The Covenant of Salt: As Based on the Significance and Symbolism of Salt in Primitive ThoughtTrumbull, H. Clay (Henry Clay)
Religion
The Covenant of Salt: As Based on the Significance and Symbolism of Salt in Primitive Thought
Trumbull, H. Clay (Henry Clay)
Covenants; Salt
Yet, again, wine is accepted as representing blood. This is not only
because wine resembles blood in appearance, and is called in the Bible
record the "blood of the grape,"[210] but because wine is actually
deemed, by many primitive peoples, real blood, and is supposed to
affect its users as it does because it represents the spirit, or life,
of the divinity whose blood it is.[211] On this point Frazer calls
attention to the primitive views of Egyptians, Arabians, Aztecs, and
others, citing authorities from Plutarch to Robertson Smith.[212]
[210] Gen. 49 : 11; Deut. 32 : 14; Eccles. 39 : 26; 50 : 15;
1 Macc. 6 : 34; _Blood Covenant_, p. 191.
[211] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 139-142.
[212] Frazer's _Golden Bough_, II., 184 f.
He says, for example: "We are informed by Plutarch that of old the
Egyptian kings neither drank wine nor offered it in libations to the
gods, because they held it to be the blood of beings who had once
fought against the gods, the vine having sprung from their rotting
bodies; and the frenzy of intoxication was explained by the supposition
that the drunken man was filled with the blood of the enemies of the
gods. The Aztecs regarded _pulque_, or the wine of the country, as bad,
on the account of the wild deeds which men did under its influence. But
these wild deeds were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man,
but of the wine god by whom he was possessed and inspired.... Thus it
appears that, on the primitive view, intoxication, or the inspiration
produced by wine, is exactly parallel to the inspiration produced by
drinking the blood of animals.[213] The soul or life is in the blood,
and wine is the blood of the vine.... Whoever drinks wine drinks the
blood, and so receives into himself the soul or spirit of the god of
the vine."
[213] Comp. _Blood Covenant_, pp. 114, 139-147.
Naturally, a substitute or representative of the original, or real,
nexus of a covenant, came to stand for the primary article with such
prominence in the popular mind that it would be deemed an essential,
not only when the real was lacking, but while the real was actually
present. Therefore we find libations of wine accompanying actual blood,
in sacrifices,[214] as well as used in substitution for it; so also of
other substitutes, such as saffron water, milk, and coffee, at other
times.[215]
[214] Exod. 29 : 40; Lev. 23 : 12, 13; Num. 15 : 5, 10; 28 : 14, etc.;
_Blood Covenant_, pp. 63-65.
[215] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 77, 346-350.
As salt represents blood and life, quite naturally salt is employed in
sacrifices, not only where there is no blood or life, but also where
there is. And this accounts for the prominence of salt in sacrifices,
and elsewhere, where blood or life is essential as a fitting offering,
and as a bond of union.[216] Both wine and salt as substitutes for
blood are frequently used together, as though one alone were not
sufficient.[217]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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