The Blood Covenant: A Primitive Rite and its Bearings on Scripture. H. Clay Trumbull
deceiveth the other, him will God deceive.” Each blood-marked covenant-record, was then folded carefully, to be sewed up in a small leathern case, or amulet, about an inch square; to be worn thenceforward by one of the covenant-brothers, suspended about the neck, or bound upon the arm, in token of the indissoluble relation.
The compact thus made, is called, M’âhadat ed-Dam (معاهدة الدم), the “Covenant of Blood.” The two persons thus conjoined, are, Akhwat el-M’âhadah (اخوة المعاهدة), “Brothers of the Covenant.” The rite itself is recognized, in Syria, as one of the very old customs of the land, as ’âdah qadeemeh (عادة قديمة) “a primitive rite.” There are many forms of covenanting in Syria, but this is the extremest and most sacred of them all. As it is the inter-commingling of very lives, nothing can transcend it. It forms a tie, or a union, which cannot be dissolved. In marriage, divorce is a possibility: not so in the covenant of blood. Although now comparatively rare, in view of its responsibilities and of its indissolubleness, this covenant is sometimes entered into by confidential partners in business, or by fellow-travelers; again, by robbers on the road—who would themselves rest fearlessly on its obligations, and who could be rested on within its limits, however untrustworthy they or their fellows might be to any other compact. Yet, again, it is the chosen compact of loving friends; of those who are drawn to it only by mutual love and trust.
This covenant is commonly between two persons of the same religion—Muhammadans, Druzes, or Nazarenes; yet it has been known between two persons of different religions;[1] and in such a case it would be held as a closer tie than that of birth[2] or sect. He who has entered into this compact with another, counts himself the possessor of a double life; for his friend, whose blood he has shared, is ready to lay down his life with him, or for him.[3] Hence the leathern case, or Bayt hejâb (بيت حجاب) “House of the amulet,”[4] containing the record of the covenant (’uhdah, عهدة), is counted a proud badge of honor, by one who possesses it; and he has an added sense of security, because he will not be alone when he falleth.[5]
I have received personal testimony from native Syrians, concerning the observance of this rite in Damascus, in Aleppo, in Hâsbayya, in Abayh, along the road between Tyre and Sidon, and among the Koords resident in Salehayyah. All the Syrians who have been my informants, are at one concerning the traditional extreme antiquity of this rite, and its exceptional force and sacredness.
In view of the Oriental method of evidencing the closest possible affection and confidence, by the sucking of the loved one’s blood, there would seem to be more than a coincidence in the fact, that the Arabic words for friendship, for affection, for blood, and for leech, or blood-sucker, are but variations from a common root.[6] ’Alaqa (علق) means “to love,” “to adhere,” “to feed.” ’Alaq (علق), in the singular, means “love,” “friendship,” “attachment,” “blood.” As the plural of ’alaqa (علقة), ’alaq means “leeches,” or “blood-suckers.” The truest friend clings like a leech, and draws blood in order to the sharing thereby of his friend’s life and nature.
A native Syrian, who had traveled extensively in the East, and who was familiar with the covenant of blood in its more common form, as already described, told me of a practice somewhat akin to it, whereby a bandit-chieftain would pledge his men to implicit and unqualified, life-surrendering fidelity to himself; or, whereby a conspirator against the government would bind, in advance, to his plans, his fellow conspirators—by a ceremony known as Sharb el-’ahd (شرب العهد) “Drinking the covenant.” The methods of such covenanting are various; but they are all of the nature of tests of obedience and of endurance. They sometimes include licking a heated iron with the tongue, or gashing the tongue, or swallowing pounded glass or other dangerous potions; but, in all cases, the idea seems to be, that the life of the one covenanting is, by this covenant, devoted—surrendered as it were—to the one with whom he covenants; and the rite is uniformly accompanied with a solemn and an imprecatory appeal to God, as witnessing and guarding the compact.
Dr. J. G. Wetzstein, a German scholar, diplomat, and traveler, who has given much study to the peoples east of the Jordan, makes reference to the binding force and the profound obligation of the covenants of brotherhood, in that portion of the East; although he gives no description of the methods of the covenant-rite. Speaking of two Bed´ween—Habbâs and Hosayn—who had been “brothered” (verbrüdert), he explains by saying: “We must by this [term] understand the Covenant of Brotherhood[7] (Chuwwat el-Ahĕd [خوة العهد]), which is in use to-day not only among the Hadari [the Villagers], but also among the Bed´ween; and is indeed of pre-Muhammadan origin. The brother [in such a covenant] must guard the [other] brother from treachery, and [must] succor him in peril. So far as may be necessary, the one must provide for the wants of the other; and the survivor has weighty obligations in behalf of the family of the one deceased.” Then, as showing how completely the idea of a common life in the lives of two friends thus covenanted—if, indeed, they have become sharers of the same blood—sways the Oriental mind, Wetzstein adds: “The marriage of a man and woman between whom this covenant exists, is held to be incest.”[8]
There are, indeed, various evidences that the tie of blood-covenanting is reckoned, in the East, even a closer tie than that of natural descent; that a “friend” by this tie is nearer and is dearer, “sticketh closer,” than a “brother” by birth. We, in the West, are accustomed to say, that “blood is thicker than water”; but the Arabs have the idea that blood is thicker than milk, than a mother’s milk. With them, any two children nourished at the same breast are called “milk-brothers,”[9] or “sucking brothers”;[10] and the tie between such is very strong. A boy and a girl in this relation cannot marry, even though by birth they had no family relationship. Among even the more bigoted of the Druzes, a Druze girl who is a “sucking sister” of a Nazarene boy is allowed a sister’s privileges with him. He can see her uncovered face, even to the time of her marriage. But, the Arabs hold that brothers in the covenant of blood are closer than brothers at a common breast; that those who have tasted each other’s blood are in a surer covenant than those who have tasted the same milk together; that “blood-lickers,”[11] as the blood-brothers are sometimes called, are more truly one, than “milk-brothers,” or “sucking brothers”; that, indeed, blood is thicker than milk, as well as thicker than water.
This distinction it is which seems to be referred to in a citation from the Arabic poet El-A’asha, by the Arabic lexicographer Qamus, which has been a puzzle to Lane, and Freytag, and others.[12] Lane’s translation of the passage is: “Two foster-brothers by the sucking of the breast of one mother, swore together by dark blood, into which they dipped their hands, that they should not ever become separated.” In other words, two milk-brothers became blood-brothers, by interlocking their hands under their own blood, in the covenant of blood-friendship. They had been closely inter-linked before; now they were as one; for blood is thicker than milk. The oneness of nature which comes of sharing the same blood, by its inter-transfusion, is rightly deemed, by the Arabs, completer than the oneness of nature which comes of sharing the same milk; or even than that which comes through having blood from a common source, by natural descent.
3. THE PRIMITIVE RITE IN AFRICA.
Travelers in the heart of Africa, also, report the covenant of “blood-brotherhood,” or of “strong-friendship,” as in vogue among various African tribes; although, naturally retaining less of primitive sacredness there than among Semites. The rite is, in some cases, observed after the manner of the Syrians, by the contracting parties tasting each other’s blood; while, in other cases, it is performed by the inter-transfusion of blood between the two.
The first mention which I find of it, in the writings of modern travelers in Africa, is by the lamented hero-missionary, Dr. Livingstone. He calls the rite Kasendi. It was in the region of Lake Dilolo, at the watershed