attendance when the offerings are numerous.[1] Thus among rude tribes of Northern India, sacrifices of beasts are accompanied by libations of fermented liquor, and in fact sacrifice and feast are convertible words.[2] Among the Aztecs, prisoners of war furnished first an acceptable sacrifice to the deity, and then the staple of a feast for the captors and their friends;[3] while in ancient Peru whole flocks of sacrificed llamas were eaten by the people.[4] The history of Greek religion plainly records the transition from the early holocausts devoted by fire to the gods, to the great festivals where the sacrifices provided meat for the public banquets held to honour them in ceremonial homage.[5]
Beside this development from gift to homage, there arises also a doctrine that the gist of sacrifice is rather in the worshipper giving something precious to himself, than in the deity receiving benefit. This may be called the abnegation-theory, and its origin may be fairly explained by considering it as derived from the original gift-theory. Taking our own feelings again for a guide, we know how it satisfies us to have done our part in giving, even if the gift be ineffectual, and how we scruple to take it back if not received, but rather get rid of it in some other way — it is corban. Thus we may enter into the feelings of the Assinaboin Indians, who considered that the blankets and pieces of cloth and brass kettles and such valuables abandoned in the woods as a medicine-sacrifice, might be carried off by any friendly party who chanced to discover them;[6] or of the Ava Buddhists bringing to the temples offerings of boiled rice and sweetmeats and coco-nut fried
- ↑ Earl in 'Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. iv. p. 174.
- ↑ Hodgson, 'Abor. of India,' p. 170, see p. 146; Hooker, 'Himalayan Journals,' vol. ii. p. 276.
- ↑ Prescott, 'Mexico,' book i. ch. iii.
- ↑ 'Rites and Laws of Yncas,' p. 33, &c.
- ↑ Welcker, 'Griech. Götterlehre,' vol. ii. p. 50; Pauly, 'Real-Encyclopedie,' s.v. 'Sacrificia.'
- ↑ Tanner's 'Nar.' p. 154; see also Waitz, vol. iii. p. 167.
