s
an article of food, but through its milk and its use as a means of
transport, was yet eaten sacrificially owing to the persistence of the
belief that the essential bond which united the tribe was the communal
eating of the flesh of the animal from which the tribe obtained its
subsistence: so when the community reaches the agricultural stage
the old communal feast is retained as the bond of union, but it now
consists of grain, which is the principal support of life.

86. The corn-sprit.

The totem-animal was regarded as a kinsman, and the domestic
animal often as a god. [210] But in both these cases the life of
the kinsman and god was sacrificed in order that the community
might be bound together by eating the body and assimilating the
life. Consequently, when grain came to be the sacrificial food, it
was often held that an animal or human being must be sacrificed in
the character of the corn-god or spirit, whether his own flesh was
eaten or the sacred grain was imagined to be his flesh. Numerous
instances of the sacrifice of the corn-spirit have been adduced by
Sir J.G. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_, and it was he who brought
this custom prominently to notice. One of the most important cases
in India was the Meriah-sacrifice of the Khonds, which is described
in the article on that tribe.

Two features of the Khond sacrifice of a human victim as a corn-spirit
appear to indicate its derivation from the sacrifice of the domestic
animal and the eating of the totem-animal, the ties uniting the clan
and tribe: first, that the flesh was cut from the living victim, and,
second, that the sacrifice was communal. When the Meriah-victim was
bound the Khonds hacked at him with their knives while life remained,
leaving only the head and bowels untouched, so that each man might
secure a strip of flesh. This rite appears to recall the earliest
period when the members of the primitive group or clan tore their prey
to pieces and ate and drank the raw flesh and blood. The reason for
its survival was apparently that it was the actual life of the divine
victim, existing in concrete form in the flesh and blood which they
desired to obtain, and they thought that this end was more certainly
achieved by cutting the flesh off him while he was still alive. In
the sacrifice of the camel in Arabia the same procedure was followed;
the camel was bound on an altar and the tribesmen cut the flesh from
the body with their knives and swallowed