Thicker than Water: The Origins of Blood as Symbol and Ritual (review)

In Thicker than Water Melissa Meyer pursues an ambitious project that aims to investigate the symbols and rituals that comprise what she understands to be human beings' universal "obsession" with blood as a physical substance. In the course of the book Meyer incorporates and examines wide-ranging sources of information that include the historical and the ethnographic. Bringing these disparate sets of information together, Meyer presents an argument for "patterned heterogeneity" indicative of extensive geographic and historical "cultural continuity" (205). She finds evidence for this continuity by examining the role that blood plays at different stages in the human life cycle beginning with conception and childbirth and extending into menarche and initiation rituals.

Meyer's writing is clear and informative. The reader does not have to decode a lot of jargon or unnecessarily complex language, but the reader will find a text dense with information and ideas. The book is divided into seven chapters, with introductory and concluding chapters bracketing five substantive chapters examining the origins of human culture; conception, pregnancy, and childbirth; initiation rites; menstruation; and sacrifice. In the substantive chapters specific examples tend to be predominant, and at times the treatment of these examples is lengthy. While the overall argument is relatively clear, the reader may occasionally wonder how the interesting detail furthers the central argument.

The book opens with a detailed consideration of the biology and psychology of blood as a symbol of universal importance. These scientific fields seem a logical starting point for Meyer's premise of universality. She marshals evidence that indicates that the color red is particularly salient and meaningful for physiological reasons. Then she proceeds to introduce and to evaluate Chris Knight's "sex strike theory," which suggests that blood is a key substance at the root of the development of human culture, linking female sexual receptivity and fertility to male provision of meat. While Meyer offers important points of critique for this theory, it remains the heart of chapter 2 and in many ways the foundation for the rest of Meyer's argument. Here the reader encounters the beginning of key distinctions for Meyer: female versus male blood; blood of menstruation and childbirth versus blood of hunting and sacrifice; and blood of biological reproduction versus blood of social reproduction.

In subsequent chapters the argument elaborates on these key distinctions by examining key moments in humans' life cycles. The significance of blood as a substance seems to stem largely from its relationship to women's bodies and to fertility and reproduction. However, according to Meyer, blood's role and significance extend well beyond this connection to women and to biological reproduction. In fact, Meyer suggests that blood with this association is in tension with the blood of sacrifice and social reproduction. Though it is an understated part of Meyer's argument, she suggests that, usually in concert with increased social complexity, men have often established the blood that they control (the blood of sacrifice and social reproduction) as symbolically and ritually more important than the blood of women (the blood of menstruation, fertility, and reproduction). Here her detailed examples from history and ethnography cover examples from menstrual taboos to male bloodletting rituals.

The breadth of Meyer's research for this book is impressive. It is well documented, and Meyer works with great facility in drawing on the work of both historians and anthropologists as well as work in the biological sciences. A close reader of Thicker than Water will encounter a very extensive and substantive review of the relevant literature that will be extremely helpful for anyone interested in Meyer's ideas and looking to read further. A reader with more experience in the relevant fields will likely find interesting reminders of and connections with important works. As I read chapter 6 on sacrifice, for example, I found myself thinking back to James Frazer and...