the Indian temples the very odor of human sacrifice seems to be still present. The whole subject has been carefully investigated by Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, a distinguished modern scholar of India, who published the result of his researches in The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In reply to the contention that human sacrifices are not authorized in the Vedas, but were introduced in later times, Dr. Mitra remarks: "As a Hindu writing on the actions of my forefathers -remote as they are-it would have been a source of great satisfaction to me if I could adopt this conclusion as true, but I regret that I cannot do so consistently with my allegiance to the cause of history." He brings forward abundant evidence from Indian sources to show that "for a long time the rite was common all over Hindustan, and persons are not wanting who suspect that there are still nooks and corners in India where human victims are occasionally slaughtered for the gratification of the Devi."1 In a learned article on "The Brahmanas of the Vedas," by K. S. Macdonald, D.D., published in The Indian Evangelical Review, the references to human sacrifices in the Vedas are given in exhaustive detail. In the case of one hundred and seventy-nine different gods the particular kind of human being who should be sacrificed is named in each instance.2 In Assam not long since children were offered as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Among the Shans a belief in the efficacy of human sacrifice to procure a good harvest still exists. It is supposed by them that certain nats (spirits) are appeased only by human sacrifice. "The guardian spirit of one of the Salween ferries claims a victim every year, preferably a ChinaThe nat saves trouble by capsizing a boat and securing his victim. The ferry is then safe for the rest of the year."3 Mr. J. George Scott, in an article on "The Wild Wa: A Head-Hunting Race," preGumsur war, which lasted nearly eight years, so stubborn was the resistance of the people. English rule has put down this horrid rite. More than two thousand victims were rescued from sacrifice, and handed over to the care of Indian missionaries. But the people are still enchained by the old superstition. One evening last year, during a drought, Mr. Wilkinson was preaching in the village of Raipoli, and the head man came to ask if he would intercede for them with the Government, and obtain permission for them to offer a living child in sacrifice as their fathers did, to take away disease from their homes and bring rain upon their fields. Mr. Wilkinson told them of Christ, the one sacrifice for all men and all time, but they said this was hard to understand. Their fathers sacrificed every year and in every valley."- The Illustrated Missionary News, May, 1893, p. 72. man. 1 Cf. "Swami Vivekananda on Hinduism: An Examination of his Address at the Chicago Parliament of Religions," pp. 58, 59. 2 The Indian Evangelical Review, July, 1895, pp. 102-105. 3 The Indian Magazine and Review, March, 1896, p. 153. sents many illustrations of the abominable atrocities long prevalent among the tribes in the border-lands between the Shan tribes and Yunnan.1 The evidence of its existence in Australasia and the South Seas. Among some of the aborigines of Australia the custom is said still to prevail that in the case of the death of any member of a given tribe his fellow-tribesmen are thereby placed under obligations to kill some one else in the next tribe, to equalize matters.2 Among the Dyaks of Borneo and the mountain tribes of Formosa human sacrifices have been common, and are even at the present time resorted to in connection with public events, such as the proclamation of war. In the history of the Pacific Islands there are many traces of the bloody rites of human sacrifices. They were known among the Maoris, and in the New Hebrides, and almost universally throughout Polynesia. In the early chronicles of South Sea missions are repeated references to the custom.3 Worship was frequently attended with the sacrifice of life. It is recorded of King Pomare of the Society Islands that “during his reign of thirty years he had sacrificed two thousand human victims as offerings to his idols."4 Upon almost every public occasion a human sacrifice was required. If war was to be declared or some chief died or was threatened with serious illness; if some public building was to be dedicated or even a new house built for a chief; if a new idol was to be set up or a new canoe launched, the blood of some human victim, or in some instances of many such, must be offered in honor of the occasion. The horrible reputation of the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands for every species of brutality and cruelty makes it easy to believe that their record for human sacrifices is one of exceptional atrocity.5 Among the aborigines of the West Indies and the pagan Indians of Guiana there is clear evidence of this odious crime. And even at the present time, according to the statement of Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the people of Alaska, during an epidemic of the grippe, "felt that a more malignant spirit than common had got hold of them, and they must needs make greater sacrifices; so men, women, and 1 The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, January, 1896, pp. 138-152. 2 The Bishop of Perth, in The Mission Field (S. P. G.), June, 1896, p. 208. 3 Cousins, "The Story of the South Seas," p. 20. Cf. "Journal of John Hunt, Missionary to Fiji," published in successive numbers of Work and Workers, 1896, and Ratzel, "The History of Mankind," vol. i., pp. 447-449. 4 Alexander, "The Islands of the Pacific," p. 87. 5 Ibid., p. 397. Cf. Ratzel, "The History of Mankind," vol. i., p. 297. 6 "The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana: A Memoir of W. H. Brett, B.D.," by the Rev. F. P. L. Josa, pp. 35-37. children were caught by the medicine-men and sacrificed-buried alive to appease the spirit of the grippe." 1 The horrors of human sacrifice in Africa. The darkest record of all, however, is reserved for Africa, where rivers of blood have been poured out in human sacrifice. The almost universal practice in connection with the death of African chieftains is a bloody holocaust at the burial. Cameron, in an account of his journey across the Continent in 1874, speaks of "the atrocious sanguinary rites which attend the death of African despots." The resting-place of a chieftain's body is often a bed of living women, and his grave deeply saturated with the blood of victims slain in his honor. Ashanti, Dahomey, and the whole Niger delta with its tributaries have witnessed many a scene of sacrificial horror. The reports of English correspondents who accompanied the recent Ashanti expedition of the British Government, speak of hideous masses of bones and skulls of the victims of human sacrifice. An editorial in the London Times, November 13, 1895, referring to the fact that the ruler of Ashanti had expressly agreed by treaty to renounce human sacrifices and slave-raids, states that "it is notorious that these savage processes still continue." In a chapter on the "City of Blood," in the life of Thomas Birch Freeman, an account is given, based upon the testimony of missionaries who were present at the time, of the funeral ceremonies attending the death of a king, at which forty victims were immolated within two days, and the streets strewn with headless bodies.2 The ground around fetich trees was wet with the blood of victims, while from their branches were suspended portions of human bodies. In the early history of the United Presbyterian Mission in Old Calabar are accounts of the same shocking scenes. On the death of Eyamba, a native king, a massacre of his wives and slaves, and even of many other women, took place; of his hundred wives, thirty were slaughtered." Even late reports from these dark regions bear the same story of unabated bloodshed. The Ijebus have recently sacrificed two hundred and fifty victims to their gods, in order to prevent the white man from taking their country.4 The king of Eboe, at his death in 1893, was accompanied by forty sacrificial victims.5 The late Rev. J. Vernall wrote 1 The Gospel in all Lands, July, 1894, p. 296. 2 Milum, "Thomas Birch Freeman, Missionary Pioneer to Ashanti, Dahomey, and Egba," p. 62. Cf. Work and Workers in the Mission Field, January, 1896, p. 17; February, 1896, p. 81; and April, 1896, p. 158. 3 Dickie, Story of the Mission in Old Calabar,” p. 29. ▲ Church Missionary Intelligencer, February, 1893, p. 120. 5 Medical Missionary Record, February, 1894, p. 40. |