similarly used laurel leaves as well as pig’s blood in purificatory ceremonies.[117.2] In all such cases we may assume that the purification was originally conceived as physical rather than as moral, as a sort of detergent which washed, swept, or scraped the ghostly or demoniacal pollution from the person of the ghost-haunted or demon-possessed man. The motive for employing blood in these rites of cleansing is not clear. Perhaps the purgative virtue ascribed to it may have been based on the notion that the offended spirit accepts the blood as a substitute for the blood of the man or woman.[117.3] However, it is doubtful whether this explanation could cover all the cases in which blood is sprinkled as a mode of purification. Certainly it is odd, as the sage Heraclitus long ago remarked, that blood-stains should be thought to be removed by blood-stains, as if a man who had been bespattered with mud should think to cleanse himself by bespattering himself with more mud.[117.4] But the ways of man are wonderful and sometimes past finding out. [Sidenote: The matricide Orestes is said to have recovered his wits by biting off one of his own fingers.] There was a curious story that after Orestes had gone mad through murdering his mother he recovered his wits by biting off one of his own fingers; the Furies of his murdered mother, which had appeared black to him before, appeared white as soon as he had mutilated himself in this way: it was as if the taste of his own blood sufficed to avert or disarm the wrathful ghost.[117.5] A hint of the way in which the blood may have been supposed to produce this result is furnished by the practice of some savages. [Sidenote: Manslayers commonly taste their victims’ blood in order not to be haunted by their ghosts.] The Indians of Guiana believe that an avenger of blood who has slain his man must go mad unless he tastes the blood of his victim; the notion apparently is that the ghost drives him crazy, {118} just as the ghost of Clytemnestra did to Orestes, who was also, be it remembered, an avenger of blood. In order to avert this consequence the Indian manslayer resorts on the third night to the grave of his victim, pierces the corpse with a sharp-pointed stick, and withdrawing it sucks the blood of the murdered man. After that he goes home with an easy mind, satisfied that he has done his duty and that he has nothing more to fear from the ghost.[118.1] A similar custom was observed by the Maoris in battle. When a warrior had slain his foe in combat, he tasted his blood, believing that this preserved him from the avenging spirit (_atua_) of his victim; for they imagined that “the moment a slayer had tasted the blood of the slain, the dead man became a part of his being and placed him under the protection of the _atua_ or guardian-spirit of the deceased.”[118.2] Thus in the opinion of these savages, by swallowing a portion of their victim they made him a part