When you hear the word “sacrifice,” what is the first thought or scenario that comes into your head? Maybe soldiers who sacrifice themselves on the battle field or when you sacrifice a snack to be more healthy? Sure those are types of sacrifices, but in ancient times for the things that were being sacrificed, it was not up to them. In the following I will explain three different types of sacrificial practices but with one medium. Which one? Humans of course.
The first two cultures are two that are very well know. One that is almost synonymous with human sacrifice while the other is not. The one that is not are the Romans. They have been seen a very civilized culture, but in earlier days, and some parts of the later ones, they were far from civilized. To make the later Roman civilization under the impression they only sacrificed animals, they would use anthropomorphised puppets as a substitute. For example at Feriae Latinatae at the end of April, they would hand puppets from trees as a substitute for sacrificing young boys. And I am sure that we all have heard of the gladiators. Of course they were once the ultimate fighters, but later on the Romans would use slaves and criminals. They were seen as expendable, and how they died in the games was entertainment for the masses, although it had another purpose. The death of the gladiators in the religious sense that their deaths were used as sacrifices towards the Manes (spirits of the dead).
The next culture that modern days peoples of the world see as sacrifice crazy are the Aztecs. Now I suppose that this is understandable as being they would sacrifice thousands of their population, several archaeologists estimate more or less than 20,000 per year. They were in the practice of blood-debt, in layman terms they believed they owed everything to their gods, because the gods created themselves and everything around them so they would give the gods back a little, or a lot, of their creation; the life force of the Aztec people. The blood. Main method of sacrifice went as so: they would place the person to be sacrificed on a slab then their heart removed. After this the body would be thrown from where they were sacrificed. The disposal of the body after sacrificing varied from feeding it to animals or to putting the heads on display. Removal of the heart was just of many methods of sacrificing; shot with arrows, burned, killing during a fight like the gladiators, to name a few. Many think that this constant sacrificing led to the fall of the Aztec way of life when the Spaniards came along.
Lastly we have the Carthaginians, who resided in present day Tunisia and who allegedly sacrificed their children. Now, I use allegedly because in modern day cultures even the thought of sacrificing children is unthinkable, thus must try to prove that any think of the sort did no happen. There have been a lot of back and forth on the subject. Some saying that the mass burial of children was just that, burials, but in recent anthropological examination of the sacrifice of children, it was final that they did indeed sacrifice children. They felt they needed to when things went wrong in their lives (drought, famine), so they sacrificed the children to their gods, but when the children that were already sacrificed were weak and did not seem to make a difference in their present predicament, they would sacrifice the children of a well to do family. Once they did that, they were sure that a healthy baby from a rich family would be accepted by the gods.
Nowadays it is almost unbelievable and unthinkable that we, humans, have committed human sacrifice. Even now, the thought of animal or human sacrifice is taboo. But when you stop to think about it, we still do practice animal sacrifice, we just justify it as food or sustenance for human life. Unless we face a catastrophic event where humans must sacrifice other humans for the good of the human race, it may become less of a taboo and more of a necessity. Let us think that possible, would it be possible that 7 billion plus humans could be sacrificed and/or eaten, by other humans, into extinction? That said, this is peeking into another taboo, cannibalism, but that is a blog for another day.
Please feel free to leave me a comment either about this blog or on an anthropological subject you would like me to cover.
(Image below is an artists rendering of the body throwing after the sacrifice of the Aztecs)
The first two cultures are two that are very well know. One that is almost synonymous with human sacrifice while the other is not. The one that is not are the Romans. They have been seen a very civilized culture, but in earlier days, and some parts of the later ones, they were far from civilized. To make the later Roman civilization under the impression they only sacrificed animals, they would use anthropomorphised puppets as a substitute. For example at Feriae Latinatae at the end of April, they would hand puppets from trees as a substitute for sacrificing young boys. And I am sure that we all have heard of the gladiators. Of course they were once the ultimate fighters, but later on the Romans would use slaves and criminals. They were seen as expendable, and how they died in the games was entertainment for the masses, although it had another purpose. The death of the gladiators in the religious sense that their deaths were used as sacrifices towards the Manes (spirits of the dead).
The next culture that modern days peoples of the world see as sacrifice crazy are the Aztecs. Now I suppose that this is understandable as being they would sacrifice thousands of their population, several archaeologists estimate more or less than 20,000 per year. They were in the practice of blood-debt, in layman terms they believed they owed everything to their gods, because the gods created themselves and everything around them so they would give the gods back a little, or a lot, of their creation; the life force of the Aztec people. The blood. Main method of sacrifice went as so: they would place the person to be sacrificed on a slab then their heart removed. After this the body would be thrown from where they were sacrificed. The disposal of the body after sacrificing varied from feeding it to animals or to putting the heads on display. Removal of the heart was just of many methods of sacrificing; shot with arrows, burned, killing during a fight like the gladiators, to name a few. Many think that this constant sacrificing led to the fall of the Aztec way of life when the Spaniards came along.
Lastly we have the Carthaginians, who resided in present day Tunisia and who allegedly sacrificed their children. Now, I use allegedly because in modern day cultures even the thought of sacrificing children is unthinkable, thus must try to prove that any think of the sort did no happen. There have been a lot of back and forth on the subject. Some saying that the mass burial of children was just that, burials, but in recent anthropological examination of the sacrifice of children, it was final that they did indeed sacrifice children. They felt they needed to when things went wrong in their lives (drought, famine), so they sacrificed the children to their gods, but when the children that were already sacrificed were weak and did not seem to make a difference in their present predicament, they would sacrifice the children of a well to do family. Once they did that, they were sure that a healthy baby from a rich family would be accepted by the gods.
Nowadays it is almost unbelievable and unthinkable that we, humans, have committed human sacrifice. Even now, the thought of animal or human sacrifice is taboo. But when you stop to think about it, we still do practice animal sacrifice, we just justify it as food or sustenance for human life. Unless we face a catastrophic event where humans must sacrifice other humans for the good of the human race, it may become less of a taboo and more of a necessity. Let us think that possible, would it be possible that 7 billion plus humans could be sacrificed and/or eaten, by other humans, into extinction? That said, this is peeking into another taboo, cannibalism, but that is a blog for another day.
Please feel free to leave me a comment either about this blog or on an anthropological subject you would like me to cover.
(Image below is an artists rendering of the body throwing after the sacrifice of the Aztecs)
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