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

underneath a lifted sod. The idea involved seems to have been, the burial of the two individuals, in their separate personal lives, and the intermingling of those lives—by the intermingling of their blood—while in their temporary grave; in order to their rising again with a common life[71]—one life, one soul, in two bodies. Thus it is told, in one of the Icelandic Sagas, of Thorstein, the heroic son of Viking, proffering “foster-brotherhood,” or blood-friendship, to the valiant Angantyr, Jarl of the Orkneys. “Then this was resolved upon, and secured by firm pledges on both sides. They opened a vein in the hollow of their hands, crept beneath the sod, and there [with clasped hands inter-blood-flowing] they solemnly swore that each of them should avenge the other if any one of them should be slain by weapons.” This was, in fact, a three-fold covenant of blood; for King Bele, who had just been in combat with Angantyr, was already in blood-friendship with Thorstein.[72]

      The rite of blood-friendship, in one form and another finds frequent mention in the Norseland Sagas. Thus, in the Saga of Fridthjof the Bold, the son of Thorstein:

      “Champions twelve, too, had he—gray-haired, and princes in exploits—

      Comrades his father had loved, steel-breasted and scarred o’er the forehead.

      Last on the champions’ bench, equal-aged with Fridthjof, a stripling

      Sat, like a rose among withered leaves; Bjorn called they the hero—

      Glad as a child, but firm like a man, and yet wise as a graybeard;

      Up with Fridthjof he’d grown; they had mingled blood with each other,

      Foster-brothers in Northman wise; and they swore to continue

      Steadfast in weal and woe, each other revenging in battle.”[73]

      

      A vestige of this primitive rite, coming down to us through European channels, is found, as are so many other traces of primitive rites, in the inherited folk-lore of English-speaking children on both sides of the Atlantic. An American clergyman’s wife said recently, on this point: “I remember, that while I was a school-girl, it was the custom, when one of our companions pricked her finger, so that the blood came, for one or another of us to say ‘Oh, let me suck the blood; then we shall be friends.’ ” And that is but an illustration of the outreaching after this indissoluble bond, on the part of thirty generations of children of Norseland and Anglo-Saxon stock, since the days of Fridthjof and Bjorn; as that same yearning had been felt by those of a hundred generations before that time.

5. WORLD-WIDE SWEEP OF THE RITE.

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      Concerning traces of the rite of blood-covenanting in China, where there are to be found fewest resemblances to the primitive customs of the Asiatic Semites, Dr. Yung Wing, the eminent Chinese educationalist and diplomat, gives me the following illustration: “In the year 1674, when Kănhi was Emperor, of the present dynasty, we find that the Buddhist priests of Shanlin Monastery in Fuhkin Province had rebelled against the authorities on account of persecution. In their encounters with the troops, they fought against great odds, and were finally defeated and scattered in different provinces, where they organized centres of the Triad Society, which claims an antiquity dated as far back as the Freemasons of the West. Five of these priests fled to the province of Hakwong, and there, Chin Kinnan, a member of the Hanlin College, who was degraded from office by his enemies, joined them; and it is said that they drank blood, and took the oath of brotherhood, to stand by each other in life or death.”

      Along the southwestern border of the Chinese Empire, in Burmah, this rite of blood-friendship is still practiced; as may be seen from illustrations of it, which are given in the Appendix of this work.

      In his History of Madagascar, the Rev. William Ellis, tells of this rite as he observed it in that island, and as he learned of it from Borneo. He says:

      “Another popular engagement in use among the Malagasy is that of forming brotherhoods, which though not peculiar to them, is one of the most remarkable usages of the country. … Its object is to cement two individuals in the bonds of most sacred friendship. … More than two may thus associate, if they please; but the practice is usually limited to that number, and rarely embraces more than three or four individuals. It is called fatridá, i.e., ‘dead blood,’ either because the oath is taken over the blood of a fowl killed for the occasion, or because a small portion of blood is drawn from each individual, when thus pledging friendship, and drunk by those to whom friendship is pledged, with execrations of vengeance on each other in case of violating the sacred oath. To obtain the blood, a slight incision is made in the skin covering the centre of the bosom, significantly called ambavafo, ‘the mouth of the heart.’ Allusion is made to this, in the formula of this tragi-comical ceremony.

      “When two or more persons have agreed on forming this bond of fraternity, a suitable place and hour are determined upon, and some gunpowder and a ball are brought, together with a small quantity of ginger, a spear, and two particular kinds of grass. A fowl also is procured; its head is nearly cut off; and it is left in this state to continue bleeding during the ceremony.[74]

      “The parties then pronounce a long form of imprecation, and [a] mutual vow, to this effect:—‘Should either of us prove disloyal to the sovereign, or unfaithful to each other,[75] then perish the day, and perish the night.[76] Awful is that, solemn is that, which we are now both about to perform! O the mouth of the heart!—this is to be cut, and we shall drink each other’s blood. O this ball! O this powder! O this ginger! O this fowl weltering in its blood!—it shall be killed, it shall be put to excruciating agonies—it shall be killed by us, it shall be speared at this corner of the hearth (Alakaforo or Adimizam, S. W.) And whoever would seek to kill or injure us, to injure our wives, or our children, to waste our money or our property; or if either of us should seek to do what would not be approved of by the king or by the people; should one of us deceive the other by making that which is unjust appear just; should one accuse the other falsely; should either of us with our wives and children be lost and reduced to slavery, (forbid that such should be our lot!)—then, that good may arise out of evil, we follow this custom of the people; and we do it for the purpose of assisting one another with our families, if lost in slavery, by whatever property either of us may possess; for our wives are as one to us, and each other’s children as his own,[77] and our riches as common property. O the mouth of the heart! O the ball! O the powder! O the ginger! O this miserable fowl weltering in its blood!—thy liver do we eat, thy liver do we eat. And should either of us retract from the terms of this oath, let him instantly become a fool, let him instantly become blind, let this covenant prove a curse to him: let him not be a human being: let there be no heir to inherit after him, but let him be reduced, and float with the water never to see its source; let him never obtain; what is out of doors, may it never enter; and what is within may it never go out; the little obtained, may he be deprived of it;[78] and let him never obtain justice from the sovereign nor from the people! But if we keep and observe this covenant, let these things bear witness.[79] O mouth of the heart! (repeating as before)—may this cause us to live long and happy with our wives and our children; may we be approved by the sovereign, and beloved by the people; may we get money, may we obtain property, cattle, &c.; may we marry wives, (vady kely); may we have good robes, and wear a good piece of cloth on our bodies;[80] since, amidst our toils and labor, these are the things we seek after.[81] And this we do that we may with all fidelity assist each other to the last.’

      

      “The incision is then made, as already mentioned; a small quantity of blood [is] extracted and drank by the covenanting parties respectively, [they] saying as they take it, ‘These are our last words, We will be like rice and water;[82] in town they do not separate, and in the fields they do not forsake one another; we will be as the right and left hand of the body; if one be injured, the other necessarily sympathizes and suffers with it.’ ”[83]

      Speaking of the terms and the influence of