The blood covenant : a primitive rite and its bearing on scripture / by H. Clay Trumbull.

  • Henry Clay Trumbull
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The blood covenant : a primitive rite and its bearing on scripture / by H. Clay Trumbull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to the community, and beneficial to the individuals by whom the compact was formed. Yet again, this covenant of blood-fi-iendship is found in different parts of Borneo. In the days of Mr. Ellis, the Rev. W. Medhurst, a missionary of the London Missionary Society, in Java, described it, in reporting a visit made to the Dayaks of Borneo, by one of his assistants, together with a missionary of the Rhenish Missionary Society.^ Telling of the kindly greeting given to these visitors at a place called Golong, he says that the natives wished to establish a fraternal agreement with the missionaries, on condition that the latter should teach them the ways of God. The travelers replied, that if the Dayaks became the disciples of Christ, they would be constituted the brethren of Christ without any formal compact. The Dayaks, however, insisted that the travelers should enter into a compact [with them], according to the custom of the country, by means of blood. The missionaries were startled at this, think- ing that the Dayaks meant to murder them, and com- mitted themselves to their Heavenly Father, praying that, whethei: living or dying, they might lie at the feet of their Saviour. It appears, however, that it is the custom of the Dayaks, when they enter into a covenant, to draw a little blood from the arms of the ^ Cited in Ellis's Hist, of Mad., I., 191, note. 5
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