The Blood Covenant: A Primitive Rite and its Bearings on Scripture. H. Clay Trumbull

floss from the garments of each of the two, he anoints with the blood seven stones [as the “heap of witness”[114]] which are set in the midst. While he is doing this he invokes Dionysus and Urania. When this rite is completed, he that has made the pledges [to one from without] introduces the [former] stranger to his friends[115]—or the fellow citizen [to his fellows] if the rite was performed with a fellow-citizen.”

      Thus it is clear, that the rite of blood-brotherhood, or of blood-friendship, which is to-day a revered form of sacred covenanting in the unchangeable East, was recognized as an established custom among Oriental peoples twenty-three centuries ago. Its beginning must certainly have been prior to that time; if not indeed long prior.

      An indication of the extreme antiquity of this rite would seem to be shown in a term employed in its designation by the Romans, early in our Christian era; when both the meaning and the origin of the term itself were already lost in the dim past. Festus,[116] a writer, of fifteen centuries or more ago, concerning Latin antiquities, is reported[117] as saying, of this drink of the covenant of blood: “A certain kind of drink, of mingled wine and blood, was called assiratum by the ancients; for the ancient Latins called blood, assir.” Our modern lexicons give this isolated claim, made by Festus, of the existence of any such word as “assir” signifying “blood,” in “the ancient Latin language;”[118] and some of them try to show the possibilities of its origin;[119] but no convincing proof of any such word and meaning in the Latin can be found.

      Turning, however, to the languages of the East, where the binding vow of blood-friendship was pledged in the drink of wine and blood, or of blood alone, from time immemorial, we have no difficulty in finding the meaning of “assir.” Asar (אָסַר) is a common Hebrew word, signifying “to bind together”—as in a mutual covenant. Issar (אִסָּר), again, is a vow of self-renunciation. Thus we have Asar issar ’al nephesh (אָסַר אִסָּר עַל נֶפֶשׁ) “To bind a self-devoting vow upon one’s life”[120]—upon one’s blood; “for the blood is the life.”[121] In the Arabic, also, asara (اسر) means “to bind,” or “to tie”; while asar (اسر) is “a covenant,” or “a compact”; and aswâr (اسوار) is “a bracelet”; which in itself is “a band,” and may be “a fetter.”[122] So, again, in the Assyrian, esiru (

) is in its root form “to bind”; and as a substantive it is “a bracelet,” or “a fetter.”[123] The Syriac gives esar (

), “a bond,” or “a belt.”[124] All these, with the root idea, “to bind”—as a covenant binds. In the light of these disclosures, it is easy to see how the “issar” or the “assar,” when it was a covenant of blood, came to be counted by the Latins the blood which was a covenant.

7. THE BOND OF THE COVENANT.

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      Just here it may be well to emphasize the fact, that, from time immemorial, and the world over, the armlet, the bracelet, and the ring, have been counted the symbols of a boundless bond between giver and receiver; the tokens of a mutual, unending covenant. Possibly—probably, as I think—this is in consequence of the primitive custom of binding, as an amulet, the enclosed record—enclosed in the “house of the amulet”[125]—of the covenant of blood on the arm of either participant in that rite; possibly, again, it is an outgrowth of the common root idea of a covenant and a bracelet, as a binding agency.

      Blood-covenanting and bracelet-binding seem—as already shown—to be intertwined in the languages of the Oriental progenitors of the race. There are, likewise, indications of this intertwining in the customs of peoples, East and West. For example, in India, where blood-shedding is peculiarly objectionable, the gift and acceptance of a bracelet is an ancient covenant-tie, seemingly akin to blood-brotherhood. Of this custom, an Indian authority says: “Amongst the rajput races of India the women adopt a brother by the gift of a bracelet. The intrinsic value of such pledges is never looked to, nor is it necessary that it should be costly, though it varies with the means and rank of the donor, and may be of flock silk and spangles, or of gold chains and gems. The acceptance of the pledge is by the ‘katchli’, or corset, of simple silk or satin, or gold brocade and pearls. Colonel Tod was the Rakhi-bund Bhai [the Bracelet-bound Brother] of the three queens of Oodipur, Bundi, and Kotch; as also of Chund-Bai, the maiden sister of the Rana, and of many ladies of the chieftains of rank. Though the bracelet may be sent by maidens, it is only on occasions of urgent necessity and danger. The adopted brother may hazard his life in his adopted sister’s cause, and yet never receive a mite in reward; for he cannot even see the fair object; who, as brother of her adoption, has constituted him her defender.”[126]

      “The … ‘Bracelet-bound Brother,’ feels himself called upon to espouse the cause of the lady from whom he has received the gift, and to defend her against all her enemies, whenever she shall demand his assistance.” Thus, the Great Mogul, Hoomâyoon, father of the yet more celebrated Akbar, was in his early life bound, and afterwards loyally recognized his binding, as “the sworn knight of one of the princesses of Rajasthan, who, according to the custom of her country, secured the sword of the prince in her service by the gift of a bracelet.” When he had a throne of his own to care for, this princess, Kurnivati, being besieged at Cheetore, sent to Hoomâyoon, then prosecuting a vigorous campaign in Bengal; and he, as in duty bound, “instantly obeyed the summons”; and although he was not in season to rescue her, he “evinced his fidelity by avenging the fall of the city.”[127] It is noteworthy, just here, that the Oriental biographer of the Mogul Akbar calls attention to the fact, that while the Persians describe close friendship as chiefly subsisting between men, “in Hindostan it is celebrated between man and woman”;[128] as indeed, it is among the Arab tribes East of the Jordan.[129]

      In the Norseland, an oath of fidelity was taken on a ring, or a bracelet, kept in the temple of the gods; and the gift and acceptance of a bracelet, or a ring, was a common symbol of a covenant of fidelity. Thus, in “Hávamál,” the high song of Odin, we find:

      “Odin, I believe,

      A ring-oath gave.

      Who, in his faith will trust?”

      And in “Viga Glum’s Saga,” it is related: “In the midst of a wedding party, Glum calls upon Thorarin, his accuser, to hear his oath, and taking in his hand a silver ring which had been dipped in sacrificial blood, he cites two witnesses to testify to his oath on the ring, and to his having appealed to the gods in his denial of the charge made against him.” In the “Saga of Fridthjof the Bold,” when Fridthjof is bidding farewell to his beloved Ingeborg, he covenants fidelity to her by the gift of

      “An arm-ring, all over famous;

      Forged by the halting Volund, ’twas—the old North-story’s Vulcan …

      Heaven was grav’d thereupon, with the twelve immortals’ strong castles—

      Signs of the changing months, but the skald had Sun-houses named them.”

      As Fridthjof gave this pledge to Ingeborg, he said:

      “Forget me never; and,

      In sweet remembrance of our youthful love,

      This arm-ring take; a fair Volunder-work,

      With all heaven’s wonders carved i’ th’ shining gold.

      Ah! the best wonder is a faithful heart …

      How prettily becomes it thy white arm—

      A glow-worm twining round a lily stem.”

      

      And the subsequent story of that covenanting arm-ring, fills thrilling