off from free intercourse with his fellows.
Among the Ponka Indians Mr. Dorsey found the belief that a murderer is surrounded by the ghosts, who keep up a constant whistling; that he can never satisfy his hunger, though he eat much food; and that he must not be allowed to roam at large lest high winds arise.15 Of the warriors among certain North American Indians Adair wrote that, “as they reckon they are become impure by shedding human blood,” they hasten to observe a fast of three days.16 Among the Natchez, according to Charlevoix, “those who for the first time have made a prisoner or taken off a scalp, must, for a month, abstain from seeing their wives, and from eating flesh. They imagine, that if they should fail in this, the souls of those whom they have killed or burnt, would effect their death, or that the first wound they should receive would be mortal; or at least, that they should never gain any advantage over their enemies.”17 The Kafirs and Bechuanas practise various ceremonies of purification after their fights.18 The Basutos say, “Human blood is heavy, it prevents him who has shed it from running away.”19 They consider it necessary that, on return from battle, “the warriors should rid themselves, as soon as possible, of the blood they have shed, or the shades of their victims would pursue them incessantly and disturb their slumbers”; hence they go in full armour to the nearest stream, and, as a rule, at the moment they enter the water a diviner, placed higher up, throws some purifying substances into the current.20 Among the Bantu Kavirondo, “when a man has killed an enemy in warfare he shaves his head on his return home, and his friends rub ‘medicine’ (generally the dung of goats) over his body to prevent the spirit of the deceased from worrying the man by whom he has been slain.”21 Among the Ja-luo, a warrior who has slain an enemy not only shaves his hair, but, after entering the village, prepares a big feast to propitiate the man he has killed so that his ghost may not give trouble.22 Among the Wagogo of German East Africa, the father of a young warrior who has shed blood gives to his son a goat “to clean his sword.”23 After the slaughter of the Midianites, those Israelites who had killed any one, or touched the slain, had to remain outside the camp for seven days, purifying themselves and everything in their possession either by water, or fire, or both.24 So, also, if a person had been slain in the land of Israel, and the perpetrator of the deed could not be detected, the elders of the city which was next unto the slain had to undergo a ceremony of purification in order to rid the city of “the guilt of innocent blood.25 According to the Laws of Manu, a person who has unintentionally killed a Brâhmana shall make a hut in the forest and dwell in it during twelve years;26 in order to remove the guilt he shall throw himself thrice headlong into a blazing fire,27 or walk against the stream along the whole course of the river Sarasvatî,28 or shave off all his hair.29 The ancient Greeks believed that one who had suffered a violent end, when newly dead, was angry with the author of his death.30 The blood-guilty individual, as though infected with a miasma, shunned all contact and conversation with other people, and avoided entering their dwellings.31 Even the involuntary manslayer had to leave the country for some time; according to Plato’s ‘Laws,’ he “must go out of the way of his victim for the entire period of a year, and not let himself be found in any spot which was familiar to him throughout the country.”32 Nor must he return to his land until sacrifice had been offered and ceremonies of purification performed.33
15 Dorsey, ‘Siouan Cults,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 420.
16 Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 388.
17 Charlevoix, Voyage to North America, ii. 203.
18 Arbousset and Daumas, Exploratory Tour to the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 394 sqq. Alberti, De Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika, p. 104.
19 Casalis, op. cit. p. 309.
20 Ibid. p. 258.
21 Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. 743 sq.
22 Ibid. ii. 794.
23 Cole, ‘Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxii. 321.
24 Numbers, xxxi. 19 sqq.
25 Deuteronomy, xxi. 1 sq.
26 Laws of Manu, xi. 73.
27 Ibid. xi. 74.
28 Ibid. xi. 78.
29 Ibid. xi. 79.
30 Plato, Leges, ix. 865.
31 Müller, Dissertations on the Eumenides of Æschylus, p. 103. Aeschylus says (Eumenides, 448 sqq.) it is the custom that a murderer should not speak anything until he has been sprinkled with the spurted blood of a slain sucking-pig. Cf. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, iv. 700 sqq.; Aristotle, De republica Atheniensium, 57.
32 Plato, Leges, ix. 865.
33 Demosthenes, Contra Aristocratem, 71 sqq., p. 643 sq. Müller, Dissertations, p. 106 sq. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 341. On the uncleanness of manslayers see also Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 433 sq.; Frazer, op. cit. i. 331 sqq.
The state of uncleanness incurred by the shedding