed, make a rule to question, by means of these
witches, every deceased relation at least once not long after
his or her death, in order to ascertain whether the souls are
comfortable in the other world, and whether anything can
be done by family affection to ameliorate their condition.
An auspicious day having been chosen for the ceremony,
the apartment is swept and watered, because spirits entertain
an aversion to dirt and dust. To allure the ghost, food and
dainties, together with burning incense, are placed on tliQ
domestic altar, or, should the conference take place in a
secluded room, on an ordinary table. In the latter case,
when the medium has come, it is necessary for one of the
women to go to the altar, where the tablets are deposited
in which the souls of the dead members of the family are
believed to reside. Having lighted two candles and three
incense-sticks at the altar, she invites the ghost to leave its
tablet and follow her. Then, with the incense between her
fingers, she slowly walks back into the room, and plants the
sticks in a bowl or cup with some uncooked rice. The
medium now goes to work, chanting conjurations, while she
strums a lyre or beats a drum. In time her movements
grow convulsive, she rocks to and fro, and sweat bursts from
her body. These things are regarded as evidence that
the ghost has arrived. Two women support the medium
and place her in a chair, where she falls into a state of
distraction or slumber, with her arms resting on the table.
A black veil is next thrown over her head, and in her
mesmeric state she can now answer questions, shivering, as
she does so, rocking in her seat, and drumming the table
nervously with her hands or with a stick. Through her
mouth the ghost informs his relations of his state in the other
world and what they can do to improve it or even to redeem
him entirely from his sufferings. He mentions whether
the sacrifices which are offered to him reach their destina-
tion intact or suffer loss and damage in process of trans-
mission through the spiritual post ; he states his preferences
and he enumerates his wants. He also favours his kinsfolk
with his advice on domestic affairs, though his language is
550 THE WITCH OF END OR part hi
often ambiguous and his remarks have sometimes little or
no bearing on the questions submitted to him. Now and
then the medium holds whispered monologues, or rather
conversations with the ghost. At last she suddenly shivers,
awakes, and raising herself up declares that the ghost has
gone. Having pocketed the rice and the incense-sticks in
the bowl, she receives her fee and takes her departure.
*' The various phases in the condition of the medium during
the conference are, of course, taken by the onlookers for the
several moments of her connection with the other world.
Yet we remain entitled to consider them to be symptoms of
psychical aberration and nervous affection. Her spasms
and convulsions pass for possession, either by the ghost
• which is consulted, or by the spirit with which she usually
has intercourse, and which thus imparts to her the faculty
of second sight by which she sees that ghost. And her
mesmeric fits confessedly are the moments when her soul
leaves her, in order to visit the other world, there to see the
ghost and speak with it. Her whispering lips indicate con-
versation with her spirit, or with the ghost which is con-
sulted. It may be asked, why, since this ghost dwells in its
tablet on the altar, her soul should travel to the other world
to see it. We can give no answer." ^
Evocation From this account it appears that a Chinese witch
bymeanrof sometimcs calls up the souls of the dead, not directly, but
a familiar through the mediation of a familiar spirit which she has at
alina!" hsi" command. Similarly Archdeacon Gray tells us that
" in China, as in other lands, there are persons — always old
women — who profess to have familiar spirits, and who pre-
tend that they can call up the spirits of the dead to converse
with the living." ^ In this respect Chinese witches resemble
the ancient Hebrew witches, who would seem to have
depended on the help of familiar spirits for the evocation of
ghosts ; for when Saul desired the witch of Endor to
summon up the ghost of Samuel, he said to her, " Divine
unto me, I pray thee, by the familiar spirit, and bring me
up whomsoever I shall name unto thee." ^
1 J. J. M. de Groot, The Rc'Iigious "- J. H. Gray, China (London,
Systetn of China, vi. (Leyden, 1910) 1878), ii. 22.
pp. 1 3 32- 1 33 5. ■* I Samuel xxviii. 8.
CHAP, viii THE WITCH OF ENDOR 551
Among the Mordvins of Russia down to the present Evocation
time the soul of a deceased person appears to be regularly among uie
evoked on the fortieth day after his or her death. But the Mordvins
ceremony of evocation is not everywhere equally elaborate ;
in some places it has so dwindled that the stunted relics of
the old custom might be unintelligible, if it were not possible
to interpret them by the fuller forms which have survived
elsewhere. And even where the ceremony is carried out
with the greatest completeness and solemnity, it may be
doubted whether to the minds of the people the evocation
does not partake of the nature of a dramatic performance
rather than of a magical rite ; for we must bear in mind that
even when the faith in magic has been shaken or under-
mined, the ritual to which it gave birth tends long to survive
through the sheer force of conservatism which is one of the
pillars of human institutions. Thus what had once been
regarded with implicit belief and intense excitement as the
visit paid by a real ghost to his mourning relations may
come in time to be viewed with languid interest as a mere
dramatic spectacle, a masquerade in which, instead of a
medium supposed to be actually possessed by the soul of
the dead, an actor consciously plays the part of an appari-
tion. Which of these stages of belief or of disbelief, of faith
or of scepticism, the ritual of evocation among the Mord-
vins occupies at the present time, it might be difficult to
determine ; perhaps it hovers somewhere between the two,
an element of doubt and uncertainty troubling alike the
faith of the believer and the scepticism of the infidel. After
all, we can seldom draw a sharp line of demarcation between
the beliefs of mankind concerning the supernatural ; in
general they melt and shade off into each other by gradations
as fine and imperceptible as the hues of the rainbow.
The following is the account which a Russian writer nescrip-
gives of the evocation of the ghost among the Mordvins. evoertion*^
On the eve of the fortieth day after a death, the head of of a ghost
^ ., . . , , , ' 1 1 i 1 among the
the family mvites the brother or nephew, who most nearly Mordvins.
resembles the deceased, to represent his departed kinsman
on the morrow, acting and speaking in his name. At the The
same time the whole family repairs to the burial ground to lo'^JhedSid
invite the dead man to the festival. They kneel before the man.
552
THE WITCH OF EN DOR
The visit
of the dead
man to the
house.
Providfng
the ghost
with the
necessaries
of life.
The ghost
chops his
own fire-
wood in the
forest
tomb, cover the earth with their kisses, and entreat the dear
departed to return among the living ; the door of his house
stands open to receive him, all his friends will await him on
the threshold with candles in their hands.
Next morning at dawn the pretended dead man come to
life appears at the threshold of the house ; he exchanges his
clothes for those worn by the deceased, and stretches himself
on the bedding on which the man whom he personates
expired. All treat him kindly, all bring him little presents
and lay them, with deep bows, on the table before him, all
question him as to the life he leads in the other world. In
the evening they all sit down to feast ; the guests eat and
drink heartily, but the hero of the evening is served only
with a few drops o{ pure. He tells them of the life beyond
the grave, of the fine crops that grow in the far country, of
the joy of being in the midst of friends, of all the stables
and sheds and corn and cattle of which he is there the
happy possessor. To those who ask for news of their dead
relatives he gives full replies: "Your father has excellent horses
there, just as he had here, he is busy carting ; your father is
ruined ; such and such an old man keeps bees ; Vassili gets
drunk every day ; Ivan is married, and his wife is pretty."
Towards midnight all gather closer to hear the messages
and wishes of the defunct, the old people in front, the young
people behind, all on their knees. The supposed dead man
counsels the living to live in peace, to take good care of
their cattle, and not to steal ; he wishes them plenty of pure
and strong drink. Then the feasting is resumed and pro-
tracted till the break of day, when the last farewells are
exchanged.
But before escorting their departed brother back to the
grave, the family holds a consultation for the purpose of
providing the ghost with the necessaries of life in the other
world. With regard to food and clothing they think they
have done enough for him at the festival, but there is still
one article which must not be forgotten, and that is fire-
wood ; for apparently Mordvin ghosts are apt to suffer more
from cold than from heat in the land of souls. Accordingly
they arrange that the ghost should go and chop his own
firewood in the forest. The advantage of this arrans^ement
CHAP. VIII THE Wire II OF EN DOR 553
is obvious ; for should his stock of fuel afterwards run short
in the other world, he will have nobody to blame but himself.
So a chair, furnished with a cushion, is brought into the
room ; the ghost, or rather his human representative, seats
himself in it, and being given a knife in his hand he is
carried to the place in the forest which has been selected
for the display of his woodcraft. Here a branch has been
stuck in the ground to represent a tree ; and the supposed
ghost, alighting from his chair, sets to work to hew it down
with a great deal of bustle, dealing heavy strokes and
panting as he strikes. At last the tree, or rather the branch,
is felled and chopped into sticks ; the ghostly woodman
reseats himself in the chair and is carried back to the house,
where the firewood is deposited on the floor, and the festival
once more resumed. But the dead has still to be provided Providing
with money, and the delicate task of collecting it for his ^^^^f*^"^'
behoof must now be performed. For the purpose of the money,
collection, a money-box, made of birch bark, is placed in the
middle of the room, and the branch cut by the dead man's
representative is fastened to one of its sides. Then a fire
of brushwood is kindled close by, and all is ready. Every
person present now walks thrice round the box, seizes the
branch with his right hand, leaps over the fire, and finally,
his courage having been screwed up to the sticking point,
drops his mite into the collection. By leapmg over the
fire each man or woman is believed to be delivered from
death, which has entered the house along with the repre-
sentative of the dead man and is on the look-out for other
victims among the inmates.
Next the head of the family sacrifices a bull at the The
doorway in such a way that the animal's blood overflows a th"buit°
table of offerings and is used to make fritters, while its flesh
is cut up, boiled in huge pots, and devoured by the assembly
on the spot. When the repast is over, the ghost declares
that his time has come to return to the grave. At that, all The return
drop on their knees, and implore his blessing. The cart g°avl
which is to convey him to his long home is loaded with
bread, mutton, beer, and other provisions for his support on
the journey ; old women fling their arms round his neck, he
is laid at full length on a feather-bed and so transported
554
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
to the cart. The most privileged of the guests take their
places beside him in the vehicle, and the procession gets
under way for the graveyard. Arrived there, the supposed
dead man is seated on his grave with his back to the east.
A tablecloth is spread, some food is placed on it, and he
is requested to partake of his last meal, his friends setting
him the example. Now the moment has come for the final
farewell. The supposed dead man is entreated to return
when the wheat is ripe, and he is promised his share of the
harvest. Thereupon he salutes his family and lies down on
the grave, but only to start up again and replace with his
own hands the feather-bed and blankets on the cart.^
Wide These examples may serve to show how widely spread
diffusion o |.j^g practice of necromancy has been among the civilized as
necro- ^ J it
mancy. well as the barbarous races of mankind.'
1 Jean N. Smirnov, Les Popitlatioiis
Finnoises des bassins de la Volga ct
de la Favia, Premiere Partie (Paris,
1898) pp. 365-369-
- Within the last seventy years there
has been a recrudescence of necro-
mancy among the civilized peoples of
Western Europe and America. Those
who care to follow the sordid history
of the movement — a melancholy com-
pound of credulity and fraud — will find
it expounded, or rather exposed, with
great frankness by Mr. Edward Clodd
in his book The Question (London,
191 7). It is to be feared that, so
long as the world lasts, there will
always be an ample supply of knavery
to meet the demand of folly. " The
credulity of dupes," as Burke justly
observed, "is as inexhaustible as the
invention of knaves " {^Letter to a
ATember of the National Assembly,
in The Works of Edmund Burke,
New Edition, London, 1801 -1827,
vol. vi. p. 10).
CHAPTER IX
THE SIN OF A CENSUS
From two well-known narratives in the Books of Samuel Supposed
and Chronicles^ we learn that at one period of his career jehovah"'^
Jehovah cherished a singular antipathy to the taking of a to the
census, which he appears to have regarded as a crime of "f ^e^'^'""
even deeper dye than boiling milk or jumping on a thresh- people. .
old.^ We read that Jehovah, or Satan, inspired King
David with the unhappy idea of counting his people. What-
ever the precise source of the inspiration may have been —
for on that point the sacred writers differ — the result, or
at least the sequel, was disastrous. The numbering of the
people was immediately followed by a great pestilence, and
popular opinion viewed the calamity as a righteous retribu-
tion for the sin of the census. The excited imagination of
the plague-stricken people even beheld in the clouds the
figure of the Destroying Angel with his sword stretched out
over Jerusalem,^ just as in the Great Plague of London, if
we may trust Defoe, a crowd in the street fancied they saw
the same dreadful apparition hovering in the air,* It was
not till the contrite king had confessed his sin and offered
sacrifice to appease the angry deity, that the Angel of Death
put up his sword and the mourners ceased to go about the
streets of Jerusalem.
^ 2 Samuel xxiv. ; i Chronicles xxi. narrative in Chronicles. The Moham-
2 As to these two latter enormities, "^"''^"^ Toracijas of Central Celebes
see below, vol. iii. pp. i sgq., liiscjq. '^^^'^^'^ ^"^ '^^ existence of certain
„_,,., . ^ spirits who cause sickness and death
I Chronicles xxi. i6. 5,^ ,^„;^^^^^ sword-cuts in the air. See
* 'Da.me.\T>doe,IIisto}yof(kePiagiie N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De
in Londoti (Edinburgh, 1810), pp. 33 Bare'e-sprekende Toradja'svan Midden-
sq. But Defoe probably copied the Celebes, \. 326 sq.
555
556
THE SIN OF A CENSUS
General
aversion
of ignorant
people to
count
themselves,
their cattle,
or their
possessions.
Aversion of
the peoples
of the
Congo
to count
themselves
or their
children.
Aversion
of East
African
tribes to
count
themselves
or their
cattle.
The objection which Jehovah, or rather the Jews, enter-
tained to the taking of a census appears to be simply a
particular case of the general aversion which many ignorant
people feel to allowing themselves, their cattle, or their pos-
sessions to be counted. This curious superstition — for such
it is — seems to be common among the black races of Africa.
For example, among the Bakongo, of the Lower Congo, " it
is considered extremely unlucky for a woman to count her
children one, two, three, and so on, for the evil spirits will
hear and take some of them away by death. The people
themselves do not like to be counted ; for they fear that
counting will draw to them the attention of the evil spirits,
and as a result of the counting some of them will soon die.
In 1908 the Congo State officials, desiring to number the
people for the purpose of levying a tax, sent an officer with
soldiers to count them. The natives would have resisted
the officer, but he had too many soldiers with him ; and it
is not improbable that fights have taken place between
whites and blacks in other parts of Africa, not that they
resisted the taxation, but because they objected to be
counted for fear the spirits would hear and kill them." ^
Similarly among the Boloki or Bangala of the Upper Congo,
" the native has a very strong superstition and prejudice
against counting his children, for he believes that if he does
so, or if he states the proper number, the evil spirits will
hear it and some of his children will die ; hence when you
ask him such a simple question as, ' How many children
have you ? ' you stir up his superstitious fears, and he will
answer : ' I don't know.' If you press him, he will tell you
sixty, or one hundred children, or any other number that
jumps to his tongue ; and even then he is thinking of those
who, from the native view of kinship, are regarded as his
children, and desiring to deceive, not you, but those ubiqui-
tous and prowling evil spirits, he states a large number that
leaves a wide margin." ^
Again, the Masai of East Africa count neither men nor
beasts, believing that if they did so the men or beasts would
die. Hence they reckon a great multitude of people or a
^ John H. Weeks, .4 w(7«;;'^/^e/';7w?- 2 John H. Weeks, Among Congo
tive Bakongo (London, 1914), p. 292. Cannibals (London, 1913), p. 136.
CHAP. IX THE SIN OF A CENSUS 557
large herd of cattle oiilv in round numbers ; of smaller
groups of men or beasts they can reckon the totals with
tolerable accuracy without numbering the individuals of the
groups. Only dead men or dead beasts may be counted
one by one, because naturally there is no risk of their dying
again in consequence of the numeration.^ The Wa-Sania
of British East Africa " most strongly object to being
counted, as they believe that one of those who were counted
would die shortly afterwards." " To the Akamba, another
tribe of the same region, the welfare of the cattle is a matter
of great concern ; hence the people observe certain super-
stitious rules, the breach of which is believed to entail mis-
fortune on the herds. One of these rules is that the cattle
may never be counted ; so when the herd returns to the
village, the owner will merely cast his eye over it to discover
if a beast is missing. And in this tribe the unluckiness of
counting is not limited to cattle, it extends to all living
creatures, and particularly to girls.^ On the other hand,
another authority on the Akamba tells us that " there does
not appear to be any superstition against counting stock ;
if a man has a large herd he does not know the number,
but he or his wives when milking would quickly notice if a
beast with certain markings was not present. A man how-
ever knows the number of his children but is averse to
telling any one outside his family. There is a tradition that
a man named Munda wa Ngola, who lived in the Ibeti
Hills, had many sons and daughters, and boasted of the
size of his family, saying that he and his sons could resist
any attack from the Masai ; one night however the Masai
surprised him and killed him and his people, and the country-
side considered that this was a judgement on him." * Again,
among the Aki.kuyu, another tribe of British East Africa,
" it is difficult to arrive at figures, even approximately
correct, with regard to the size of the families. The natural
method of conversing with the mothers as to the number of
1 M. Merker, Die Masai (Berlin, ^ lion. Ch. Diindas, " History of
1904), p. 152. \s\\m,^^ Journal of the Royal Atilkro-
2 Captain \V. E. H. Barrett, " Notes pological Institute, xliii. (191.3) PP-
on the Customs and Beliefs of the Wa- 501 sq., 526.
giriama, etc., British East Africa," * C. W. Ilobley, Ethnology of A-
Jouj-nal of the Royal Anthropological Kamba and other East African Tribes
institute, xli. (1911) p. 36. (Cambridge, 1910), p. 165.
558 THE SIN OF A CENSUS part iii
their children is soon found to be, to say the least, a tactless
proceeding. It is considered most unlucky to give such
figures, a sentiment similar, no doubt, to the aversion felt in
the Old Testament days to the numbering of the people.
The inquiry is politely waived, with a request to ' come and
see.' . . , The objection to giving family statistics was dis-
covered not to be in force amongst other members than the
parents ; at any rate it did not seem to affect those Kikuyu
boys who were continually in touch with us. These answered
readily any questions as to the number of their father's wives,
their grandfather's wives, and their respective children, and
seemed to have a good acquaintance with their relations." ^
The Gallas of East Africa think that to count cattle is an
evil omen, and that it impedes the increase of the herd."
Aversion To count the mcmbcrs of a community or company is
of the reckoned by the Hottentots to be of very evil augury, for
Hottentots ,,., , c ^ -iii-
to be they believe that some member ot the company will die.
counted. ^ missionary who once, in ignorance of this superstition,
counted his work-people, is said to have paid for his rashness
with his life.^
Aversion to The superstltious objection to numbering people seems
numbering |-q j^g general in North Africa ; in Algeria the opposition
things in offered by the natives to all French regulations which require
North ^,-j enumeration of the inhabitants is said to be based in
Africa. . i -nt • i •
great measure on this aversion to be counted. IN or is this
repugnance limited to the counting of persons ; it is exhibited
also in the counting of measures of grain, an operation which
has a sacred character. For example, at Oran the person
who counts the measures of grain should be in a state of
ceremonial purity, and instead of counting one, two, three,
and so on, he says " In the name of God " for " one " ; " two
blessings " for " two " ; " hospitality of the Prophet " for
" three " ; " we shall gain, please God " for " four " ; " in the
eye of the Devil " for " five " ; " in the eye of his son " for
" six " ; " it is God who gives us our fill " for " seven " ;
and so on, up to " twelve," for which the expression is
1 \V. Scoresby Routledge and Kath- der Dan&kil, Galla tend Somd/ (Beilin,
erine Routledge, IFi/Zi a Prehistonc 1896), p. 31.
People (London, 1910), pp. 135, 136.
2 Ph. Paulitschke, EthnograpJde ^ Th. Hahn, " Die Nama-Hotten-
Nordost-Afrikas, die geistige Ctdttir toten," Globus, xii. p. 277.
CHAP. IX THE SIN OF A CENSUS 559
" the perfection for God." ^ So in Palestine, at counting Mode of
the measures of grain, many Mohammedans sav for '^^""'"'"g
measures
the first one, "God is one," and for the next, "He has of grain in
no second," then simply " Three," " Four," and so on. ^'*'*'^''"^-
But " there are several unlucky numbers, the first being
five, and therefore, instead of saying the number, they
often say * Your hand,' five being the number of the
fingers ; seven is another unlucky number, strange to say,
and is passed over in silence, or the word ' A blessing '
is used instead ; at nine Moslems often say, ' Pray in the
name of Mohammed ' ; eleven also is not unfrequently
omitted, the measurer saying, ' There are ten,' and then
passing on to twelve." ^ Perhaps such substitutes for the
ordinary numbers are intended to deceive evil spirits who
may be lying in wait to steal or harm the corn, and who are
presumably too dull-witted to comprehend these eccentric
modes of numeration.
In the Shortlands group of islands, in the Western Aversion to
Pacific, the building of a chiefs house is attended bv a counting
' , ' things or
variety of ceremonies and observances. The roof is heavily people
thatched at each gable with thatch made of the leaves !" *^^, ^
° Shortlands
of the ivory - nut palm. In collecting these leaves the and among
builders are not allowed to count the number, as the of^jJonh"^
counting would be deemed unlucky ; yet if the number of America,
leaves collected should fall short of the number required,
the house, though nearing completion, would be at once
abandoned.^ Thus the loss entailed by a miscalculation
may be heavy, and from its possible extent we can judge
how serious must, in the opinion of the natives, be the
objection to counting the leaves, since rather than count
them they are prepared to sacrifice the fruit of their labour.
Among the Cherokee Indians of North America it is a rule
that " melons and squashes must not be counted or examined
too closely, while still growing upon the vine, or they will
' Y,^xr\o^\AV>o\^\Xi, Magie et Religion (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 4? sqq.
dansrA/rigued!,Nord{Algiers, 1908), , ^ ^ ^ p^^^^^^^ .^^ ^j^^
pp 179 sq. For special expressions ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^ 1906), pp. 212
used in counting measures of corn in ^ > ^ < i-r
Morocco, see Edward Westermarck, ^'
Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with ^ George Brown, D.D., j1/<?/a«fj/a;/j
Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar and Polynesians (London, 1910), p.
Year, attd the Weather in Morocco 204.
560
THE SIN OF A CENSUS
Supersti-
tious
objection
to counting
in Europe.
The super-
stition in
the
Highlands
of Scotland
and the
Shetland
Islands.
cease to thrive."^ Once on a time the officer in charge of
Fort Simpson, in British Columbia, took a census of the
Indians in the neighbourhood, and very soon afterwards
great numbers of them were swept away by measles. Of
course the Indians attributed the calamity to their having
been numbered," just as the Hebrews in King David's time
ascribed the wasting pestilence to the sin of the census.
The Omaha Indians " preserve no account of their ages ;
they think that some evil will attend the numbering of their
years." ^
Similar superstitions are to be found in Europe and in
our own 'country to this day. The Lapps used to be, and
perhaps still are, unwilling to count themselves and to
declare the number, because they feared that such a reckon-
ing would both forebode and cause a great mortality among
their people.* In the Highlands of Scotland "it is reckoned
unlucky to number the people or cattle belonging to any
family, but more particularly upon Friday. The cowherd
knows every creature committed to his charge by the colour,
size, and other particular marks, but is perhaps all along
ignorant of the sum total of his flock. And fishermen do
not care to confess the number of salmon or other fish which
they have taken at a draught or in a day, imagining that
this discovery would spoil their luck." ^ Though this account
is derived from a writer of the eighteenth century, similar
superstitions are known to have prevailed in Scotland far
into the nineteenth century, and it is probable that they are
not extinct at the present time. In Shetland, we are told,
" counting the number of sheep, of cattle, of horses, of fish,
or of any of a man's chattels, whether animate or inanimate,
has always been considered as productive of bad luck. There
is also said to have been an idea prevalent at one time, that
1 James ATooney, " Myths of the
Cherokee," Nineteenth Annual Report
of the Bureau of American Ethnology
(Washington, 1900), Part i. p. 424.
2 R. C. Mayne, Four Years in
British Columbia and Vancouver Island
(London, 1862), p. 313.
^ Edwin James, Account of ati Ex-
pedition f-om Pittsburgh to the Rocky
Mountains (London, 1823), i. 235,
compare p. 214.
* C. Leemius, De Lapponibus Fin-
marchiae eorumqtie lingua, vita, et
religione pristina Commeniatio (Copen-
hagen, 1767}, p. 499.
^ John Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, Scot-
land and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
Century, edited by Alexander Allar-
dyce (Edinburgh and London, 1SS8),
ii. 449.
CHAP. IX THE SIN OF A CENSUS 561
an outbreak of small-pox always followed the census being
taken." ^ Among the fisher folk on the north-east coast of Supersti-
Scotland on no account might the boats be counted when ^'°"\.
^ objection
they were at sea, nor might any gathering of men, women, of Scotch
or children be numbered. Nothing aroused the indignation [^j'^J '^°'''
of a company of fisherwomen trudging along the road to sell counted,
their fish more than to point at them with the finger, and
begin to number them aloud : —
" Ane^ tiva, thixe^
Faht a fishers I see
Gyain our the brigg d Dee,
Deel pick Iheir nnickle greetJiy ee." 2
So the fish-wives of Auchmithie, a village on the coast of
Forfarshire, used to be irritated by mischievous children,
who counted them with extended forefingers, repeating the
verse : —
^^ Ane, twa, three!
ylne, twa, three!
Stc a lot 0' fisher-wifies
I do see ! "
And the unluckiness extended to counting the fish caught Supersti-
or the boats in the herring-fleet.^ "°"^
T T • T 1 • r objection
In Lmcolnshire "no farmer should count his lambs too to counting
closely during the lambing season. This idea is, it may be ^"^^^ '"
guessed, connected with the notion that to reckon very
accurately gives the powers of evil information which they
can use against the objects under consideration. ' Brebis
comptees, le loup les mange! I have seen a shepherd in
obvious embarrassment because his employer knew so little
of his own business that, though usually the most easy of
masters, he would insist on learning every morning the
exact number of lambs his flock had produced. For a
cognate reason, it may be, some people when asked how old
they are reply, ' As old as my tongue, and a little bit older
than my teeth.' M. Gaidoz remarks in Mehsinc (ix. 35)
' John R. Tudor, The Orkneys and on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
Shetland {l.oi\([oxi, 1883), p. 173; Ch. Scotland (London, i88l), p. 200.
Hogexs, Social Lrfe t'n Scotland {ILdin- ^ County Folk-lore, vol. vii. Fife,
burgh, 1 884-1 886), iii. 224 sij. collected by J. E. Simpkins (London,
2 Rev. Walter Gregor, M.A., Notes IQ14), p. 418.
VOL. n 20
562
THE SIN OF A CENSUS
Supersti-
tious
objection
to counting
chickens,
blossoms,
fruit, and
mice in
Denmark.
Objection
to counting
warts,
money,
loaves, and
dumplings.
that old people ought not to tell their age, and when im-
portuned to reveal it they should answer that they are as
old as their little finger. Inhabitants of Godarville, Hain-
ault, reply, ' I am the age of a calf, every year twelve
months.' " ^ In England the superstitious objection to
counting lambs is not confined to Lincolnshire. A friend,
whose home is in a village of South Warwickshire, wrote to
me some years ago, " Superstitions die hard. Yesterday I
asked a woman how many lambs her husband had. She
said she didn't know, then, perceiving the surprise in my
face, added, ' You know, sir, it's unlucky to count them.'
Then she went on, ' However we haven't lost any yet' And
her husband is postmaster and keeps the village shop, and,
in his own esteem, stands high above a peasant." ^
In Denmark they say that you should never count the
eggs under a brooding hen, else the mother will tread on the
eggs and kill the chickens. And when the chickens are
hatched, you ought not to count them, or they will easily fall
a prey to the glede or the hawk. So, too, blossoms and
fruit should not be counted, or the blossoms will wither and
the fruit will fall untimely from the bough.^ In North
Jutland people have a notion that if you count any mice
which the cat has caught, or which you chance to discover,
the mice will increase in number ; and if you count lice, fleas,
or any other vermin, they also will multiply in like manner.*
It is said to be a Greek and Armenian superstition that if
you count your warts they will increase in number.^ On
the other hand, it is a popular German belief that if you
count your money often it will steadily decrease.^ In the
Upper Palatinate, a district of Bavaria, people think that
loaves in the oven should not be counted, or they will not
turn out well.^ In Upper Franconia, another district of
1 Mabel Peacock, " The Folk-lore
of Lincolnshire," Folk-lore, xii. (1901)
p. 179.
- Letter of William Wyse, formerly
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
dated Halford, Shipston-on-Stour, 25th
February, 1908.
5 H. F. Feilberg, " Die Zahlen im
danischen Brauch und Volksglauben,"
Zeitschrift des Vei-eins fur Volkskicnde,
iv. (Berlin, 1894) p. 383.
* H. F. Feilberg, op at. p. 384.
^ William Henderson, Notes on the
Folk-lore of the Noi-thern Counties of
England and the fio?-ders (London,
1879), P- 140.
s Adolf Wuttke, Der dcutsche Volks-
aberglaube' (Berlin, 1S69), p. 384,,
§ 633.
^ A. Wuttke, op. dt. p. 378, § 620.
CHAP. IX THE SIN OF A CENSUS 563
Bavaria, they say that, when dumplings are being cooked,
you should not count them, because if you do, the Little
Wood Women, who like dumplings, could not fetch any
away, and deprived of that form of nutriment they would
perish, with the necessary consequence that the forest would
dwindle and die. Therefore to prevent the country from
being stripped bare of its woods, you are urged not to count
dumplings in the pan.^ In the north-east of Scotland a
similar rule used to be observed for a somewhat different
reason. " When bread was baked in a family the cakes
must not be counted. Fairies always ate cakes that had
been counted ; they did not last the ordinary time." ^
On the whole we may assume, with a fair degree of The ancient
probability, that the objection which the Jews in King^ Jewsh
*^ ^ ' ■' •' ° objection
David's time felt to the taking of a census rested on to a census
no firmer foundation than sheer superstition, which may P''°t'abiy
" ' ^ based on
have been confirmed by an outbreak of plague immedi- superstition.
ately after the numbering of the people. To this day the
same repugnance to count or be counted appears to linger
among the Arabs of Syria, for we are told that an Arab is
averse to counting the tents, or horsemen, or cattle of his
tribe, lest some misfortune befall them.^
At a later time the Jewish legislator so far relaxed the Later
ban upon a census as to permit the nation to be numbered, relaxation
'^ . ^ ' of the rule.
on condition that every man paid half a shekel to the
Lord as a ransom for his life, lest a plague should break out
among the people.^ On receipt of that moderate fee the
deity was apparently assumed to waive the scruples he felt
at the sin of a census.
^ August Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten age, in the opinion of the critics, be-
und Gebrducheaus Tku7-ingen{Vi&n-n2., longs to a late section of the Priestly
1878), p. 285, § 100. Code, and therefore probably dates
2 Rev. Walter Gregor, Notes on the from the Exile or later. See the com-
Folk-lore of the North- East of Scotland mentaries on Exodus of W. H. Bennett
(London, 1881), p. 65. {The Century Bible), A. H. McNeile
^ S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus {Westminster Commentaries), and S.
(Cambridge, 191 1), p. 332, referring to R. Driver {The Cambridge Bible for
Burckhardt, T7-avels, p. 741. I have Schools and Colleges). As to the
not been able to verify this reference. Priestly Code, see above, vol. i. pp.
* Exodus XXX. 1 1- 16. This pass- 131 sgq.
VOL. II 202
CHAPTER X
SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
Thefameo^ ACCORDING to Jewish tradition King Solomon was a sage
wisdom" ^ whose reputation for wisdom spread to the ends of the
earth, and from all quarters kings sent envoys to Jerusalem
to profit by the sagacity and learning of the Hebrew monarch.^
The visit of Amongst the rest the Queen of Sheba, not content to receive
of^Sheba."^ at sccond hand the treasures of knowledge which he dispensed
to his hearers, came in person from her home in southern
Arabia to question Solomon with her own lips and to listen
to his wise answers. We are told that she put riddles to
him, and that he read them all ; not one of them did he fail
to answer.^ What the riddles were which the Queen pro-
pounded to the King, the historian omits to tell us, but
later Jewish tradition has supplied the blank. The Midrash
or commentary on Proverbs contains a list of the Queen's
questions and the King's answers. A few specimens may
perhaps suffice to convince a modern reader that, if they are
genuine, the King's reputation for wisdom was somewhat
cheaply earned.
Riddles The Queen said to Solomon, " Seven there are that
propounded jggyg and nine that enter; two yield the draught and one
Solomon drinks." Solomon replied, " Seven are the days of a woman's
Oueenof defilement, and nine the months of pregnancy; two are the
Sheba. brcasts that yield the draught, and one the child that drinks
it." Then the Queen questioned him further, saying, " A
woman said to her son, thy father is my father, and thy
^ I Kings V. 29-34. Version translates "hard questions,"
should be translated "riddles." It is
2 I Kings X. 1-3. In verse i the the same word which is used of Sam-
Hebrew word {nh'n), which the English son's riddle in Judges xiv. 12-19.
564
CHAP. X SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA 565
grandfather my husband ; thou art my son, and I am thy
sister." " Assuredly," said he, " it was the daughter of Lot
who spake thus to her son." Also the Queen asked him,
" What land is that which has but once seen the sun ? "
Solomon answered, " The land upon which, after the crea-
tion, the waters were gathered, and the bed of the Red Sea
on the day when it was divided." Further, the Queen said,
" There is something which, when living, moves not,
yet when its head is cut off it moves." " It is the ship
in the sea," answered Solomon. Again, " What is this ? "
asked the Queen. " It comes as dust from the earth, its food
is dust, it is poured out like water, and it lights the house."
" Naphtha," replied the King curtly.
But besides plumbing the depths of the King's wisdom How the
by these searching questions, the Queen of Sheba is said to s^eba °^
have further submitted his practical sagacity to certain ex- proved
perimental tests. Thus, she placed a number of males and wisdom'by
females of the same stature and garb before him and said, practical
tests
" Distinguish between them." Forthwith Solomon made a
sign to the eunuchs, and they brought him a quantity of nuts
and roasted ears of corn. The males, who were not bashful,
grasped them with bare hands ; but the females took them
delicately, putting forth their gloved hands from beneath
their garments. Whereupon King Solomon cried out, " Those
are the males, these the females." Moreover, she brought
before him a number of men, some circumcised and others
uncircumcised, and she asked him to distinguish between
them. He at once made a sign to the high priest, who
opened the ark of the covenant, whereupon the circumcised
men bowed their bodies to half their height, while their
countenances shone with the radiance of the Shekinah ; but
the uncircumcised men fell prone upon their faces. " Those
are circumcised," quoth he, " these uncircumcised." " Thou
art wise indeed," quoth she. Afterwards the Queen ordered
the sawn trunk of a cedar tree to be brought, and she asked
Solomon to point out at which end the root had been, and
at which the branches. He bade her cast it into the water,
whereupon one end sank and the other floated on the surface.
The sagacious monarch then declared that the end which
sank was the root end. and that the end which floated was
566
SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA part hi
Contest
of wit
between
Solomon
and Hiram,
King of
I'yre.
Contests
of wit
between
two rival
Rajahs of
Celebes.
The iron
staff and
the tube of
sago.
the branch end. This proof of his penetration filled the Queen
with admiration. " Thou exceedest in wisdom and goodness
the fame which I heard," cried she, "blessed be thy God !"^
The Queen of Sheba was not the only potentate with
whom the royal sage at Jerusalem is reported to have engaged
in a contest of wit. It is said that Solomon propounded a
riddle to Hiram, Kii>g of Tyre, laying a wager that he could
not read it. The Tyrian monarch accepted the challenge, but
though he puzzled over the problem, he could not find the
answer. So Solomon won his wager. But his triumph was
short-lived. For a man of Tyre, named Abdemon, now came
forward as the champion of his king and country, and not
only solved Solomon's riddle but propounded one of his
own, which the Hebrew sage, for all his wisdom, was unable
to read.^
In Central Celebes similar stories are told of contests of
wit between the rival Rajahs of Loowoo and Mori. It is
said, for example, that the Rajah of Mori, hearing reports of
the other's greatness, resolved to test his power and glory.
For this purpose he sent him an iron staff bent into a loop,
with a request that he would straighten it out. The Rajah
of Loowoo put the staff in a furnace, and when it was red-
hot, he straightened it out, as he had been requested to do.
Having performed the task set him, he now in his turn tested
his rival by sending the Rajah of Mori a tube of sago, baked
in a bamboo and bent into a loop while it was still warm.
This tube he begged the Rajah of Mori to straighten out.
The Rajah of Mori accordingly set to work on the tube of
sago, but do what he would, he could not straighten it out.
If lie tried to do it when the sago was dry, the tube threatened
to break in his hands ; if he tried to do it when the sago was
damp, by being dipped in water, the tube dissolved ; and if
he warmed it up to dry it again, the sago melted into a solid
mass. So in this trial of skill the Rajah of Loowoo got the
better of the Rajah of Mori.
1 Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of
the Jews, iv. (Philadelphia, 1913) pp.
145-148; C. H. Toy, "The Queen of
Sheba," The Journal of American Folk-
lore, XX. (1907) pp. 208 sq. On the
riddles of the Queen of Sheba, as they
are reported by Jewish and Arab tra-
dition, see further the learned disserta-
tion of W. Hertz, " Die Ratsel der
Konigin von Saba," Gesafnmelte Ab-
hatidlungen (Stuttgart and Berlin,
1905), pp. 4 [3 sgq.
^ Josephus, Antiquit. Jud. viii. 5.
3 ; id.. Contra Apionem, i. 17.
CHAP. X SOLOMON AND THE QUERN OF SIIEBA 567
However, in another story the Rajah of Mori contrives The cotton j
to defeat his rival. The Rajah of Loowoo had sent him a T'^, ^''f ,
•^ bark-cloth.
piece of cotton with a request that he would draw out all the
threads. This the Rajah of Mori contrived to do, and having
executed the task, he sent the Rajah of Loowoo in return a
piece of bark-cloth with a request that the Rajah would be
so good as to draw out all the threads from that. In vain
the Rajah of Loowoo struggled to disentangle all the fibres
of the bark ; at last he had to give it up and acknowledge
that the Rajah of Mori was at least his peer.
Yet another story, however, reverses the parts played The
by the two potentates and assigns the superiority to the the'tOTch"'^
Rajah of Loowoo. It is said that the Rajah of Loowoo
came to visit the Rajah of Mori, and that the two sat up
late at night talking by the light of a resin-torch, after all
the other folk in the palace had gone to sleep. As the
torch guttered and threatened to go out, the Rajah of Mori
took a stick and directed the flow of resin so that the flame
burst out again as bright as ever. Now this is a task which
is usually performed by a slave, and the good-natured
Rajah only did it with his own hands because all his
slaves were abed. However, his astute rival at once took
advantage of his politeness to place him in a position
of inferiority. " Because you have snufled the torch," said
he to the Rajah of Mori, " you are less than I, and you must
pay me homage." The crestfallen but candid Rajah of Mori
acknowledged the justness of the observation, and confessed
the superiority of the Rajah of Loowoo.^
If we had the Queen of Sheba's version of her interview
with King Solomon, we might perhaps discover that in the
war of wit she was at least able to hold her own against the
Hebrew monarch.
In the dreary wilderness of the Koran, which by com- story in the
parison vi^ith the glorious literature of the Old Testament ^5°"^*" °^
'^ ° Solomon,
remains an eternal monument of the inferiority of the Arab the Queen
to the Hebrew genius, we read how Solomon tested the °'^f'?^^'
o ' and the
discernment of the Queen of Shcba by overlaying his court crystal
of audience with glass, and how the Queen of Sheba, falling
1 N. Adriani en Alb. C. Kruijt, De Bare'e-sprekende Toradja's van Midden-
Celebes (Batavia, 1912-1914), i. 135.
568 SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA part m
into the trap, mistook the glass for water and drew up her
skirts to wade through it.^ Later Arab tradition has not
unnaturally dwelt by predilection on the visit of a native
Arab princess to the wise king at Jerusalem, and has adorned
or disfigured the simple theme by many fanciful details.
Among the rest it enlarges on the trivial incident of the
glassy pavement. Envious or malignant demons had
whispered, so it is alleged, in Solomon's ear that the Queen
had hairy legs or the feet of an ass, and in order to prove or
disprove the truth of the accusation the sage king resorted
to the expedient of the crystal floor. When the Queen
raised her skirts to wade through the imaginary water,
Solomon saw that the story of her deformity was a vile
calumny, and, his too susceptible heart receiving a strong
impression of her charms, he added her to the numerous
ladies of his harem.^ At Jerusalem the legend is told to
this day, and the very spot where the incident happened is
pointed out. It is a few yards within the gate called Bab
el Asbat, or the Gate of the Tribes, the only gateway now
left open in the eastern wall of the city. Here down to the
summer of 1906 there stood an old bath house, which dated
from the days of the Saracens, but which, according to
tradition, had been built by King Solomon for the use of the
Queen of Sheba.^
King The deception of the crystal pavement occurs also as an
hL^nla'Jid incident in the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. We
the crystal there read how on one occasion the dull - witted king
MahT- ^ Duryodhana mistook a sheet of crystal for a sheet of water,
bharata. and tucked up his skirts to wade through it ; how another
time he on the contrary mistook a lake of crystal water for
dry land, and fell splash into it with all his clothes on, to the
amusement of the spectators and even of his own servants ;
how he tried to pass through a crystal door, which he
supposed to be open, but knocked his brow against its hard
surface till his head ached and his brains reeled ; and how
1 The Qur'dn, chapter xxvii., trans- handlungen (Stuttgart and Berlin,
lated by E. H. Palmer (Oxford, 1880), 1905), pp. 419 sqq. In Arab tradi-
Part ii. p. 103 {The Sacred Books of tion the Queen's name is Balqis.
the East, vol. ix.). ^ J. E. Hanauer, Folk-lore of the
2 W. Hertz, "Die Ratsel -der Holy Land (London, 1910), pp. 97
Konigin von Saba," Gesammelte Ab- sqq.
CHAP. X SOLOMON AND THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
569
after this painful experience, he came to an open door, but
turned away from it, because he feared to encounter the
obstruction of crystal again. ^
Despite the resemblance between the two stories in the Did the
Koran and the MaJiabharata, neither the prophet nor the 1*^°''^"
^ ^ borrow
poet can well have copied directly the one from the other, the story
the prophet because he did not read Sanscrit, and the poet ^[/j))^'.^^
because he died before the prophet was born.'- If they did bharatat
not both draw independently from the well-spring of fancy
an incident, for the creation of which an imagination less
than Miltonic might conceivably have sufficed, they may
have borrowed it from a popular tale which circulated alike
in the bazaars of India and the tents of Arabia.
^ The Mahabharata, translated liter-
ally from the original Sanskrit text,
edited by Manmatha Nath Dutt, Sabha
Parva (Calcutta, 1895), chapter xlvii.
3-13, p. 64. Compare Christian'Lassen,
Indische Alterthnmskiitide, i. ^ (Leipsic,
1867) p. 825 ; Sir George A. Grierson,
"Duryodhana and theQueenof Sheba,"
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for
igij (London, 1913), pp. 684 sq.,
with the notes of W. Crooke, pp. 685
sq., and Mr. C. H. Tawney, p. 1048.
The latter scholar cites another parallel
in an Indian tale, which was pointed
out by F. Anton von Schiefner : "In
the Jyotishkdvadana, p. 108, artificial
fishes which can be set in motion by
machinery, appear under a crystal floor.
The entering guest takes this for water,
and is about therefore to take off his
shoes " (F. Anton von Schiefner,
Ttbeta7i Tales, done into English from
the German, with an Introduction, by
W. R. S. Ralston, London, 1882, p.
361 note 2). In the Jerusalem version
of the story a stream of water, with
fish swimming in it, flowed under the
crystal pavement (J. E. Hanauer, Folk-
lore of the Holy Land, p. 97).
^ The enormous Indian epic, the
Mahabharata, was doubtless the work
of many hands and many ages, but
inscriptions prove that the poem was re-
duced, or rather expanded, to its present
size before 500 A. D. ; Mohammed was
born about 570. A.D. See The Imperial
Gazetteer of India, The Ifidiaii Empire
(Oxford, 1909), ii. 235 ; Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Ninth Edition, xvi. (Edin-
burgh, 1878) p. 545.
CHAPTER XI
THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON
Solomon's
test of
mother-
hood.
Repetition
of the story
of the test
in Jain
hterature.
A Jain
version of
the judg-
ment of
Solomon.
Of the proofs of Solomon's extraordinary wisdom, which the
Hebrew historian has recorded, the most celebrated is the
mode whereby, in a dispute between two wenches for the pos-
session of a child, of which both claimed to be the mother, he
distinguished the real from the pretended parent by ordering
the infant to be cut in two and divided between the claimants ;
whereupon, maternal affection overmastering all other feelings,
the real mother begged that the child might be spared and
given alive to her rival, while the pretended mother was
quite ready to acquiesce in the bisection of the babe.^
Like much else that is told of King Solomon, this anec-
dote has the air rather of a popular tale than of an historical
narrative. True or false, it has passed into folk-lore, having
been incorporated into that vast legendary literature of the
Jains, v^hich as yet has been only partially explored by Euro-
pean scholars. Four of these Indian versions of the story
have been discovered in recent times ; ^ they all bear a family
resemblance to each other and to their Hebrew original. It
will be enough to cite one of them, which runs as follows : —
A certain merchant had two wives ; one of them had a
son and the other had not. But the childless wife also took
good care of the other's child, and the child was not able to
distinguish, " This is my mother, that is not." Once on a
time the merchant, with his wives and his son, went to
another country, and just after his arrival there he died.
1 I Kings iii. 16-28.
2 L. P. Tessitori (Udine, Italy),
'* Two Jaina versions of the Story of
Solomon's Judgment," The Indian
Aniiquary, xlii. {19 1 3) pp. 1 48- 1 52.
The writer gives all four versions ; two
of them had previously been published
by his fellow-countryman F. L. Pulle.
As to Jain literature, see The Imperial
Gazetteer of hidia. The hidian Empire
(Oxford, 1909), i. 415; J. Hastings,
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,
vii. (Edinburgh, 1914) p. 467-
570
THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON
571
Then the two wives fell to quarrelling. One of them said,
" Mine is this child," and the other said just the same. One
said, " It is I who am the mistress of the house ; " and the
other said, " It is I." At last they carried the dispute before
a royal court of justice. The presiding minister of justice
gave an order to his men, " First divide the whole property,
then saw the child in two with a saw, and give one part to
the one woman and the other part to the other." But when
the mother heard the minister's sentence, it was as if a
thunderbolt, enveloped in a thousand flames, had fallen on
her head, and with her heart all trembling as if it had been
pierced by a crooked dart, she contrived with difficulty to
speak. " Ah, sire ! Great minister ! " she said, " it is not
mine, this child ! The money is of no use to me ! Let the
child be the son of that woman, and let her be the mistress
of the house. As for me, it is no matter if I drag out an
indigent life in strange houses ; though it be from a distance,
yet shall I see that child living, and so shall I attain the
object of my life. Whereas, without my son, even now the
whole living world is dead to me." But the other woman
uttered never a word. Then the minister, beholding the
distress of the former woman, said, " To her belongs the
child, but not to that one." And he made the mother the
mistress of the house, but the other woman he rebuked.^
1 L. P. Tessitori (Udine, Italy), version of the "story is from the
"Two Jaina versions of the Story of Antarakathdsaingraha oi '^^)'x%(iW\?LX?i,
Solomon's Judgment," I'he Indian a work apparently of the fourteenth
Antiquary, xlii. (1913) p. 149. This century.
END OF VOL. II
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FRAZER, SIR JA^ES GECRGE ^^5
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