Part 6

A custom prevails in some portions of Pennsylvania, even to this day, of carrying a bag of salt, with a Bible, over the threshold, on entering a new house for the first time. There are families who would not consent to live in a home which had not been thus consecrated.[190] This would seem to be a survival of the passing over the threshold with an offering of blood. A correspondence of this practice with ancient Etruscan customs seems to be indicated by the collections of Leland.[191] Among the Mordvins, a Finnish people on the Volga, salt on bread is placed under the threshold of the bride's paternal home at the time of a marriage covenant.[192] This may be classed with sacrifices or with divination according to our idea of the workings of the primitive Mordvin mind.

[190] _Threshold Covenant_, p. 21.

[191] _Etruscan-Roman Remains_, p. 306.

[192] Ralston's _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 277 f.

XI

FAITHLESSNESS TO SALT

The fact that in its primitive conception a covenant of salt is a permanent and unalterable covenant, naturally suggests to the primitive mind the idea of treachery as faithlessness to salt. The Persian term for a "traitor" is _namak harâm_, "untrue to salt," "one faithless to salt;"[193] and the same idea runs through the languages of the Oriental world.

[193] Gesenius's _Thesaurus_, p. 790.

Baron du Tott, referring to the sharing of bread and salt, says: "The Turks think it the blackest ingratitude to forget the man from whom we have received food, which is signified by the bread and salt."[194] But it is obvious that it is faithlessness to salt, not to bread or ordinary food, that is deemed blackest ingratitude. This is in India, as in Turkey. Tamerlane, the Mongol-Tatar chieftain, speaking, in his institutes, of one Share Behraum, who had deserted his service for the enemy and afterwards returned to his allegiance, says: "At length my salt which he had eaten overwhelmed him with remorse, he again threw himself on my mercy, and humbled himself before me."[195] Frazer quotes a rebel chief in India as saying, when he capitulated after a siege, and was asked if he would return to his old allegiance, "No, I can no more visit my country; I must look for service elsewhere. I can never face the rajah again; for I have eaten Ghoorka salt. I was in trust, and I have not died at my post. We can never return to our country."[196]

[194] _Memoirs of the Turks and Tartars_, Part I., p. 214; cited in Bush's _Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures_, at Numbers 18 : 19.

[195] Quoted in Burder's _Oriental Customs_, 2d ed., p. 77.

[196] Frazer's _Journal of Tour through Himala Mountains_, quoted in Burder, p. 77, at Ezra 4 : 14.

Burton says that the Bed'ween of Arabia denounce the Syrians as "abusers of the salt," because they cannot be depended on in their agreements.[197] And Dr. Thomson says that Orientals "often upbraid the civilized Frank because he does not keep bread and salt, is not faithful to the covenant of brotherhood."[198]

[197] _Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah_, III., 114.

[198] _The Land and the Book_, II., 41.

Burton says also, of the Bed'ween of El Hejaz: "'We have eaten salt together' (_nahnu malihin_) is still a bond of friendship: there are, however, some tribes who require to renew the bond every twenty-four hours, as otherwise, to use their own phrase, 'the salt is not in their stomachs.'"[199] And he quotes the advice to him of Shaykh Hamid, concerning the Bed'ween who were to escort him from El Medinah, "never to allow twenty-four hours to elapse without dipping hand in the same dish with them, in order that the party might always be 'malihin,' on terms of salt."[200] Treachery on the part of one who has even partaken of an ordinary meal with another is, however, counted, among Orientals, a peculiar crime, as surprising as it is unusual.[201]

[199] _Pilgrimage_, III., 84.

[200] _Pilgrimage_, II., 334.

[201] Psa. 41 : 9; John 13 : 18.

Of course, there is no human bond which will guard human nature against all possible treachery. These references to the measure of fidelity among different peoples or tribes are an indication of the relative degree of faithfulness prevailing among them severally. Those who are faithless to salt cannot be depended on for anything. If a man would not be true to one who is of his own blood, of his own life, and to whom he is bound in a sacred covenant of which his God is a party, he could not be depended on in any emergency. The covenant of salt is all this in the thought of the primitive mind.

Don Raphel says, of the estimate of faithlessness to salt entertained by Arabs generally: "When they have eaten bread and salt with any one, it would be a horrid crime not only to rob him, but even to touch the smallest part of his baggage, or of the goods which he takes with him through the desert. The smallest injury done to his person would be considered as an equal wickedness. An Arab who should be guilty of such a crime would be looked upon as a wretch who might expect reproof and detestation from everybody. He would appear despicable to himself, and never be able to wash away his shame. It is almost unheard of for an Arab to bring such disgrace upon himself."[202]

[202] _The Bedouins or Arabs of the Desert_, Part II., p. 59; quoted in Burder's _Oriental Customs_, 2d ed., p. 72.

It was said by the ancient Jews that Sodom was destroyed because its inhabitants had been faithless to salt, in maltreating guests who had partaken of salt in their city. In a Talmudic comment on Lot's wife, the record is: "Rabbi Isaac asked, 'Why did she become a pillar of salt?' 'Because she had sinned through salt. For in the night in which the men came to Lot she went to her neighbors, and said to them, Give me salt, for we have guests. But her purpose was to make (the evil-minded) people of the city acquainted with the guests. Therefore was she turned into a pillar of salt.'"[203]

[203] Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow refers to this in an article on "The Symbolical Meaning of Salt," in _The Sunday School Times_ for April 28, 1894.

This idea of foul treachery as equivalent to faithlessness in the matter of salt, seems to be perpetuated in Da Vinci's famous painting of the Last Supper, where Judas Iscariot is represented as having overturned the salt-cellar.[204] And even among English-speaking peoples the spilling of salt between two persons is said to threaten a quarrel; as though they had already broken friendship.

[204] It has indeed been questioned whether the overturned salt-cellar in Da Vinci's picture, as shown in many an engraving of it, was in the original painting, as it is not to be seen there now. But it would seem clear that the copy of this painting by Da Vinci's pupil, Marco d'Oggoni, in the Brera, shows the overturned salt-cellar, while the original painting has had several retouchings and renovations. (See _Notes and Queries_, 6th Series, Vol. X., p. 92 f.)

Gayton, describing two friends (who were proof even against this ill sign), says:

"I have two friends of either sex, which do Eat little salt, or none, yet are friends too; Of both which persons I can truly tell, They are of patience most invincible,-- When out of temper no mischance at all Can put,--no, not if towards them the salt should fall."[205]

[205] Thistleton Dyer's _Domestic Folk-Lore_, p. 104.

In both the Old Testament and the New faithlessness to a formal covenant is reckoned a crime of peculiar enormity as distinct from any ordinary transgression of a specific law. Transgressing a covenant with the Lord is counted on the part of Israel much the same as worshiping the gods of the heathen. This is shown in repeated instances in the Old Testament.[206] In the New Testament, Paul includes among the grossest evil-doers of paganism those who are "filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God," and so down to "covenant-breakers," and those "without natural affection," as among the lowest and worst of all.[207] This idea shows itself continually in records and traditions, sacred and secular.

[206] Gen. 17 : 14; Deut. 17 : 2-7; Josh. 7 : 11-15; Judg. 2 : 20-23; 2 Kings 18 : 11, 12; Psa. 55 : 19-21; Isa. 24 : 5, 6; Jer. 11 : 9-11; 34 : 17-20; Hosea 6 : 4-7; 8 : 1.

[207] Rom. 1 : 31.

XII

SUBSTITUTE TOGETHER WITH REALITY

Primarily it is the blood, as the life, of two persons entering into a covenant with each other and with the Author of life, that is the nexus of the enduring covenant.[208] Secondarily, it is the blood, or life, of a substitute victim offered as a sacrifice to God, or to the gods, that is accepted as such a nexus,--the blood being shared by the contracting parties, or being poured out as an oblation to God, and the flesh being eaten conjointly by the parties covenanting.[209]

[208] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 5-86; _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 193-202.

[209] Gen. 4 : 2-5; _Blood Covenant_, pp. 134-136.

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]

[216] Herodotus, Plutarch, and Pliny, cited in Becker's _Charicles_, p. 330.

[217] See pp. 83 f., 92, _supra_; also Frazer's _Golden Bough_, II., 67-70.

Similarly, bread is a recognized representative of flesh. It is so understood in sacred and secular records and traditions. When Jesus spoke of bread as his flesh, and as his body,[218] and of the fruit of the vine as his blood, he used terms that in his day, and earlier, were known in popular thought as representing the truth at the basis of the covenant by which two became one in a merged common life.[219] Yet while bread was an accepted substitute for flesh, it was much used as an accompaniment of flesh[220] in sacrificial feasts. Thus bread and salt as recognized substitutes for flesh and blood came to be commonly used even where real flesh and blood were the main factors in the sacrifice. Substitutes for bread, such as honey and flour or meal, were, as already shown, also used in connection with bread. Hence it is not unnatural to find salt as blood accompanying blood itself. This is entirely in accord with primitive thought and customs generally.

[218] Comp. Matt. 26 : 26-28; Mark 14 : 22-24; Luke 22 : 19, 20; 1 Cor. 11 : 23-25.

[219] _Blood Covenant_, pp. 171-184.

[220] _Ibid._; Gen. 18 : 1-8; 31 : 54; Lev. 7 : 11-14; 23 : 15-20, etc.

XIII

ADDED TRACES OF THE RITE

On the occasion of a sacred alliance between clans, or in a treaty of peace at the close of a war, among the Kookies of India, there is a formal appeal to the gods, in which salt has an important part. A _dhar_, or short sword, is placed on the ground between the two parties. On it, as on an altar, "are arranged rice, salt, earth, fire, and a tiger's tooth. The party swearing takes the _dhar_ and puts the blade between his teeth, and, biting it, says, 'May I be cut with the _dhar_ in war and in the field; may rice and salt fail me, my crops wither, and I die of hunger; may fire burn all my worldly possessions, and the tiger devour me, if I am not faithful!'"[221]

[221] Stewart, in _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, XXIV., 641, cited in Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_, V., 39.

Among the Battas, in Sumatra, the more solemn form of their oath is, "May my harvest fail, my cattle die, and may I never taste salt again, if I do not speak the truth."[222]

[222] Wooldridge's trans. of Bunge's _Physiological and Pathological Chemistry_, p. 126.

Among the Dyaks of Borneo, when a question arises between disputants for which there is no ordinary mode of settlement, each litigant is given a lump of salt, which the two drop into water simultaneously, and he whose lump dissolves soonest is adjudged the loser.[223]

[223] Köningswarter, _op. cit._, p. 202, cited in Henry C. Lea's _Superstition and Force_, p. 257.

In the Kenyah tribe in Borneo, the ceremony of naming a child is made much of. Guests assemble on the occasion. After the more private ceremony, participated in by a favored few, every guest present is given a package of salt and some ginger root, as wedding-cake is given in many lands, for a souvenir of the occasion.[224]

[224] On the testimony of Dr. W. H. Furness, 3d.

A custom among Slavic peoples of presenting bread and salt to a ruler at the threshold of his domain, as he comes on a visit, would seem to combine the two ideas of hospitality and of worship. When the Emperor of Russia visits one of his provinces, or subject cities, he is met at its threshold by its representative rulers, as his loyal subjects, with bread and salt served on a golden or a silver-gilt placque. In the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg there are hundreds of these suspended over the doorways and on the walls, which placques were thus presented to different emperors on the occasion of such visits.

When the Grand Duke Alexis visited America in 1872, he was received in this way by the wife of the Russian Minister at Washington. "As the Grand Duke entered the Legation, Madame de Catacazy carried a silver salver on which was placed a round loaf of plain black bread, on the top of which was imbedded a golden salt-cellar."[225] This was obviously more than a symbol of welcome to the home of the embassy. The Grand Duke came as a ruler and lord to his own, and his own received him loyally, with symbols of reverent submission. It was more like the threshold covenant of the East, when blood is poured out from an offered body at the doorway of a house, as one who would be honored as well as welcomed comes in.

[225] Parley's _Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis_, II., 277.

Some years later there was an account in the London Court Journal of the making in Paris of an ornate golden dish for a similar use in Roumania. The burghers of Bucharest were arranging to present on this dish bread and salt to Princess Marie of Edinburgh, when she should make her first entrance into their city as their future queen. The dish was of gold worked in a purely Renaissance design, its edge being an openwork pattern of interlaced ears of corn and branches of laurel. In the center was the salt-cellar, shaped like an open tulip, and resting upon four graceful stalks.

In the days of Queen Elizabeth of England it was a custom of officials of the palace to rub bread and salt on the plates of the dining-table before each royal meal.[226]

[226] Agnes Strickland, _Queens of England_ (Students' Edition), p. 403.

Among the Kookies of the Hill Tribes in India, "whenever they send any message of consequence to each other, they always put in the hand of the bearer of it a small quantity of salt, to be delivered with the message as expressive of its importance."[227] This would seem to indicate a life-and-death matter in the message.

[227] Macrae, in _Asiatic Researches_, VII., 188; cited in Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_, V. 25.

An old English custom of having a salt-cellar at a certain point on the family table, and of seating those present above or below it, gave rise to the phrase "sitting below the salt" as indicative of an inferior position at the household table. As salt was a symbol of hospitality and of covenanted union, he who was within the scope of salt-sharing at a table was in a very different position from one who was outside of it.

A reference to this custom by Sir Walter Scott, in his "Tales of My Landlord," in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, provoked much discussion, and doubt was expressed as to the existence of the custom in olden time. But abundant evidence was produced as to its veritableness.[228] An old English ballad was cited, in which one said sneeringly to his inferior:

"Thou art a carle mean of degree, Ye salte doth stand twain me and thee; But an thou hadst been of ane gentyl strayne, I wold have bitten my gant[229] aganie."

[228] See _Blackwood's Magazine_, Vol. I., No. 1, pp. 33-35; 132-134; 349-352; 579-582.

[229] Gant; that is, glove.

And one of Bishop Hall's Satires, in 1597, was instanced as saying:

"A gentle squire would gladly entertaine Into his house some trencher chaplaine; Some willing man that might instruct his sons, And that would stande to good conditions. First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed, Whiles his young maister lieth o'er his head. Second, that he do, on no default, Ever presume to sit above the salt."

It was a custom in Oxford University to give salt to a student who had concluded his course as a "freshman," and was finding admission into the company of maturer, or salter, students or sophisters. Drinking salt and water, or salt and beer, was a part of this ceremony. It was called "salting a freshman," or "college salting."[230]

[230] See _Notes and Queries_, First Series, I., 261.

A series of plates, illustrative of certain student ceremonies at Strassburg University was published in 1666. "The last [of these] represents _the giving of the salt_,--which a person is holding on a plate in his left hand, and with his right hand is about to put a pinch of it upon the tongue of each _becanus_, or freshman. A glass, probably holding wine, is standing near him. Underneath is the following couplet:

"_Sal Sophiæ gustate, bibatis vinaque læta, Augeat immensus vos in utrisque Deus!_"[231]

[231] _Ibid._, I., 492.

In Hungary, at a wedding, there are customs that give solemn emphasis to the truth that two lives are newly made one in a sacred covenant. The ceremony is presided over by the Vajda, or chief ruler, rather than by any Christian ecclesiastic. He stands with his back to a blazing fire as the primitive altar.[232] When his address is concluded, an earthen vessel is dashed to pieces as a symbol of their former life now ended. Then the bridal couple are sprinkled with salt and brandy, doubly standing for blood on the threshold of their married life.[233]

[232] _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 22 f., 39 ff., etc.

[233] _Martyrdom of an Empress_, p. 138 f.

Bread and salt seem to have a peculiar sacredness among the Hungarian gypsies. This incident, from a gypsy camp, is given in a Hungarian newspaper: A gypsy who had lost his cash informed his leader of the fact, and at once an order was issued for its restoration. The money not appearing, the gypsy chief bound two poles into the form of a cross, and fixed one end in the ground. On the top of the cross he fastened a piece of bread, and sprinkled it with salt. Each member of the band was then called to swear upon this symbol that he had not committed the theft. All stood the test, until the last one, an old woman, came forward. As she was about to take the oath, she turned pale, put her hand in her pocket, and brought out the stolen money. She was then soundly beaten, and kicked out of camp.[234]

[234] See quotation from the Pester Lloyd, in _Journal of the Gypsy Folk-lore Society_, copied in "The Journal of American Folk-lore," Vol. II., No. 5, p. 140.

The primitive idea that the sovereign properly controls salt as a source or means of life, and that a gift of salt from the sovereign lays a new obligation on the recipient, as illustrated in the days of Cyrus and Darius,[235] shows itself down to our own day. In the days of Arabi Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt desired to raise a sum of money, at a time when the people were exceptionally poor in consequence of excessive taxation and the rigors of a recent famine. Instead of relying on the ordinary and obnoxious tax collectors, the Khedive resorted to the pressure of the "fidelity to salt idea."

[235] See p. 20, _supra_.

Salt, as a gift, or as an appeal, from the government supply, was sent to every native house. Four pecks of salt to every two males in the house was the average amount. The salt was laid, by a government official, upon the threshold of the house, early in the morning, before the inmates arose. Of course, any person stepping over that salted threshold was brought anew into a covenant with the giver.[236] Later in the day Egyptian soldiers called at every house to receive what the inmates would give in return. The appeal was irresistible. It was not like an ordinary tax, to be evaded or resisted if possible. All would do what they could. The least that any could think of returning was the usual price of the salt. Those who could afford more were glad to show their fidelity and loyalty in a corresponding liberality.[237]

[236] See _Threshold Covenant_, pp. 3-25.

[237] This was told to the author by an Oriental who was residing in Egypt at the time.

XIV

A SAVOR OF LIFE OR OF DEATH