The blood of an ox, or a cow, is caused to flow at the door of the bride’s house, as a part of the marriage ceremony, in Namaqua Land.[397] A similar custom prevails among the Kafirs of Natal; and an observer has said of this blood-flowing, in the covenanting rite: “This appears to be the fixing point of the ceremony”; this is “the real matrimonial tie.”[398] Again it is the sharing from the same dish in drinking, as well as in eating, that the bride and the bridegroom covenant in marriage, in the Feejee Islands.[399] The liquor that is made the common draught, as a substitute for the primitive blood-potion, is commonly the spirituous drink of the region; whether that drink be wine, or arrack, or whiskey, or beer. The symbolism is the same in every case. In the Sanskrit, the word _asrij_ signifies both “blood,” and “saffron.”[400] In the Hindoo wedding ceremony, in Malabar, “a dish of a liquid like blood, made of saffron and lime,” is held over the heads of the bride and groom. When the ceremony is concluded, the newly married couple sprinkle the spectators with this blood-like mixture;[401] which seems, indeed, not only here but in many other cases, in India, to have become a substitute for the covenanting blood. Reference has already been made to its use in connection with the covenant of the nose-ring; and the saffron colored cord of the wedding necklace, among the Brahmans, has also been mentioned.[402] A still more remarkable illustration of this saffron mixture in lieu of blood, in formal covenanting, in India, is found in its use in the rite of “adoption.” In India, as elsewhere throughout the East, the desire of every parent to have a son is very strong. A son is longed for, to inherit the parental name and possessions, to perform the funeral rites and the annual ceremonies in honor of his parents; and, indeed, “it is said in the Dattaka-Mimansa, ‘Heaven awaits not one who is destitute of a son.’” When, therefore, parents have not a son of their own, they often formally adopt one; and, in this ceremony, saffron-water seems to take the place of blood, in the sacred and indissoluble covenant of transfer.[403] So prominent indeed is this element of the saffron-water drinking--as the substitute for blood-drinking--in the covenant of adoption, that the adopted children of parents are commonly spoken of as their “water-of-saffron children.” “Is it good to adopt the child, and give it saffron-water?” is a question that “occurs eight times in the book of fate called Sagā-thevan-sāsteram.” Formal sacrifices precede the ceremony of adoption, and mutual feasting follows it. The natural mother of the child, in his transfer to his new parents by adoption, hands with him a dish of consecrated saffron-water; and both the child and the blood-symbol are received by the adopting father, with his declaration that the son is now to enter into all that belongs to that father. “Then he and his wife, pouring a little saffron water