Page:Primitive Culture Vol 2.djvu/403

Rh chanting his song, and then themselves fall to. And thus, in the folklore of mediæval Europe, Domina Abundia would come with her dames into the houses at night, and eat and drink from the vessels left uncovered for their increase-giving visit, yet nothing was consumed.

The extreme animistic view of sacrifice is that the soul of the offered animal or thing is abstracted by or transmitted to the deity. This notion of spirits taking souls is in a somewhat different way exemplified among the Binua of Johore, who hold that the evil River-spirits inflict diseases on man by feeding on the 'semangat,' or unsubstantial body (in ordinary parlance the spirit) in which his life resides, while the Karen demon devours not the body but the 'la,' spirit or vital principle; thus when it eats a man's eyes, their material part remains, but they are blind. Now an idea similar to this furnished the Polynesians with a theory of sacrifice. The priest might send commissions by the sacrificed human victim; spirits of the dead are eaten by the gods or demons; the spiritual part of the sacrifices is eaten by the spirit of the idol (i.e. the deity dwelling or embodied in the idol) before whom it is presented. Of the Fijians it is observed that of the great offerings of food native belief apportions merely the soul to the gods, who are described as being enormous eaters; the substance is consumed by the worshippers. As in various other districts of the world, human sacrifice is here in fact a meat-offering; cannibalism is a part of the Fijian religion, and the gods are described as delighting in human flesh. Such ideas are explicit among Indian tribes of the American lakes, who consider that offerings, whether abandoned or consumed by the worshippers, go in a spiritual form to the