Part 3

In 1830, a paper by Dr. W. Stevens, read before the London College of Physicians, and afterwards elaborated and published in a volume, contended that the salient ingredients of the blood, "the chief of which is common culinary salt, ... is the cause of the red color, of the fluidity, and of the stimulating property, of the vital current." Dr. Stevens claimed that the poison of the rattlesnake, and various other poisons, operate directly on the blood, and produce disease or death "by interfering with the agency of the saline matter."[46]

[46] See _London Quarterly Review_, XLVIII., 96 (Dec., 1832, 375-391).

"On the subject of the poison of the rattlesnake," Dr. Stevens, in this work, asserts that "when the muriate of soda (common salt) is immediately applied to the wound, it is a complete antidote. 'When an Indian,' he says, 'is bitten by a snake, he applies a ligature above the part, and scarifies the wound to the very bottom; he then stuffs it with common salt, and after this it soon heals, without producing any effect on the general system.'" In view of the fact that it might be objected that the salt is not the essential means of cure, but is an addition to the curative treatment, Dr. Stevens says that he has "seen a rabbit, that was under the influence of the rattlesnake poison, drink a saturated solution of muriate of soda with great avidity, and soon recover; while healthy rabbits would not taste one drop of the same strong saline water when it was put before them."

Dr. Stevens gives various illustrations, out of primitive customs, and in the experience of modern practitioners, of curative and prophylactic uses of salt in the treatment of fevers, where the condition of the blood seems to be a main source of evil. Aside from the question whether the claims of Dr. Stevens have been substantiated by later researches and experiments, his investigations and assertions are of interest as showing that, in the realm of modern science as of primitive practices, salt and blood have seemed to many to have interchangeable values.

If, indeed, this theory of Dr. Stevens, elaborated so carefully in the first third of the nineteenth century, in which he claims that salt practically represents blood, stood all by itself in the history of medicine, it would have less importance than it has in a formal treatise of this kind; yet even then it would show that such an idea had before now found a place in the human mind. But it by no means stands thus alone; a similar claim has been made both earlier and later.

Pliny, in his day, at the beginning of the Christian era, records it as the common belief that salt is foremost among human remedies for disease, and among preventives of sickness of all kinds.[47] He gives prominence to salt as a cure of leprosy,[48] whereas blood transfusion and blood bathing was the traditional treatment of that disorder.[49] Pliny also speaks of salt itself, and of salt fish in large quantities, as a supposed remedy for the bite of serpents,[50] this being in the line of asserted remedies among the Indians, according to Dr. Stevens. Various other disorders, especially of the blood, are named by Pliny as curable by salt.

[47] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 45.

[48] _Ibid._

[49] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 116 f., 125, 287 f., 324.

[50] _Hist. Nat._, XXXI., 41; XXXII., 17.

Seventy years after the treatise of Dr. Stevens, a volume, recently published in London by C. Godfrey Gümpel on "Common Salt,"[51] claims even more than Pliny, or any writer since his day, for "the vital importance of common salt for our whole physical and social life." He claims that of all the constituents of our life's blood "there is none which can possibly surpass common salt in its necessity for a strong healthy blood,"[52] and that both the red corpuscles and the white are largely dependent for their normal condition on "the presence of common salt in the system."[53]

[51] _Common Salt: Its Use and Necessity for the Maintenance of Health and the Prevention of Disease_, p. 1.

[52] _Ibid._, p. 37.

[53] _Ibid._, p. 41.

A writer in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, not long ago declared that the government salt monopoly of the British Empire in India (since practically abolished, or modified) was a cause of greater evils than those resulting from either opium or alcohol. This claim is based on the idea that a lack of salt by the common people of India tends to a deterioration of blood and consequent loss of life. Asiatic cholera is said to be promoted by the lack of salt in the blood. Men and cattle alike are said to be sufferers from this cause, and the soil is rendered less fertile. Whether this idea is well grounded is a minor matter; that the idea has been in many minds is not to be questioned.

Thus it will be seen that in the primitive mind salt and blood have seemed to have common properties, and to be in a sense interchangeable, while the more careful observers in the world of science have rather grown toward this thought than away from it. Be it correct or incorrect, the human mind has never been able to rid itself of the idea.

Salt is sometimes used in the rite of blood brotherhood among primitive peoples, as is also wine, both wine and salt being counted the equivalent of blood, and the original and the substitute being sometimes employed together as if to intensify the symbolism. Stanley tells of the use of salt in this rite on the occasion of its performance with Ngalyema in the Congo region.[54] And so again in other cases.[55]

[54] _The Congo_, I., 383-385.

[55] _Ibid._, II., 21-24, 79-90.

It is a common practice in the East to welcome an honored guest to one's house by sacrificing an animal at the doorway, and letting its blood pour out on the threshold, to be stepped over by the guest, as a mode of adoption, or of covenant-making.[56] When such a guest comes unexpectedly, and there is not time to obtain an animal for the welcoming sacrifice, it is customary to take salt and strew it in lieu of blood on the threshold,--salt being thus recognized as the equivalent, or as a representative, of blood.[57]

[56] See _Threshold Covenant_, passim.

[57] _Ibid._, p. 5; Griffis's _Mikado's Empire_, pp. 467, 470; Isabella Bird's _Untrodden Tracks in Japan_, I., 392.

The measure of love and honor accorded to the welcomed guest is indicated by the cost or preciousness of the sacrifice on the threshold. There are traditions, at least, of the sacrifice of a son of the host in this way. Again a favorite horse has been thus sacrificed. More frequently it is a lamb that is the sacrifice. If there is no lamb available, a fowl or a pigeon is thus offered. The essential factor in every case is the blood, the life, outpoured. If, however, no actual blood is obtainable, salt, as representing blood, is accepted as indicating the love and the spirit which prompts the welcome, according to the giver's means. There could hardly be a fuller proof of the identity of salt and blood in the primitive mind.

When a Siamese student was asked by the writer whether the rite of blood-covenanting was known in his land, he replied: "There is no 'blood covenant' so far as I know. The custom is, if two persons are desirous to become firm friends or brothers they drink together _salted water_; then each takes an oath." He also suggested that he had heard that in former times they drank _a fowl's blood_ in this rite.

Again, the mode of making a covenant of salt in some portions of the East coincides with this suggested identification of salt with blood in the primitive mind. In the Lebanon region, where the blood covenant, as a bond of union, is still recognized and practised,[58] the covenant of salt is also well known, not only as between new comers who are to enter into a mutual alliance, but as bringing into union friends who would be as one. In such cases a sword is taken, and salt is laid on its blade. The two friends in turn lick of the salt that is to unite them, as if they were tasting of common blood after the fashion of the "blood-lickers" in Mecca.[59]

[58] See _Blood Covenant_, pp. 5-7.

[59] See Smith's _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 48.

Another illustration of this mode is given by Sir Frederick Henniker, in his notes of a journey in the East in 1819-20.[60] It was a shaykh of the Arabs who escorted him from Mt. Sinai northward, who cut this covenant with Sir Frederick. On the request being made for such an assurance of fidelity from the shaykh, "he immediately drew his sword," says Sir Frederick, "placed some salt upon the blade, and then put a portion of it into his mouth, and desired me to do the same; and 'Now, cousin,' said he, 'your life is as sacred as my own;' or, as he expressed himself, 'Son of my uncle, your head is upon my shoulders.'" Before this act the two were as cousins; now they were as one, the head of one being upon the shoulders of the other. The similarity of this rite with that of the blood covenant, in both its form and meaning, is obvious.

[60] _Visit to Egypt, Nubia_, etc., p. 242.

This correspondence of salt and blood in primitive thought, and in fact, will perhaps throw light on a disputed reference in a fragment of Ennius[61] to "_salsus sanguis_" (salted blood, or briny blood). It would seem that as the Jews held that the blood is the life, and the life is in the blood, similarly Greeks and Romans recognized the truth that salt is in the blood, and the blood is salt.

[61] Cited in _Macrobius_, 6, 2.

In the second century there were Christian ascetics who refused to take wine in the eucharist. Among these the Elkesaites and the Ebionites employed bread and salt instead of bread and wine. This seems to have been a recognition of the fact that salt, like wine, represented blood.[62]

[62] See Clementine, _Homilies_, IV. 6; XIII. 8; XIV. 1, 8; XIX. 25, cited in art. "Elkesai" in Smith and Wace's _Dict. of Christian Biog._

Professor Hermann Collitz, of Bryn Mawr, has suggested, in this connection, that the very words, in Latin, for salt and blood, _sal_ and _sanguis_, are from the same root.[63]

[63] Professor Collitz says, on this point: "The Early European word for salt, _sal_ (nominative _s[=a]l-d_, genitive _sal-n-és_ according to Joh. Schmidt) which probably goes back to the Indo-European period, may be derived from the same root to which the Sanskrit _ás-r-g_ (genitive _as-n-ás_) 'blood,' and Latin _s-an-gu-i-s_ (genitive _s-an-gu-in-is_) belong. The latter, as F. de Saussure (_Système primitif des voyelles Indo-Européennes_, Leipzig, 1897, p. 225) has shown, comes from a root _es_, which lost its initial vowel if the suffix was accented. If we connect the two groups of words, we should say that _sal_ is derived from this root _es_ by a suffix _al_, similar to the suffix _el_ in the word for 'sun' (Indo-European _s[=a]'v-el_, from root _s[=a]v_), or to the suffix _a-lo_ in Greek _meg-a-lo-s_ as compared with _meg-a-s_. The root _es_ is probably the same from which the word for 'to be' (Sanskrit _as-mi_, Latin _sum_) is derived, and the meaning of which seems to have been originally 'to live.'"

Certainly salt is sometimes used as a substitute for blood in primitive covenanting; on the other hand, blood is used for salt among some primitive peoples as an essential accompaniment of food. These facts being noticed by the author of this volume first suggested to him the real meaning of the covenant of salt.

VI

SALT REPRESENTING LIFE

As blood is synonymous with life in primitive thought and practice,[64] and as salt has been shown to represent blood in the primitive mind, so salt seems to stand for life in many a form of primitive speech and in the world's symbolism. When, indeed, we speak of salt as preserving flesh from corruption, we refer to the staying of the process of death by an added element of life; preserving by re-vivifying, rather than by embalming.

[64] See _Blood Covenant_, passim.

Plutarch says of the power of salt in this direction: "All flesh is dead and part of a lifeless carcass; but the virtue of salt being added to it, like a soul, gives it a pleasing relish and poignancy."[65] All life is from the one Source of Life, and in this sense it is that life is divine. Thus Plutarch calls attention to the fact that Homer[66] speaks of salt as "divine," and that "Plato delivers, that by man's laws salt is to be accounted most sacred."[67] No other material is thus reckoned from primitive days sacred and divine, unless it be blood, which is the synonym of life.[68]

[65] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_ (Goodwin's ed.), Book IV., Quest. IV., § 3.

[66] Homer's _Iliad_, IX., 214.

[67] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_ (Goodwin's ed.), Book V., Quest. X., §§ 1, 2.

[68] Lev. 17 : 11; Deut. 12 : 23. _Blood Covenant_, p. 38 f.

An Oriental form of oath sometimes substitutes "salt" for "life;" as where the prime minister of Persia in a conference with James Morier, secretary of the English embassy, at Teheran, early in this century, swore "by the salt of Fatti Ali Shah"--the then reigning Shah of Persia.[69] Indeed, to swear "by the salt" is a common form of asseveration among Arabs; as to swear by the life, one's own or another's, is a well-known oath in the East.[70]

[69] Morier's _Journey through Persia_, p. 200.

[70] See, for example, Arvieux on _Customs of Bedouin Arabs_, p. 43, quoted in Rosenmüller's _Das alte und des neue Morgenland_, II., 15.

Where we would say of one who is foremost in inspiriting and enlivening a social gathering, "He was the _life_ of the party," the Arabs say, "He was the _salt_ of the party."

The "salt of youth" is synonymous with the virility and vigor of life, that show themselves in the age of strong passion. Thus Justice Shallow says to Master Page: "Though we are justices and doctors and churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us."[71] Iago refers to young gallants in their passion, "as salt as wolves in pride."[72] And Menecrates refers to "salt Cleopatra" in her loves with Antony.[73] Mrs. Browning seems to have a similar idea as to the significance of salt, when she says in "A Vision of Poets:"

"And poor, proud Byron,--sad as grave And salt as life; forlornly brave, And quivering with the dart he drave."

[71] _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act II., Scene 3.

[72] _Othello_, Act III., Scene 3.

[73] _Antony and Cleopatra_, Act II., Scene 1.

Even in Plutarch's day this truth was recognized by the Greeks as possibly having influenced the ancient Egyptians to forbid salt to their priests, who must be pure and chaste, because salt "by its heat is provocative and apt to raise lust."[74] It would seem, however, that the prohibition of salt as food to Egyptian priests is easier to be accounted for by the fact that it was recognized as the equivalent of blood and life. Therefore those priests were not to partake of salt, "no, not so much as in their bread."[75]

[74] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_, Book V., Quest. X., §§ 1, 2.

[75] _Ibid._

In this line of thought Florus says of salt: "Consider farther whether its power of preserving a long time dead bodies from rotting be not a _divine_ property, and opposite to death; since it preserves part, and will not suffer that which is mortal wholly to be destroyed. But as the soul, which is our diviner part, connects the limbs of animals, and keeps the composure from dissolution; thus salt applied to dead bodies, and imitating the work of the soul, stops those parts that were falling to corruption, binds and confines them, and so makes them keep their union and agreement with one another."[76]

[76] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_, Book V., Quest. X., §§ 1, 2.

Philinus goes a step farther when he asks: "Do you not think that that which is generative is to be esteemed divine, seeing God is the principle of all things?"[77] And Plutarch adds suggestively that salt is by some supposed to be a means of life, not only exciting desire for generation, but actually causing procreation; "the females (among the lower animals), as some imagine, conceiving without the help of the males, only by licking salt. But [as he thinks] it is most probable that the salt raiseth an itching in animals, and so makes them salacious and eager to couple. And perhaps for the same reason they call a surprising and bewitching beauty, such as is apt to move and entice, _halmuron kai drimu_, 'saltish.' And I think the poets had a respect to this generative power of salt in their fable of Venus springing from the sea."[78]

[77] _Ibid._

[78] Plutarch's _Symposiacs_, Book V., Quest. X., §§ 1, 2.

In Central and South America it was deemed necessary to abstain from salt while praying and sacrificing, with a desire to obtain children. So far it was among the Maya nations of the New World as among the priests of Ancient Egypt.[79]

[79] See Bancroft's _Native Races of the Pacific Coast_, II., 678.

An Oriental proverb says: "If thou takest the salt [the life, or soul] from the flesh [the body] then thou mayest throw it [the flesh] to the dogs." This has been explained by the rabbis, as considering "salt" here synonymous with the soul, or life, of man, which comes from God, in distinction from man's body, which comes from his parents. "God gives the spirit [the breath], the soul, the features, the hearing, the organs of speech, the gait, the perceptions, the reason, and the intuition. When now the time comes for man to depart out of the world, God takes his part, and the part which comes from the parents [the body] he lays before them."[80]

[80] Niddah 31 a, quoted by Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow in _The Sunday School Times_ for April 28, 1894.

When Elisha, the prophet of Israel, was met by the men of Jericho, as he came from the scene of Elijah's translation to enter upon his mission as the successor of Elijah and was told of the death-dealing power of the waters of the city, his words and action seemed to emphasize the correspondence of salt with life. "He said, Bring me a new cruse, and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast salt therein, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or miscarrying [of the land]. So the waters were healed [were restored to life] unto this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spake."[81]

[81] 2 Kings 2 : 19-22.

A spring of water is in itself so important to a primitive people that it is not to be wondered at that water is called the Gift of God, and that a living spring is looked at as in a sense divine, and that it has even been worshiped as a god among primitive peoples.[82] When, therefore, salt, as the synonym of life or of blood, is found in a spring of living water, it is natural to recognize the spot as peculiarly favored of God, or of the gods. Thus "among inland peoples a salt spring was regarded as a special gift of the gods. The Chaonians in Epirus had one which flowed into a stream where there were [as in the Dead Sea] no fish; and the legend was that Heracles had allowed their forefathers to have salt instead of fish (_Aristotle_). The Germans waged war for saline streams, and believed that the presence of salt invested a district with peculiar sanctity, and made it a place where prayers were most readily heard (Tacitus, _Ann._, XIII., 57)."[83]

[82] See _Kadesh-barnea_, p. 36, and note, 298 f.; and _Studies in Oriental Social Life_, pp. 213, 404 f.

[83] W. Robertson Smith in art. "Salt" in _Encyc. Brit._, 9th ed.

There is said to be a salt lake in the mountain region of Koordistan, which was changed from fresh water to salt, by St. Peter, when he first came thither preaching Christianity. He wrought this change so that he could influence the people to accept his teaching through sharing his life by partaking of the salt. To this day the tradition remains, that, if the natives will bathe in that lake, they will renew their faith. Aside from the question of any basis of truth in the legend, it remains as a survival of the primitive idea of a real connection of shared salt with shared life.

It is customary among some primitive peoples to anoint or smear a new-born babe with blood, as a means of giving him more and fuller life.[84] Thus among the ancient Caribs, of South America, "as soon as a male child was brought into the world, he was sprinkled with some drops of his father's blood;" the father "fondly believing that the same degree of courage which he had himself displayed, was by these means transmitted to his son."[85] In one of the Kaffir tribes of South Africa, when a new chief assumes authority, it was customary to wash him in the blood of a near relative, generally a brother, who was put to death on the occasion. In order to give more life and character to the freshly elevated representative of the ruling family, the family life was drawn from the veins of one near him, in order that it might be absorbed by him who could use it more imposingly.[86]

[84] _Blood Covenant_, p. 137 f.

[85] Edwards's _Hist. of Brit. West Ind._, I. 47, referred to in _Blood Covenant_, p. 137 f.

[86] Shooter's _Kafirs of Natal_, p. 216, _ibid._

The Bheels are a brave and warlike race of mountaineers of Hindostan. They claim to have been, formerly, the rulers of all their region, but either by defeat in war or by voluntary concession to have yielded their power to other peoples, whom they now authorize to rule in their old domain. When, therefore, a new rajput, or chief ruler, comes into power in any of the surrounding countries, this right to rule is conceded, or ratified, by an anointing of blood drawn from the toe or thumb of a Bheel. The right of giving this blood, or new life, is claimed by particular Bheel families; and the belief that the individual from whose veins the blood is drawn never lives beyond a twelvemonth, in no degree operates to repress the desire of the Bheels to furnish the blood of anointing.[87]

[87] _Trans. Royal Asiat. Soc._, I., 69, _ibid._

Salt is similarly used to-day, in the East and elsewhere.[88] A new-born child is at once washed and salted. If an Oriental seems lacking in life or wisdom, or is, as we would say, exceptionally "fresh," it is said of him, "He wasn't salted when he was born." This idea would seem to be included in the prophet's reproach of Jerusalem: "Neither wast thou washed in water to cleanse thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all."[89]

[88] Van Lennep's _Bible Lands_, p. 569.

[89] Ezek. 16 : 4.

As at birth, so at death, salt seems to stand in primitive thought for blood, or life, in washing or anointing, in the hope of supplying the special lack or need of the individual. Among the cannibals of Borneo, on the death of a rajah or chief, the desire seems to be to restore him to life if it be possible. His body is rubbed or bathed with salt. He is then dressed in his best apparel, and placed in a sitting posture. In his hands are placed his shield and mandau. If this application of new life and this special appeal to action fail to arouse him, he is counted as hopelessly dead; the arms are taken from him, the body is undressed, and wrapped in a piece of cloth, and placed in the ground.[90]

[90] Carl Bock's _Head Hunters of Borneo_, p. 224.

A traveler in Asia Minor speaks of the practice among the Toorkomans of the mother's dipping a child two or three times into a skin of salt water, at the time of his naming. This would seem to be a primitive rite, and not a Christian one. The father of the child meanwhile eats honeyed cake, and drinks thickened milk.[91]

[91] W. Eassie, in _Notes and Queries_, 3d series, II., 318.