Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/627

 RELIGIOUS DEDICATION OF WOMEN 611

two of his daughters with his deceased sovereign as a mark of gratitude for his having, on a certain occasion, shown clemency to his father. 4 We may note, in this connection, that the practice of widow-immolation has prevailed more or less among all ancestor-worshiping peoples as a means of providing the deceased husband with conjugal service after death. In gifts of women to gods the occasion is also at times one of blood-sacrifice. The blood-sacrifice of human beings is generally supposed to point to original cannibal practices by the sacrificers. The fact that in the blood-sacrifice of women to gods the women are not infrequently virgins suggests that they are sometimes destined for the sexual service of, instead of for food for, the propitiated god. 5

Whatever may be the explanation of the blood-sacrifice of virgins, however, the dedication to the use of gods of living women during their whole lifetime, or for limited periods a practice customary among many peoples is based on the idea of the existence of sexual relations between the dedicated women and the god to whom they are given. 6 The devotion of living women to deity is analogous to the dedication in an earthly abode of deity of non-perishable articles of value. The act of immola- tion or destruction seems to be no longer a condition necessary to


 * De Groot, The Religious System of China, Vol. II, jn 725 (Leyden, 1894).

8 The practice of the natives of New Granada shows in a gruesome way how the same women may be considered useful for both purposes. They took their war-captives " when they were virgins, and brought up the children they had by them, with much care, until they were twelve or thirteen years of age, when they ate them, as well as their mother, so soon as she was past child-bearing." (Garcilasso del Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas, Vol. I, pp. 55, 56.) If human sacrifice be interpreted as a blood-covenant with deity, the sacrifice of women might be taken as an added means of alliance through sexual relations between the victims and the god. The fact that in China, when sutteeism in general was abolished, the self-immolation of widows or affianced virgins to escape violation was allowed, suggests that the immolation of god-given women may have been thought of as the most thorough way of securing them inviolable to the god.

8 Crooke cites from a Settlement report an instance in northern India which may point to a transition from blood-sacrifice to dedication of living women to gods : " In the Gurgaon District, in the Rewari Tahsil, at the village of Bas Doda, a fair is held on the 26th of Chait and the two following days. I was told that formerly girls of the Dhinwar class used to be married to the god at these festivals, and that they always died soon afterwards." (Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. II, p. 118.)