Abstract
THE DIVINITY OF THE GUEST.—In the Ceylon Journal of Science, vol. 1, Pt. 3, Mr. A. M. Hocart discusses the position of the guest and his relation to his host in ancient Greece, in India, and in Fiji. In ancient Greece no distinction was made between a stranger, a host, and a guest, as they were not distinguishable. Further, not only was the god present with the stranger, and Zeus the patron of strangers, but also he was often regarded either as a god or actually was a god, as is shown in the manner in which Odysseus was addressed in Phaeacia. The exchange of gifts and the return of hospitality, potential or actual, created a bond of hereditary guest friendship out of which grew the consular system in historical times. The idea that the god accompanied strangers was evidently a check on an unhospitable age. In India, in the Atharvaveda the divine character of the guest is worked out in detail, every act of hospitality being identified with some phase of the sacrifice to a god. In the Anguttara Nikaya, the offerings to the Manes include a reception of guests, who are selected either as being learned or virtuous Brahmans, or as being relations through females. In Fiji, various ceremonial observances towards strangers, including the making of gifts, point to their sacred or heavenly character. In Fiji, however, intercourse takes place only through kinsmen, the kinship being either actual or, in case of necessity, fictitious. It is reckoned through the female. There was also a system of official guest friends. It is suggested that the Homeric system may have developed from some such archaic form as the Fijian, India being the common link in which the offerings to kinsmen and guests are distinguished, while in Fiji the recipients are identical; but in both countries divine honours were accorded to guests. The resulting hypothesis is that the divinity of the guest grows out of the divinity of the kinsman, who stands in cross relationship to the host, and this is extended fictitiously to any stranger.
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Research Items. Nature 119, 540–542 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/119540a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/119540a0