Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/290

 252 form of covenant is still known in the Lebanon and in some parts of Arabia."

The mainspring of the blood covenant, then, is that the blood is the vehicle for the conveyance of the life. But it would appear that saliva is sometimes regarded as the vehicle containing the life also. For instance, we read that every year the Khonds offered a human sacrifice to the Earth Goddess; and while any relic from his person was much sought after, a drop of his saliva was considered a sovereign remedy, especially by the women. Now we know that Algonkin women who wished to become mothers flocked to the side of a dying person, in the hope of receiving and being impregnated by the passing soul; and we know also that among the gipsies of Eastern Europe one of the most potent charms for bringing about pregnancy is the drinking by the woman of water into which her husband has spat. It would appear, therefore, that the idea present in the minds of Algonkin, Khond, and gipsy women is the same. All believe in the transference of life, only the one takes a more ethical view of it, while the others take a more materialistic one, and fix upon saliva as the vehicle for the conveyance of it.

I think, then, that I am right in saying that the element of life is sometimes believed to exist in the saliva.

Now we generally find that when the same idea is attached to two different objects, these objects become interchangeable. Therefore, if our reasoning is sound, and blood and saliva are both vehicles containing the element of life, we ought to find saliva being used occasionally in place of blood, and playing the same rôle under similar circumstances. We might, therefore, expect to find among some savage races a custom analogous to the blood covenant of the Lebanon, when, instead of licking each other's blood, the two individuals would lick each other's saliva.

The nearest approach to such a very primitive state of affairs is met with among the Masai. Among this people, Mr. Thompson tells us that spitting expresses the greatest goodwill and the best wishes. People spat when they met and when they parted;