Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/172

 CORRESPONDENCE.

SACRIFICES TO THE DEAD.

To the Editor (9/FoLK-LORE.

Sir, — I have just been eating Tr}'^/avLraL<i, or \ovKovfMdBa<;, as they are here called, round balls of dough, made, as I am told, just in the same way as German Fastnachts Kuchen, except that honey, not sugar, which has so often supplanted honey — the solemn food of gods and the dead — is poured over them. They are made here on St. Andrew's Eve, and eaten then, a present of a few from each house being made to the priest on the following day ; but the stricter rite observed in less emancipated places is that they should be made in the early morning of St. Andrew's Day and sent to the church at once, when, after the service, they are distributed still hot from the oven and accom- panied by raki.

Will anyone tell me if there is any peculiar significance in this detail of an ancient rite of sacrifice to the dead, this provision that the T7j'yavLTat<; should be eaten hot. They are better when they are hot, and this is probably the true reason of the usage. ~ I am decidedly of opinion that we cannot find support in this atoj^i for the theory of chthonic sacrifice which I entertain — a theory which I can do no harm to myself or anyone else by stating in this connec- tion. I believe that the primitive notion of a// sacrifice has been once and for all laid down by Prof Robertson Smith. It is the notion of communion with some one by drinking the hot blood of a victim who represents him. The rites of chthonic and piacular sacrifice emphatically abjure this notion. The victim is not consumed by the sacrificants, and especial pains are taken to get rid of all