Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/452

* SACBIFICE. 412 SACRIFICE. in some Brahmanic rites) ; or, instead of being sacrificpd. a victim is only beaten or otherwise maltreated, as in expiiUory rites. The same no- ti<m survives in the mutual abuse of festivals, originally a means of jnirifioation. Jn eases of piacular sacrifice, the gift serves as an atonement. This gift is usually the life (blood) of the sinner or of his substitute, but it may be merely a dish of food. In a totem system, the" sin committed by the clan is often expiated by the sacrifice of some man or animal of the clan. In projjortion to the god's anger the gift must be precious, and even the chief of the clan or his children must suffer. But piacular sacri- fice may be made without any such notion and then a stranger or slave is sacrificed, as in the mom-i-ai rites, when victims are offered to atone for erecting bridges, building foundations, and the like. No sacrificial altar is needed for primi- tive rites, but as gods are or dwell in stones, fire, or water, gifts are made at the stone or thrown into the fire or water. In the former case, how- ever, even after the conception of the divinity has changed, and the god is supposed to live in heaven, he is still imagined either to come to the stone or to smell the sacrifice offered thereon, ilany religions, moreover, have the extension of piacular sacrifice known as the scapegoat. In this conception sin, like disease, clings to a man, but may be put off upon some one else, who is either driven away burdened thus with sin or is slain for the real sinner. The proxy sacrifice is a redeemer. In the Briihmanas we read that an animal sacrifice on a certain occasion represents a man who has 'bought himself ofl'' by means of the animal. A tale of the same period recounts that a man who had been promised as a sacrifice to a god 'bought himself off"' by purchasing an- other man for 1000 cows to serve as a redeemer. Eedemption implies atonement, but atonement does not imjjly redemption. The mystical sacri- fice of the Greeks, Semites, Mexicans, and other races is always an atoning sacrifice, and the vic- tim represents the offended deity because the clan is of his blood ; and by partaking of this blood, ■which symbolizes life, the clan renew their strength in communion with their god. (For vari- ous Christian views of the sacrifice of Christ and its effect, see Atonement. ) According to the view of the Roman Catholic and Eastern churches, Christianity is still, by the daily re-presentation of the one oft'ering of Christ, essentially a sacri- ficial religion. For an exposition of this view, see Mass. The piacular sacrifice has been explained by Kobertson Smith as a development from a totem ofi'ering. consisting originally in smearing a bethel with wine and blood, in which the life of a member of the brotherhood is required (where- as in the commensal meal there is a feast ) . Ac- cording to some scholars, all sacrifices have their origin in the same cult, but this is a great exag- geration. Sacrifice, whether as piacular or honorific,, maj' be an offering of alien life, and it is impossible to derive from totemism the jollification of a drunken debauch in which the gods are invited to sliare. Inside the province of totemism sacrifice may be honorific or piacular, and in neither case is it necessary (although in the latter case it is common) to sacrifice a clan- member. Disregarding the totemie sacrifice, we have a mass of evidence pointing to the fact that sacrifice may be wdthout implication of anj- blood- fellowship. Sometimes there are symbolic sacri- fices. There can be no doubt, for example, that thuggery belongs to this class. The goddess of thuggery is the Dravidian mother-monster, to whom as symbolizing the reproductive power of nature (a different notion altogether from that of totemism) phallic rites are performed; but as representative of life human victims are of- fered to her. In the holocausts offered to the Aztec deities there is no expiation, but only pro- pitiation by means of victims sometimes alien and sometimes native. The human sacrifice ofl'ered by the Assamese and by the Khasis, or again by the intermediate Naga tribes, are both expiatory and propitiator^'. The Khasis, for example, kill (and eat) a stranger as a piacular rite to Thlen (the dragon) ; the Nagas expiate sin by sacrific- ing slaves (not of the same stock) and enemies captured in battle; and in Assam the privileged victims (feasted and petted till execution, as in Mexico) are strangers, though they are piacular as well as honorific victims. Such cases point to a wider conception of sacrifice than that put forward by those who deduce all sacrifice from one origin. The god earth, the only chain binding together all the Khond tribes in India, is a malig- nant demon, and propitiatory blood-sacrifice is made to him, but only to symbolize rain withheld by the demon, as the tears of the Aztec childrsn symbolized rains ('sympathetic magic"). In its. simplest aspect sacrifice is a gift intended to pro- pitiate any spirit and not a renewal of a blood- bond nor an expiatory rite. Demonolatry has its sacrifices, and they are the earliest known as they survive to-day among such primitive sav- ages as the Mishmis, who have no idea at all of a good god, but propitiate a demon with offerings. The motive of the sacrifice is to please as w'ell as to benefit the spirit. In view of the facts here cursorily considered,, instead of starting with the assumption of totem- ism and endeavoring to explain all sacrifices as either a totemie commensal feast on a hostile victim or a piacular rite, it will be better to divide sacrifices into three main classes, as fol- lows: (1) ofl'erings made to goblins, ancestral spirits, or other spiritual powers, to propitiate them, such as grain to the Bhiits ('beings') and tithes to a king-god; ("2) offerings made as a feast to great gods (distinguished guests), the sacrifice consisting of vegetables or of ani- mals, or human aliens, often of intoxicating liquor; the idea of both (1) and (2) being that of a friendly gift, though (2) may in a totemie environment be a brotherhood feast; (3) sacri- fices, either vegetable or animal, made to expiate sin. In a totemie environment a clan-member is the victim, but often an alien; in many cases only the life is demanded and the flesh is not eaten when an animal (including man) is sacri- ficed. These forms are not always distinguish- able. A cannibal feast may be expiatory and may not be a commensal feast with the god. On the other hand, it may be commensnl with the god and j'ct expiatory. As a general thing, piac- ular sacrifice is not primitive, but secondary, when ethical feeling is developed. Among sav- ages sin against a god has no ethical side. A demon's wrath is simply inferred from trouble presumably caused liv the god. The sacrifice is not to remove sin. but to avert anger, the usual cause of anger being a supposed neglect of the god, who has not enough food to satisfy him.