<html><head></head><body>I am of course speaking in extreme generalities. But "in anger" usually means fighting, and rituals have to be followed carefully to count as such. Generally a sacrifice is understood to be carried out without overt hostility, even if the victim is a slave, a deformed person, or a king. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On April 3, 2018 9:49:18 AM EDT, Ab de Vos <foxyab@casema.nl> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<pre class="k9mail">I agree with your first remark. I thought you meant animal sacrifice <br>came first.<br><br>As to your second remark I'm not sure. People get worked up in a <br>sacrificial context. It may even be demanded they show a ritualized form <br>of anger. Myth, ritual and drama usually went together and some sort of <br>story was being acted out. Often connecting the community to the times <br>of the "beginning" and effecting a renewal. An initiation rite being a <br>new birth for instance.<br><br><br>Op 3-4-2018 om 14:57 schreef David Stockhoff:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #729fcf; padding-left: 1ex;"> That may well be the case, but it would have happened long before the <br> Iron Age. I'm not suggesting that animal sacrifice came first, but <br> pointing out that the use of stone and bronze blades came first, and <br> arguing that iron blades were kept apart from those rituals even when <br> they were the center of them, like the akinakes.<br><br> Also, it still holds that victims killed "in anger" by any means are <br> not acceptable to a god---not even Ares.<br><br><br> On 4/3/2018 8:14 AM, Ab de Vos wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #ad7fa8; padding-left: 1ex;"> It is hypothesized in anthropology that human sacrifice came first <br> and all other forms of animal and plant sacrifice came later. Animal <br> husbandry and food planting supposedly took place originally within <br> the confines of the ritual-sacrificial system. War among the Aztecs <br> was for the purpose of human sacrifice. Myth further was the <br> verbalization of sacrifice and only later took on a life of its own <br> as in the Homeric vision of the Gods.<br><br> Rene Girard says the sacrificial mechanism of the scape goat is the <br> basis of human culture. He analyses Greek tragedy and the Gospels as <br> forms of discourse in which this mechanism reaches the threshold of <br> cultural awareness after millennia of simply being lived. The <br> development of human culture is basically the evolution of the <br> sacrificial mechanism and the way it structures and channels <br> violence. It suffuses all aspects of culture and has its own logic of <br> differentiation. Some classicists consider his theory 'gnostic' <br> because it is a master key to analyzing human culture and not <br> historically specific. Girard has developed the theory of mimetic <br> desire and violence as the core of his anthropological and literary <br> criticism.<br><br> I guess "it's all about Eve".<br><br><br> Op 3-4-2018 om 02:55 schreef David Stockhoff:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #8ae234; padding-left: 1ex;"> Expanding on my comments of yesterday (apologies if they were <br> long-winded), because I find the topic fascinating and relevant to <br> the Christian syncretistic theme.<br><br> Marc goes on to quote Herodotus about the Scythians' human <br> sacrifices to Ares:<br> ">[62] … [I]n Ares’ case things are different. In every district, <br> within each province, a sanctuary has been constructed to Ares. … <br> Bundles of sticks are piled together into a block about three stades <br> by three stades wide, but not so high off the ground. … Each year <br> they add a hundred and fifty cart-loads of sticks, to make up for <br> the subsidence caused by the winter’s storms. On top of this <br> structure the inhabitants of each district plan an ancient iron <br> *akinakes* [a small, straight sword of Scythia and Persia], which is <br> taken to represent Ares. The festival takes place once a year, and <br> at it they offer this *akinakes* more domestic animals and horses as <br> sacrificial victims than all the other gods receive. They also <br> sacrifice prisoners of war to this *akinakes*, though the method is <br> different from when domestic animals are the victims. One prisoner <br> in every hundred is selected; they pour wine over the prisoners’ <br> heads, cut their throats so that the blood spills into a jar, and <br> then carry the jars up on to the pile of sticks and pour the blood <br> over the *akinakes*. While the jars are being taken up there, <br> something else is happening down below, by the side of the <br> sanctuary: they cut off the right arms of all the slaughtered men – <br> the whole arm, from shoulder to hand – and hurl them into the air. <br> Then they sacrifice all the rest of the victims and leave. The arms <br> are left lying wherever they fall, detached from the corpses. (255)"<br><br> One can't help but notice that there are really only two slight but <br> very deliberate---and almost illogical---differences between the <br> sacrifices of animals and these humans. I say "illogical" because it <br> seems easier to simply kill the victim directly with the sacred <br> sword, as Elric would wield Stormbringer. But:<br> (1) Wine is poured on the victim's head. Maybe this is in token <br> exchange for the blood? Is wine then a kind of blood equivalent, <br> with life symbolism?<br> (2) The victim's drained blood is applied to the iron sword rather <br> than the reverse.<br><br> So what is so important about this overly complicated means of <br> getting blood in contact with the iron sword? Truly, this is hardly <br> a "different method" at all. The victims are slashed at the throat <br> and drained as in any animal sacrifice. It is plainly important that <br> this part of the normal cult ritual be maintained; it may satisfy <br> unknown requirements, it may be the oldest part of the ritual, it <br> may have a specific magic effect, or all of these.<br><br> But the description also suggests that the victims' throats are *not <br> *cut with iron blades, because that would logically interfere with <br> the most sacred, symbolic, and difficult part of the ritual: <br> applying the blood to the sword. Especially if iron has its own <br> magical significance, you'd want to keep it away from the blood. <br> Whatever value the blood carries must reach the sword intact, as <br> though iron interferes with it in a way that stone and bronze do <br> not. And since the soul departs the body long before the blood <br> reaches the sword, you have to wonder if this segregation also <br> serves some sort of hygienic purpose regarding the spirit.<br><br> We can conclude from this that if the Scythians actually performed <br> these sacrifices, the ritual use of an iron sword was grafted onto <br> older rituals involving animals and stone or bronze blades. For <br> Wolfe, the Great Mother has good reason to disdain iron blades. But <br> Herodotus shows her distaste is not for violence or the worship of <br> Ares. *Even Ares doesn't want the blood of men killed with iron.<br><br> *For some reason, iron must be kept away from all sacrificial <br> victims for all the gods. And this seems to hold for the bog people <br> too.<br><br> ---<br> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.<br> <a href="https://www.avast.com/antivirus">https://www.avast.com/antivirus</a><br><br><hr><br> Urth Mailing List<br> To post, write urth@urth.net<br> Subscription/information: <a href="http://www.urth.net">http://www.urth.net</a><br></blockquote><br><hr><br> Urth Mailing List<br> To post, write urth@urth.net<br> Subscription/information: <a href="http://www.urth.net">http://www.urth.net</a><br></blockquote><br><hr><br> Urth Mailing List<br> To post, write urth@urth.net<br> Subscription/information: <a href="http://www.urth.net">http://www.urth.net</a><br></blockquote><br><hr><br>Urth Mailing List<br>To post, write urth@urth.net<br>Subscription/information: <a href="http://www.urth.net">http://www.urth.net</a></pre></blockquote></div></body></html>