Human Sacrifice

Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/priestly figure, spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribal societies are cannibalism and headhunting. Human sacrifice is also known as ritual murder.

Human sacrifice was practiced in many human societies beginning in prehistoric times. By the Iron Age with the associated developments in religion (the Axial Age), human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, and came to be looked down upon as barbaric during classical antiquity. In the Americas, however, human sacrifice continued to be practiced, by some, to varying degrees until the European colonization of the Americas. Today, human sacrifice has become extremely rare.

Modern secular laws treat human sacrifices as murder. Most major religions in the modern day condemn the practice. For example in Hinduism, the Shrimad Bhagavatam condemns human sacrifice and cannibalism, warning of severe punishment in the afterlife for those who commit such acts.

Evolution and context

Human sacrifice has been practiced on a number of different occasions and in many different cultures. The various rationalisations behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice is typically intended to bring good fortune and to pacify the gods, for example in the context of the dedication of a completed building like a temple or bridge. Fertility was another common theme in ancient religious sacrifices, such as sacrifices to the Aztec god of agriculture Xipe Totec.

In ancient Japan, legends talk about '' hitobashira'' ("human pillar"), in which maidens were buried alive at the base of or near some constructions to protect the buildings against disasters or enemy attacks, and almost identical accounts appear in the Balkans ( The Building of Skadar and Bridge of Arta).

For the re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they killed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days. According to Ross Hassig, author of ''Aztec Warfare'', "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.

Human sacrifice can also have the intention of winning the gods' favor in warfare. In Homeric legend, Iphigeneia was to be sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to appease Artemis so she would allow the Greeks to wage the Trojan War.

In some notions of an afterlife, the deceased will benefit from victims killed at his funeral. Mongols, Scythians, early Egyptians and various Mesoamerican chiefs could take most of their household, including servants and concubines, with them to the next world. This is sometimes called a "retainer sacrifice", as the leader's retainers would be sacrificed along with their master, so that they could continue to serve him in the afterlife.

Another purpose is divination from the body parts of the victim. According to Strabo, Celts stabbed a victim with a sword and divined the future from his death spasms.

Headhunting is the practice of taking the head of a killed adversary, for ceremonial or magical purposes, or for reasons of prestige. It was found in many pre-modern tribal societies.

Human sacrifice may be a ritual practiced in a stable society, and may even be conducive to enhancing societal unity (see: Sociology of religion), both by creating a bond unifying the sacrificing community, and by combining human sacrifice and capital punishment, by removing individuals that have an adverse effect on societal stability (criminals, religious heretics, foreign slaves or prisoners of war). However, outside of civil religion, human sacrifice may also result in outbursts of blood frenzy and mass killings that destabilize society.

Many cultures show traces of prehistoric human sacrifice in their mythologies and religious texts, but ceased the practice before the onset of historical records. Some see the story of Abraham and Isaac ( Genesis 22) as an example of an etiological myth, explaining the abolition of human sacrifice. The Vedic '' Purushamedha'' (literally "human sacrifice") is already a purely symbolic act in its earliest attestation. According to Pliny the Elder, human sacrifice in ancient Rome was abolished by a senatorial decree in 97 BCE, although by this time the practice had already become so rare that the decree was mostly a symbolic act. Human sacrifice once abolished is typically replaced by either animal sacrifice, or by the mock-sacrifice of effigies, such as the Argei in ancient Rome.

History by region

Ancient Near East

Successful agricultural cities had already emerged in the Near East by the Neolithic, some protected behind stone walls. Jericho is the best known of these cities but other similar settlements existed along the coast of the Levant extending north into Asia Minor and west to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Most of the land was arid and the religious culture of the entire region centered on fertility and rain. Many of the religious rituals, including human sacrifice, had an agricultural focus. Blood was mixed with soil to improve its fertility.

Ancient Egypt

There may be evidence of retainer sacrifice in the early dynastic period at Abydos, when on the death of a King he would be accompanied by servants, and possibly high officials, who would continue to serve him in eternal life. The skeletons that were found had no obvious signs of trauma, leading to speculation that the giving up of life to serve the King may have been a voluntary act, possibly carried out in a drug-induced state. At about 2800 BCE, any possible evidence of such practices disappeared, though echoes are perhaps to be seen in the burial of statues of servants in Old Kingdom tombs.

Servants of both royalty and high court officials were slain to accompany their masters into the next world. The number of retainers buried surrounding the king's tomb was much greater than those of high court officials, however, again suggesting the greater importance of the pharaoh. For example, King Djer had 318 retainer sacrifices buried in his tomb, and 269 retainer sacrifices buried in enclosures surrounding his tomb.

Biblical accounts

References in the Bible point to an awareness of and disdain of human sacrifice in the history of ancient Near Eastern practice. During a battle with the Israelites, the King of Moab gives his firstborn son and heir as a whole burnt offering (''olah'', as used of the Temple sacrifice) ( 2 Kings 3:27). The Bible then recounts that, following the King's sacrifice, "There was great indignation r wrathagainst Israel" and that the Israelites had to raise their siege of the Moabite capital and go away. This verse had perplexed many later Jewish and Christian commentators, who tried to explain what the impact of the Moabite King's sacrifice was, to make those under siege emboldened while disheartening the Israelites, make God angry at the Israelites or the Israelites fear his anger, make Chemosh (the Moabite god) angry, or otherwise. Whatever the explanation, evidently at the time of writing, such an act of sacrificing the firstborn son and heir, while prohibited by Israelites (Deuteronomy 12:31; Deut. 18:9–12; Leviticus 18,22-23, about Moloch Vincenzo Manzini (1 January 1988), ''Sacrifici umani e omicidi rituali nell'antichità'', Fratelli Melita Editori, pp. 64-65. (reprinted by Gherardo Casini editore, Series "Esoterismo e magia", 2022, ).), was considered as an emergency measure in the Ancient Near East, to be performed in exceptional cases where divine favor was desperately needed.

prohibits redeeming those destined for sacrifice (''Non redimatur, sed morte moriatur''). This concerned offenders condemned to death by penal '' Herem'', an anathema pronounced solemnly by God or authority, akin to the Roman '' sacratio''. 7 Canaanites and Amorites were punished by God without possibility of redemption (Exodus 22; Deuteronomy 13; Judges 21).

The binding of Isaac appears in the Book of Genesis (22), where God tests Abraham by asking him to present his son as a sacrifice on Moriah. Abraham agrees to this command without arguing. The story ends with an angel stopping Abraham at the last minute and providing a ram, caught in some nearby bushes, to be sacrificed instead. Many Bible scholars have suggested this story's origin was a remembrance of an era when human sacrifice was abolished in favour of animal sacrifice.

Another probable instance of human sacrifice mentioned in the Bible is Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter in Judges 11. Jephthah vows to sacrifice to God whatever comes to greet him at the door when he returns home if he is victorious in his war against the Ammonites. The vow is stated in the Book of Judges 11:31: "Then whoever comes of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord's, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering ( NRSV)." When he returns from battle, his virgin daughter runs out to greet him, and Jephthah laments to her that he cannot take back his vow. She begs for, and is granted, "two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I", after which " ephthahdid with her according to the vow he had made." Jewish rabbis, Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine of Hippo state that the daughter of Jephthah was sacrificed, but not according to the will of the Judeo-Christian God, but in a cruel and arbitrary manner.

Two kings of Judah, Ahaz and Manassah, sacrificed their sons. Ahaz, in 2 Kings 16:3, sacrificed his son. "... He even made his son pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel (NRSV)." King Manasseh sacrificed his sons in 2 Chronicles 33:6. "He made his son pass through fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom ... He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger (NRSV)." The valley symbolized hell in later religions, such as Christianity, as a result.

affirms that Gentiles do sacrifices to demons and not to God.

Phoenicia

According to Roman and Greek sources, Phoenicians and Carthaginians sacrificed infants to their gods. The bones of numerous infants have been found in Carthaginian archaeological sites in modern times, but their cause of death remain controversial. In a single child cemetery called the "Tophet" by archaeologists, an estimated 20,000 urns were deposited.

Plutarch () mentions the practice, as do Tertullian, Orosius, Diodorus Siculus and Philo. Livy and Polybius do not. The Bible asserts that children were sacrificed at a place called the tophet ("roasting place") to the god Moloch. According to Diodorus Siculus's ''Bibliotheca historica'', "There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire."

Plutarch, however, claims that the children were already dead at the time, having been killed by their parents, whose consent – as well as that of the children – was required. Tertullian explains the acquiescence of the children as a product of their youthful trustfulness.

The accuracy of such stories is disputed by some modern historians and archaeologists.

Mesopotamia

Retainer sacrifice was practised within the royal tombs of ancient Mesopotamia. Courtiers, guards, musicians, handmaidens, and grooms were presumed to have committed ritual suicide by taking poison.
A 2009 examination of skulls from the royal cemetery at Ur, discovered in Iraq in the 1920s by a team led by C. Leonard Woolley, appears to support a more grisly interpretation of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia than had previously been recognized. Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary ritual, were not dosed with poison to meet death serenely. Instead, they were put to death by having a sharp instrument, such as a pike, driven into their heads.

Europe

Neolithic Europe

There is archaeological evidence of human sacrifice in Neolithic to Eneolithic Europe.

Greco-Roman antiquity

The ancient ritual of expelling certain slaves, disabled individuals, or criminals from a community to ward off disaster (known as pharmakos), would at times involve publicly executing the chosen prisoner by throwing them off of a cliff.

References to human sacrifice can be found in Greek historical accounts as well as mythology. The human sacrifice in mythology, the '' deus ex machina'' salvation in some versions of Iphigeneia (who was about to be sacrificed by her father Agamemnon) and her replacement with a deer by the goddess Artemis, may be a vestigial memory of the abandonment and discrediting of the practice of human sacrifice among the Greeks in favour of animal sacrifice.

In ancient Rome, human sacrifice was infrequent but documented. Roman authors often contrast their own behavior with that of people who would commit the heinous act of human sacrifice, as human sacrifice was often looked down upon. These authors make it clear that such practices were from a much more uncivilized time in the past, far removed. It is thought that many ritualistic celebrations and dedications to gods used to involve human sacrifice but have now been replaced with symbolic offerings. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says that the ritual of the Argei, in which straw figures were tossed into the Tiber river, may have been a substitute for an original offering of elderly men. Cicero claimed that puppets thrown from the '' Pons Sublicius'' by the Vestal Virgins in a processional ceremony were substitutes for the past sacrifice of old men.

After the Roman defeat at Cannae, two Gauls and two Greeks in male-female couples were buried under the Forum Boarium, in a stone chamber used for the purpose at least once before. In Livy's description of these sacrifices, he distances the practice from Roman tradition and asserts that the past human sacrifices evident in the same location were "wholly alien to the Roman spirit." The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BCE, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. They buried the two Greeks and the two Gauls alive as a plea to the gods to save Rome from destruction at the hands of Hannibal.

According to Pliny the Elder, human sacrifice was banned by law during the consulship of Publius Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus in 97 BCE, although by this time it was so rare that the decree was largely symbolic. Sulla's '' Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis'' in 82 BC also included punishments for human sacrifice. The Romans also had traditions that centered around ritual murder, but which they did not consider to be sacrifice. Such practices included burying unchaste Vestal Virgins alive and drowning visibly intersex children. These were seen as reactions to extraordinary circumstances as opposed to being part of Roman tradition. Vestal Virgins who were accused of being unchaste were put to death, and a special chamber was built to bury them alive. This aim was to please the gods and restore balance to Rome.
Human sacrifices, in the form of burying individuals alive, were not uncommon during times of panic in ancient Rome. However, the burial of unchaste Vestal Virgins was also practiced in times of peace. Their chasteness was thought to be a safeguard of the city, and even in punishment, the state of their bodies was preserved in order to maintain the peace.

Captured enemy leaders were only occasionally executed at the conclusion of a Roman triumph, and the Romans themselves did not consider these deaths a sacrificial offering. Gladiator combat was thought by the Romans to have originated as fights to the death among war captives at the funerals of Roman generals, and Christian polemicists, such as Tertullian, considered deaths in the arena to be little more than human sacrifice. Over time, participants became criminals and slaves, and their death was considered a sacrifice to the Manes on behalf of the dead.

Political rumors sometimes centered around sacrifice and in doing so, aimed to liken individuals to barbarians and show that the individual had become uncivilized. Human sacrifice also became a marker and defining characteristic of magic and bad religion.

Carthage

There is literary evidence for infant sacrifice being practiced in Carthage, however, current anthropological analyses have not found physical evidence to back up these claims. There is a Tophet, where infant remains have been found, but after current analytical techniques, it has been concluded this area is more representative of the naturally high infant mortality rate.

Celtic peoples

There is some evidence that ancient Celtic peoples practiced human sacrifice. Accounts of Celtic human sacrifice come from Roman and Greek sources. Julius Caesar and Strabo wrote that the Gauls burnt animal and human sacrifices in a large wickerwork figure, known as a wicker man, and said the human victims were usually criminals; while Posidonius wrote that druids who oversaw human sacrifices foretold the future by watching the death throes of the victims. Caesar also wrote that slaves of Gaulish chiefs would be burnt along with the body of their master as part of his funeral rites. In the 1st century AD, Roman writer Lucan mentioned human sacrifices to the Gaulish gods Esus, Teutatis and Taranis. In a 9th-century commentary on Lucan, an unnamed author added that sacrifices to Esus were hanged from a tree, those to Teutates were drowned, and those to Taranis were burned. According to the 2nd-century Roman writer Cassius Dio, Boudica's forces impaled Roman captives during her rebellion against the Roman occupation, to the accompaniment of revelry and sacrifices in the sacred groves of Andate. It is important to note, however, that the Romans benefited from making the Celts sound barbaric, and scholars are more skeptical about these accounts now than in the past.

There is some archaeological evidence of human sacrifice among Celtic peoples, although it is rare. Ritual beheading and headhunting was a major religious and cultural practice that has found copious support in the archaeological record, including the numerous skulls found in Londinium's River Walbrook and the twelve headless corpses at the Gaulish sanctuary of Gournay-sur-Aronde.

Several ancient Irish bog bodies have been interpreted as kings who were ritually killed, presumably after serious crop failures or other disasters. Some were deposited in bogs on territorial boundaries (which were seen as liminal places) or near royal inauguration sites, and some were found to have eaten a ceremonial last meal. Some academics suggest there are allusions to kings being sacrificed in Irish mythology, particularly in tales of threefold deaths.

The medieval '' Dindsenchas'' (Lore of Places) says that, in pagan Ireland, first-born children were sacrificed at an idol called Crom Cruach, whose worship was ended by Saint Patrick. However, this account was written by Christian scribes centuries after the supposed events and may be based on biblical traditions about the god Moloch.

In Britain, the medieval legends of Dinas Emrys and of Saint Oran of Iona mention foundation sacrifices, whereby people were ritually killed and buried under foundations to ensure the building's safety. The Waldensians sect was later accused of child sacrifice by the Church.

Baltic peoples

According to written sources from the 13th–14th centuries, the Lithuanians and Prussians made sacrifices to their pagan gods at their sacred places, alka hills, battlefields and near natural objects (sea, rivers, lakes, etc.). In 1389 following the military victories in the land of Medininkai the Samogitians cast lots which indicated Marquard von Raschau, the commander of Klaipėda (Memel), as a suitable victim for gods and burnt him on horseback in full armour. It possibly was the last human sacrifice in medieval Europe.

Finnic peoples

Pope Gregory IX described in a papal letter how the Tavastians in Finland sacrificed Christians to their pagan gods:
"The little children, to whom the light of Christ was revealed in baptism, they violently tore from this light and killed, and adult men, after pulling out their entrails, they sacrifice them to evil spirits and force others to run around trees until death, and some of the priests they blind, from others they brutally sever their hands and other limbs and wrap what is left behind in straws and burn them alive."

There have been found bog graves in Estonia that have been interpreted to have been part of human sacrifice. According to Aliis Moora, mostly enemy prisoners of war were sacrificed, the main reason indicated in the '' Livonian Chronicle'' as alleviating crop failure. Sacrifices were also performed as a show of gratitude after a victorious battle. Ritual cannibalism also took place, in order to gain the power of the enemy.Inimohver eesti eelkristlikus usundis. Human Sacrifice in Estonian Pre-Christian Religion
Author(s): Tõnno Jonuks . Publisher: Estonian Literary Museum of Scholarly Press. Publication Date: 2001 The '' Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum'' by Adam of Bremen written at the end of the 11th century claims that behind the island of Kuramaa there is an island called Aestland (Estonia), whose inhabitants do not believe in the Christian God. Instead, they worship dragons and birds (dracones adorant cum volucribus) to whom people bought from slavers are sacrificed. According to the ''Livonian Chronicle'', describing the events after the Battle of Ümera, "Estonians had seized some Germans, Livs, and Latvians, and some of them they simply killed, others they burned alive and tore the shirts off some of them, carved crosses on their backs with a sword and then beheaded". The Chronicle explicitly states they were sacrificed "to their gods" (diis suis).

Germanic peoples

Human sacrifice was not particularly common among the Germanic peoples, being resorted to in exceptional situations arising from environmental crises (crop failure, drought, famine) or social crises (war), often thought to derive at least in part from the failure of the king to establish or maintain prosperity and peace () in the lands entrusted to him. In later Scandinavian practice, human sacrifice appears to have become more institutionalised and was repeated periodically as part of a larger sacrifice (according to Adam of Bremen, every nine years).

Evidence of human sacrifice by Germanic pagans before the Viking Age depend on archaeology and on a few accounts in Greco-Roman ethnography. Roman writer Tacitus reported the Suebians making human sacrifices to gods he interpreted as Mercury and Isis. He also claimed that Germans sacrificed Roman commanders and officers as a thanksgiving for victory in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Jordanes reported the Goths sacrificing prisoners of war to Mars, suspending the victims' severed arms from tree branches. Tacitus further refers to those who have transgressed certain societal rules being drowned and placed in wetlands. This potentially explains finds of bog bodies dating to the Roman Iron Age although none show signs of having died by drowning.

By the 10th century, Germanic paganism had become restricted to the Norse people. One account by Ahmad ibn Fadlan in 922 claims Varangian warriors were sometimes buried with enslaved women, in the belief they would become their wives in Valhalla. He describes the funeral of a Varangian chieftain, in which a slave girl volunteered to be buried with him. After ten days of festivities, she was given an intoxicating drink, repeatedly raped by other chiefs, stabbed to death by a priestess, and burnt together with the dead chieftain in his boat (see ship burial). This practice is evidenced archaeologically, with many male warrior burials (such as the ship burial at Balladoole on the Isle of Man, or that at Oseberg in Norway) also containing female remains with signs of trauma.

According to Adémar de Chabannes, just before his death in 932 or 933, Rollo (founder and first ruler of the Viking Duchy of Normandy) performed human sacrifices to appease the pagan gods while at the same time giving gifts to the churches in Normandy.

In the 11th century, Adam of Bremen wrote that human and animal sacrifices were made at the Temple at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden. He wrote that every ninth year, nine men and nine of every animal were sacrificed and their bodies hung in a sacred grove.

The '' Historia Norwegiæ'' and ''Ynglinga saga'' refer to the willing sacrifice of King Dómaldi after bad harvests. The same saga also relates that Dómaldi's descendant king Aun sacrificed nine of his own sons to Odin in exchange for longer life, until the Swedes stopped him from sacrificing his last son, Egil.

In the '' Saga of Hervor and Heidrek'', Heidrek agrees to the sacrifice of his son in exchange for command over half the army of Reidgotaland. With this, he seizes the whole kingdom and prevents the sacrifice of his son, dedicating those fallen in his rebellion to Odin instead.

Slavic peoples

In the 10th century, Persian explorer Ahmad ibn Rustah described funerary rites for the Rus' (Scandinavian Norsemen traders in northeastern Europe) including the sacrifice of a young female slave. Leo the Deacon describes prisoner sacrifice by the Rus' led by Sviatoslav during the Russo-Byzantine War "in accordance with their ancestral custom."

According to the 12th-century Primary Chronicle, prisoners of war were sacrificed to the supreme Slavic deity Perun. Sacrifices to pagan gods, along with paganism itself, were banned after the Christianization of Rus' by Grand Prince Vladimir the Great in the 980s.

In 1066, the Bishop of Mecklenburg John Scotus was sacrificed to Radegast in Rethra by the Slavic Lutici.

Archeological findings indicate that the practice may have been widespread, at least among slaves, judging from mass graves containing the cremated fragments of a number of different people.

East Asia

China

The history of human sacrifice in China may extend as early as 2300 BCE. Excavations of the ancient fortress city of Shimao in the northern part of modern Shaanxi province revealed 80 skulls ritually buried underneath the city's eastern wall. Forensic analysis indicates the victims were all teenage girls. Human sacrifices were also documented in the Qijia culture.

The ancient Chinese are known to have made drowned sacrifices of men and women to the river god Hebo. They also have buried slaves alive with their owners upon death as part of a funeral service. This was especially prevalent during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. During the Warring States period, Ximen Bao of Wei outlawed human sacrificial practices to the river god. In Chinese lore, Ximen Bao is regarded as a folk hero who pointed out the absurdity of human sacrifice.

The sacrifice of a high-ranking male's slaves, concubines, or servants upon his death (called ''Xun Zang'' 殉葬 or ''Sheng Xun'' 生殉) was a more common form. The stated purpose was to provide companionship for the dead in the afterlife. In earlier times, the victims were either killed or buried alive, while later they were usually forced to commit suicide.

Funeral human sacrifice was widely practiced in the ancient Chinese state of Qin. According to the ''Records of the Grand Historian'' by Han dynasty historian Sima Qian, the practice was started by Duke Wu, the tenth ruler of Qin, who had 66 people buried with him in 678 BCE. The 14th ruler Duke Mu had 177 people buried with him in 621 BCE, including three senior government officials.

Afterwards, the people of Qin wrote the famous poem ''Yellow Bird'' to condemn this barbaric practice, later compiled in the Confucian ''Classic of Poetry''.
The tomb of the 18th ruler Duke Jing of Qin, who died in 537 BCE, has been excavated. More than 180 coffins containing the remains of 186 victims were found in the tomb.
The practice would continue until Duke Xian of Qin (424–362 BCE) abolished it in 384 BCE. Modern historian Ma Feibai considers the significance of Duke Xian's abolition of human sacrifice in Chinese history comparable to that of Abraham Lincoln's abolition of slavery in American history.

After the abolition by Duke Xian, funeral human sacrifice became relatively rare throughout the central parts of China. However, the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty revived it in 1395, following the Mongolian Yuan precedent, when his second son died and two of the prince's concubines were sacrificed. In 1464, the Tianshun Emperor, in his will, forbade the practice for Ming emperors and princes.

Human sacrifice was also practised by the Manchus. Following Nurhaci's death, his wife, Lady Abahai, and his two lesser consorts committed suicide. During the Qing dynasty, sacrifice of slaves was banned by the Kangxi Emperor in 1673.

Japan

In the practice known as Hitobashira (人柱, "human pillar"), a person was buried alive at the base of large structures such as dams, castles, and bridges.

Tibet

Human sacrifice was practiced in Tibet prior to the arrival of Buddhism in the 7th century.
Historical practices such as burying bodies under the cornerstones of houses may have been practiced during the medieval era, but few concrete instances have been recorded or verified.

The prevalence of human sacrifice in medieval Buddhist Tibet is less clear. The Lamas, as professing Buddhists, could not condone blood sacrifices, and they replaced the human victims with effigies made from dough which is still to this day dyed partially red to symbolize sacrifice. This replacement of human victims with effigies is attributed to Padmasambhava, a Tibetan saint of the mid-8th century, in Tibetan tradition.

Nevertheless, there is some evidence that outside of orthodox Buddhism, there were practices of tantric human sacrifice which survived throughout the medieval period, and possibly into modern times. The 15th century Blue Annals reports that in the 13th century so-called "18 robber-monks" slaughtered men and women in their ceremonies. Grunfeld (1996) concludes that it cannot be ruled out that isolated instances of human sacrifice did survive in remote areas of Tibet until the mid-20th century, but they must have been rare. Grunfeld also notes that Tibetan practices unrelated to human sacrifice, such as the use of human bone in ritual instruments, have been depicted without evidence as products of human sacrifice.

Indian subcontinent

In India, human sacrifice is mainly known as ''Narabali''. Here "nara" means human and "bali" means sacrifice. It takes place in some parts of India mostly to find lost treasure. In Maharashtra, the government made it illegal to practice with the Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Act. Currently human sacrifice is very rare in modern India. There have been at least three cases through 2003–2013 where men have been murdered allegedly in the name of human sacrifice.

Thuggees, or thugs, were an organized gang of professional robbers and murderers who traveled in groups across the Indian subcontinent for several hundred years. They were first mentioned in Ẓiyā'-ud-Dīn Baranī's () dated around 1356. Thugs would join travellers and gain their confidence. This would allow them to then surprise and strangle them by tossing a handkerchief or noose around their necks. They would then rob the bodies of valuables and bury them. This led them to also be called ''Phansigar'' (), a term more commonly used in southern India.

Regarding possible Vedic mention of human sacrifice, the prevailing 19th-century view, associated above all with Henry Colebrooke, was that human sacrifice did not actually take place. Those verses which referred to '' purushamedha'' were meant to be read symbolically, or as a "priestly fantasy". However, Rajendralal Mitra published a defence of the thesis that human sacrifice, as had been practised in Bengal, was a continuation of traditions dating back to Vedic periods. Hermann Oldenberg held to Colebrooke's view; but Jan Gonda underlined its disputed status.

Human and animal sacrifice became less common during the post-Vedic period, as ''ahimsa'' (non-violence) became part of mainstream religious thought. The Chandogya Upanishad (3.17.4) includes ahimsa in its list of virtues. The impact of Sramanic religions such as Buddhism and Jainism also became known in the Indian subcontinent.

In the 7th century, Banabhatta, in a description of the dedication of a temple of Chandika, describes a series of human sacrifices; similarly, in the 9th century, Haribhadra describes the sacrifices to Chandika in Odisha. The town of Kuknur in North Karnataka there exists an ancient Kali temple, built around the 8-9th century CE, which has a history of human sacrifices.
Human sacrifice is reputed to have been performed on the altars of the Hatimura Temple, a Shakti (Great Goddess) temple located at Silghat, in the Nagaon district of Assam. It was built during the reign of king Pramatta Singha in 1667 '' Sakabda'' (1745–1746 CE). It used to be an important center of Shaktism in ancient Assam. Its presiding goddess is Durga in her aspect of '' Mahisamardini'', slayer of the demon Mahisasura. It was also performed in the Tamresari Temple which was located in Sadiya under the Chutia kings.

Open human sacrifices were carried out in connection with the worship of Shakti until approximately the early modern period, and in Bengal perhaps as late as the early 19th century. Although not accepted by larger section of Hindu culture certain Tantric cults performed human sacrifice until around the same time, both actual and symbolic; it was a highly ritualised act, and on occasion took many months to complete. An occasional ritual murder, to Kali, periodically appears in the contemporary press.

The free or forced burning of widows, in a Vedic practise known as Sati, was noted during Alexander's invasion, of 327 BCE. A practice that was codified during the Gupta empire, and later prohibited, in Bengal via Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829, later across India, the last explicit legislation, in India, being the Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987.

Pacific

In Ancient Hawaii, a luakini temple, or luakini heiau, was a Native Hawaiian sacred place where human and animal blood sacrifices were offered. '' Kauwa'', the outcast or slave class, were often used as human sacrifices at the ''luakini heiau''. They are believed to have been war captives, or the descendants of war captives. They were not the only sacrifices; law-breakers of all castes or defeated political opponents were also acceptable as victims. Rituals for the Hawaiian god Kūkaʻilimoku included human sacrifice, which was not part of the worship of other gods.

According to an 1817 account, in Tonga, a child was strangled to assist the recovery of a sick relation.

Pre-Columbian Americas

Some of the most famous forms of ancient human sacrifice were performed by various Pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas that included the sacrifice of prisoners as well as voluntary sacrifice. Friar Marcos de Niza (1539), writing of the Chichimecas, said that from time to time "they of this valley cast lots whose luck (honour) it shall be to be sacrificed, and they make him great cheer, on whom the lot falls, and with great joy they lund him with flowers upon a bed prepared in the said ditch all full of flowers and sweet herbs, on which they lay him along, and lay great store of dry wood on both sides of him, and set it on fire on either part, and so he dies" and "that the victim took great pleasure" in being sacrificed.

North America

The Mixtec players of the Mesoamerican ballgame were sacrificed when the game was used to resolve a dispute between cities. The rulers would play a game instead of going to battle. The losing ruler would be sacrificed. The ruler "Eight Deer", who was considered a great ball player and who won several cities this way, was eventually sacrificed, because he attempted to go beyond lineage-governing practices, and to create an empire.

=Maya

=

The Maya held the belief that cenotes or limestone sinkholes were portals to the underworld and sacrificed human beings and tossed them down the cenote to please the water god Chaac. The most notable example of this is the " Sacred Cenote" at Chichén Itzá. Extensive excavations have recovered the remains of 42 individuals, half of them under twenty years old.

Only in the Post-Classic era did this practice become as frequent as in central Mexico. In the Post-Classic period, the victims and the altar are represented as daubed in a hue now known as Maya blue, obtained from the añil plant and the clay mineral palygorskite. cited in

=Aztecs

=

The Aztecs were particularly noted for practicing human sacrifice on a large scale; an offering to Huitzilopochtli would be made to restore the blood he lost, as the sun was engaged in a daily battle. Human sacrifices would prevent the end of the world that could happen on each cycle of 52 years. In the 1487 re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan some estimate that 80,400 prisoners were sacrificed though numbers are difficult to quantify, as all obtainable Aztec texts were destroyed by Christian missionaries during the period 1528–1548. The Aztec, also known as Mexica, periodically sacrificed children as it was believed that the rain god, Tlāloc, required the tears of children.

According to Ross Hassig, author of ''Aztec Warfare'', "between 10,000 and 80,400 people" were sacrificed in the ceremony. The old reports of numbers sacrificed for special feasts have been described as "unbelievably high" by some authors and that on cautious reckoning, based on reliable evidence, the numbers could not have exceeded at most several hundred per year in Tenochtitlan. The real number of sacrificed victims during the 1487 consecration is unknown.

Michael Harner, in his 1997 article ''The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice'', estimates the number of persons sacrificed in central Mexico in the 15th century as high as 250,000 per year. Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, a Mexica descendant and the author of '' Codex Ixtlilxochitl'', claimed that one in five children of the Mexica subjects was killed annually. Victor Davis Hanson argues that an estimate by Carlos Zumárraga of 20,000 per annum is more plausible. Other scholars believe that, since the Aztecs always tried to intimidate their enemies, it is far more likely that they inflated the official number as a propaganda tool.

=Mississippian Cultures

=

The peoples of what is now the Southeastern United States known as the Mississippian culture (800 to 1600 CE) have been suggested to have practiced human sacrifice, because some artifacts have been interpreted as depicting such acts. Mound 72 at Cahokia (the largest Mississippian site), located near modern St. Louis, Missouri, was found to have numerous pits filled with mass burials thought to have been retainer sacrifices. One of several similar pit burials had the remains of 53 young women who had been strangled and neatly arranged in two layers. Another pit held 39 men, women, and children who showed signs of dying a violent death before being unceremoniously dumped into the pit. Several bodies showed signs of not having been fully dead when buried and of having tried to claw their way to the surface. On top of these people another group had been neatly arranged on litters made of cedar poles and cane matting. Another group of four individuals found in the mound were interred on a low platform, with their arms interlocked. They had had their heads and hands removed. The most spectacular burial at the mound is the " Birdman burial". This was the burial of a tall man in his 40s, now thought to have been an important early Cahokian ruler. He was buried on an elevated platform covered by a bed of more than 20,000 marine-shell disc beads arranged in the shape of a falcon, with the bird's head appearing beneath and beside the man's head, and its wings and tail beneath his arms and legs. Below the birdman was another man, buried facing downward. Surrounding the birdman were several other retainers and groups of elaborate grave goods.

A ritual sacrifice of retainers and commoners upon the death of an elite personage is also attested in the historical record among the last remaining fully Mississippian culture, the Natchez. Upon the death of " Tattooed Serpent" in 1725, the war chief and younger brother of the "Great Sun" or Chief of the Natchez; two of his wives, one of his sisters (nicknamed ''La Glorieuse'' by the French), his first warrior, his doctor, his head servant and the servant's wife, his nurse, and a craftsman of war clubs all chose to die and be interred with him, as well as several old women and an infant who was strangled by his parents. Great honor was associated with such a sacrifice, and their kin were held in high esteem. After a funeral procession with the chief's body carried on a litter made of cane matting and cedar poles ended at the temple (which was located on top of a low platform mound), the retainers, with their faces painted red and drugged with large doses of nicotine, were ritually strangled. Tattooed Serpent was then buried in a trench inside the temple floor and the retainers were buried in other locations atop the mound surrounding the temple. After a few months' time the bodies were dis-interred and their defleshed bones were stored as bundle burials in the temple.

=Pawnee

=
The Pawnee may have occasionally conducted the Morning Star Ceremony, which included the sacrifice of a young girl. Though the ritual continued, the sacrifice was discontinued in the 19th century.

South America

The Incas practiced human sacrifice, especially at great festivals or royal funerals where retainers died to accompany the dead into the next life. The Moche sacrificed teenagers en masse, as archaeologist Steve Bourget found when he uncovered the bones of 42 male adolescents in 1995.

The study of the images seen in Moche art has enabled researchers to reconstruct the culture's most important ceremonial sequence, which began with ritual combat and culminated in the sacrifice of those defeated in battle. Dressed in fine clothes and adornments, armed warriors faced each other in ritual combat. In this hand-to-hand encounter the aim was to remove the opponent's headdress rather than kill him. The object of the combat was the provision of victims for sacrifice. The vanquished were stripped and bound, after which they were led in procession to the place of sacrifice. The captives are portrayed as strong and sexually potent. In the temple, the priests and priestesses would prepare the victims for sacrifice. The sacrificial methods employed varied, but at least one of the victims would be bled to death. His blood was offered to the principal deities in order to please and placate them.

The Inca of Peru also made human sacrifices. As many as 4,000 servants, court officials, favorites, and concubines were killed upon the death of the Inca Huayna Capac in 1527, for example. A number of mummies of sacrificed children have been recovered in the Inca regions of South America, an ancient practice known as '' qhapaq hucha''. The Incas performed child sacrifices during or after important events, such as the death of the Sapa Inca (emperor) or during a famine.

Africa

West Africa

JuJu Human sacrifice is still covertly practiced in some parts of West Africa, though it is illegal in all West African countries. The Annual customs of Dahomey was the most notorious example, but sacrifices were carried out all along the West African coast and further inland. Sacrifices were particularly common after the death of a king or queen, and there are many recorded cases of hundreds or even thousands of slaves being sacrificed at such events. Sacrifices were particularly common in Dahomey, in what is now Benin, and in the small independent states in what is now southern Nigeria. According to Rudolph Rummel, "Just consider the Grand Custom in Dahomey: When a ruler died, hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of prisoners would be slain. In one of these ceremonies in 1727, as many as 4,000 were reported killed. In addition, Dahomey had an Annual Custom during which 500 prisoners were sacrificed."

In the Ashanti Region of modern-day Ghana, human sacrifice was often combined with capital punishment.

The '' Leopard men'' were a West African secret society active into the mid-1900s that practised cannibalism. It was believed that the ritual cannibalism would strengthen both members of the society and their entire tribe. In Tanganyika, the ''Lion men'' committed an estimated 200 murders in a single three-month period.

Canary Islands

It has been reported from Spanish chronicles that the Guanches (ancient inhabitants of these islands) performed both animal and human sacrifices.

During the summer solstice in Tenerife children were sacrificed by being thrown from a cliff into the sea. These children were brought from various parts of the island for the purpose of sacrifice. Likewise, when an aboriginal king died his subjects should also assume the sea, along with the embalmers who embalmed the Guanche mummies.

In Gran Canaria, bones of children were found mixed with those of lambs and goat kids and on Tenerife, amphorae have been found with the remains of children inside. This suggests a different kind of ritual infanticide from those who were thrown off the cliffs.

Prohibition in major religions

Greek polytheism

In Greek polytheism, Tantalus was said to have been condemned to Tartarus for eternity for the human sacrifice of his son Pelops.

Abrahamic religions

Many traditions of Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam consider that God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son to examine obedience of Abraham to His commands. To prove his obedience, Abraham intended to sacrifice his son. However, seeing Abraham's resolve, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead of his son.

Judaism

Judaism explicitly forbids human sacrifice, regarding it as murder. Jews view the '' Akedah'' as central to the abolition of human sacrifice. Some Talmudic scholars assert that its replacement is the sacrificial offering of animals at the Temple – using Exodus 13:2–12ff; 22:28ff; 34:19ff; Numeri 3:1ff; 18:15; Deuteronomy 15:19 – others view that as being superseded by the symbolic '' pars-pro-toto'' sacrifice of the covenant of circumcision. Leviticus 20:2 and Deuteronomy 18:10 specifically outlaw the giving of children to Moloch, making it punishable by stoning; the Tanakh

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases