BLOOD. — Contact with blood, which primitive experience regards as the organic element closely bound to life (cf. Lev. 17:14; Deut. 12:23), is held to produce two diametrically opposed effects: one positive and beneficial, the other negative and harmful, depending on its quality and the circumstances in which contact occurs.
As a vital element, blood is widely used in initiation rites intended to strengthen the young man who is entering the ranks of the adult members of the tribe. Thus, among the Arunta (central Australia), after being smeared with red ochre, which they regard as the residue of solidified blood, the young men are sprinkled with blood, which is then also sprinkled on the elders so that they may acquire strength. Among the Daiaki (Borneo), children up to the age of ten or twelve are, for the same purpose, smeared with blood, which is also used there to cure illness, inaugurate a house, and fertilize a field for sowing.
But blood can produce harmful effects if spilled through a wound caused accidentally or by another’s violence, in which case expiatory ceremonies are required. And if the matter concerns killings or wounds inflicted on a member of a tribe that regards itself as descended from the same ancestor, vengeance for the spilled blood is an obligation incumbent upon the entire group. For the same reason, incest, which entails the spilling of ancestral blood, is strictly forbidden; and the killing of a member of one’s own family is almost more a suicide than a crime (Aeschylus, Eumenides, 212).
In general, the culprit responsible for shedding another’s blood is punished in such a way that blood will not have to be shed, so as not to cause further pollution; namely, by burning, strangulation, or drowning. The Jews are forbidden to eat the flesh of animals that have been suffocated, whose blood, that is, has not all flowed out. At the dawn of Christianity, the Jewish Christians wanted the Gentile Christians to observe this prescription as well (Acts 15:20; 29).
Harmful effects are also produced by blood shed during menstruation, miscarriage, and childbirth. For the significance of blood in bloody sacrifice, V. SACRIFICIO.