4 Border Sacrifices
An altar would have no meaning unless sacrifices were offered at it. If, therefore, the boundary threshold of an empire were an altar for that empire, sacrifices would surely be offered there; and the records of history, and the customs of old times and later, show this to have been the case.
Sacrifices were offered at the new boundary of an empire, by ancient Assyrian and Egyptian kings, when they set up a pillar, or stele, at the freshly acquired threshold in that direction. Thus, for example, Ashurnâsirapli (king of Assyria, 885–860 B.C.), telling of his far-reaching conquests, says that he marched with his armies to the slopes of the Lebanon, and to the great sea of the Westland, and that at the mountains of Ammanus he made and set up a stele of victory, and offered sacrifices unto his gods.507
At the Egyptian boundary line in the Sinaitic Peninsula, there was a temple with its sacrifices to “the sublime Hathor, queen of heaven and earth and the dark depths below, whom the Egyptians worshiped as the protectress of the land of Mafkat.” There were other temples with their sacrifices at that point.508 On the southern boundary of Egypt, in the gold district of Nubia, there was “the temple of Amon in the holy mountain,” where threshold sacrifices were offered.509
One of the most ancient of Chinese classics is the Shih King. Its age is not known, but it is certain that it was a classic in the days of Confucius, five centuries before the Christian era. This work contains frequent references to sacrifices at the border altars, or the altars of the boundary. There were public sacrifices at the “border altar” in the beginning of every new year; and again when a ruler crossed his border line on a warlike mission.510
When, in ancient times, a Chinese emperor passed over the outer threshold of his empire, he offered a sacrifice of a dog, by running over it with the wheels of his chariot. This is supposed to have been a propitiatory offering to the dog-shaped guardians of the roadway threshold, known also among the Indo-Aryans and the Assyro-Babylonians.511
From what is known of modern customs in this line, and from occasional historical references to the matter, it would seem that where there were no gateways, or double columns to stand for door-posts, or doorway stele, it was the practice to divide or separate the animals offered in sacrifice, so as to make a passage-way between them, as through a door or gate, and to pour out the blood of the victims on the earth between the two portions, so that the offerer, or the one welcomed, might pass over, or step across, that blood, as in a threshold covenant.
It has already been noted that when General Grant came to the border line of Assioot, in Upper Egypt, as he landed from his Nile boat, a bullock was sacrificed in covenant welcome, its head being put on one side of the gang-plank, and its body on the other; while its blood was between the two, so that it should be stepped over in the act of landing.512 And every year, when the great Hajj procession returns from Meccah to Syria, it is welcomed, as it approaches Damascus, by just such sacrifices as this. Sheep and oxen are sacrificed before the caravan, their blood being poured out in the middle of the road, and their bodies being divided and placed on either side of the way. Then those who approach by this “new and living way,”513 on the boundary line of their country, renew their covenant with those within, by passing over the blood.514
There seems to be a reference to such a mode of boundary sacrifices, in the description of the Lord’s covenant welcome to Abraham, on the border of the land promised to him for a possession.515 Abraham was near the southern boundary of Canaan. He had the promise of the Lord, that he and his seed should possess that land; but as yet he was childless, and he had no control over any portion of the land. He naturally desired some tangible assurance, in accordance with the customs of mankind, that the Lord’s promises to him would be made good. Therefore when the Lord said to him, “I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it,” Abraham replied with the question, “O Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?”
Then the Lord responded with these directions, apparently in accordance with a well-known mode of covenanting among men: “Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” Abraham seems to have understood what was to be done with these victims for sacrifice. “And he took him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each half over against the other: but the birds divided he not.” The blood of the victims was doubtless poured out on the earth where they were sacrificed, midway between the places of the divided portions, as is the present custom.
“And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace [or brazier, or censer], and a flaming torch [a fire and a light as a symbol of the Divine presence] that passed [covenant-crossed the blood on the threshold] between these pieces.” And the record adds: “In that day the Lord made a covenant [a border-altar covenant] with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.”
Thus Abram was assured that the Lord had covenanted to protect his boundaries; as Nebuchadrezzar long afterward desired that his god Nebo would protect his empire boundary or threshold. As to the fact of boundary sacrifices in these lands and elsewhere, in those days and earlier, there would seem to be no room for question.
It is not to be expected that border sacrifices would at all times, and in all places, be just alike; but a common primitive symbolism would be likely to show itself in them all. In Persia, these sacrifices are still common, when one is to be received with honors at the border of a new territory or jurisdiction.516 Morier, describing his journey through Persia, in the early part of this century, speaks of the first entrance of a new ruler into the territory he was to govern. “The khan, with all his attendants, accompanied us about two miles. He was preparing to enter Bushire, his new government, with all splendor. From the town to the swamps [from the territorial border to the border of the capital] were erected stages on which bullocks were to be sacrificed, and from which their heads were to be thrown under his horse’s feet as he advanced; a ceremony, indeed, appropriated to princes alone, and to them only on particular occasions.”517
On another occasion, when the British envoy approached Kauzeroon, on a visit of ceremony, he was welcomed at the threshold of the town by a corresponding ceremony. “A bottle which contained sugar candy was broken under the feet of the envoy’s horse, a ceremony never practiced in Persia to any but to royal personages.”518
the gates “oxen and sheep in great numbers were sacrificed just as he passed, and their heads thrown under his horse’s feet.” And “glass vases filled with sugar were broken before him.” On this occasion the Shah frequently looked at a watch, “anxious that he should enter the gates exactly at the time prescribed by the astrologers” for his crossing the threshold.519
More recently, Layard has testified to the prevalence of such customs. Speaking of his reception among the Yezidis, he tells of his approach to the village of Guzelder, and of his welcome there: “The head of the village of Guzelder, with the principal inhabitants, had come to invite me to eat bread in his house, and we followed him.... Before we reached Guzelder, the procession had swollen to many hundreds.... As I approached, sheep were brought into the road and slain before my horse’s feet, and as we entered the yard of Akko’s house the women and men joined in the loud and piercing ‘tahlel.’”520
Again, as Layard entered the village of Redwan, he was similarly welcomed. “I alighted,” he says, “amidst the din of music and the ‘tahlel’ at the house of Nazi, the chief of the whole Yezidi district; two sheep being slain before me as I took my feet from the stirrups.”521
When, some twenty years ago, a European prince visited the Mt. Lebanon region,522 a generous host killed a valuable cow on the road by which the prince must come into his region. Then the royal visitor and his retinue were requested to step over, not upon, the blood of the slaughtered cow, at the threshold of that host’s domain.
On the occasion of a caravan starting out from the boundary line of a country in the East, there are border sacrifices offered, even in recent times. Thus Burckhardt tells of this ceremony, when he went from Egypt to Nubia.
The various traders going with this caravan assembled at the starting-point, having their goods with them. “At noon the camels were watered, and knelt down by the side of their respective loads. Just before the lading commenced, the Ababde women appeared with earth vessels in their hands, filled with burning coals. They set them before the several loads, and threw salt upon them.” It has already been shown that salt stands for blood, in the minds of primitive peoples. “At the rising of the bluish flame produced by the burning of the salt, they exclaimed, ‘May you be blessed in going and in coming!’”523 And this sacrifice was supposed to secure safety against evil spirits encountered in crossing the boundary line.
Thus it would seem that, from the beginning, on the national threshold, as on the threshold of the temple and of the home, sacrifices were offered, and boundary marks were set up, in recognition of a peculiar sacredness of the border line,–which is in itself a foundation and a limit. These boundary marks were commonly a pillar or a tree, in apparent symbolism of a fructifying or a fruit-bearing agency, of the transmission or the continuance of life. And the establishment and protection of these boundary marks was deemed well pleasing to God or to the gods, and in the nature of a holy covenant service.