"
Blood is thicker than water" is a common proverb
shared and spread amongst families all across the globe. Although I was
taught it conveys the importance of family over friends, there was a
loose screw that refused to fit the meaning together with those words.
Parents would tell you that "blood" is a metaphor for family while
"water" is the metaphor for friends. However, such explanation didn't
make sense to me because I have never heard of 'friends' being
personified by
water.
Another thing that disturbed me is the idea of giving importance to
the family no matter how dysfunctional or detrimental it could become to
one's mental state. Why would you sacrifice your own happiness to help a
member who consistently suffers from dependent personality disorder, is
alcoholic or even a drug addict? I cannot accept this thinking. I set
out to search for the origin of the the proverb and discovered that
people has been using the proverb
wrong.
Years of peace have changed the meaning of this proverb turning it
from a politically related dictum into a family phrase. Yes! In the
past, "Blood is thicker than water" was a wisdom amongst soldiers,
generals and leaders and it had a complete opposite meaning from today's
interpretation. For people during the warring eras it simply meant
something like, " My allegiance to the confederate is more important
than my family."
Way back before the time of Jesus Christ, leaders of nations would
swear allegiance in a ritual called the blood pact or the covenant:
. . . suppose two nations desired to enter into covenant. Each
nation would select a representative, and the representatives would
meet; weapons would be exchanged, i.e., the strengths of each nation
would be swapped. Cloaks would be exchanged; for the cloak was the
'selfhood' of each man and thus each nation. Then, covenant sacrifices
were brought, two bulls. The bulls would be split down the middle, and
between the halves would be a pool of blood. Then the representatives
would walk through the blood and around the drawn carcasses in a figure
eight (this is the provenance of the symbol for infinity). And they
would finish their promenade standing in the blood, facing each other.
And the statement being made was this "this covenant is to life, and if
it is broken, I will die even as this animal has died. Unto death I make
my vow." (Radic)
Other representatives of nations would even end the ritual by cutting
the center of their palm and mixing their blood together in a
handshake, signifying that the covenant cannot be unbound unless by
death. One of the early record of this type of covenant in the
Philippines was in 1565 between Miguel Lopez de Legazpi of Spain and
Rajah Sikatuna of Bohol, which was a little after the Battle of Mactan
(I have actually visited the site of the Blood Pact twice!).
The covenant was a quintessential part of an alliance between
nations what with matter of life and death being involved. Men of
ancient past have done this for quite some time as history has shown and
it's not just something that comes out of a Bible. Perhaps we should
give the Bible the benefit of the doubt and reconsider it as a reliable
source rather than invalidating its foundations in its entirety. But I
digress.
So, for the leaders of the past, the "blood" in the phrase in
discussion is the covenant. As for the water it simply symbolizes the
amniotic fluid in the womb, shared by siblings or family (which makes a
lot more sense than saying that it symbolizes your friends) as pointed
out by a Congregational Leader, Richard R. Pustelniak in his article,
"How Shall I Know?" :
This phrase has completely lost its original, covenant-related, meaning. Today, it is interpreted as meaning that blood-related
family members are to be considered as more important than anyone else.
However, the original meaning is, "The blood of the covenant is
thicker than the water of the womb," (2 Terms)
I am very much relieved having discovered the phrase's original
meaning for I thought the world has gone mad. It is a lot easier for me
to accept the primordial instead of the former. If you think about it,
breaking a covenant is a lot riskier than helping your family because
you not only lose your reputation, status and prestige as a leader or a
representative but you also lose your own life. I totally buy this.
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Pustelniak, Richard R. "How Shall I know? The Blood Covenant"
Beit Avanim Chaiot, Inc., a Messianic Jewish Congregation. http://www.bac2torah.com/covenant-Print.htm
Oct 1. 1994 Mon. Jan 21. 2013
Radic, Randall E Dr. "The Covenants." Grace Notes.
http://www.realtime.net/~wdoud/covenants/covenants.html
n.d. Mon. Jan 21. 2013
.
