[214] Exod. 29 : 40; Lev. 23 : 12, 13; Num. 15 : 5, 10; 28 : 14, etc.; _Blood Covenant_, pp. 63-65.
As salt represents blood and life, quite naturally salt is employed in sacrifices, not only where there is no blood or life, but also where there is. And this accounts for the prominence of salt in sacrifices, and elsewhere, where blood or life is essential as a fitting offering, and as a bond of union.[216] Both wine and salt as substitutes for blood are frequently used together, as though one alone were not sufficient.[217]
[216] Herodotus, Plutarch, and Pliny, cited in Becker's _Charicles_, p. 330.
[217] See pp. 83 f., 92, _supra_; also Frazer's _Golden Bough_, II., 67-70.
Similarly, bread is a recognized representative of flesh. It is so understood in sacred and secular records and traditions. When Jesus spoke of bread as his flesh, and as his body,[218] and of the fruit of the vine as his blood, he used terms that in his day, and earlier, were known in popular thought as representing the truth at the basis of the covenant by which two became one in a merged common life.[219] Yet while bread was an accepted substitute for flesh, it was much used as an accompaniment of flesh[220] in sacrificial feasts. Thus bread and salt as recognized substitutes for flesh and blood came to be commonly used even where real flesh and blood were the main factors in the sacrifice. Substitutes for bread, such as honey and flour or meal, were, as already shown, also used in connection with bread. Hence it is not unnatural to find salt as blood accompanying blood itself. This is entirely in accord with primitive thought and customs generally.
[218] Comp. Matt. 26 : 26-28; Mark 14 : 22-24; Luke 22 : 19, 20; 1 Cor. 11 : 23-25.
[220] _Ibid._; Gen. 18 : 1-8; 31 : 54; Lev. 7 : 11-14; 23 : 15-20, etc.
On the occasion of a sacred alliance between clans, or in a treaty of peace at the close of a war, among the Kookies of India, there is a formal appeal to the gods, in which salt has an important part. A _dhar_, or short sword, is placed on the ground between the two parties. On it, as on an altar, "are arranged rice, salt, earth, fire, and a tiger's tooth. The party swearing takes the _dhar_ and puts the blade between his teeth, and, biting it, says, 'May I be cut with the _dhar_ in war and in the field; may rice and salt fail me, my crops wither, and I die of hunger; may fire burn all my worldly possessions, and the tiger devour me, if I am not faithful!'"[221]