I. _Sacrificial or Sacramental Practices._ II. _Customs connected with the Cult of the Dead and the Family Hearth._ III. _Omens and Charms for the New Year._ Though these three classes overlap and it is sometimes difficult to place a given practice exclusively in one of them, they will form a useful framework for a brief account of the primitive ritual which survives at the winter festivals. I. SACRIFICIAL AND SACRAMENTAL PRACTICES. To most people, probably, the word "sacrifice" suggests an offering, something presented to a divinity in order to obtain his favour. Such seems to have been the meaning generally given to |175| sacrificial rites in Europe when Christianity came into conflict with paganism. It is, however, held by many scholars that the original purpose of sacrifice was sacramental--the partaking by the worshipper of the divine life, conceived of as present in the victim, rather than the offering of a gift to a divinity.{33} The whole subject of sacred animals is obscure, and in regard, especially, to totemism--defined by Dr. Frazer{34} as "belief in the kinship of certain families with certain species of animals" and practices based upon that belief--the most divergent views are held by scholars. The religious significance which some have seen in totemistic customs is denied by others, while there is much disagreement as to the probability of their having been widespread in Europe. Still, whatever may be the truth about totemism, there is much that points to the sometime existence in Europe of sacrifices that were not offerings, but solemn feasts of communion in the flesh and blood of a worshipful animal.{35} That the idea of sacrificial communion preceded the sacrifice-gift is suggested by the fact that in many customs which appear to be sacrificial survivals the body of the victim has some kind of sacramental efficacy; it conveys a blessing to that which is brought into contact with it. The actual eating and drinking of the flesh and blood is the most perfect mode of contact, but the same end seems to have been aimed at in such customs as the sprinkling of worshippers with blood, the carrying of the victim in procession from house to house, the burying of flesh in furrows to make the crops grow, and the wearing of hides, heads, or horns of sacrificed beasts.{36} We shall meet, during the Christmas season, with various practices that seem to have originated either in a sacrificial feast or in some such sacramental rites as have just been described. So peculiarly prominent are animal masks, apparently derived from hide-, head-, and horn-wearing, that we may dwell upon them a little at this point. We have already seen how much trouble the Kalends custom of beast-masking gave the ecclesiastics. Its probable origin is thus suggested by Robertson Smith:--