In confirmation of the claim that human life, or blood, was deemed essential in the foundation, or the threshold laying of a city,[719] Professor Mahaffy says: “Great Hellenistic cities, as, for instance, Antioch, had a girl sacrificed at their foundation. It was she, apparently, that afterwards appeared as the personification of the city, ἡ τύχη [_hē tuchē_, ‘the fortune,’] as it was called.”
“The ‘red hand of the O’Neills’ is a famous coat-of-arms well known in Ireland. Lord O’Neill now bears it.”
As to my assumption that the first hearthstone must have been, in the nature of things, at the threshold of the cave or tent or hut, as it still is among primitive peoples, and that the first stone laid at the corner, or at the doorway, of a house or building, was, by the very fact of its first laying, the threshold of that structure, Professor Mahaffy says: “I don’t believe in the identification of (1) foundation stone, (2) threshold, (3) house corner, (4) hearthstone, without clear proof.”
This was so in parts of New England, fifty years ago. I have seen the main hall or front “entry” of a farmhouse in Connecticut used as a bedroom, with a high-post state bedstead against the front door. In case of a funeral or wedding the bedstead would be removed, in order that the door might be opened.–H.C.T.
In Dr. Lamberton, Professor of Greek, and Dean of the Department of Philosophy, the University of Pennsylvania has a scholar as acute and discerning in his observations as he is full and accurate in knowledge in his special field of classic Greek. He has been familiar with the results of my researches during my progress of recent years, and he has this to say, after examining the proof-sheets of the completed work:
“Your induction seems to me to be very wide, and to include in its sweep all phases of civilization, which is practically as much as to say all periods of human existence, from the most primitive on.
“The significance of the threshold as altar, place of covenanting and worship, in house, temple, and domain, I think is completely made out.
“Very striking is the smiting of the blood, as sign of the covenant relation, upon the posts of the doorway; and in particular the mark of the red hand. The connection you endeavor to show between all this and the marriage rite is, to say the least of it, suggestive. The mystery of the gift and transmission of life, it has always seemed to me, early struck man; and that it did not have its issue only in perverted forms, is clear from the fragmentary glimpses we get into the Eleusinian mysteries, celebrated in honor of divinities of productivity. Purification from sin and blessedness in the next world appear to have been among the hopes of the initiated.