(urth) Human sacrifice

[Jerry Friedman]

> From: David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>

> On 11/3/2011 2:02 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>>>  Jerry Friedman: But I don't think we can say Lake Diuturna /is/
>>>  Lake Titicaca, or say, "At this point Severian is near a place 
> where children were
>>>  ritually exposed, which tells us something about what he encountered 
> here."
>> 
>>  Hm. I'm not so quick to dismiss. The Inca rulers of the area were, like 
> most other
>>  southern Native American groups, pretty damn brutal (we see the precursor 
>> to it with
>>  Apu Punchau's tribe). Pia's slavery and Baldanders' human 
> sacrifices might be
>>  intended as a reflection of the pre-Christian culture of the area (which 
>> continues on  to this day? 
> http://www.religionnewsblog.com/5970/peru-police-probe-possible-human-sacrifice

There are lots of places in the world where barbarity, cruelty, and despotism have
been practiced.

>>  (Did anyone see Apocalypto? I see it as Mel Gibson's answer to the 
>> anti-Christopher Columbus
>>  movement and the Sun Series may have similar intent. The hours of Mayan 
>> barbarity and cruelty
>>  we are drenched in is enough to make the sight of Christian conquistador 
>> ships at the end
>>  cause a sigh of relief in the most steadfast atheist, progressive/liberal)

I doubt it would work that way for me (if I made it to the end).
 
> I'm rereading Long Lake, and in Exodus Remora informs Mint that child 
> sacrifice used to be practiced in manteions in the Whorl. So this is plainly a 
> concern of Wolfe's, just as it is to Christians in general (Abraham). (I 
> would guess the slang term "abram"=crazy comes from this practice.)

As everyone here but me probably knows already, an "Abraham man" or
"Abram man" was a beggar, later also a petty criminal, who pretended to
be insane.

The OED says, "The original reason for the association 
of Abraham with
madness is unclear; the parable of the beggar Lazarus 
being ‘carried
by the angels into Abraham's bosom’ (Luke 16:22, A.V.) 
may be relevant,
and the story of Abraham's departure from his own 
country (Genesis 12)
may perhaps have led to an association with 
vagrancy. Evidence to
support the assertion (see e.g.  J. Timbs Things Not Generally Known
(1856) 127,  J. C. Hotten Slang Dict. (new ed., 1864    ) 65) that there
was an ‘Abraham ward’ in the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem is
lacking."

Jerry Friedman