repudiation or renunciation on oath. At common law, it
signified the oath of a person who had taken sanctuary to
leave the realm for ever; this was abolished in the reign of
James I. The Oath at Abjuration, in English history, was
a solemn disclaimer, taken by members of parliament, clergy
and laymen against the right of the Stuarts to the crown,
imposed by laws of William III., George I. and George III.;
but its place has since been taken by the oath of allegiance.
ABKHASIA, or ABHASIA, a tract of Russian Caucasia,
government of Kutais. The Caucasus mountains on the N. and
N.E. divides it from Circassia; on the S.E. it is bounded
by Mingrelia; and on the S.W. by the Black Sea. Though the
country is generally mountainous, with dense forests of oak and
walnut, there are some deep, well-watered valleys, and the
climate is mild. The soil is fertile, producing wheat, maize,
grapes, figs, pomegranates and wine. Cattle and horses are
bred. Honey is produced; and excellent arms are made. This
country was subdued (c. 550) by the Emperor Justinian, who
introduced Christianity. Native dynasties ruled from 735 to
the 15th century, when the region was conquered by the Turks
and became Mahommedan. The Russians acquired possession
of it piecemeal between 1829 and 1842, but their power was
not firmly established until after 1864. Area, 2800 sq.
m. The principal town is Sukhum-kaleh. Pop. 43,000, of whom
two-thirds are Mingrelians and one-third Abkhasians, a Cherkess
or Circassian race. The total number of Abkhasians in the
two governments of Kutais and Kuban was 72,103 in 1897; large
numbers emigrated to the Turkish empire in 1864 and 1878.
ABLATION (from Lat. ablatus, carried away), the process of
removing anything; a term used technically in geology of the wearing
away of a rock or glacier, and in surgery for operative removal.
ABLATITIOUS (from Lat. ablatus, taken away). reducina
or withdrawing; in astronomy a force which interferes
between the moon and the earth to lessen the strength
of gravitation is called ``ablatitious,'' just as it is
called ``addititious'' when it increases that strength.
ABLATIVE (Lat. ablativus, sc. casus, from ablatum, taken
away), in grammar, a case of the noun, the fundamental sense
of which is direction from; in Latin, the principal language in
which the case exists, this has been extended, with or without
a preposition, to the instrument or agent of an act, and the
place or time at, and manner in, which a thing is done. The
case is also found in Sanskrit, Zend, Oscan and Umbrian, and
traces remain in other languages. The ``Ablative Absolute,''
a grammatical construction in Latin, consists of a noun in
the ablative case, with a participle, attribute or qualifying
word agreeing with it, not depending on any other part of the
sentence, to express the time, occasion or circumstance of a fact.
ABLUTION (Lat. ablutio, from ablucre, ``to wash off''),
a washing, in its religious use, destined to secure that
ceremonial or ritualistic purity which must not be confused
with the physical or hygienic cleanliness of persons and
things obtained by the use of soap and water.1 Indeed the
two states may contradict each other, as in the case of the
4th-century Christian pilgrim to Jerusalem who boasted that
she had not washed ner face for eighteen years for fear of
removing therefrom the holy chrism of baptism. The purport,
then, of ablutions is to remove, not dust and dirt, but the---to
us imaginary--stains contracted by contact with the dead,
with childbirth, with menstruous women, with murder whether
wilful or involuntary, with almost any form of bloodshed, with
persons of inferior caste, with dead animal refuse, e.g.
leather or excrement, with leprosy, madness and any form of
disease. Among all races in a certain grade of development
such associations are vaguely felt to be dangerous and to impair
vitality. In a later stage the taint is regarded as alive,
as a demon or evil spirit alighting on and passing into the
things and persons exposed to contamination. In general,
water, cows' urine and blood of swine are the materials used in
ablutions. Of these water is the commonest, and its efficacy
is enhanced if it be running, and still more if a magical or
sacramental virtue has been imparted to it by ritual blessing or
consecration. Some concrete examples will best illustrate the
nature of such ablutions. In the Atharva-Veda, vii. 116,
we have this allopathic remedy for fever. The patient's skin
burns, that of a frog is cold to the touch; therefore tie to
the foot of the bed a frog, bound with red and black thread,
and wash down the sick man so that the water of ablution falls
1 in its technical ecclesiastical sense the ablution is
the ritual washing of the chalice and of the priest's fingers
after the celebration of Holy Communion in the Catholic
Church. The wine and water used for this purpose are themselves
sometimes called ``the ablution.'' on the frog. Let the
medicine man or magician pray that the fever may pass into
the frog, and the frog be forthwith re-leased, and the cure
will be effected. In the old Athenian Anthesteria the blood
of victims was poured over the unclean. A bath of bulls'
blood was much in vogue as a baptism in the mysteries of
Attis. The water must in ritual washings run off in order
to carry away the miasma or unseen demon of disease; and
accordingly in baptism the early Christians used living or
running water. Nor was it enough that the person baptized
should himself enter the water; the baptizer must pour it
over his head, so that it run down his person. Similarly
the Brahman takes care, after ablution of a person, to wipe
the cathartic water off from head to feet downwards, that the
malign influence may pass out through the feet. The same care
is shown in ritual ablutions in the Bukovina and elsewhere.
Water and fire, spices and sulphur, are used in ritual
cleansings, says Iamblichus in his book on mysteries (v. 23),
as being specially full of the divine nature. Nevertheless in
all religions, and especially in the Brahmanic and Christian,
the cathartic virtue of water is enhanced by the introduction
into it by means of suitable prayers and incantations of
a divine or magical power. Ablutions both of persons and
things are usually cathartic, that is, intended to purge
away evil influences (kathairein, to make katharos,
pure). But, as Robertson Smith observes, ``holiness is
contagious, just as uncleanness is''; and common things and
persons may become taboo, that is, so holy as to be dangerous
and useless for daily life through the mere infection of
holiness. Thus in Syria one who touched a dove became taboo
for one whole day, and if a drop of blood of the Hebrew
sin-offering fell on a garment it had to be ritually washed
off. It was as necessary in the Hebrew religion for the
priest to wash his hands ofter handling the sacred volume as
before. Christians might not enter a church to say their
prayers without first washing their hands. So Chrysostom
says: ``Although our hands may be already pure, yet unless
we have washed them thoroughly, we do not spread them upwards
in prayer.'' Tertullian (c. 200) had long before condemned
this as a heathen custom; none the less, it was insisted on
in later ages, and is a survival of the pagan lustrations or
perirranteria. Sozomen (vi. 6) tells how a priest sprinkled
Julian and Valentinian with water according to the heathen custom
as they entered his temple. The same custom prevails among
Mahommedans. Porphyry (de Abst. ii. 44) relates that one
who touched a sacrifice meant to avert divine anger must bathe
and wash his clothes in running water before returning to his
city and home, and similar scruples in regard to holy objects
and persons have been observed among the natives of Polynesia,
New Zealand and ancient Egypt. The rites, met within all
lands, of pouring out water or bathing in order to produce
rain from heaven, differ in their significance from ablutions
with water and belong to the realm of sympathetic magic.
There are certain forms of purification which one does not
know whether to describe as ablutions or anointings. Thus
Demosthenes in his speech ``On the crown', accused Aeschines
of having ``purified the initiated and wiped them clean
with (not from) mud and pitch.'' Smearing with gypsum
(titanos. titanos) had a similar purifying effect,
and it has been suggested i that the Titans were no more
than old-world votaries who had so disguised themselves.
Perhaps the use of ashes in mourning had the same origin.
In the rite of death-bed penance given in the old Mozarabic
Christian ritual of Spain, ashes were poured over the sick man.
AUTHORITIES.--W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites;
Jul. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums (=Skizzen und
Verarbeiten, ritualibus (Tubingae, 1732); Art. ``Clean
and Unclean'' in Hastings' Bible Dictionary and in Jewish
Encyclopedia, vol. iv.; J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis,
Osiris (London, 1906); Joseph Bingham, Antiquities
(of the Christian Church, bk. viii.; Hermann Oldenberg,
Die Religion des Veda's, Berlin, 1894. (F. C. C.)
ABNAKI (``the whitening sky at daybreak,'' i.e. Easterners),
a confederacy of North American Indians of Algonquian stock,
1 By J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to Creek Religion, p. 493.
called Terrateens by the New England tribes and colonial
writers. It included the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Norridgewock,
Malecite and other tribes. It formerly occupied what is now
Maine and southern New Brunswick. All the tribes were loyal
to the French during the early years of the 18th century, but
after the British success in Canada most of them withdrew to St
Francis, Canada, subsequently entering into an agreement with
the British authorities. The Abnaki now number some 1600.
For details see Handbook of American Indians,
edited by F. W. Hodge (Washington, 1907). .
ABNER (Hebrew for ``father of [or is a light''), in
the Bible, first cousin of Saul and commander-in-chief of
his army (I Sam. xiv. 50, xx. 25). He is only referred
to incidentally in Saul's history (1 Sam. xvii. 55, xxvi.
5), and is not mentioned in the account of the disastrous
battle of Gilboa when Saul's power was crushed. Seizing
the only surviving son, Ishbaal, he set him up as king over
Israel at Mahanaim, east of the Jordan. David, who was
accepted as king by Judah alone, was meanwhile reigning at
Hebron, and for some time war was carried on between the two
parties. The only engagement between the rival factions which
is told at length is noteworthy, inasmuch as it was preceded
by an encounter at Gibeon between twelve chosen men from each
side, in which the whole twenty-four seem to have perished
(2 Sam. ii. 12).i In the general engagement which followed,
Abner was defeated and put to flight. He was closely pursued
by Asahel, brother of Joab, who is said to have been ``light
of foot as a wild roe.'' As Asahel would not desist from the
pursuit, though warned, Abner was compelled to slay him in
self-defence. This originated a deadly feud between the
leaders of the opposite parties, for Joab, as next of kin to
Asahel, was by the law and custom of the country the avenger
of his blood. For some time afterwards the war was carried
on, the advantage being invariably on the side of David. At
length Ishbaal lost the main prop of his tottering cause by
remonstrating with Abner for marrying Rizpah, one of Saul's
concubines, an alliance which, according to Oriental notions,
implied pretensions to the throne (cp. 2 Sam. xvi. 21 sqq.; 1
