(1.) A Blood Welcome at the Door, 3. (2.) Reverence for the Threshold Altar, 10. (3.) Threshold Covenanting in the Marriage Ceremony, 25. (4.) Stepping or Being Lifted across the Threshold, 36. (5.) Laying Foundations in Blood, 45. (6.) Appeals at the Altar, 57. (7.) Covenant Tokens on the Doorway, 66. (8.) Symbol of the Red Hand, 74. (9.) Deities of the Doorway, 94.
(1.) From House to Temple, 99. (2.) Sacredness of the Door, 102. (3.) Temple Thresholds in Asia, 108. (4.) Temple Thresholds in Africa, 126. (5.) Temple Thresholds in Europe, 132. (6.) Temple Thresholds in America, 144. (7.) Temple Thresholds in Islands of the Sea, 148. (8.) Only One Foundation, 153.
(1.) From Temple to Domain, 165. (2.) Local Landmarks, 166. (3.) National Borders, 177. (4.) Border Sacrifices, 184.
(1.) A Natural Question, 193. (2.) An Answer by Induction, 194. (3.) No Covenant without Blood, 196. (4.) Confirmation of this View, 197.
(1.) New Meaning in an Old Rite, 203. (2.) A Welcome with Blood, 204. (3.) Bason, or Threshold, 206. (4.) Pass-over or Pass-by, 209. (5.) Marriage of Jehovah with Israel, 212.
(1.) Old Covenant and New, 215. (2.) Proffered Welcome by the Father, 216. (3.) Bridegroom and Bride, 218. (4.) Survivals of the Rite, 221.
(1.) Elemental Beginnings, 223. (2.) Main Outgrowths, 225. (3.) Chief Perversions, 228.
Significance of Blood in the Marriage Rite, 243. Exhibiting the Evidences, 245. Substitute Blood for Deception, 248. Public Performance of the Rite, 250. Bible Testimony, 251. Woman as a Door, 252. Symbolism of the Two Sexes, 257. Symbolism of Tree and Serpent, 258. Covenant of Threshold-Crossing, 259. Doorkeeper, and Carrier, 263. Passing over into a Covenant, 266. England’s Coronation Stone, 268.
Topical Index, 273. Scriptural Index, 301.
From the Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow, 307. From Professor Dr. Herman V. Hilprecht, 309. From Professor Dr. Fritz Hommel, 313. From Professor Dr. A.H. Sayce, 314. From Professor Dr. W. Max Müller, 315. From Professor Dr. C.P. Tiele, 317. From Professor Dr. E. Washburn Hopkins, 318. From the Rev. Dr. William Elliot Griffis, 319. From Professor Dr. John P. Mahaffy, 324. From Professor Dr. William A. Lamberton, 326. From Professor Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, 328. From the Rev. Dr. Edward T. Bartlett, 329. From Professor Dr. T.K. Cheyne, 330. Additional from Professor Dr. Fritz Hommel, 333.
The primitive altar of the family would seem to have been the threshold, or door-sill, or entrance-way, of the home dwelling-place. This is indicated by surviving customs, in the East and elsewhere among primitive peoples, and by the earliest historic records of the human race. It is obvious that houses preceded temples, and that the house-father was the earliest priest. Sacrifices for the family were, therefore, within or at the entrance of the family domicile.
In Syria and in Egypt, at the present time, when a guest who is worthy of special honor is to be welcomed to a home, the blood of a slaughtered, or a “sacrificed,” animal is shed on the threshold of that home, as a means of adopting the new-comer into the family, or of making a covenant union with him. And every such primitive covenant in blood includes an appeal to the protecting Deity to ratify it as between the two parties and himself.[1] While the guest is still outside, the host takes a lamb, or a goat, and, tying its feet together, lays it upon the threshold of his door. Resting his left knee upon the bound victim, the host holds its head by his left hand, while with his right he cuts its throat. He retains his position until all the blood has flowed from the body upon the threshold. Then the victim is removed, and the guest steps over the blood, across the threshold; and in this act he becomes, as it were, a member of the family by the Threshold Covenant.
The flesh of the slaughtered animal is usually given to the neighbors, although in the case of humbler persons it is sometimes used for the meal of the guest in whose honor it is sacrificed. It may be a larger offering than a lamb or a goat, or it may be a smaller one. Sometimes several sheep are included in the sacrifice. Again, the offering may be a bullock or a heifer, or simply a fowl or a pair of pigeons. The more costly the gift, in proportion to the means of the host, the greater the honor to him who is welcomed.
As illustrative of this idea, a story is commonly told in Syria of a large-hearted man who gave proof of his exceptional devotedness to an honored guest. He had a horse which he prized as only an Oriental can prize and love one. This horse he sent to meet his guest, in order that it might bring him to the home of its owner. When the guest reached the house and dismounted, he spoke warm words in praise of the noble animal. At once the host led the horse to the house door, and cut its throat over the threshold, asking the guest to step over the blood of this costly offering, in acceptance of the proffered Threshold Covenant.
“If you know that one is coming whom you would honor and welcome, you must make ready to have the blood on the threshold when he appears,” said a native Syrian. In case an honored guest arrives unexpectedly, so that there is no time to prepare the customary sacrifice, salt, as representing blood, may be sprinkled on the threshold, for the guest to pass over; or again coffee, as the Muhammadan substitute for the “blood of the grape,”[2] may be poured on it.[3]
Crossing the threshold, or entering the door, of a house, is in itself an implied covenant with those who are within, as shown by the earlier laws of India. He who goes in by the door must count himself, and must be recognized, as a guest, subject to the strictest laws of hospitality. But if he enters the house in some other way, not crossing the threshold, there is no such implied covenant on his part. He may then even despoil or kill the head of the house he has entered, without any breach of the law of hospitality, or of the moral law as there understood.[4] Illustrations of this truth are found in the Mahabharata, as applicable to both a house and a city.[5] “It is in accordance with the strict law of all the law books,” of ancient India, “that one may enter his foe’s house by a-dvāra, ‘not by door,’ but his friend’s house only ‘by door.’ ”[6]
It would seem to have been in accordance with this primitive law of the East that Jesus said: “He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. … I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and shall find pasture. The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.”[7]
It is possible that there is an explanation, in this law of the doorway, or threshold, of the common practice among primitive Scandinavians of attacking the inmates of an enemy’s house through the roof instead of by the door;[8] also, of the custom in Greece of welcoming a victor in the Olympian games into his city through a breach in the walls, instead of causing him to enter by the gates, with its implied subjection to all the laws of hospitality.[9] (See Appendix.)
Examples of the blood welcome at the threshold abound in modern Egyptian customs. When the new khedive came to his palace, in 1882, a threshold sacrifice was offered as his welcome. “At the entrance to the palace six buffaloes were slaughtered, two being killed just as the khedive’s carriage reached the gateway. The blood of the animals was splashed across the entrance, so that the horses’ hoofs and wheels of the carriage passed through it. The flesh was afterwards distributed among the poor.”[10]
When General Grant was at Assioot, on the Upper Nile, during his journey around the world, he was doubly welcomed as a guest by the American vice-consul, who was a native of Egypt. A bullock was sacrificed at the steamer landing, and its head was laid on one side of the gang-plank, and its body on the other. The outpoured blood was between the head and the body, under the gang-plank, so that, in stepping from the steamer to the shore, General Grant would cross over it. When he reached the house of the vice-consul, a sheep was similarly sacrificed at the threshold, in such a way that General Grant passed over the blood in entering.[11]
It is also said in Egypt: “If you buy a dahabiyeh,” and therefore are to cross its threshold for the occupancy of your new home on the water, “you must kill a sheep, letting the blood flow on the deck, or side, of the boat, in order that it may be lucky. Your friends will afterwards have to dine on the sheep.”[12] There seems, indeed, to be a survival of this idea in the custom of “christening” a ship at the time of its launching, in England and America, a bottle of wine–the “blood of the grape”[13]–being broken on the bow of the vessel as it crosses the threshold of the deep. And a feast usually follows this ceremony also.[14]
In Zindero, or Gingiro, or Zinder, in Central Africa, a new king is welcomed at the royal residence with a bloody threshold offering. “Before he enters his palace two men are to be slain; one at the foot of the tree by which his house is chiefly supported; the other at the threshold of his door, which is besmeared with the blood of the victim. And it is said … that the particular family, whose privilege it is to be slaughtered, so far from avoiding it, glory in the occasion, and offer themselves willingly to meet it.”[15]
Among the Arabs in Central Africa, the blood welcome of a guest at the threshold of a home is a prevailing custom. “The usual welcome upon the arrival of a traveler, who is well received in an Arab camp, is the sacrifice of a fat sheep, that should be slaughtered at the door of the hut or tent, so that the blood flows to the threshold.”[16]
On the arrival of strangers among the primitive tribes of Liberia, in West Africa, a fowl is killed, and its blood is sprinkled at the doorway.[17]
Receiving an honored guest with bread and salt, at the threshold of the house he enters, is common in Russia. Bread and salt are symbolic, in primitive thought, of flesh and blood; and this threshold welcome seems to be a survival of the threshold sacrifice.[18]
To step over or across the blood, or its substitute, on the door-sill, is to accept or ratify the proffered covenant; but to trample upon the symbol of the covenant is to show contempt for the host who proffers it, and no greater indignity than this is known in the realm of primitive social intercourse.
The threshold, as the family altar on which the sacrificial blood of a covenant welcome is poured out, is counted sacred, and is not to be stepped upon, or passed over lightly; but it is to be crossed over reverently, as in recognition of Him to whom all life belongs. “On passing the threshold,” in Arabia, “it is proper to say, ‘Bismillah,’ that is, ‘In the name of God.’ Not to do so would be looked upon as a bad augury, alike for him who enters and for those within.”[19] In Syria the belief prevails “that it is unlucky to tread on a threshold.” When they receive a new member to their sect, the Bektashi derwishes of Syria bring him to the threshold, and prayers and sacrifices are offered “on the door-sill.”[20]
“The khaleefs of Bagdad required all those who entered their palace to prostrate themselves on the threshold of the gate, where they had inserted a fragment of the black stone of the temple at Meccah, in order to render it [the threshold] more venerable to those who had been accustomed to press their foreheads against it. The threshold was of some height, and it was a crime to set foot upon it.” In the advice which Nurshivan gives to his son Hormuz, he recommends him to betake himself to the threshold of the Lord; that is, to the “presence of God, in the same fashion in which the poor do, at the gates of the rich. ‘Since you are his slave,’ he says, ‘set your forehead on his threshold.’ ”[21]
Among the Hindoos, “the threshold is … sacred in private houses; it is not propitious for a person to remain on it; neither to eat, sneeze, yawn, nor spit whilst there.”[22]
A double welcome is sometimes given to one who is in an official position. Thus, a Syrian, who held a commission from the chief officer of customs in Upper Syria, was surprised at having two sheep sacrificed before him as he approached the door of a house east of the Sea of Galilee; and he graciously protested against the excessive honor shown him. “One sheep is to welcome yourself as a man, and the other is to welcome you as an officer of the government,” was the answer. Loyalty as well as hospitality was indicated in these threshold sacrifices.
Sacredness attaches to the threshold in Persia. It must not be trodden on; but it is often kissed by those who would step over it.[23]
A man should always cross himself when he steps over a threshold in Russia; and, in some portions of the realm, it is believed that he ought not to sit down on the threshold.[24]
High sills, or thresholds, so that one must step over, and not on, them, are in the houses of Finland, and in the houses of many Finns in the United States.[25] The same was true of many Teutonic houses.[26]
To shake hands across a threshold, instead of crossing it, is said, in Finland, to ensure a quarrel.[27] To step over a threshold is, in Lapland, to bring one under the protection of the family within, and of its guardian deity.[28] The same is true among the Magyars.[29]
The ancient Pythagoreans quoted various maxims, supposed to be from the sayings of their great founder, as teaching important lessons for all time. In these maxims there were indications of a peculiar reverence for the threshold and doorway. Thus: “He who strikes his foot against the threshold should go back;” it were unsafe to pursue a movement so inauspiciously begun. And, again: “The doors should be kissed fondly by those who enter or depart.”[30]
“Treading on the threshold was … tabooed by the Tatars.”[31] Again, on the other side of the globe, in Samoa, to spill water on the door-step, or threshold, when food is brought in, is a cause of anger to the protecting deity of the family. It may drive him away.[32]
In Europe and in America it is by many counted an ill omen to tread upon the threshold of the door on entering a house. To the present day, in portions of Scotland, the idea popularly prevails, that to tread directly upon the boundary lines of division between ordinary flagstones is to endanger one’s soul; hence the very children are careful to avoid stepping upon those lines, in their walking across the courtyards or along the streets, in their every-day passing.
Many a person in the United States, who knows nothing of any superstition connected with this, avoids, if possible, stepping on, instead of over, the cracks or seams of a board walk, or even the seams of a carpet.
All these customs seem to be a survival of the feeling that the threshold is sacred as the primitive altar.
Apart from the reverence for the threshold demanded of those who pass over it, there is an obvious sanctity of the threshold recognized in the placing of images and amulets underneath it, and in the sacrifices and offerings placed on it, as a means of guarding the dwelling within.
In the building of private houses, as well as temples, and city gateways, in ancient Assyria, images of various kinds and sizes, “in bronze, red jasper, yellow stone, and baked earth, … are buried beneath the stones of the threshold, so as to bar the entrance to all destructive spirits.” Invocations are graven upon these figures.[33]
Herodotus mentions[34] that, in the annual feast in honor of the god Osiris, “every Egyptian sacrifices a hog before the door of his house” on the evening before the festival. Osiris was the god who was the judge of the soul after death, and who in a peculiar sense stood for the truth of the life to come. Every Egyptian desired, above all, to be in loving covenant with Osiris, and when he would offer a welcoming sacrifice to him, he did so before the door of his own house, as before the primitive family altar. That it was the blood poured out at the threshold which was the essential act of covenanting in this sacrifice to Osiris, is evidenced in the fact that the animal sacrificed was not eaten in the family of the sacrificer, but was carried away by the swineherd who furnished it.
Bunches of grass dipped in blood, and touched by the king, as if made representative of his dignity and power, are to-day placed on the threshold, as an offering, and as averters of evil, in Equatorial Africa. This is known there as an ancient custom. In Uganda, “every house has charms hung on the door, and others laid on the threshold.” An offering to the lubare, or local spirit, must be thrown across the threshold, from within the house, before a native ventures to leave his home in the morning.[35] Charms for this purpose are kept behind the door.
One of the requirements in the Vedic law (the sacred law of the Hindoos) was, that “on the door-sill (a bali must be placed) with a mantra addressed to Antariksha (the air),”[36] by a house father, in his home;[37] that is, that an offering, with an invocation to a deity, should be a sacrifice at the threshold altar. Other references in the Hindoo laws seem to demand bali offerings “at all the doors, as many as they are,” in a house, and evidence the importance and sacredness attaching to the doorway.[38]
The threshold seems to have special reverence in Northwestern India, in connection with the seasons of seedtime and harvest. At seedtime “a cake of cowdung formed into a cup” is placed on the threshold of the householder; it is filled with corn, and then water is poured over it as a libation to the deities. Cowdung is not only a means of enrichment to the soil, but it is a gift from the sacred cow, and so, in a sense, represents or stands for the life of the cow. It is laid on the threshold altar as an offering of life. The libation of water is an accompaniment of that offering; water is essential to life and growth, and it is a gift of the gods accordingly. Seed-sowing is recognized as an act which needs the blessing of the gods, and on which that blessing is sought in covenant relations.
At early harvest time the first-fruits of the grain-field are not taken to the threshing-floor, but are brought home to be presented to the gods at the household altar, and afterwards eaten by the family, with a portion given to the Brahmans. The first bundle of corn is deposited at the threshold of the home, and a libation of water is made as a completion of its offering. The grain being taken from the ear, of a portion of this first-fruits, is mixed with milk and sugar, and every member of the family tastes it seven times.[39]
Among the Prabhus of Bombay, at the time of the birth of a child, an iron crowbar is placed “along the threshold of the room of confinement, as a check against the crossing of any evil spirit.” This is in accordance with a Hindoo belief that evil spirits keep aloof from iron, “and even nowadays pieces of horseshoe can be seen nailed to the bottom sills of doors of native houses.”[40] Iron seems, in various lands, to be deemed of peculiar value as a guard against evil spirits, and the threshold to be the place for its efficacious fixing.
Similarly, “in East Bothnia, when the cows are taken out of their winter quarters for the first time, an iron bar is laid before the threshold, over which all the cows must pass; for, if they do not, there will be nothing but trouble with them all the following summer.”[41]
Among the folk customs in the line of exorcism and divination in Italy, the threshold has prominence. “In Tuscany, much taking of magical medicine is done on the threshold; it also plays a part in other sorcery.”[42] A writer mentions a method of exorcism with incense, where three pinches of the best incense, and three of the second quality, are put in a row on the threshold of the door, and then, after other incense is burned within the house in an earthen fire-dish, these “little piles of incense on the threshold of the door” are lighted, with words of invocation. This process is repeated three times over.[43]
A method of curing a disorder of the wrist prevalent in harvest time, in North Germany, is by taking “three pieces of three-jointed straw,” and so laying them “side by side as to correspond joint by joint,” then chopping through the first joint into the block beneath. This “ceremony is performed on the threshold, and ends with the sign of the cross.”[44]
Observances with reference to the threshold are numerous in Russia. “On it a cross is drawn to keep off maras (hags). Under it the peasants bury stillborn children. In Lithuania, when a new house is being built, a wooden cross, or some article which has been handed down from past generations, is placed under the threshold. There also when a newly baptized child is being brought back from church, it is customary for its father to hold it for a while over the threshold, ‘so as to place the new member of the family under the protection of the domestic divinities’ [bringing it newly into the family covenant at the threshold altar]. … Sick children, who are supposed to have been afflicted by an evil eye, are washed on the threshold of their cottage, in order that, with the help of the Penates who reside there, the malady may be driven out of doors.”[45]
At the annual feast known as “Death Week,” among Slavonic peoples, marking the close of winter and the beginning of spring, the peasants in rural Russia combine for a sacrifice to appease the “Vodyaoui,” or aroused water-spirit of the thawing streams. They also prepare a sacrifice for the “Domovoi” or house-spirit. A fat black pig is killed, and cut into as many pieces as there are residents in the place. “Each resident receives one piece, which he straightway buries under the door-step at the entrance to his house. In some parts, it is said, the country folk bury a few eggs beneath the threshold of the dwelling to propitiate the ‘Domovoi.’ ”[46]
When a Magyar maiden would win the love of a young man, or would bring evil on him because of his reluctance, she seeks influence over him by means of the sacred threshold. “She must steal something from the young man, and take it to a witch, who adds to it three beans, three bulbs of garlic, a few pieces of dry coal, and a dead frog. These are all put into an earthenware pot, and placed under the threshold,” with a prayer for the object of her desire.[47]
A superstition is prevalent in Roumania, that if a bat, together with a gold coin, be buried under the threshold, there is “good luck” to the house.[48] Various superstitions, in connection with the bat are found among primitive peoples.[49]
In Japan, the threshold of the door is sprinkled with salt, after a funeral, and as a propitiatory sacrifice in time of danger.[50] Salt represents blood.
Among the Dyaks of Borneo, a pig’s blood is sprinkled at the doorway to atone for the sin of unchastity by a daughter of the family. Again, the blood of a fowl is sprinkled there at the annual festival of seed-sowing, with prayers for fecundity and fertility.[51]
“On New Year’s morning, along the coast [in Aberdeenshire] where seaweed is gathered, a small quantity is laid down at each door of the farm-steading [the buildings of the homestead], as a means of bringing good luck.” And fire and salt are put on the threshold of the byre-door before a cow leaves the building after giving birth to a calf.[52]
Of portions of Ireland, it was said, early in this century: “On the 11th of November, every family of a village kills an animal of some kind or other; those who are rich kill a cow or sheep, others a goose or a turkey; while those who are poor … kill a hen or a cock, and sprinkle the threshold with the blood, and do the same in the four corners of the house; … to exclude every kind of evil spirit from the dwelling.”[53]
Holes bored in the door-sill, and plugged with pieces of paper on which are written incantations, a broom laid across the door-sill, or “three horseshoes nailed on the door-step with toes up,” are supposed to be a guard against witches or evil spirits in portions of Pennsylvania to-day.[54] Many a Pennsylvanian is unwilling to cross, for the first time, the threshold of a new home, without carrying salt and a Bible.
Among the Indians in ancient Mexico there was an altar near the door of every house, with instruments of sacrifice, and accompanying idols.[55]
“Threshold” and “foundation” are terms that are used interchangeably in primitive life. The sacredness of the threshold-stone of a building pivots on its position as a foundation stone, a beginning stone, a boundary stone. Hence the foundation stone of any house, or other structure was sacred as the threshold of that building. According to Dr. H.V. Hilprecht, in the earlier buildings of Babylonia the inscriptions and invocations and deposits were at the threshold, and later under the four corners of the building; but when they were at the threshold they were not under the corners, and vice versa. It would seem from this that the corner-stone was recognized as the beginning, or the limit, or the threshold, of the building. It may be, therefore, that the modern ceremonies at the laying of a “corner-stone” are a survival of the primitive sacredness of a threshold-laying.[56]
It would seem, moreover, as if the sanctity of the threshold as the primitive altar were, in many places, in the course of time transferred to the family hearth. In the primitive tent the household fire was at the entrance way, as it is in the tents of the East to-day. Where Arabs have camped on an Eastern desert, the place of the shaykh’s tent can always be known by the blackened hearthstones at its entrance, or threshold, where he welcomed guests to the hospitality of his tribe and family by the sharing of bread and salt, or by the outpouring of the blood of a slaughtered lamb or kid.
If, indeed, the earliest dwelling of man was a cave, rather than a tent, the household fire was still at its entrance; and the threshold was the hearthstone. When, in the progress of building-changes, the hearthstone was removed to the center of the building, or of the inner court, its sanctity went with it, as the place of the family fire. Thus, for example, in Russia, the Domovoi, or household deity, who is honored and invoked at the threshold, “is supposed to live behind the stove now, but in early times he, or the spirits of the dead ancestors, of whom he is now the chief representative, were held to be in even more direct relations with the fire on the hearth; as were the Penates of the Romans, who were sometimes spoken of as at the threshold, and again as at the hearth.”[57]
A recognition of the peculiar sacredness of the threshold is shown, in different lands, by the popular unwillingness to have the dead carried over it on the way to burial. In India, the body of one dying in certain phases of the moon can in no wise be carried over the threshold. The house wall must be broken for its removal.[58] When Chinese students are attending the competitive examinations for promotion, they are shut up in rooms until their work is completed. If one of them dies at such a time, “the body is removed over the back wall, as the taking out openly through the front door would be regarded as an evil omen.”[59]
In the capital of Korea there is a small gate in the city wall known as the “Gate of the Dead,” through which alone a dead body can be carried out. But no one can ever enter through that passage-way.[60]
There is a recognition, in Russian folk-tales, of safety to the spirit of one who dies in a house, if his body be passed out under the threshold of the outer door.[61]
It is not allowable to carry out a corpse through the main door of a house in Italy. There is a smaller door, in the side wall, known as the porta di morti, which is kept closed except as it is opened for the removal of a body at the time of a funeral.[62]
In Alaska, it is deemed an evil omen for the dead to be carried over the threshold. “Therefore the dying one, instead of being allowed to rest in peace in his last hours, is hastily lifted from his couch and put out of doors [or out of the house] by a hole in the rear wall” so as not to have a corpse pass the threshold.[63]
In some communities, in both Europe and America, the coffin is passed out of the house through the window, instead of through the door, at a funeral. And again, the front door is closed and a window is opened at the time of a death, in order that the spirit may pass out of the house in some other way than over the threshold.[64]
Even though the dead may not be lifted over the threshold altar, the dead may be buried underneath it. In both the far East and the far West, burials under the threshold are known. And in Christian churches of Europe, a grave underneath the altar is an honored grave for saint or ecclesiastic.
In the Apocalypse the seer beheld “underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”[65]
Marriage customs in various parts of the world, in ancient and modern times, illustrate this idea of the sacredness of the threshold as the family altar.
In portions of Syria, when a bride is brought to her husband’s home, a lamb or a kid is sacrificed on the threshold, and she must step across the outpoured blood.[66] This marks her adoption into that family.
Among the wide-spreading ʾAnazeh Bed´ween, the most prominent and extensive tribe of desert Arabs, whose range is from the Sinaitic Peninsula to the upper Desert of Syria, “when the marriage day is fixed, the bridegroom comes with a lamb in his arms to the tent of the father of his bride, and then, before witnesses, he cuts its throat. As soon as the blood falls upon the earth [and the earth is the only threshold of a tent], the marriage ceremony is regarded as complete.”[67] “In Egypt, the Copts sacrifice a sheep as the bride steps into the bridegroom’s house, and she is compelled to step over the blood which flows upon the threshold in the doorway.”[68] It is evident, moreover, that this custom is not confined to the Copts.[69]
Blood on the threshold, as an accompaniment of a marriage, is still counted important among Armenian Christians in Turkey. After the formal marriage ceremony at the church, the wedded pair, with their friends, proceed to the bridegroom’s home. “At the moment of their arrival a sheep is sacrificed on the threshold, over the blood of which the wedding party steps to enter the house.”[70]
In the island of Cyprus, a bridegroom is borne to the house of his bride on the wedding morning, in a living chair formed by the crossed hands of his neighbor friends. Dismounting at her door, “as he is about to pass in, a fowl is brought and held down by head and feet upon the threshold of the door; the bridegroom takes an axe, cuts off the head, and only then may he enter.”[71]
Like customs are found among yet more primitive peoples. Thus, for instance, with the western Somali tribes, in east Central Africa: “On reaching the bridegroom’s house a low-caste man sacrifices a goat or sheep on the threshold; and the bride steps over it;” and again when the bridegroom returns from his devotions at a neighboring masjid (a place of public prayer) to claim his bride, as he reaches his threshold, “another goat is sacrificed, and he steps over it in the same way as his bride.”[72] Again the bridegroom himself brings the bride from her father’s hut to his own, accompanied by young men and maidens dancing and singing. “On reaching the new hut, the bride holds a goat or sheep in the doorway, while the bridegroom cuts its throat in the orthodox manner with his jambia (long knife). The bride dips her finger in the blood, smears it on her forehead, … and then enters the gúrí, stepping over the blood. The bridegroom follows her, also stepping over the blood, and is accompanied by some of his nearest male relatives.”[73]
There are traces of such customs, also, among the natives of South Africa,[74] and elsewhere.
Besides the bloody sacrifices at the threshold, in the marriage ceremony, there are, in different countries, various forms of making offerings at the threshold, and of surmounting obstacles at that point, as an accompaniment of the wedding covenant. All these point to the importance and sanctity of the threshold and doorway in the primitive mind.
A bride, in portions of Upper Syria, on reaching her husband’s house, is lifted up so that she can press against the door-lintel a piece of dough, prepared for the purpose, and handed to her at the time. This soft dough, thus pressed against the plastered or clay wall, adheres firmly, and is left there as long as it will remain. The open hand of the bride stamps the dough as it is fixed in place, and in some cases the finger points are pricked before the stamping, so that the blood will appear as a sign manual on the cake of dough.[75]
When a bride reaches the door of her husband’s house, among the fellaheen of Palestine, a jar of water is placed on her head. She must call on the name of God as she crosses the threshold; and, at the same moment, her husband strikes the jar from her head, and causes the water to flow as a libation.[76]
Among the Wallachians there is a marriage rite, said to be of Latin origin, because there was a similar rite among the old Latins. The Wallachian bride is borne on horseback, with an accompanying procession, to the house of the bridegroom. “At the moment when the betrothed maiden dismounts from her steed, and is about to cross the threshold, they present to her butter, or sometimes honey, and with this she smears the door-posts.”[77]
An observer says of this rite: “For the same reason among the Latins, the word for wife, uxor, originally unxor, was derived from the verb ungere, ‘to anoint,’ because the maidens when they reached the threshold of their future husbands, were similarly accustomed to anoint the door-posts.” In support of this fanciful etymology, old-time commentators on Terence and Virgil are cited;[78] which shows, at least, that this ceremony at the threshold of the husband’s home has long been recognized as of vital importance in the marriage contract and relation.
It is customary, among the Greeks in Turkey, for the mother of the bridegroom, as he leaves his home to go for his bride on the morning of his wedding, to lay across his pathway a girdle, over which he steps, and to pour a libation of water before him.[79]
In the Morea, in the vicinity of Sparta, it is said that, when the bride is brought to her new home, the mother of the bridegroom “stands waiting at the door, holding a glass of honey and water in her hand. From this glass the bride must drink; … while the lintel of the door is smeared with the remainder; … in the meantime one of the company breaks a pomegranate on the threshold.”[80] In Rhodes, when the newly married couple enter the doorway of their new home, the husband “dips his finger in a cup of honey, and traces a cross over the door. … A pomegranate is placed on the threshold, which the young husband crushes with his foot as he enters, followed by his wife, over whom the wedding guests throw corn and cotton seeds and orange flower water.”[81]
On Skarpanto (Carpathos), an island lying between Rhodes and Crete, when the bridegroom reaches the door of the bride’s house “he is greeted by the mother of the bride, who touches the nape of his neck with a censer containing incense. … She further gives him a present called embatikon,–that is to say, ‘the gift of in-going,’–and then places on the threshold a rug or blanket folded, with a stick resting on one of the corners. The bridegroom advances his right foot, breaks the stick and passes in.”[82]
Among the Morlacchi, in Dalmatia, it is, or was, a custom for a bride to kneel and kiss the threshold of her husband’s home, before crossing it for the first time. Her mother-in-law, or some other near relative of her husband, at the same time presented her with a sieve full of different kinds of grain, nuts, and small fruits, which the bride scattered behind her back as she passed in.[83]
It is a custom in portions of Russia, when the bride is about to leave her father’s home to meet the bridegroom, for the friends of the bridegroom to appear at the door, and request that the bride be brought to them. “After their request has been many times repeated, the ‘princess’ [as the bride is called] appears, attended by her relatives and attendants, but stops short at the door. Again the bridegroom’s friends demand the bride, but are told first to ‘cleanse the threshold; then will the young princess cross the threshold.’ ” Thereupon gifts are made by the bridegroom’s friend, and the bride crosses the threshold to go to the bridegroom.[84]
Among the Mordvins (or, Mordevins), a Finnish people on the Volga, there are various customs in connection with marriage, tending to confirm the idea that the threshold is the household altar. In a ceremony of betrothal, with a conference over the terms of dowry, a prayer is offered to the “goddess of the homestead,” and the “goddess of the dwelling-house;” “the girl’s father then cuts off the corner of a loaf of bread with three slashes of a knife, salts it, and places it under the threshold, where the Penates are believed to frequent. This is called the ‘gods’ portion.’ ” Bread and salt are factors in a sacred covenant, and their proffer to the household gods, at the threshold altar, would seem to be an invitation to those gods to be a party to the new marriage covenant. Again, after the terms of betrothal are agreed on, there is the feast of “hand-striking,” or ratification of the betrothal. On that occasion also the “gods’ portion” is offered; and “a little brandy is spilt under the threshold. Bread and salt are once more placed under the threshold by the bride’s father, who carries it from the table to the household altar “on the point of the knife–under no circumstances in his hands.”[85]
A custom of strewing the threshold of the home of a new-married couple prevailed in Holland until recent times.[86] This was obviously a form of offering at the household altar.
On the evening before the marriage ceremony, in the rural districts and smaller towns of Northern Germany, the boys and girls, and others in the neighborhood, are accustomed to appear at the door of the bride’s house, and smash on the threshold earthen pots and jars, with loud cries of joy. “Sometimes, whole car-loads of broken pottery have to be removed from the door the next morning.” And when the young couple return to their home, after the ceremony at the church, poor boys and girls are accustomed to stretch a colored cord across the door of the house, to prevent a passage over the threshold, unless the bridegroom throws a handful of small coins among those who bar the way.[87]
Traces of the sacredness of the threshold altar seem to exist in the wedding ceremonies in villages on the coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. “After the marriage is solemnized, … the bride’s guests are entertained at her home, and the bridegroom’s at his. … When the bride returns to her father’s house, after the marriage, broken bread of various sorts is thrown over her before she enters. The same ceremony is gone through with the bridegroom at his father’s door.”[88]
When a girl among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo is married, the wedding takes place at her house. The marriage rite includes the erecting an altar before the door of the house, and placing on it an offering of prepared areca-nut, covered with a red cloth, the color of blood. The families of the bride and the groom then partake of that offering in covenant conclave.[89]
A lover, among the Woolwas, in Central America, when wooing a bride, would bring a deer’s carcass, and a bundle of firewood, and deposit it outside of her house door. If she accepted these, and took them over the threshold, it was a betrothal.[90] The covenant seemed to consist in the reaching across the threshold and accepting a proffered offering in a spirit of loving agreement.
Among the Towkas, in the same part of the world, a bridegroom would go with his friends to the home of his bride, carrying a bundle of gifts for her. Sitting down outside of the door, he would call on her family to open to him. There being no response, music would then be tried by his friends. At this the door would be opened just far enough for him to put a gift inside over the threshold. One by one his gifts would be passed in, in this way, while the door opened wider and wider. When the last gift was over the threshold, the lover would spring within, and, seizing the bride, would carry her across the threshold, and take her to a temporary hut erected within a charmed circle near by, while his friends guarded him from intrusion.[91]
And thus, in various ways, among widely different primitive peoples, the marriage customs go to show that the home threshold cannot be passed except by overcoming a barrier of some kind, and making an offering, bloody or bloodless, at this primal family altar. An essential part of the covenant of union is a halting at, and then passing over, the threshold of the new home, with an accompanying sacrifice.
Even more widespread and prominent than the custom of offering blood, or of making a libation, or of overcoming a special barrier, at the threshold, or of anointing or stamping the posts or lintel of the doorway as a sign of the covenant, at the time of a marriage, and as a part of the ceremony, is the habit of causing the bride to cross the threshold with care, without stepping upon it. This custom is of well-nigh world-wide observance, and it has attracted the attention of anthropologists and students of primitive customs. A favorite method of explaining it has been by calling it a survival of the practice of “marriage by capture;” but this is nothing more than an unscientific guess, in defiance of the truth that persistent popular customs have their origin in a sentiment, and not in a passing historic practice. The earliest mentions of this custom, of the bride’s crossing the threshold without stepping on it, show it as a voluntary religious rite; and there are traces of its recognition in this light from the earliest times until now.
In the Vedic Sutras, or the sacrificial rules of the ancient Hindoo literature, it is specifically declared that a bride, on entering her husband’s home, shall step across the threshold, and not upon it. She is not lifted over the door-sill, but she voluntarily crosses it. Thus it is said: “When (the bridegroom with his bride) has come to his house, he says to her, ‘Cross (the threshold) with thy right foot first; do not stand on the threshold.’ ”[92] In this ancient ceremony, grains of rice are poured on the heads of the bridegroom and his bride.[93] This modern custom has, therefore, a very early origin. And again: “He makes her enter the house (which she does) with her right foot. And she does not stand on the threshold.”[94]
Putting the right foot forward seems to be a matter of importance in various primitive religions. “Put your right foot first” is a maxim ascribed to Pythagoras.[95] In his description of the proportions of a temple, the Roman architect Vitruvius said: “The number of steps in front should always be odd, since, in that case, the right foot, which begins the ascent, will be that which first alights on the landing of the temple.”[96] A Muhammadan is always careful to put his right foot first in crossing over the threshold of a mosk.[97]
Among the Albanians, when the bride is taken to the home of the bridegroom, accompanied by the vlam, or “the friend of the bridegroom,” it is said that “particular care is taken that the threshold should be crossed with the right foot foremost.”[98] Here, as in India, the crossing of the threshold is a voluntary act. The bride is not lifted over, but crosses of her own accord. If she be veiled, the lifting is a necessity.
In Madagascar, “on entering a house, especially a royal house, it is improper to use the left foot on first stepping into it. One must ‘put one’s best (or right) foot foremost.’ ”[99]
The bride, in Upper Syria, is sometimes carried across the threshold of the bridegroom’s house by friends of the bridegroom.[100] She, of course, is veiled.
When the bride reaches the outer gate of her husband’s residence, in Egypt, the bridegroom meets her, enveloped as she is in her cashmere shawl, clasps her in his arms, and carries her across the threshold, and up to the doorway of the female apartments.[101]
In portions of Abyssinia, the bridegroom carries his bride from her home to his, bearing her across the threshold as he enters his house.[102]
So, also, it is among the more primitive tribes in West Africa. The bride is carried over the threshold in a rude chair, or on the shoulders of her friends, into her new home.[103]
There are traces of a similar custom in the marriage ceremonies of ancient Assyria.[104]
Again, it is said to be found among the Khonds of Orissa,[105] the Tatars,[106] and the Eskimos.[107]
In ancient Greece[108] and in ancient Rome[109] the lifting of the bride over the threshold of her new home was an important part of the marriage ceremony. Classic writers had their explanations of this custom, as certain modern anthropologists have theirs, but the origin of the ceremony was earlier than they imagined.