19 definitions
Animal sacrifice (n.) as burnt offering: as gods grew less material, eating their portion became a stumbling-block — so fire turned the flesh to smoke, a food fit for the divine.
Belief (n.) is not a component of early religion. No one supposed that, by believing, a man acquired religious merit and conciliated the favor of the Gods.
Crime (n.) means only murder and incest in primitive society — the sole offences the community as such takes cognizance of.
A Feast (n.) and a sacrifice were once inseparable: no sacrifice without a feast, and no feast without a sacrifice.
Hospitality (n.) binds, among the Bedouin, only as long as the shared food remains in the body — so it must be repeated to be made permanent.
Kinship (n.) is participation in a common substance — so it can be acquired by eating together; Arab tribesmen do not say 'his blood has been spilt' but 'our blood has been spilt'.
Kinship (n.) is older than family life: in the most primitive families, husband and wife were of different clans and never ate together.
The Knife (n.) at the Athenian Buphonia was put on trial after the ox was sacrificed, found responsible for the murder, and cast into the sea.
Mourning (n.) over the slain totem is obligatory, imposed by dread of retribution — its chief purpose is to disclaim responsibility for the killing.
Myth (n.) is not concerned with origin, but serves merely as part of the apparatus of the worship, acting to excite the fancy and sustain the interest of the worshipper.
The Prophet (n.) never stood before their hearers in a trance, Robertson Smith noted, unlike heathen seers thought holier the less they controlled themselves.