Chapter 33 Lytyrsis: Human Sacrifice of Grain

In Ecuador, the Indians of Guayaquil often sacrifice human blood and hearts when planting seeds.The people of Canyal (now Cuenca, Ecuador) used to sacrifice 100 children every year at the harvest.The kings of Quito, the Inca of Peru, and the Spaniards for a long time failed to prohibit this cruel sacrificial ceremony.Mexico dedicates the first harvest of the season to the sun during Harvest Festival.They placed a prisoner between two big stones, aligned the big stones up and down, and crushed the prisoner when the stones were closed.The remnants of the dead are buried, followed by a banquet and dancing.This ritual is called "Heshi Sacrifice".As we have seen, the ancient Mexicans sacrificed human beings at various stages of the growth of the corn, the ages of the human sacrifices corresponding to the stages of growth of the corn, newborn babies sacrificed when the seeds were sown, and older children sacrificed when the corn sprouted. , and so on, when the grain is fully ripe, sacrifice to the elderly.No doubt they believed that the coincidence of the age of the sacrificer with the growth period of the grain would have enhanced the effect of the sacrifice.

The Pawnee Indians sacrifice a living person every spring when they go to the ground to sow seeds.They believe that the morning star ordered it to do so or that the morning star sent messengers to some kind of bird to convey this order.People made specimens of this bird and preserved them as magical objects.They think that if there is no such sacrifice once, there will be no harvest of corn, beans, and pumpkins.A captive is a male or female captive.Dress him in the most gorgeous and expensive clothes, eat the most exquisite food, feed him fat, and watch him carefully. He doesn't know his fate at all.When he had grown fat enough, they bound him to a cross in front of a great crowd, and they danced solemnly, and then beheaded him with the tomahawk and shot him with arrows.According to a trader, the Indian woman then cut off pieces of flesh from the victim's body and daubed the hoe with the flesh.But another businessman who was present at the ceremony said there was no such thing.After the sacrifice, people immediately went to plant the land. In April 1837 or 1838, the Pawnees sacrificed a Sioux Indian girl.There is a special record about this ritual.The girl was about 14 or 15 years old and was kept for six months and treated very well.For the first two days of the ceremony she was accompanied by all the chiefs and warriors, and went from hut to hut.Each house gave her a small piece of firewood and a bit of paint, which she gave to the samurai next to her.Thus she visited each cottage, and everywhere received the same gift of wood and paint.On the twenty-second day of April, they took her out to sacrifice, accompanied by warriors, and each took two pieces of firewood that she gave them.Her body was painted half red and half black, tied to a gallows-like thing, roasted for a while, and then shot with arrows.The officiant then took out her heart and ate it.While her body was still warm, cut her flesh from the bones in small pieces, put them in some small baskets, and took them to the nearby grain fields.The leader took out a piece of meat and squeezed a drop of blood on the newly planted grain.The rest did likewise, until at last all the seeds were poured with blood; and then they were covered with earth.According to one account, the body of the victim was pressed into a paste, which was spread on corn, and on potatoes, beans, and other seeds to multiply them.They hope to get a good harvest with this sacrifice.

A queen in West Africa used to sacrifice a man and a woman every March.They were killed with shovels and hoes, and their bodies were buried in the middle of the freshly plowed fields.In Lagos, Guinea, there is a custom that every year after the spring equinox, a little girl is nailed alive to a stake, praying for a good harvest.Along with her sacrifices are sheep, goats, mountain leaves, corn, bananas, etc., all hung on stakes on both sides of her.In order to offer sacrifices, human animals were raised in the palace first. The fetishists trained their will very strongly, and they happily sent them to death.Benin, Guinea, used to offer similar sacrifices annually.The Marimo of the Bechuana tribe offer human sacrifices for a good harvest.The chosen victim is generally a stocky man.Catch him by force or get him drunk, send him out into the fields, and kill him among the wheat for "seed" (as they call it).His blood, after it had coagulated in the sun, was burned with his forehead, the flesh on it, and his brain; and the ashes were then scattered in the ground to fertilize it.The rest of the body is eaten.

On the island of Mindanao in the Philippine archipelago, the Bakobo people sacrifice their living beings before planting rice.The human animal was a slave, and he was chopped into pieces in the woods.The natives of Bangdu in the interior of Luzon Island in the Philippine Islands are keen on headhunting.The main season for their head hunting is when rice is planted and harvested.In order for the crops to grow well, at least one human head will be hunted for each field when it is transplanted, and another human head will be hunted for when it is sown.The head hunters go out in groups of twos and threes, waiting for the victim in ambush, whether it is a man or a woman, they will cut off his or her head, hands and feet, and take them back to the village, where everyone welcomes them with cheers.First of all, hang the human head on two or three dead trees in the open space in front of the village, surrounded by big stones, as a seat.Then people dance around the tree, party, drink and get drunk.When the flesh of the head was rotten, the beheader took the head home and kept it as a treasure, and his companions did the same with the hands and feet.The Apoyao people, another tribe in the interior of Luzon, also follow a similar custom.Luota Fang Qiang You Shuo Qie Ji Ao  Ke Xuan   ≡ Heilong Fei Mastiff   鄣 Na Kuo Soil Zheng  Lu ┥ Jiao Que You卮┤氪雨街小B邱It used to be a common custom among the Naga people to cut off the head, hands and feet of the people they met, and then hang the cut parts in the fields to ensure a good harvest of rice.They hold no grudge against those they ruthlessly kill.Once they skinned a boy alive, chopped them into small pieces, distributed the meat to all the villagers, and put the meat in grain boxes to ward off bad luck and ensure a good harvest of grain.The Gonds of the Dravidian tribe in India kidnapped Brahmin boys and kept them as sacrifices in various sacrificial occasions.At the time of sowing and harvest, after a grand procession, a boy is shot with poisoned arrows.His blood is then sprinkled on a plowed field or a field of ripe wheat, and the child's flesh is eaten.

The Konde or Kande, another Dravidian lineage in Bengal, provide the most famous example of a ritualized human sacrifice to ensure a good harvest.We get this material from reports written by British officers who outlawed these rituals in the middle of the nineteenth century.The sacrifices are dedicated to the goddess of the earth, Tali Fangxuan  Tick Yun  Pengnu. People believe that offering sacrifices can ensure a good harvest and eliminate disasters and illnesses.Growing tulips in particular required human sacrifices, and the Khonds reasoned that bloodless tulips would not have had the crimson color.Only purchased human sacrifices (or Meria, Merinh) or natural human sacrifices are accepted.Born a human animal means that his father was a human animal or was raised by his father or protector as a human animal since he was a child.The Konde people often sold their children as human sacrifices when they were in trouble, "thinking that their souls will enjoy happiness, and their death is for the benefit of mankind, which is the most honorable thing."A Pannua man was once seen yelling at a Konde and finally spitting in his face because the Konde had sold his daughter as a human animal and the Panua wanted to be with him. married.A group of Kongde people saw it, and immediately rushed forward to comfort the child seller, saying: "Your child will die for the survival of the whole world, and the goddess of the earth will wipe the spittle from your face." Before the sacrifice, they are often raised for a few years.Since they are sacred objects, they are naturally extremely loved and revered, and they are welcome wherever they go.A Melia young man usually has a wife when he becomes an adult, and his wife is usually a Melia (or a human animal). When he gets a wife, he also gets a piece of land, livestock and farm tools.Their children will also be sacrificed when they grow up.Tribes, subdivisions of tribes, and villages offered human sacrifices to the Earth Goddess on regular festivals or special occasions.Tribes and tribal branches performed regular sacrifices, usually resulting in the heads of each family getting at least one piece of meat for their fields each year, usually when their main crops were in the ground.

The method of the above-mentioned sacrifice is as follows: Ten or twelve days before the sacrifice, the long hair that has been kept on the human sacrifice is shaved off.Men and women come in groups to watch the sacrifice, because the sacrifice is for all.People feasted and caroused for days on end.On the first day of the sacrificial offering, the animals were put on new clothes, and people danced to the sound of music, forming a solemn queue, and leading the animals to the "Melia Grove".This is a tall forest not far from the village that has not been felled.A wooden post is erected in the forest (sometimes the wooden post is between two bushes named Sankissar), on which the human animal is tied, ointment, ghee and turmeric root powder are applied all over the body, and flowers are put on.People pay tribute to human sacrifices throughout the day, "it's almost like worshiping a god."A scene of scrambling for the smallest memento of a man's body immediately ensues: even a drop of turmeric powder smeared on his body, or a mouthful of his spit, is considered valuable, especially by women.The crowd danced around the wooden pillars to the beat of the music, and said to the earth: "God, we present this human sacrifice to you, and beg you to bless us with good weather and good weather all year round, and a prosperous life." They also said to the human sacrifice: " We paid a price to buy you, and did not capture you. Now sacrifice you according to the custom, please don’t blame us.” The ceremony continued all night long until noon the next day, with very little interruption.As soon as the ceremony stopped, the people began to deal with the animal: the animal was anointed with oil again, and everyone stroked the oiled place on the animal and wiped off the oil with their heads.In some places, they lead people to procession all over the village, going door-to-door to ask people to pull the hair off their heads, and some people ask the animals to spit on their heads for them to smear.As the victim neither binds nor resists, his arms and, if necessary, even the bones of his leg are broken, often first drugged with opium to render him unconscious.The manner in which he was finally put to death varied from place to place.The most common practice seems to be strangulation or choking, splitting a large tree a few feet above the ground and clamping the neck (and in some cases the breast) of the victim between the split ends. In the cracks, the priests and assistants try their best to close the cracks, and slightly wound the animal with an axe. The crowd immediately rushed forward and cut off the flesh of the animal, leaving only the head and intestines.Sometimes they cut human animals into pieces alive.In Chinnakimdi [a region of India], the crowd dragged the animal through the fields and cut off the flesh (head and intestines are not required) from the animal as they went, until he was cut to death.There is also a common practice in this area, which is to tie the human animal to the long trunk of a wooden elephant. The elephant is tied to a thick wooden post and can be turned. The crowd waits for the living human animal to turn around. When he came to himself, he cut off the flesh of his body with a knife.Major Campbell once found as many as fourteen of these executioner elephants in some villages.In one area human animals are slowly roasted to death over fire.They built a low platform with slopes on both sides like a roof, put the human animal on the platform, and bound the limbs to prevent him from struggling.Then light a fire, heat the soldering iron red, and make the animal roll up and down on both sides of the platform for as long as possible.Because in this way, the more tears will be shed, the more abundant the rain will be.On the second day, the corpse of the human animal was cut into pieces.

The meat cut from the human animal was immediately taken back to the village by representatives from each village.In order to ensure that they can be sent back to the village as soon as possible, a multi-person relay method like a post station is often used to send them fifty or sixty miles away.The people staying at home in various villages have been hungry and insisted on waiting for the arrival of the sacrificial meat.After the meat delivery person arrives, he puts the meat in the public assembly place of the whole village, and the priests and heads of families come to collect the meat.The priest divided the sacrificial meat into two parts, and one part was dedicated to the goddess of the earth. He turned his back and did not look at it, and buried the meat in a hole on the ground. Water is poured on it.Then, according to each household present, the meat of the other human animal was chopped up and distributed to each household.The head of each household wraps the sliced ​​meat with leaves and buries it in his best field, turning his body away without looking at it.In some places, each person took his share of meat to the stream that watered his field, and hung the meat on a stick by the stream.In the following three days, no one cleaned the house, and some places strictly kept quiet, no fires were allowed, trees were not allowed to be cut down, and strangers were not received.On the night after the death of the human animal, the remnants of the body (that is, the head, intestines, and bones) were guarded by some strong people, and they were burned on the funeral pyre with a pair of whole sheep the next morning.The ashes were then scattered on the ground, and some of the ashes were also pulped and spread over houses and barns, or mixed with the newly harvested grain to prevent vermin.Sometimes the heads and bones of human animals are buried and not burned.Since the prohibition of human sacrifices, in some places lesser sacrifices have been substituted, such as sheep in the capital district of Chinakimdi, and buffaloes in other places.They tied the bull to a wooden post in the sacred grove, danced around it with gleaming knives, and then pounced on the bull and cut it to pieces in minutes, fighting each other for every morsel of beef.Whoever grabs a piece of meat runs to his own field at top speed and buries it.According to ancient customs, it must be buried before sunset.Some people have a long way to go, so they must run as fast as possible.All the women threw clods at the men who were running away quickly, some of them accurately.The holy grove, which was very noisy just now, soon fell silent, and only a few people stayed there to watch over the remaining ox head, ox bones, and ox tripe, which were burned under the stake according to the ritual.

In the sacrifice of the Konde people, the authoritative person acted as the Meria and offered it to the goddess of the earth.Judging from the treatment they received before and after death, it seems that this custom cannot be interpreted as just a sacrifice to pray for the new year.A part of the sacrificial flesh was of course dedicated to the goddess of the earth, and the other part was buried by each family in its own field. Blended in the new valley.This latter part of the practice means that Melia's body has a direct or inherent power to cause the grain to grow, quite different from the indirect effect of offering sacrifices to the gods to ask for their blessings.In other words, it was believed that the flesh and ashes of human sacrifices had magical or material powers that fertilized the soil.They believe that the blood and tears of Meriah also instinctively possess such power: His blood can make tulip flowers red, and his tears can turn into rain.Of the latter there was little doubt, at least at first, that his tears did not merely herald rain, but indeed called rain.Likewise, burying the flesh of Meriah and watering it was undoubtedly a witchcraft for rain.In addition, Meriah's witchcraft powers are also manifested in the belief that these good qualities exist in all parts of his body, from hair to spittle.This shows that Meriah was not just a human sacrifice for God's blessing.In addition, the extreme respect for him also expresses this view.Major Campbell said that Meria "was regarded as a remarkable person", and Major MacPherson said that "the respect shown in him was almost like worshiping a god".In short, Meria seems to be treated like a god. At first, he was regarded as the goddess of the earth, or the god of plants. Later, he was not regarded as the incarnation of the god, but as a human sacrifice dedicated to the god.In this latter view, the European writers describing the situation in the Konde area may have taken it too far.Accustomed to this latter point of view, that offering sacrifices to the gods is to seek the favor of the gods, European observers tend to interpret the phenomenon of slaughter in all religious ceremonies in this sense, and assume that where there is such a phenomenon , where there must be such a god, the slaughterer always believes that this kind of slaughter and sacrifice is welcomed by the gods.Therefore, this kind of preconceived opinion is unknowingly revealed in the author's pen and distorts the primitive religious rituals of the uncivilized people.

The signs of killing the representatives of the gods, which are so obvious in the sacrifices of the Konte people, can also be found in other sacrifices of human sacrifices mentioned above.For example, scatter the ashes of slain Marimos in fields; sprinkle the blood of Brahman boys on crops and fields; put killed Nagas in grain boxes; let the blood of Sioux girls on the seeds.Another example is that the human sacrifice is the grain, in other words, that he is the spirit or incarnation of the grain. This is also proved by the fact that they feel pain. People seem to try to confirm that the sacrifice and sacrifice embody or represent. Substantial agreement among natural objects.As the Mexicans sacrifice a young sacrifice to young corn, and an old sacrifice to ripe corn; the sacrifice of the Marimo is a seed, a short, fat man whose shortness corresponds to that of the young plant. Correspondingly, his fatness corresponds to the condition that plants are expected to achieve; the Pawnees want to fatten their human animals, perhaps with the same view.Another example is the African custom of killing human animals with shovels and hoes, and the Mexican custom of crushing human animals with two stones like crushing millet. These all indicate that human animals are equal to grain.

There is one more thing to note about the customs of these savages.The Pawnee chief devours the hearts of Sioux girls, and the Marimo and Kant eat human flesh.If, as we think, human animals are regarded as gods, then the worshipers of the gods will think that eating the flesh of human animals is eating the body of gods.