AS BASED ON THE SIGNIFICANCE AND SYMBOLISM
OF SALT IN PRIMITIVE THOUGHT
BY
H. CLAY TRUMBULL
Author of "The Blood Covenant," "The Threshold Covenant,""Kadesh-barnea," "Studies in Oriental Social Life," etc.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1899
Copyright, 1899
By H. CLAY TRUMBULL
In 1884 I issued a volume on "The Blood Covenant:A Primitive Rite and its Bearings on Scripture."Later I was led to attempt, and to announce as inpreparation, another volume in the field of primitivecovenants, including a treatment of "The NameCovenant," "The Covenant of Salt," and "TheThreshold Covenant." In 1896, I issued a separatevolume on "The Threshold Covenant," that subjecthaving grown into such prominence in my studies asto justify its treatment by itself. These two works,"The Blood Covenant" and "The Threshold Covenant,"have been welcomed by scholars on both sidesof the ocean to an extent beyond my expectations,and in view of this I venture to submit some furtherresearches in the field of primitive thought andcustoms.
Before the issuing of my second volume, I had preparedthe main portion of this present work on "TheCovenant of Salt," but since then I have been led torevise it, and to conform it more fully to my latest[Pg vi]conclusion as to the practical identity of all covenants.It is in this form that I present it, as a fresh contributionto the study of archeology and of anthropology.
As I have come to see it, as a result of my researches,the very idea of a "covenant" in primitivethought is a union of being, or of persons, in a commonlife, with the approval of God, or of the gods.This was primarily a sharing of blood, which is life,between two persons, through a rite which had thesanction of him who is the source of all life. Inthis sense "blood brotherhood" and the "thresholdcovenant" are but different forms of one and thesame covenant. The blood of animals shared in acommon sacrifice is counted as the blood which makestwo one in a sacred covenant. Wine as "the bloodof the grape" stands for the blood which is the lifeof all flesh; hence the sharing of wine stands for thesharing of blood or life. So, again, salt representsblood, or life, and the covenant of salt is simply anotherform of the one blood covenant. This is the mainpoint of this new monograph. So far as I know, thistruth has not before been recognized or formulated.
Similarly the sharing of a common name, especiallyof the name of God, or of a god, is the claim of adivinely sanctioned covenant between those who bearit. It is another mode of claiming to be in the one[Pg vii]vital covenant. A temporary agreement, or truce,between two who share a drink of water or a morselof bread, is a lesser and very different thing fromentering into a covenant, which by its very nature ispermanent and unchangeable. This difference ispointed out and emphasized in the following pages.
In these new investigations, as in my former ones,I have been aided, step by step, by specialists, whohave kindly given me suggestions and assistance byevery means in their power. This furnishes a freshillustration of the readiness of all scholars to aid anyfresh worker in any line where their own labors renderthem an authority or a guide.
Besides my special acknowledgments in the textand footnotes of this