I have some test questions and one essay to complete based on the course religion and violence in the attached Question sheet.

I have some test questions and one essay to complete based on the course religion and violence in the attached Question sheet.
Section I: Short answers (40%/each answer is worth 4 points). 1. According to_______ (author’s name), during rituals, people achieved a state of heightened emotion, or effervescence, in the presence of other group members. 2. ______ (term), small or momentous, temporary or enduring– serve to re-enact central values and norms guiding society at large. 3. Freud claimed that civilization places limitations on sexuality; it not only dictates what forms of sexual expression are “permissible,” and censors all others, but it even places strict restrictions on the forms of sexuality it allows, just like _______ (term) in “primitive” societies. 4. According to ______ (use an author’s name), mimetic desire is the root of religious violence. 5. Within any given community or society experiencing conflict, designating a _______ (term) potentially may bring harmony back to the group. It also might prevent acts of violence from occurring. 6. Regina Schwartz argues that ________ (term) “forges identity antithetically” (pp.4-5) in such a way as to lead to violence against outsiders a. Yes b. No 7. The relationship between the sacred and the profane is affected by two processes that are complimentary: sacrilization and desacrilization. a. True b. False 8. According to_______ (author’s name), “A______ (term) is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden — beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them”. 9. According to _______, (author’s name), _______ also figured as a technique for internal control, among the Israelite population itself. 10. Schwartz believes that _______ have fundamentally shaped our modern concepts of “nation” and “state” as well as sense of historical “origins”. Section II: Identifications (30%): Select three terms and write no more than four to six sentences (one paragraph) for each identification. Taboo Sacred and profane Mimesis Monolatry Religious rivalry Sacrificial rituals Section III: Essay (30%): answer one of the questions below. Prepare to write this essay within a time limit of about 30 to 40 minutes. Essays will be graded on clarity and content. Suggested length: two pages/double- spaced. 1). Using examples, discuss Burkert’s theory of violence. How is his concept of violence related to ritual sacrifice? 2). Like Durkheim, Burkert sees the function of sacrifice in terms of social bonding: participation, acting together, sharing a meal, or sharing beliefs. Unlike Durkheim, Burkert argues that bonding can actually occur through myth or symbols. Discuss in more detail the different ways identity formation and sense of community may be actualized through rituals. 3). Mauss and Hubert were especially interested in studying sacrifice and ritual, and in particular, the ritual process as a means of communication. From your critical reading of their work, how do these two scholars define the object of sacrifice? In your essay aim to discuss the definitions of the object of sacrifice, the sacrifical victim, and the processes of sacrialization.
I have some test questions and one essay to complete based on the course religion and violence in the attached Question sheet.
FIOMO NECANS The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificiql Ritual and Mtlth bV WALIER BURKERT Translated by PETER BING UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London f-. -L .; i1,cr Originally published in German by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, under the title Homo Necans (1972). University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England @ 1983by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Burkert, Walter r93r- Homo necans. Translation of: Homo necans. Bibliography: p. r. Rites and ceremonies-Greece. z. Sacrifice. 3. Mythology, Greek. 4. Greece-Religion. I. Title. sr788.a8V3 rg8) zgz’ .38 77-93423 rsrw o-5zo-o5875-5 Printed in the United States of America 456789 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for llformation Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 49.48-r984. For Reinhold Merlcelbsch xcti rair’ Eart rd. puarr1pca, cvueltovrt gduut. gouoL xo.i ragoc Clement of Alexandria et nos servasti_sanguine fuso Mithraic inscription, Santa prisca, Rome Contents I. Translator’s Preface xi Preface to the English Edition xiii List of lllustrations xvii lntroduction xix SACRIFICE, HUNTING, AND FUNERARY RITUALS r. Sacrifice as an Act of Killing 1 z. The Etsolutionary Explanation: Primitiae Man as Hunter 3. Ritualization 22 4. Myth and Ritual 29 5, The Function and Transformation of Ritual Killing J5 6. Funerary Ritual 48 7. The Sexualization of Ritual Killing: Maiden Sacrifice, Phallus CuIt 58 8. Father God and Great Goddess 72 WEREWOLVES AROUND THE TRIPOD KETTLE r. Lyknia and Lykaion 84 z. Pelops at Olympia 93 3. Thyestes and Harpagos 1o3 4. Aristaios and Aktaion 1o9 5. The Delphic Tripod tr6 6. A Glance at Odysseus t3o DISSOLUTION AND NEW YEAR’S FESTIVAL r. From Ox-Slaying to the Panathenaic Festiaal t36 Dipolieia q6 Skira 74) 72 83 il. m. a35 IX Arrhephoria 71’o Panathenaia 754 Excursus: The Troian Horse Argos and Argeiphontes 16r Agrionia $8 Tereus and the Nightingale a79 Antiope and EPoPeus 185 The Lemnian Women 79o The Return of the DolPhin t96 Fish Adaent 2o4 158 IV. ANTHESTERIA Testimonia and Dissemination 213 Pithoigia and Choes zt6 Carians or Keres zz6 Sacred Marriage and Lenaia-Vases z3o Chytroi qnd Aiora 48 Protesilaos 243 V. ELEUSIS t. Documentation and Secret 248 z. The Myth of Kore and Pig-Sacrifice 256 3. Myesis and Synthema 265 4. The Sacrifice in the Telesterion 274 5. Oaercoming Death and Encountering Death: Initiation and Sacrifice zg3 Abbreaiations and Bibliography 299 Index of Cult Sites and Festiuals 3o9 Index of Names of Gods and Heroes 3a3 lndex of Persons and Things )79 lndex of Greek Words 33a Translator’s Preface walter Burkert’s style is often suggestive rather than explicit, his descriptions are vivid (at times almost visionary) rather than dryly ac- ademic, and he does not hesitate to use colroquiarisms so as to make a point more forcefully. In the process of translation, such features in- evitably undergo a certain levelling. I have tried, however, to main- tain the drama and drive of Professor Burkert’s prose. In the German, Homo Necans is remarkable for being both an exemplary piece of scholarship and just plain good reading. It is my hope that itiemains so in the.English. Among the many friends and colleagues who helped me at vari- ous stages in this translation, special thanks are due to fames Fanto, Professor Bruce Frier, Professor Ludwig Koenen, Charlotte Melin, Professor William Owens, and Professor Susan Scheinberg. I was privileged to spend several enjoyable and productive days revising the manuscript with Professor Burkert in Uster. Finally my thanki to Doris Kretschmer of the University of California piess who en- trusted this project to me and politely, but firmly, kept my nose to the grindstone. PHILADELrHIA, NovEMBnn rg8z Peter Bing 2. ). 4. 5.6. 7.8. 7. 2. 3.i?’ 5.6. 273 248 xi Preface to the English Edition It is with some hesitation that I present this book, conceived in the sixties, to an Anglo-American public of the eighties. An holistic synthesis in the field of anthropology may appear preposterous and inadequate at any time; and changes in approach, method, and in- terest, which have been especially marked in these decades-be it through progress in the individual branches of study, be it through changes.of paradigms or even fashions-make such an attempt all the more questionable. When this book appeared in German in 1972, it could claim to be revolutionary in various respects. To a field still dominated largely by philological-historical positivism or by the resi- due of the Tylorian approach in Nilsson and Deubner, it brought a comprehensive and consistent application of the myth-and-ritual po- sition; it introduced, after Harrison’s Themis, functionalism to the study of Greek religion; it used a form of structuralism in interpreting the complexes of mythical tales and festivals; and it made a first at- tempt to apply ethology to religious history. In the English-speaking world, ritualism and functionalism had made their mark long before, and much more on all these lines has been worked out, disseminated, and discussed in the last decade. What was originally novel and dar- ing may thus soon apPear antiquated. The social aspect of religion in general and the central role of sacrifice in ancient religion are taken for granted today. Much of the credit goes to the school of Jean-Pierre Vernant and Marcel Detienne in Paris. Ren6 Girard’s Violence and the Sacred, which appeared in the same year as Homo Necans and may be seen as largely parallel in intent (cf. L5.n.r), was also instrumental. More generally, we have seen the swift rise of semiology and struc- turalism, which, though judged by some to be already past their apogee, still command attention and discussion. We have likewise witnessed the emergence of sociobiology, which aspires to a new syn- thesis of natural and social sciences. To keep up with all these devel- opments and iniegrate them into Homo Necans would virtually require xlll PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION another book replacing the tentative essay that now constitutes my first chapter. Chapters II through V appear less problematical. They elaborate basic ritual structures reflected in myth, demonstrating correspon- dences and integrating isolated pie-9gs into a comprehensive whole. As a description-this *ill prorr. ualid.in its own right. The attempt, however, to extrapolate from this an historical-causal explanation of the phenomena-that is, to derive sacrifice from hunting and religion from sacrificial ritual-could be condemned by the stern rules of many a methodology. Yet I have decided to run this risk rather than limit my perspectives by preestablished rules. In so doing, I have inevitably made use of various hypotheses concerning prehistory, sociology, and psychology that are open to er- ror and to the possibility of attack and falsification in the course of further research. There is no denying that a decisive impulse for the thesis of Homo Necans came from Konrad Lorenz’s On Aggression, which seemed to offer new insight into the disquieting manifestations of violence, which are so prominent in human affairs and not least in the ancient world. Lorenz’s assertions about the innate roots of ag- gression and its necessary functions have come under vigorous attack by progressive sociologists. Some overstatements no doubt have been corrected, but some of the criticism and subsequent neglect may be viewed as part of the schizophrenia of our world, which pursues the ideal of an ever more human, more easygoing life amid growing inse- curity and uncontrolled violence. Fashionable psychology attempts to eradicate feelings of guilt from the human psyche; ideas of atonement appear old-fashioned or even perverse. The thrust of Homo Necans runs counter to these trends. It attempts to show that things were dif- ferent in the formative period of oui civilization; it arguJs that soli- darity was achieved through a sacred crime with due reparation. And while it has no intention of thwarting modern optimism, it tries to warn against ignoring what was formerly the case. Great advances have been made in prehistory and especially in primatology. We now know there are hunts with subsequent ,,distri- bution of meat” among chimpanzees (see I.z.n.z3)-showing them to be more human than had been suspected; a chimpanzee ,,rarar,, has been observed, and there are reports of intentionaf kitting by gorillas and orangutans (see I.6.n.5). The picture of evolution hai become ever richer in details but increasingly blurred in its outlines. In reac- tion to the “hunting hypothesis” of Robert Ardrey and others, spe- cialists are now reluctant to lay claim to knowledge of the importance of hunting behavior. what had been taken to be lhe earliest evidence PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION for sacrifice has been called into question again (see I.z.n.6). yet the historian of religion still insists that religion must have come into ex_ is.tence at some specific point_chimpir,re”s are apparentlv irreli_ gious-and that it first becomes disceinibre with funera.y uni nrr.,t_ ing ritual. In view of all this it is essential to note that the lor.r” or historical development as delineated in Homo Necqns does not at any stage require that “all” men acted or experienced things in a certain way-e’9., that all hunters feel sympathy for their quairy or remorse over their hunting-but only that ro*” iid indeed instiiute forms of behavior that became traditional and had a formative influence on the high cultures accessible to historical investigation. For the srrange prominence of animal sraughter in ancient rer’igion this still seems to be the most economical, and most humane, exllanation. . -F dealing with tradition, Homo Necans takes a stance that is hardly popular: it restricts the role of creative freedom a.d fantasy; it reduces “ideas” to the imprinting effect of cultural transfer. on the other hand, modern insistence on ,,creativity,, may simply be an at_ tempt to compensate for the enormous anonymous constraints at work in our society. Nobody wants to question the spiritual achieve- ments of mankind, but these may have it.ung” and opaque substruc- tures. In pointing them out it is perhaps wisest not even to shun the accusation of reductionism, for, though from a structuralist-semiotic perspective one may well describe religion as the relations between men and gods, with sacrifice mediating between them, the term gods nonetheless remains fluid and in need of explanation, while sacrifice is a fact. The thesis that those groups united by religious ritual have his- torically been most successful seems to conflict *itn tn” modern ver- sion of the theory of evolution. That theory now discards the concept 9f qlo”p selection and insists, rather, on ih” self-perpetuation of the “selfish gene” (see I.3.n.9). It may be pointed out bnce more that this is a predictable modern perspective ieflecting the disintegration of our society. whether it applies to the history of culturally dJtermined groups is another question. The thesis of Homo Necans does not hy- pothesize about genetic fixation of ,,human nature.,, It seeks, rather, to.confront the power and effect of tradition as fuily as possibre. In this sense it is radically historical, and factual. pre.paring the translation, I have only been able to rework the ototrography and notes to a limited extent. They still largely reflect the state of the relevant scholarship in 1972. I have, howlver, taken the opportunity to refer to more recent specialized studies and stan- PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION dard works and to make the documentation more complete and up- to-date. ItremainstothanktheUniversityofCaliforniaPressandPeter Bing, the translator, for their untiring efforts’ usrER, yurv r98z Walter Burkert List of Illustrations following page fi4 r. Sacrificial procession. Attic black-figure cup. z. Preparation for sacrifice. Attic red-figure bell crater. 3. Leopard men hunting stag and boar. Wall painting from Qatal Htiyrik. Sacrificial feast: roasting and cooking. Caeretan hydria. Warrior rising from a tripod cauldron. Mitra from Axos. Bulls strolling around an altar. Attic black-figure oinochoe. ‘Lenaia-vase’. Attic red-figure stamnos. Mystery initiation: pig sacrifice. Lovatelli urn. Mystery initiation: purification by liknon. Lovatelli urn. 4- 5.6.n 8. 9. xvll Introduction It is not so much the limits of our knowledge as the superabun- dance of what can be known that makes an attempt to expliin man’s religious behavior an almost hopeless enterprise. The mass of avail- able data and interpretation has long exceeded the limits of what an individual can grasp and assimilate. Perhaps this stream of informa- tion will soon be ordered and surveyed through a collective effort us- ing computels, but as long as intellectual independence prevails and an individual must seek to orient himself within his own world, he may-indeed, he must-take the risk of projecting a model of his sit- uation and reducing a confusing multiplicity into a comprehensible form. A philologist who starts from ancient Greek texts and attempts to find biological, psychological, and sociological explanations foi reli- gious phenomena naturally runs the risk of juggling too many balls at once and dropping them all. And if it is strange for a philologist to venture beyond scrupulous discussion of his texts, psychology and sociology are just as reluctant to burden their analyses of contempo- rary phenomena with an historical perspective stretching back to an- tiquity and beyond. There is a danger that important biological, psy- chological, and ethnological findings be overlooked, juit as can happen with archaeological finds, and it is hardly possible for the non-specialist to give the Near Eastern evidence the expert treatment it requires. Yet we must not assume that all subiects fii neatlv within the limits of a particular discipline. Even philology depends on a bio- logically, psychologically, and sociologically deteimined environment and tradition to provide its basis for understanding. And just as biol- ogy acquired an historical dimension with the concept of evolution,r so sociology, like psychology before it, should uccepf the notion that ‘H. Diels, lnternationale wochenshrift ) (1gog), g9o, discussed the “historicizins of na- ture” through Darwin’s the<-rry xix INTRODUCTION human society is shaped by the past and. can be understood only by examining its”develoim”nf ou”t long periods of time’ Of course, ttr” uii of understanding itself presents us with prob- lems that have been widely discussed’ If by “understanding” we mean that the outside world will ultimately correspond to-our exPec- tutio”‘andthoughtstructures,thenweadmitthatthediversityof thatworldisperceivedasthoughthroughapredeterminedfilterand ;ir;;;;r;;fi b” diff”rent kinds of understanding, distinguished ac- .*d*_-; individuals and groups. But if reality were not anthropo- “iiii?.”ify or at least intellectually determined, then understanding i;;;;rrr;al sense would be altogether impossible. The possibility ,”-uir* of using our consciousness, fully aware of these problems, to unravel the course of received tradition,’ and to adapt the structures of understanding to the ever-new realities with which we are con- fronted and to *tl.t man, whether he likes it or not, remains tied. our task is to seek the perspectives that give us the broadest and clearest view, to project a-model that accounts for the various areas of experience as comprehensively as possible and that is susceptible to frequent factual veiification. We cannot hope that our model will be a finiihed product; it is merely an attempt set forward for discussion, with full knowledge of its tentative nature- Every religionaspires to the absolute. Its claims, when seen from within, make it self-sufficient. It establishes and explains, but needs no explanation. Within this sphere of power, any discussion about re- ligion will almost automatically become a religious Pronouncement, especially as the essence of religion is an attempt at expression and communication. In this way, however, religion becomes the agent and the medium of communication rather than its subiect. This is pre- cisely why religious discussion about religion is effective, for it finds resonance in nearly everyone. Thus, even when the seriousness of re- ligious practice is replaced by the ambiguous and non-binding “as if” of emotional understanding, this mode of discourse remains entirely respectable even in a secularized society. The opposite extreme in the study of religion is likewise gener- ally accepted and carries no risk: this is the lexicographical documen- tation and arrangement of the details that have been observed and transmitted to us from the past. And yet a lexicon will not give us an understanding of the language if the grammar is unknown or dis- regarded and if the practice under discussion has not been under- zFor the fundamental philosophical treatment see H. G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Me- thode Q965′). INTRODUCTION stood’ Thus, precisely because religious phenomena seem more and more to elude the modern world’s grasp, mere gathering of material can shed no more light on them than can the uncontrolled resonances of emotional understanding. Especially when dealing with foreign or extinct religions, an out- sider finds himself confronted, as it were, with a strange and un- known language: to understand it, he must translate it. This means first of all that there should be no ambiguity about the language into which one translates. To vacillate between transformation and imita- tion will produce the kind of misunderstandings that do, in fact, dominate many controversies in the study of religion. If one tries to translate one religion into the language of another, one finds, just as in working with ordinary languages of different nations, that this is only possible to a limited degree. Equivalent expressions will fre- quently be lacking, due to the respective differences in religious prac- tice and in living conditions. If we take up foreign words such as totem, tabu, and mana, their meaning remains unclear or changes ac- cording to the interpreter’s intent. If we invent new concepts such as aegetation spirit or Year Daemon,3 their legitimacy remains a matter of dispute, especially if it is unclear at what point the concept becomes a new myth itself. The language that has proved the most generally understood and cross-cultural is that of secularized scholarship. Its practice today is determined by science in its broadest sense, its system of rules by the laws of logic. It may, of course, seem the most questionable endeavor of all to try to translate religious phenomena into this language; by its self-conception, a religion must deny that such explanations are pos- sible. However, scholarship is free to study even the rejection of knowledge and repudiation of independent thought, for scholarship, in attempting to understand the world, has the broader perspective here and cannot abstain from analyzing the worldwide fact of reli- gion. This is not a hopeless undertaking.n However, a discussion of religion must then be anything but religious. 3W. Mannhardt, Die Korndiimonen Q868); Harrison (r9z) 31r-34. Especially dangerous is the little word is, which confounds translation, allegory, classification, and onlologi- caf or psychological realization. See, for instance, Nilsson jgo6) z7: “wenn der Stier des Zeus Sosipolis ein Korngeist ist, muss der des Zeus Polieus es auch sein.’, aE. E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitiae Religion (1965), offers a survey with pene- trating criticism that leads to the conclusion that the “believer” is s-.rperior to the “non- believer” (rzr). still fundamental, however, is E. Durkheirn’s Les formes ilimentaires tle la ttte religieuse (r9rz). Psychoanalytical enterprises-most recently La Barre j97o)-are also to be taken seriously. xxl INTRODUCTION We shall examine religion as an historical and social phenome- non, as the medium of tradition and communication among men. This contradicts the common assumptions, if not the practical reality, of the dominant religious tradition in the West, i.e., Christianity, which views the individual’s encounter with the one God, and his subsequent salvation, as the onlyrelevant facts. This perspective has determined the common scholarly definition of religion as, for in- stance, “man’s experiential encounter with the sacred and his action in response to the sacred.”s And yet individual religions exist in typi- cal and persisting forms precisely because very little unforeseen spon- taneity and innovation occur in them. To the extent that we find a “personal encounter with the sacred,” it is performed according to a traditional method and with pedagogical intent. Only those who can attest to a genuine encounter are accepted. The pre-Christian reli- gions proclaimed with the utmost conviction that only ancestral tradi- tion could guarantee the legitimacy of religion. Thus, through his ora- cle, the Delphic god always sanctioned rites “according to the custom of the city”; and the Boeotian was speaking for many when he re- marked, in regard to a strange fish-sacrifice at Lake Copais, “There is just one thing I know: that one must maintain the ancestral customs and that it would be improper to excuse oneself for this before others.” 6 Ancient Greek religion is distinguished neither by extreme antiq- uity nor by a great wealth of source material. It is far younger than either the Egyptian or Sumerian tradition, and in terms of accessibil- ity it cannot even begin to compete with a living religion. In spite of this, the general problems in the study of religion have been repeat- edly linked to research on the religion of the Greeks. This can hardly be a coincidental offshoot of the once-ubiquitous humanistic tradi- tion. If, rather, we take both age and accessibility into account simul- taneously, the ancient Greek religion assumes a unique position after all: among the most ancient forms of religion, it is still the most com- prehensible and the one that can be obseived from the greatest num- ber of perspectives. For it never disappeared entirely, but remained 5G Mglsching, Die grossen Nichtchristlichen Religionen unserer Zeit (rg5+), rJ; RGG3 V 9&;cf.F. Heiler, Erscheinungst’ornrenundWesenderReligion(r96t),562i ,,Umgangmit dem Heiligen.” oAgatharchides, Ath. z97d; u6ptp r6 ueXen. Mem. t.1.t, 4.3.:’6, and cf. Hes. fr. ;z:.; Eur. Bacch. 2o7-2o4i Plat. Leg. 78b-d,; Cotta in Cic. Nat. deor. 3.5, 9;Cic. Leg. z.4o;Cic. Hat resp. 18-r9. Likewise, early Christianity felt obliged to its ancestors: oix dpels rilv yeipd oou atro roi uioi oou i) dro fi1s tuyarpog oou, ri,,),ri dtr6 veornros 6r.6ri{srs rdv 96Bov roi Beoi (Didache 4.q. INTRODUCTION active, even if in strange transformations,_irgm superstition and liter_ ary tradition to liturgical practice and Christi””‘th;;i;;y.t.,ty i., ancient Greek religion do we find an uninterrupt”J;;:iir; of the greatest antiquity in a highly refined culture, unsurpassed in its intel_ lectual and artistic achievement. It was due to this union of antiquity with sophistication that the Greeks were the first syst”mati*ri to call religion into question’ Seen from that distance ind from c(angrng perspectives, the phenomenon may come into sharper relief. In the following studies, the Greek tradition wiil hold center stage, though it is hoped that we will illuminate important stages in the mainstream of human development as well. we witt not try to ex- p]{n nfeigmena by amls.sing ,,primitive,, material fo. lo.r,p’u.iror,, stripped of its context and henie utt tn” more difficult to understand. Rathe.r,. we shall proceed from a consistent historical perspective stretching back to man’s beginnings. we wit “”t pr”.” gi*itweigtt on theindividuality of Greericultuie, regardless of how p?Jr”*or*ry it may be; the anthroporogical aspect out-weighs the humanistrc. nut it is precisely here that both the primeval rools and the lucidity of the Greek material becomes evideni. It can serve, as it were, as a mirror in which the basic orders of rife, lying far behind us, become visible with an almost classical claritv. . we shall try to combine this consistent historical perspective with a functiorral one. within historical reality, religion is a sta’uitizr.,g ruc- tor of the first order in society. As such it upp”u* in its enduring as- pect, always a given tradition which is moaified time and ug”i; u”a never replaced by something entirely new. As it unfords -iihir, th” many-faceted play of sociar forces, various traditions unite, thereby i:t”J,,l”g 1″d perpetuating themselves or languishing and dying out. :1″,:-t:.1″:pect,..religion, while tied to social reality, do”, .,ot si”mply reflec.t that reality; it takes little account of society’s swift changes, es- pecially those regarding economic conditions. Rathea it seems to deal wrth more fundamental layers of communal human life and with its ffI.^l:,t”-gi.a.l preconditions, which have changed only ,filf,,ff f.o- rne earlrest times until now If religious forms have ofien iro”iaua u focal point for new social and ecinomic developmentr, ii”y’-“.” more.a prerequisite than a consequence of these developments., At the core of our study u.” th” rituals, together wiih the mythic TMax weber, in his famous study, demonstrated the influence of carvinism on capital- ism (Dre protestantische Ethik unider Geist des xopirotir*ur, Ges. Aufsiitze zur Rerigionsso- ziologie I [ryzo], q-zo6), but Calvinis- “r…*.nn/p,car’ho –^r-i-^r L.. -.,–, -/ _,__”6.” , rtrzwt, L/_zuorl our Lalvlnlsm cannot conversely be explained by way ol capitalism. xxii xxiii TNTRODUCTION traditions relating to them. Our aim is to identify and to understand relationships and structures that recur in various guises but always bind certain elements together in the same way” We shall consciously refrain from trying to arrange the material according to a mathemati- cal model. Theelements are, on the one hand, so complex and, on the other, so directly understandable that it would be wrong to reduce them to a yes/no pattern, thus making them so complicated that they would be obscured. Killing and eating, virgins, mothers and fathers -these basic configurations of human life are more easily grasped through experience than through logical analysis, just as the struc- ture of a ritual and of a mythic tale unfolds in linear time and cannot be represented by a system of reversible permutations. Thus, the sac- rificial ritual moves from preparation through the “unspeakable” cen- tral point to the act of “setting up” an order, a pattern which can be repeated but not reversed. The first chapter deals with basic principles and could stand on its own, although it would then probably seem too dogmatic and speculative. It pulls together the various threads that appear in the case studies of the subsequent chapters. By spelling out the conse- quences, it lays the foundation that is then assumed for the rest of the book. The hypothesis and the application confirm one another, even though neither is quite self-sufficient. Following this attempt to ana- lyze the complex of hunting, sacrifice, and funerary ritual both his- torically and functionally, we turn to an interpretation of groups of Greek festival rites under various aspects. We examine, on the one hand, the divisions and interactions of individual groups at the sacri- fice of a ram and, on the othet the sequence of dissolution and resto- ration of the order of life, from the city festivals to the Dionysiac orgies. The sacrificial structure of guilt incurred and subsequent res- titution also appears in the consumption of wine at the oldest festival of Dionysus; and the mysteries of the grain goddess Demeter appear to be likewise organized by the rhythm of the sacrificial rites. This se- quence is not to be understood as historical stratigraphy. It is increas- ingly difficult to separate Mediterranean, Near Eastern, and Eurasian elements, and to distinguish Greek from pre-Greek. The structures are perhaps too basic to follow ethnic distinctions. The aim of our presentation is to set out the phenomena in a per- 6The following analyses were begun and conducted largely without reference to C. L6vi-Strauss’s Anthropologie structurale Q958; Mythologiques I-lY 11964-197rl; An- thropologie structurale deux lt971l). For a closer look at structuralism, see Burkert (1979) 5-a4. INTRODUCTION spicuous and understandable form. This requires a practicable brevity and limitation of scope, a selective treatment of the boundless mass of material. It would be impossible to discuss all questions in detail or refer exhaustively to all specialized secondary literature. we have at- tempted instead to refer to what is basic and what is new The most important sources are cited, but the list is by no means exhaustive. we refer the reader to the standard works of preller-Robert, Deubner and Nilsson, Farnell and Cook for more complete documentation. -The aspects of Greek religion and of humanity that emerge in this study are not those which are particularly edifying, not the ideal or the most likable traits of Greek culture. yet we can invoke the Delphic god’s injuction that mankind should see itself with absolute clariry, no illusions: f uio& oaurov. xxlv I. SACRIFICE, HUNTING, AND FUNERARY ruTUALS r. Sacrifice as an Act of KiIIing Aggressionr and human violence have marked the progress of our civilization and appear, indeed, to have Brown so during its course that they have become a central problem of the present. Analy- ses that attempt to locate the roots of the evil often set out with short- sighted assumptions, as though the failure of our upbringing or the faulty development of a particular national tradition or economic sys- tem were to blame. More can be said for the thesis that all orders and forms of authority in human society are founded on institutionalized violence. This at least corresponds to the fundamental role played in biology by intraspecific aggression, as described by Konrad Lorenz. Those, however, who turn to religion for salvation from this “so- called evil” of aggression are confronted with murder at the very core ‘S. Freud pointed the way in Das Unbehngen in der Kultur (r91o), Ges. Schrit’ten Xll (r9$, z7-t’r4 = Ges. Werke Xlv (1948), 4:’9-5o6. K. Lorenz (1963) is basic from the standpoint of the behaviorist. The sometimes spirited criticisms of his approach-for hstance, M. F. Ashley-Montagu, ed., Man and Aggression (1968); A. Plack, Die Gesell- schaft und das Bijse Gg6go); J. Rattner, Aggression und menschliche Natur Q97o)_.did, in- deed correct some particulars but sometimes also displayed wishful thinking and par- tisanship; cf. Eibl-Eibesfeldtt (r97o) defensive posture. For application to religious studies see P Weidkuhn, Aggressiaiti)t, Ritus, Slikularisierung. Biologische Grundformen r el igidser P r oze sse (196 5). SACRIFICE, HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS of Christianity-the death of God’s innocent son; still earlier, the old Testament covenant could come about only after Abraham had de- cided to sacrifice his child. Thus, blood and violence lurk fascinat- ingly at the very heart of religion’ Fromaclassicizingpersp”ective,Greekreligionappearedandstill upp”u., -,o some as Uiigt t and harmlessly cheerful. Yet those who ^jir.,tuir., that the skand”alon of the Cross (I Cor. r:23) is on another i;;;il;;iler overlook the deeper dimension that accompanies the “”r, fri” 3f the gods as portrayed by Homer. If a man is able to draw “l^’, i”-,r,” god”s, as the priest Chryses with Apollo or as Hektor or Oiurr”rr, *ith 2″.*, he can do so because he has “burnt many thigh- “i”1″, of bulls,, (II. r.4o, zz.a7o; Od. r.66), for this is the act of piety: tloodshed, slaughter-and eating. It makes no difference if there is no temple or cull-statue, as often occurs in the cult of Zeus. The god is. pr”r”r,i at his place of sacrifice, a place distinguished by the heap of ashes left from ,,sacred” offerings burnt there over long periods of time, or by the horns and skulls of slaughtered rams and bulls, or by the altar-stone where the blood must be sprinkled. The worshipper experiences the god most Powerfully not just in pious conduct or in pruy”r, ro.g, u.,I dance, but in the deadly blow of the axe, the gush Lf Utooa an? the burning of thigh-pieces. The realm of the gods is sacred, but the “sacred” act done at the “sacred” place by the “con- secrating” actor consists of slaughtering sacrificial animals, iepeiecv ra iepe{a., It was no different in Israel up to the destruction of the tempie.’ It is prescribed that daily “burnt offering shall be on the hearth upon the altar,” “all night until the morning” (Lev’ 6:z); these offerings, the remnants of two one-year-old lambs cut into pieces, are “a plea-sing odor to the Lord.” Thus the principal sin of Antiochus Epiphanes against |erusalem was that he ordered that “the continual burnt offeri”g 1U”1 taken away” (Dan. 8:rr). Augustus built an altar to SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF KILLING celebrate the establishmSnl 0f world peace and, together with his family, appears on the reliefs of this Ari pacis ur u ru.iiril”., p.”.”a”a by servants carrying the sacrificiar axe. Thus, the -ort;;fi;;d Au_ gustan art provides a framework for the bloody sacrifices at the centgl. .. .f$acrificial killing is the basic experience of the “sacred.,, Homo re- Iigiosus acts and attains self-awareness us homo necans. Indeed, this is what it means “to act,” t’6{ew, operari (whence ,,sacrifice,, is Opfer in German)-the name merely covers up the heart gf the action with a euphemism.o rhe bliss of encountering divinity finds expression in ryordr, and yet the strange and extraor-clinary E;6GTh-at ine parfiai- pant in the sacrifice is forced to witness are all the more intense be_ cause they are left undiscussedl Thanks to the descriptions”in Homer and tragedy, we can recon- struct the course of an ordinary Greek sacrifice to”the olympian gods almost in its entirety. Ihe path that leads to the center or tn” sacred experience is complex.frhe preparations include bathing and dress- ing in clean clothes,s putting on ornaments and wreaths;Joften sexual abstinence is a requirement.’At the start, a procession (rrop.rr),s even if still a small one, is formed. The festival pirticipants depart from the everyday world, moving to a single rhythm and singing. The sacrifi_ cial animal is led along with them, iikewise decoratet and trans- formed-bound with fillets, its horns covered with gold.’Generally it is hoped that the animal will follow the procession compliantly or even willingly. Legends often tell of animals that offered tiremselves ‘The basic meaning of 8{ew is “to smoke.” Concerning the ancients, plutarch writes {fgllowiig Theophrastus?) raparrop.evot xai ietp.aivovres “Ep6ew” ltiv Exaouu xai “t’6(ew”‘ 6s * ptya 6pdures, rd Biew i;trltuyov, e. conu. 729 f .; z:ouekrlar. il. 2.4o9, cf . r.3r8; Hy. Merc. 436. Likewise in Hebrew and Hittite, the verb to do is used in the sense of “to sacrifice”; cf. casabona e966) 3or-1o4, who warns against generarizations. sE.g., Od. 4.759; Eur. EL 79t and, J. D. Dennistons Commentary e99), ad /oc.; poll. r’25; Wdchter (r9ro) rt-rz; R. Ginouvds, BAAANEYTIKH; Recherchis sur le batn dans I’ antiquitd grecque Q96z), 299- 3tB. “xen. Anab.7.r.4o;Aeschines3.77;etc.;J. Kochling, Decoronarumapudantiquosaiatque usu (r9t3); K. Baus, Der Kranz in Antike und Chrisientum (r94o); L. Deubner, z{RW 3o (ty), 7o-ro4; Blech (1982). ?Fehrle 1r9ro), esp. r55-58; for the coan inscription on the sacrifice of a bull for Zeus r-olreus see now SlC, to25 = LS r5t A 4t_44. 8E. Pfuhl, De Atheniensium pompis sacris (r9ro); Wilamo witz (t932) j5o_54. “od’ 3.412-38. This survived in fork custom until modern times; see U. Jahn, Die deut- schen opferbriiuche bei Ackerbau und viehzucht egg4), q6-17, lt5-17, on the proverbial “ox at Pentecost”; Megas Q956) t7. On the meanint otf iepeiov rit eroz see Arist. fr. ror; t’tut. Ue del. or. 437a: Schol. A. II. r.66; Eust. 49.35. 2On Greek sacrifice see Stengel (r9ro), (r9zo) g5-a5, Eitrem (r9r5); F Schwenn, Cebef und Opfer (r9z); L. Ziehen, RE XVIII (ry9), 579-627, lll A (tgzg), 1669-79; Meuli (1946); burkert (1966); Nilsson $95) tlz-t57; Casabona (1966); E’Forster, “Die antiken i”ti.trt”” tiber das Opferwesen,” Diss. Innsbruck, r95z; E. Kadletz, ‘Animal Sacrifice in Greek and Roman Religion,” Diss. University of washington, t976; Detienne and Vernant (1979).For the pictorial tradition see G. Rizza, ASAA37l38(195916o)’ 121′-45; Metzger ‘(ig6S) :roZ-trfi. On sacrifice generally see W’ R Smith (r89+); H Hubert and M. M-auss, “Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice,” Ann6e Sociologique z (1898), zg-tlg: M. Mauss, oeuures I (1968), rgJ-)o7; A. Loisy, Essai historique sur le -sacrifice (iqzoj; n. Money-Kyrle, The Meaning of Sacrifce (r91o) (psychoanalytical);-E’ M’ Loeb’ ‘)The Blood Sacrifice Complex,” Mei. Amer. Anthr. Assoc’ 1o(:’923; E’ O’ fames’ Sacri- fice and Sacrament (:.962); Burkert (r98r). 3R. de Vaux, Les sacrifces de I’Ancien Testament i96$; cf . n. 4z below’ SACRIFICE, HUNTING/ FUNERARY RITUALS uP for sacrifice,r0 apparent evidence of a higher will that commands aisent. The final goit it the sacrificial stone, the altar “set up” long ago, which is to be sprinkled with.blood’ Usually a fire is already u[luru on top of it. Olten a censer is used to impregnate the atmo- sphere with ihe scent of the extraordinary, and there is music, usually tirat of the flute. A virgin leads the way, “carrying the basket” (xavr1- gripos),” that is, an untouched girl holding a covered container (see fieures r and z). A water iug must be there as well’ ” fFirst of all, after arriving at the sacred place, the participants ,,'”i-t off a circle; the sacrificial basket and water jug are carried around the assembly, thus marking off the sacred realm from the pro- fane.” The first communal act is washing one’s hands as the begin- ning of that which is to take place. The animal is also sprinkled with waterll”shake yourself,” says Trygaios in Aristophanes,” for the ani- mal’sirovement is taken to signify a “willing nod,” a “yes” to the sac- rificial act. The bull is watered again,” so that he will bow his head. The animal thus becomes the center of attention. The participants now take unground barley grains (orilal), the most ancient agricul- tural product, from the basket. These, however, are not meant for grinding or to be made into food: after a brief silence, the solemn eJgqp,eiv, followed by a prayer out loud-in a way, more self- affirmation than prayer-the participants fling the barley grains away onto the sacrificial animal, the altar, and the earth.” They are after rorge4lrirou Bo rz.5r (Olympia); Porph. Abst. t.z5 (Gadeira, Kyzikos); Plut. Pel. zz (Leuktra); Apollon. Mir. 11 (t{alikarnassos); Arist. Mir. Ausc. 844a35 (Pedasia); Philostr’ Her. 8 p. 294 (Rhesos), 17 p.)2g and Arr. Peripl. zz (Leuke); Ael. Nat. an. ro-5o (Eryx), rr.4 (Her- mione); especially for human sacrifice see Neanthes FGrHist 84 F 16 (Epimenides), Serv. Aen.3.57 (Massalia),Paus. 4.9.4 (Messenia); Isaac, according to Hellenistic tradi- tion, see Jos. Ant. lud. r.z1z; IV Macc. l.1:tz, 16:zo. Cf. J. Schmitt, Freiutilliger Opfertod bei Euripides (r9zr). 1tJ. Schelp, Das Kanoun, der griechische Opferkorb (tg75; for reproductions see, e.g., Si- mon (1969) r93; Deubner (1912) pl. rr.r; Nilsson (1955) pl. 32.r. ‘2E.g., Aristoph. Pax 956-58, Eur. lph. Aul. t-568; Eitrem (r9r5) 7-29. rrAristoph. Pax 96o;6 6′ |xoitotov d.u xarauciaTl . .. Porph. Abst. z.g: Parke and Wormell (1958) II #517;Plut. Q. conu.7z9f ., De def . or’ 45b-c,437a; Schol. Il’ 1.449; Schol. Aristoph. Pax96o; Schol. Apoll. Rhod. r.425; cf. Meuli (t946 254,266;J’ C’Fra- zer, Pausanias’ Description of Creece, 1898, on Paus. ro.5.7; Ginouvds, BAAANEYTIKH, 3rr-18.raBull-sacrifice for dithyrambic victory: see, e.8., the Munich stamnos z4rz: ARV’z ro36, 5 in Stengel (r9zo) pl. V ‘sA. W. H. Adkins, “Etyop.at. Eiyd,il and Ei’1os in Homer,” CQ tg (196), 2o-))’. “as’ serting his existence, his value, and his claims” (33); this characteristic, a given in Ho- meric usage, conforms exactly to the position of prayer in the sacrificial ritual, although the prayer qua request can, as Oriental texts show, be far more elaborate SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF KILLING another kind of food. The act of throwing simultaneously as a group is an aggressive gesture, rike beginnir,g u iight, even if ihJ;; harm_ less projectiles are chosen. Indeed, i.r ,ome ancient rituals stones were used.’u Hidden beneathJhe grains in the basket was the knife, which now lies uncovered.r’The leader in this incipient drama, the iepeis, steps toward the sacrificial animal, carrying the knife still cov_ ered so that the animal cannot see it. A swift cui, uid u f”* hairs from the brow are shorn and thrown into the fire. This is another, though more serious, act of beginning (cipyecgat),rn just as the water and the barley grains were a beginning. Blood has noi yet been spilled and no pain whatsoever has been inflicted, but the inviorability of the sacrifi- cial animal has been abolished irreversibly. Now comes the death blow The *orn”r, raise a piercing scream: whether in fear or triumph or both at once, the ,,Greek custJm of the sacrificial scream”‘n marks the emotional climax of the “rr”.ri, Lo-._ ilg-ar4t-th-death:ralfle. The blood nowrnf out is treated *itn $*i”r care. ft may.not spill on the ground; rather, it must hit the altar, the hearth, or the sacrificial pit. If the animal is small it is raised over the altar; otherwise the blood is caught in a bowl and sprinkled on the altar-stone. This object alone may, and must again and again, drip blood.’o The “act” is over; its consequences are the next concern. The anr_ mal is carved up and disembowelled. Its inner organs are now the main focus, lying revealed, an alien, bizarre, and rri.ur,rry sight, and yet common in the same form to men as well, as is knoin from seeing wounded soldiers. The tradition specifies preciselv what must toOritrolurcs d.utovro I rpoBaovro ll. t.449145g, z.4to/42r, and cf. Ori. 3.447; ylputpa r’ oi)royirae re xardpyecfiat od. ).++5; cf . Aristoph. pa x 96r-67. ro. o;ioJ us tr,” ,.ort ancrent grain see Theophrastus in porph. Abst. 2.6 and schol. Ir. r.44gb; schol. orl. ).44r; Suda o 9o7; Eust. 7)2.25, 1,i3.1,2, and cf. Eust. rg59.4g; “, ur, “*prJrrion of a.otru_ rlrqfeia and eigopia see Schol. A lt.r.449, Schol. Od. 3.4.4t. VngZcLu . . . duri oiiitu l:.t:ro, Paus.,r.4r.9 (cf. III.4 below). For ritual stone_throwing around the altar of t’oserdon at the Isthmian sanctuary see o. Broneet Hesperia zg (g59),3o1. Cf .L. zie- hen,He-rmes)zQgoz),3gr-4oo;Stengel(r9ro)r)-));Eitrem(r9r5) z6r-3og,whorecog- lii:l ,1” eSlivalelle.yith,pur,ropJla una *Lriytoptrra; Burkert 1ryoo) to7, n. 4o. r1at. Com. lr.9r CAF l6z6); Aristoph. pax 94g with Schol.; Eur. El. gto, iph. Aul. 1565; Philostr. V Av. r.r ‘8Od. 3.4q6, r4.4zz’;Eur. Alc. 74-76, El. ht;Eitrem (r9r5) 344_72_who,howeve, er_ roneously makes the “beginning,, into a ,,selbstdndige dpfergab e,, (44) ‘e’E,,A1urr i1 SACRIFICE, HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS be done with each piece.” First of all, the heart, sometimes still beat- ing, is put on the aitar.r’ A seer is present to interpret the lobes of the liv*er.., in general, however, the ozr),d7Xzc-the collective term for the organsl-are quickly roasted in the fire from the altar and eaten at / once. Thus the inner circle of active participants is brought together in “.o*^unal meal, transforminq h91o1into pleasure. Only the bile is inedible and has to be disposed of. Likewise, the bones are not to be used for the subsequent meal, so they are “consecrated” before- hand. The bones, above all the thigh-bones Aqpiq) and the pelvis with the tail (rio the bones, one can still see exactly how the parts of thgliving animal fit together: its basic form is restored and consecratedJ In Homer, a “beginning,” i.e., a first offering, consisting of raw pieces of flesh from every limb, is put on the bones as well, indicating the entirety of the slaughtered animal.'{Tne purifying-jire then consumes all these remains]The skulls of buTls and rams ffigoat-horns are preserved” in the sacred place as permanent evidence of the act of consecration’ The flow of blood is now replaced in its turn by the offerings of the planter, pouring libations of wine into the fire and burning cakes.2’As the alcohol causes the flames to flare up, a higher reality seems pres- ent. Then, as the fire dies down, the pleasing feast gradually gives ‘?rStengel Qgto) p-78; Meuli (1946) 246-48, 268-72; cvrnrXayTveierz Aristoph. Par rrr5; Eup. fr. ro8 (CAF I 286); Ath. 4rob. zGalen PIac. Hipp. et Plat. 2.4 p. 238 K; cf. Cleanthes in Cic. Nal. deor. z.z4; Suda x 17o (An. Bekk.l z75.to; Et. M. 49z.tz); Hsch. xap6lo0orlct, xap6cou)xlat, and cf. Luk. Sac- rif . 13; LSS nr.7. tsG. Blecher, De extispicio capita tria (t9o); for the Near Eastern tradition see J. Nougay- rol, “Les rapports des haruspicines 6trusque et assyro-babylonienne,” CRAI (t955), jo9- r8. 2aErifsrr:oos Hes. Th. 54r. Meuli (1946) zr5-r7 proved that the p.lpia mentioned regu- larly in Homer are the bare thigh-bones; 6or6,a Xeuxa Hes. Tir. 54o, sj7.The comic poets normally mention dogus and gall; cf. Men. Qrsc. 45r-52 and cf . fr. 264, Sam. 3gg-4o2; Eub. fr. 95, 1Jo (CAF II tg7, zto); Com. adesp. fr. rzo5 (CAF III.6o6). Vase- paintings (see n. z above) portray the dogris and tail of the sacrificial animal on the altar; cf. Aristoph. Pax rc54 with Schol. T'{lp.o$trlcav ll. r.46r, 2.424; Od. 3.458, rz46r, :^4.427 Dion. Hal. Ant. 2.72.t7; Meuli (1946) zr8, 256, z6z. “Theophr. Char. zt.7; Schol. Aristoph. Plut.943; Eitrem gy/ 14-48; Nilsson (1955) 88, r45. For the accumulation of goat-horns in the temple of Apollo at Dreros see S. Ma- rinatos, BCH fu Qq6), zz4-25, 24r-44.On the Keraton of Delos see Dikaiarchus fr. 85 W. = Plut. Thes. zr; Callim. Hy. Ap.58-64; E. Bethe, HermesTz(rg), rgt-94. ‘z?Oil. 3.459-6o; xpi in.;Biet d){ghav ilpiexrov…LS r57 A, and cf. r5r A zo intBiew. SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF.KILLING way to everyday life.” The skin of the sacrificiar victim is generary sord to benefit the sanctuary, to purchase new votive offerLgs and new victims: in this way, the cult insures its own .onti.,uur.,.u.irl This rite is obrectionabre, and was already fert to uu ,o “u;rf o,.,, because it so cleariv and directly benefits man. Is the god ,,to whom,, the sacrifice is made any more than a transparent excuse for festive feasting? All he gets arl the bones, th; fa; u”d th” ;;[-Uiuia”.r. Hesiod says that the crafty prometheus, the friend of mankind, caused this to be so in ordei to deceive the gods, and the burning of bones became a standard joke in Cr””t comedy.3o Criticism that damned the bloody act per se was far more penetrating. Zarathustra,s curse applies to all who rust for brood and slaughter?attr”.l,)inuuu had enough of burnt o{fering of rams “”J af.r” fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of he_goats,,, says the Lord through Isaiah.3,In the Greek wortJ, tne pythag%;;;, u]ia O._ phics demanded that the lives of all creatures with souls be spared, and Empedokles was the most vehement ,r “il i”-“tt]Jffi.nT.r._ nibalistic madness of the traditional sacrificiar meal, u, utro?.,-“ip.ur- sing the desire for a realm of non_violent love,on the path toward ,,pu_ rification'”33 Ph’osophy then took up the criticism of blood- 28Ofteneverythingmustbeeatenonthespot1o’oo,ffi 88′ st. ,stengel (gzo rr6-t7; esp. IG1r’: y496 ro rtpt’ytuop.evov dudrirnrerv e is dvatiltrLarla SIG3 rc44, 47 = LSAM 72, 47; cf . LSS’6r, Sz_07, ,lA+, StC, 982, z3_zl; tS 69, 85. An exception: 16 6eppa dyi[erfaL IS r5r D 6; Li fil ll ro 66ptra’xqrrri((“irq, o tt 66pp’a xararyi(e(rar) meaning “is burned” (sokolowski) or ,,is torn apart,, (Hsch. xor- aLlaaas and aiyi(et, Suda at 44; G. Daux, BCI1 g7 [ry6j], 61o)? sSee n. z4 above; A. Thomsen, ,,Der Trug des prometheu s,,, ARW rz (r9o9), 46o_9o; l. Rudhardt, “Les mythes grecs relatifs i l,instauration du sacrifice,,, MH z7 (r97o) r-r5. The basis of the criticism is the concept that d rhrerz Lapekrhaidozy rois rleols (Pla.t. Euthyphr. r4c). Accordingly, tabl”.;;;;;;;;;;.. the gods (rpatre{at: oxilros 16 tptTro Bo6s rapteuto r6t Bnt Ib_Iy g74 = SIC3 99b itpiauu.ur, fifth century n.c.); cf. L. Ziehen, RE XVIII 6rc-r6; S..Dowand D-H 6iit, .The Greek cultrabti,,, a1a o9 (1969′-rc|-n4′ yet it is possibre to sraughter a *iri uo., ‘,for zeusand Helios,,and then throw the cadaver into the sea eI i9 – -z ‘ui.,a.r.3.roal3ro; ro, t*tuo* t,y- potheses to save the ,,offering,,-interpretaiiofsee Siengel ftgrc1, ry_4). Likewise in Il:?;ii^T*,rre, “gtority,’, th”e god,s ir.”t “”i “-“l””tio’deriue from the subjection of , Esp. Yasna 32.8, rz, ra (G. Wideng ren, lranische Geisteswelt [r96t-j, t55;H. Humbach, Die Gathas des Zarathustra [rySSl, I Si_Sil.Iti, ,n.l”ur, however, to what extent blood_ sacrifice was reiected on orincipre,-.in.” it .onti.,,r”J rn practice: see M. Boyce, /&{S (re66), rro; G. Wideneren . oie’neiigtonen;;i;;;;; 66,92, tos. ’21s. r: rr; cf. 66: r. $The Pythagorean tradition is divided, with ilrg{yav an’yec’atagainst ‘marorqrov SACRIFICE, HUNTING/ FUNERARY RITUALS sacrifice-above all, Theophrastus, in his influential book on Piety. This book explained animal-sacrifice as having replaced–canlibalism’ which, in tuin, had been forced on men because of difficult times.y After this, a theoretical defense of sacrificial custom was virtually hopeless..u Both varro and seneca were convinced that the gods do noi demand blood-sacrifice.’u Judaism in the Diaspora spread more easilv because cult practices had become concentrated in one temple in lerusalem, thus virtually making Judaism outside Jerusalem a reli- eion without animal-sacrifice.r’This also helped form Christian prac- iice. which could thus take up the traditions of Greek philosophy. On the other hand, it gave the idea of sacrifice a central significance and raised it to a higher status than ever before.” The death of God’s son is the one-time and perfect sacrifice, although it is still repeated in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, in breaking the bread and drinking the wine. Folk custom, however, managed to defy even Christianization and was subdued only by modern technological civilization. The Cer- man expression geschmilckt tpie ein Pfingstocftse (“decked out like an ox at Pentecost”) preserves the memory of the ritual slaughter of an ox at the church festival (see n. 9 above). In Soviet Armenia the slaughter of a sheep in front of the church is still a feature of regular Sunday service. Isolated Greek communities in Cappadocia celebrated the an- cient sacrificial ritual well into the twentieth century: oPPosite the conventional altar in the chapel of the saint would be a sacrificial al- tarstone, upon which incense was burned when candles were lit; dur- ing prayers, it would be decked with wreaths. The sacrificer would bring the animal-a goat or a sheep-into the chapel, leading it three Buerr (lambl- V. Pyth. 8z). Cf. J. Haussleiter, Der Vagetarismus in der Antike (ry5), 79-t6j; W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythogoreanism (1972), r8o-83; Em- pedokles B 46-39. sPorph. Abst. 2.22t J. Bernays, Theophrastos’ Schrift itber Frdmmigkeit (1866), 86, rt6; W. Potscher, Theophrastos fiepi ei “One way out was to posit inferior, more bloodthirsty demons: see Xenokrates fr. z3-25 Heinze. kDii aei neque desiderant ea neque deposcunt Varro in Arnob. 7.t; deum . . . non immola- tionibus nec sanguine multo colendum Sen. fr. rz3 = Lact. Dit,. inst.6.z5.3. Cf . Demonax in Luk. Dem. rr; the Sibyl in Clem. Pr. 4.62; (Just.) Coft. ad. Gr. t6. 37With the exception of Passover celebrations; cf. J. ]eremias, Die Passahfeier der Sa- maritaner (1932); Th. H. Gaster, Passoaer: Its History and Traditions Q958). sTd zrlo1a ip”6tv i,ra&n Xprords I Cor. 5:7. For the rest, I refer the reader to H. D. Wendland and E. Kinder, RGG3 IV fi47-56. The Christian Jews still made Paul partake in a sacrifice in ]erusalem (Num. 6: r3-zr) and finance it; cf. Acts zt:23-26. On the other hand, “Petrus” (Clem. Hom. 2.44.2) declares that the sacrificial laws of the OT are forgeries. SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF KILLING times around the sacrificial stone while ch’dren threw grass and flowers onto it. As the priest stood at the artar, th” k”;;;;8iii* “”,- mal would make a sign of the cross with his knife thiee ii’#, u.,a then slaughter the animar while praying. The brood *ur *fiolr”a to sprinkle the stone. After this, ortside ihe chapel, the aniriil”woura be carved up and the feast prepared. The priest, like his ancient counterpart, received the animal’s thigh and skin, as well as its head and feet.3e christianity is here .ro *oiu than a transparent cover for the ancient form that underlies it: that is to say, for the sacred act of blood-sacrifice. Animal-sacrifice was an ail-pervasive rearity in the ancient world. The Greeksa0 did not perceive much difference between the substance of their own customs and those of the Egyptians and phoenicians, Babylonians and persians, Etruscans una i{o-a’s, though rii.rA a”_ tails varied greatly among the Greeks themselves.ni one fu.”iiu.rty or lreef sacrifice presents a problem for the modern historian: the com- bination of a fire-altar and a blood_rite, of burning and eating, corre_ ,Megas (1956) 15, and cf. from lslam: Arabic qurban) tt68-7t. See now G. N. 197q. 17, 84, 87 , zz4. (The name of the sacrifice, youpravt, comes For animal sacrifice to,’Zeus,,in Albania see Cook III (r94o) Aikaterinides, Neoetrl4zrris aip.ar4pis Buoles (Athens. {Th.eophrastus (Porph. Abst. z andcf . n. 34 above), in his study of the development of sacrifice, found it naturar to include Egyptians, syrians, caithaginians, Et.r.r.ar,r, Thracians, and srythians. The tradition i-nat ttre Cyprians invented sacrifice (Ta’an. r, lP^ i:.6 Schwartz) goes back to Asklepiades of Cyprus, FCrHist Z5zF r : Neanthes, FGrHist 84F 3z = potph. Abst. 4.15. arrhe antithesis between orympian and Chthonic cu.rt is often regarded as fundamentar (Rohde [fi98) r4B-52; Harrison [ryzz) t_1t; Iess schematically, Meuli [ry46] rgl. zrt, and. cf. Nilsson j9551 4z-y). The antithesis between hea.,enly goa, u#god, of tn” underworld is frequently attested starting with Aeschylu s (Hik. ia, ,S+, ,fS. ;gl; u tu- miliar distinction is that between ivali{eJu, “to make tubu,’o. 6rr6:,prirr,,,to sliughter ::,..1T.::::lt:’:11,,”.f:, heroes ani the dead, and siep (F. pfisrer, Der Retiquienkutt tm Atlertunt tt l19r2l,466_8o; Casabona 19661 zo4_zog, zz5- 29). On the different ways of slaughtering see Schol. Apoll. Rhod’r.5Sr,’p;. “rn p. 115 M: Er. M.)qs.z4_ 19-.H “‘Fritze, ldl 18(r9o3),58-6T.vetbesriesthesacriiicial pits(polpot)tliereare different kinds of altars (Barpcol, Ecyap.,t, porph. Antr.6; Schol. Eur. phoen. 274; Serv. 3::”r^!,:::r: hs+sl ,sn-,s), and the complex of Bv sponds directly only with the burnt offerings (zebah’ iel1rym) of the oldTestamento,-althoughthedetailsofUgariticandPhoenician sacrificial cults are uncertiin-and these differ markedly from EgyP. tian and Mesopotamian, as well as- Minoan-Mycenaean’ rites’ all of whichhavenoaltarsforburningwholeanimalsorbones.o.Andyet, whatever complexities, layers’ .and.9trangfs in cultural tradition un- J;r1,” in” l”ai”ia”al peculiarities, it is astounding, details aside, to our”.”” the similarity of action and experience from Athens to jerusa- i;;”; ;; io oabyion. A detailed Babylonian text of which several ;;;i”; were made-describes the sacrifice of a bull whose skin was ;’J;, the membrane of a tympanon in the temple:s an untouched Ufu.t U”ff would be chosen for the secret ceremony, which took place in a room enclosed on all sides by curtains. The complicated prepara- tions included scattering grain, offering breads and libations, and sac- Likewise, in the Egyptian realm, sacrifice for the dead and that for the gods have com- mon roots: see w barta, Die altiigyptischen opferlisten aon der Friihzeit bis zur griech.-rdm ‘ Epoche Q,g6), r53. On roasting/boiling see II.r.n.z9′ {2R. K. yerkes, sacrifce in creek and Roman Religions and Early ludaism (11952; R. schmid, Das Bundesopfer in Israet (1964), therefore assumed that Israeli burnt offering was a My- cenaeanimportviaUgarit(92),butcf.D,G1||,Bib|ica47$966),255_62:Homer,sfamil.iar ptlpiu xaiew is absent from Mycenaean. sDemostrated by Yavis (1949); cf . K. Galling, Der Altar in den Kulturen des Alten Orients (1925). On Mesopotamia see G. Furlani, “Il sacrificio nella religione dei Semiti di Babi- lonia e Assiria ,” -Mem. Linc. VI 4 G%2), 1o1-J7o; F. Blome, De Opfermaterie in Babylon und lsrael ogl+j; Y. Rosengarten, Le r’gime des ot’frandes dans Ia soci’ti sumirienne d’apris les textes prtsar_goniques de I’agas (196o). On Eq/g1see H’ Kees, “Bemerkungen zum Tieropfer der Agypter und seiner Symbolik,” NCG (t942),7r-88; Ph’ Derchain, Rifes lgyptiensl:Lesaiificedel’oryx(1962),concerningwhichcf.J’ Zandee,Bibl Or’zo(t96)’ iir_sl,w. Barta, Die alttigyptischen opferlisten (n.4r above). on Ugarit see B. Janowski, Ugarit-Forschungen n Q98o), 4a – 59. -For a sacrificial list from Alalakh see D. J. wiseman, The Alalakh Tablets (t951), rz6. For a monumental altar for bull-sacrifice at Myrtou Pygades on Cyprus, including horn- symbols, a watering place for cattle, and bull statuettes (ca. rToolrzoo n.c’) see AA (t962) 118-19, fig. 84. For a depiction of bull-sacrifice at Pylos see The Palace of Nestor Il (1959) pl. rr9. The “hearth-house,” out of which the Greek temple developed, is a type known al- ready in Helladic tirnes: see H. Drerup, Archaeologia Homerica O (1969), rz1-28. M. H. fameson, AIA 6z (1958), zz3, refers to sacrifice at the hearth in Mycenaean times. Open- air sites for burnt offering-ash-altars consisting of piles of ashes and bones-are abundantly attested both for Greece (Nilsson [1955], 86-88; cf. ILr below on Lykaion, lI.z on Olympia) and for bronze-age Europe (W. Kriimer, “Priihistorische Brandop- ferpldtze,” in Heluetia antiqua, Festschr. E. Vogt ltg66l, r r r -zz). It does not seem possible at this time to organize the various forms of sacrifice at the “hearth-house,” the stone altat and the ash-altar into an historical system. qANET 164a8.The main text is Seleucid; others were copied in the seventh century n.c. from older Babylonian models. They thereby attest to the survival of the ritual over the centuries. On the tympanon and the Kalu-piiest (= Sum. galu), wino “laments” “in SACRIFICE AS AN ACT OF KILLING rificing a sheep. The bulr stood chained on a rush mat until it was time for its mouth to be washed. After this, incantations *o.rlJ uJ wnis_ pered into both its ears, after which it was sprinkled with walr, pu_ rified with a torch, and.surrounded by a circle of grain. eoiro*i.,” prayer and song, the bull was killed, the heart burriea at once, ani the skin and left shourder sinew removed to string the tymfanon. After further libations and offerings, the priest worrld beni dbwn to the severed head and say, “This deed was done by all the gods; I did not do it.” one version of the text says that the cadaver *oitd be bur- ied; an older one forbids at least the head priest from eating the meat. Fifteen days later, in a largely parallel .”r”^or,y, with prepiratory and closing rites, the new.ry covered tympanon wis brougnt into the cen- ter in place of the bull, thus inauguriting it into its fu”nction. Not even the religious revorution inihe Near East, i.e., the emer- gence of Islam, could eliminate animal-sacrifice. The high point in the life of a Moslem.is the pilgrimage to Meccaos which”stiil today draws hundreds of thousands of woishippers annually. The central point occurs on the ninth day of the holy month, in the journey from Mecca to Mount Arafat, where the pilgiims stay from noon tiil sun- 1o*l praying “before God.” This is-fofowed by the Day of Sacrifice. o” ,.h.” tenth day, in Mina, the pilgrim must throw sevln pebbles at an old stone monument and then slaughter-usualry with his own hands-a sacrificial animal-a sheep, a goat, or even a camel-which is driven up and sold to him by Bedouins. He eats some of the animar, though usually giving-most of it away or simply leaving it. Saudi Ara_ bia has resorted to bulldozers to remove the carcasses. After this, the pilgrim is allowed to cut his hair again and remove his pilgrim,s robes. Likewise, sexual abstinence endJafter his return to Mecca. It is the consecrated man who kills and the act of killing is made sacred. ,,In the name of Allah” and ‘Allah is merciful” ur” ih” Moslem formulas that accompany even profane slaughter. Daily routine inevitably made the sacrificial ritual an empty for- mality.ft Therefore, in order to stress its importance, especially in the ancient Near East, ordinances were created stipulatingcountiess ob- servances. The Greeks seem to have given most care to the ,,begin_ the language of the female,” see E. Dhorme, Les rerigions de Babyronie et d,Assyrte (rg+g’), zo7-2o9, 2t7. $Enzyklopiidie des Islam ll (t.927), zo8-zr1; Encyclopidie de l,tslam III (1965), j3_4o s.a. HADJDI; ibid. for the proof that the busi. “r”me.is of the pirgrimagu i.;’piJ-rrt”*i.. sA sacrificial list from Uruk notes 50 rams, z bulls, r ox, and g lambs, among many L,l:.:, 1r^:1″_daily sacrifice: ANET jaa. Croesus had 3,ooo animats sacrificed atbelphi: rlot. r, 50; 154 cows were boughtfora festival on Delos: /G IIIIIIr $35, 35. King Se- leukos gave t,ooo iepeia lsheef) and rz cows for a sacrifice at Didyma: OGI zr4, 63. SACRIFICE, HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS ning” stages (ctpleorloc), as if trying to distract attention from the ceniral p”oi”t, ‘*ti.f, nonetheless remained permanently fixed. Hubert ind Maussn’ aptlv characterized the structure of sacrificial rit- .ual with the concepts tf -“sacrali zation” and “desacr alization” ; that is /to sav. oreliminary rites, on the one hand, and closing rites, on the lotn”i.’fiumins a central action clearly marked as the emotional climax $y a piercing”r.r”u-, the “Ololyg6′” This act’ however’ is the act of liffi”i, the Jxperience of death. Thus, a threefold rhythm becomes evlde”nt in the course of the sacrifice,os moving from an inhibited, lab- vrinthine beginning, through a terrifying midpoint, to a scrupulously iidy conclusi,on. Vegetable offerings frequently come at the beginning and again at the end of the ceremony, when libations are also espe- cially iharacteristic. But the offerings can overlap and multiply, en- larging the pattern until a triad of sacrificial festivals emerges which yet adheres to the same unchangeable rhythm: the preliminary sacri- iice, the terrifying sacrifice, and the victorious, affirming sacrifice. flhe core is always the experience of death brought about by human {violence, which, in turn, is here subject to predetermined laws. And his is nearlv alwavs connected with another human-all too hu- man-actio.,, .tu-“Iy, eating: the festive meal of those who share in the sacred. z. The Eaolutionary Explanation : Primitia e Mqn as Hunter Karl Meuli’s great essay on “Griechische OpferbrAuche” (rg+6)’ added a new dimension to our understanding of sacrifice. He noted striking similarities in the details of Greek sacrifice and the customs of nTSee n. z. sCorresponding to the special case of the initiation rite, as established by Harrison 927) :r5: ratorpogia-otapay p.os-dvaBiao c. ‘Nilsson’s “durchschlagender Einwand” (rgS), 1.45 ^. z,,,dass nur geziihmte Tiere, fast nie wilde geopfert werden,” applies only to a problem of historical change (cf. I.5 PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER hunting and herding societies,. mostly in Siberia. Moreove, he pointed out prehistoric discoveries thai s.eemed to utt”rt iJ .rmilar customs by Middle palaeorithic times. This powerful step L”u.t*ura about 5o,ooo years in time. admittedly seemJ to explain ibrrurr_ y,r, obscurius. whether the prehistoric evidence may be taken to indicate belief in a supreme being-a kind of primordial monotheism_is a moot question’ It seemed ress risky to state: “sacrifice is the oldest form of religious action.”, But muci of the oldest evidence remains controversial. Meuli relied on the “buriar of bears” of Neanderthal times, as de- scribed by B;ichler and others;,-!n”y claimed that they nuJ’forr.,a bears’ skulls and bones, especiaty thrgh bones. .”*i”iy’rJt ,rp i., caves, and that these corresponded to ttie ,,skull_ u”d lo;;ior,” ,u.ri fice” observed among. Siberian hunters, who used to”a”porit tn” bones and skulls of their quarry-in sacred praces.o r” c*”r.-rii””r, ,”., it,isthe bones, especially-the thigh_bones, that belong to ine goar. Thebear s special role further uppEu* in the “bear festivals,, of north- ern Eurasian tribes, from the Finns to the Ainus and on to America., Yet the findings of Biichler have come under serious uttal liu..” below) and not to Meuli’s basic argument. To be sure, the ratter compretety o,,r”.rooil the Neolithic Near Eastern component by making an all-too-direct connection between the Indo-Germanic Greeks and the Eurasian h.,ite., and herders. againsrMeuri,s ar- fg:oty magical interpretation, Mtiller-Karpe (ry66 zz7-28 proposes a rerigious one that proceeds from the experience of a “tianscendentar power,,, u”i,iir’ir”p…*ay what the ritual communicates, and any interpretation ot rt-even self-interpretatron_ is secondary (cf. I.3 below). ‘zH. Krihn, “Das problem des Urmonotheismus,,, Abh. Mainz (ry5o), zz, r7, whose in- terpretation follows p W. Schmidl .Der lJrsprung tler Gottesiiee’Vi pq5j’,’aaa_5a, * well as A. vorbichler, Das opfer auf den heute’ noch’erreichbaren attertrn si-uiin iJr- urnrrt _ heitsgeschichte e956), and MtiLiler-Karpe (1966) zz8. l! Bl*hf Das alpine Pakiot.ithikum.der Schweiz (r94o); Meuti e946) 217_39. For addi_ tional finds in Central Franken, Silesia, and Siberia, see tvtLiiler_(aril” (1SOS) .rO; in Hungary, see I. Trencs€nyi-waldapfer, LJtttersuchunSletr zur Rerigionsgeschichte e966) 19 .77. “.Y;rrr:l:!N.t,^_,YT. Ot: Jagdriten der nordlichen Vcitker Asiens und Europas,., /. So_ c’EL( ttnno-uugrtenne 47 (t9i:l: 1 .ci!s, “Kopf-, Schiidel- und Langknochenopfer bei Rentiervolkern,” Festschr. p. W. Schmidt g9rli1, 4r_eA; I. paulson, ,,Die Tierknochen im Jagdritual der nordeurasischen Volker,,,’Zeiischr. f. Ethnotogie gC bSSq, 27o_gj; I’ Paulson, A Hultkrantz, and K. Jettmar, oi ni,is,*rrn Nordeurasiens und der amert- kanischen Arktis (:,962. tA’ I Hallowell, “Bear ceremonialism in the Northern Hemispher e,,, American An- tlrolotoSist z8 (t926), t-t75; l_M. Kitagawa, ,Ainu Bear Festival,,, History of Religtons r 196r), 95-r5t; I. paulson,.”Die rituelie Erhebung des B?irenschiiders bei arktischen und subarktischen Volkern,,, Temenos, t SOSS,-,io’- iz 73 SACRIFICE, HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS assemblage of bones cannot be excluded as an-explanltiolgf the al- leged beai-burials.u It is safer to rely on the evidence of the Upper Pa- la6ofithic, the epoch of homo sapiens. At this period, hunters’ cus- toms, including the manipulation of animals’ bones and skulls, are clearly attested] Meuli’s iniight-about the antiquity of Siberian hunt- ine riiual is basically confirmed, even if still more ancient layers re- ^ii” i” the dark. There are places where stag skulls and deer skel- etons were gathered, as well as the bones of bison and mammoths.’ At a site in Sberia, twenty-seven mammoth skulls were found set up in a circle around a central point where a female statuette lay buried beneath a pile of bones and partially worked tusks.’This recalls a fre- quently reproduced gold ring from Mycenae, on which a row of ani- mal skulls borders the procession to the seated goddess” A stylized pair of horns is the common and omnipresent religious symbol of Minoan-Mycenaean culture. Much earlier, in the household shrines of Qatal Htiytik, there are genuine cow-horns set up in rows or in- serted in plaster heads.’o Upper Palaeolithic deer hunters had at- tached a reindeer skull to a pole near a place where they used to throw young roes into the water, weighted down with stones-a “sacrifice of immersion.” ” There is a life-size clay statue of a bear in the cave of Montespan, which had been covered with a genuine bear- skin, including the skull.” Similarly, hunters in the Sudan covered a clay figure with the skins of slaughtered lions or leopards, just as farmers in southern Abyssinia did with the skin of a young sacrificial bull. Hermes the cattle-thief and cattle-killer stretched out on a rock the skins of the cows he had slaughtert manv sagas about the origin of ,u..ifi.”.jd’ This, too, is “one of the One could, of course, try to cut through these correspondences with conceptual distinctions, and r”purut” r,rnting and sacrifice on principle.’o In the nylr, :”* might urgu”, killing is not ceremonial but practical and subject to chance;”it, ^”u’,ing. and goal, both quite pro_ fane, lie in obtaining meat for food; a _iia U”urt”^.,st b” serer in op_ position to a tame iomestic u.ri*ur. ana y”, the very similarity of hunting and sacrificial customs ueries^such'” di;ti”Ji&:riiiilg .”” become ceremonial even a,mong hunters. A tame bear, for instance, would have to perform at the beir f”rtiuui. we arso h”;;J;.olpr”t” mammoth skeleton found on a-high ..ug, u place to which it could only have been driven by men.’, o”” *r” 5tn”i hana, the irr.,ii.,g ,it_ uation is often evoked and acted out in later civilizations, as if one had to catch a wird beast so as to sacrifice ii at a predetermined prace. Thus’ Plato combines the hunt u”a ru.riii.e in a semi-barbarous con- text, his fictitious Atlantis,’u and in ru.iurr-nunts are attested in the marginal areis of Greek curture.” An Attic myth tells how Theseus subdued the w’d bull of Marathon “o ir,u, it let itserf be red to the sacrifice-and this is. said ro be the legenaury origi., of ii”lJ.”r r”, tival in Marathon, the Hekaleiu.,, efio”g the Sumerians, a ,,wild bull” was considered the most “.”i.,u.,ilu..iri”iut u.,i*ut, “.r”r,it oug^ it had long been extinct it’, rraesopota-L.’rrr” consecrated horns in the sanctualigs of Qatar Hriynk ;;.;,-‘il;-ever, st’r obtained from genuine wild bulls; bull_ and stag_huniine; sive wall-nainrinoc rho.a /-^^ c:r.–^ -, ,;–lpP”ut on the very impres- PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER 6Against Bdchler’s theory, see F. E. Koby, L’Anthropologie 5S Ggsr), lo4-3o8; H. G. Bandi in Helaetia antiqua (1966), r-8; cf. the discussion in J. Maringer, “Die Opfer der palaolithischen Menschen,” in Anthropica Q.968), 249-7r; M. Eliade. Histoire des cro- yances et des idles religieusesl (t976), 4-27, 391f . 7 Mtiller-Karpe (t966) zz5 – 26. 8Jelisejevici: see Mtiller-Karpe (19661 zz5. ‘Corpus iler minoischen und mykenischen Siegel, ed. F. Matz and H. Biesantz, | (196$ #r7; Nilsson (rglS) pl.r7.r; Simon (1959) t8r-83. Even if these were meant to rePresent animal-headed vessels (Simon), they are a further, symbolizing development of the an- cient sacrificial structure (see IV.z.n.39). ‘0Mellaart j967) r4o-4r, r44-55, r8r.. trMtiller-Karpe (1966) zz4-25, pl. 199.45. LMtiller-Karpe Q966) zo5 pl. to7.r; A. Leroi-Gourhan, Prthistoire de I’art occidentale (1965, 1t3, figs.646-47. For parallels from the Sudan see L’ Frobenius, Kulturge- xhichte Afrikas 993, $; from Abyssinia see A. Friedrich, Paideuma z Og4r), 4-24; Meuli(1946) z4r;cf. l. Paulson, Temenost(l.96),rfu-6r, onstatuesof bearsassub- stitutes for actual dead ones, “the soul’s residence.” sive wall-paintings there ( see Fi[ure : )., iff”””ly? ffi; il:”,ffi _ i}},?p1l t”,or ‘ tz4 iri (cdd. eui) rriron. ln the -yq,, ir,” ;k;;:;;;;.;il;”,’ril.”l’,”J:ljlJ:ffJ:i: ;’*::rYff,’r”i*;?!’ lHat’ 7’zi;’xen’ “i”i”{I rt rhe rite -“,’;l;;;;; p,”.- lll^””- ^tl:r””l objection, n. r above. on the interrelatron of hunt and slaughter in Af- nca see Straube e95) r99^2o4. “Mriller-Karpe (t966) zz5 (Gravettien). t6Plat. Critias rrgd-e; H. Herter, RhM rcg O966), t4o-42. t’For raupo$rlpla in Thessaly see IG rX zvs, yt-17; Arch. Dertion 76 (t96o), rg5, REG 77 Fg6+), rz6: AP o.543; on this and on ilie rrrupo*atorf,ra in Asia Minor see L. Robert, Ics gladiateurs ians-l,Orient grcc (rnO”l, lrr_ rn, who also treats the .un’u,.,,ng ;#.r::.r” and rglpopoldat go913i). foia i'”ia, xuvrly|orcv in Athens see Hypoth. tESoph. fr. z5 P; Callim. fr.259-6o;264;plut. Thes.4following philochoros, FGrHist 3:8 F ro9; Paus. r.z7,ro. For vase_paintings see Brommer g96o) 19z_96. teOn Sumerian wild bulls see Mtiller_Karpe (196g) II 33E; on eatal Hriytik see Mellaart (1967) zoo-2o8, pl. S+_SZ, 6r_64; cf . ^. qubo.i”. ‘ – L4 L5 SACRIFICE, HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS ard men swarm around the bull and the stag in these paintings is per- haps almost more suggestive of a dance than of hunting. In Egypt, the sacrifice of bulls and hippopotami, performed by the pharaoh, was entirelv stvlized as a hunt.20 In many parts of Greece, the animals chosen for saciifice were “set free for the god,” almost as if they were wild beasts on sacred land until the time appointed for the bloody “act,” “The continuity between the hunt and sacrificial ritual aPpears most forcibly in the ritual details that leave no tangible archaeological trace; these have been set out in detail by Meuli. The correspondences extend from the preparations, with their purifications and absti- nences, to the closing rites, involving bones, skulls, and skins. In hunting societies accessible to ethnological study, hunters are said to have expressed clear feelings of guilt with regard to the slaughtered animal. The ritual provides forgiveness and reparation, though fre- quently taking on a scurrilous character which prompted Meuli to coin the phrase “the comedy of innocence.” The ritual betrays an un- i derlying anxiety about the continuation of life in the face of death.”/ iThe bloody “act” was necessary for the continuance of life, but it is fiust as necessary for new life to be able to start again. Thus, the gath- bring of bones, the raising of aIIuIIEFstreiihfrg;f a skin is to be understood as an attempt at restoration, a resurrection in the most concrete sense. The hope that the sources of nourishment will con- tinue to exist, and the fear that they will not, determine the action of the hunter, killing to live. 20H. Kees, “Bemerkungen zum Tieropfer der Agypter und seiner Symbolik,” NGG (1942), 7r-88. 2lBabrius 37 Qtooyos &qeroc in antithesis to the plow-ox). For herds of Hera in Croton see Liry 24.3.2, and cf. Nikomachos in Porph. V. Pyth. 2.4, Iambl. V Pyth.6r. For the cattle of Argive Hera see III.z.n. z5 below; for Ar.tis Bo0s at Miletus see Hsch. s.a.; for a donkey sacrificed to the winds at Tarentum see Hsch. d.yep.riras; for the sheep of He- lios at Apollonia/Epirus see Hdt. 9.g); for bulls of Dionysus at Kynaithos see paus. 8.r9.2; lor sacred sheep, goats, cattle, and horses at Delphi see OGI 345, t5-rg; for sa- cred sheep at Delos see IG IIllII? t639, 15; for cattle of ,,Herakles,, in Spain see Diod. 4.r8.3; for cattle of the “Meteres” in Sicily see Diod. 4.h.6; for,,persian Artemis,,, (Ana- hita) herds on the Euphrates see Plut. Luc. 24; for rd Sptp.p.ara rils Beol at Kleiror see Polyb.4.19.4;scillus,Xen. Anab.5.3-9;fortheherdsofpersephoneofKvzikosseeprut. Luc..ro. Cf. further, in myth, Apollo,s cattle in Thessaly, Uy. Merc.7o_72; and,Helios, cattle, od. rz. For Atlantis see plat. Critias. ngd, and ci. piot. 3zoa,’Aesch. prom. 666. similarly, for the Indian A6vamedha a horse is “set free,,: ,”” w. Kopp”. s, wiener Beitr. z. Kulturgeschichte 4 9916), 3o6. 2tMeuli Q946) zz4-52; H. Baumann, “Nyama, die Rachemacht,,, paideuma 4 agso), 791-2)0. For a psychiatric perspective see R. Birz, “Tiert6ter-skrupulantismus,,, /ahr- buch f . Psychologie und psychotherapie 3 e95), zz6_44. PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER These customs are more than mere curiosities, for the hunt of the paraeorithic hunter ! n1t ius,t “”” u.,irriry!T-“* -.u.,y The transrtion to the hunt is’ rather’ one of the most i’e.iriu” ecorogical changes be- tween man and the other primates’ Man* can virtuaily be defi’nuo a, “the huntins ape’, (even if ‘,,rhe n”k”l’;;*_ makes “;;;;;;eating title)’ ” This statement reads r” ;-;;.;;I indispuiabi”‘i..i”#-“,r, that the age of the hunter, ,h” p;;;thic, comprises by far the largest part of human history. N;;;il. that estimates range be_ tween 95 and 99 percent: it is iear tn”i.”””t biorogicar evorutio.n was ‘XT:fi tllTi?*:,:’1f; , :I’ ti'” nv’o- il,’,o.’, tni |”r o J Ii,'”.” .*,” ::.f ,::*:.;’ii;”*{,i!;ii?J”,l,T;il{:Fj:;**i,ru1: rng vrolence as deriving from the buhu;;; of the predatory animal, ill;:” characteristics h”e .”.” io “.q;.””rr, ,,”,” ..,u.;;;;”lo_i.,g Our conception of.primitive man and his, society will always be a tentative construct; still, there ur” ,o.nf,l conditions *,,ui .u,.,.,ot r,ur,” u””, u[;;n*#[:tlil]H’j.:it; early hunters’ The primate’s biorrgi;;i;akeup was not fit for this new way of life. Man had to compe?s;i”;r, this deficiency by a rour de force of ingenious l”.l;;;t;;’,iri,,r,,o,,r, th”;;;-;;,r;; by his culture’ arthoueh that curture;i;ii;;t.kly became a means of setec_ 1:1 _O^t_frt1u.], i.nportance was *.,J “r”.r weapons, without which man poses virtually no threat to beasts. The earliest weapon that was effective at a distance was the ‘.”ooa”r, ,p”ar hardened by fire.r” This presupposes the use of fire; earlier, Uo..Jnua ,;r;;il ;ffi; Man,s upright posture facilitated, th”. “r”-;;”;;ons. But perhaps more im_ portant than alr this was. the deverop-“”i.r r sociar order leading to ;:il:jT,:iij,,*.:::::i:t:irth #;;” become a part or our in_ herited biolosical constituiion. A;;;; ffii’ilTr::i:f[T; tsMorris (196) ry-49, ,Xi;::,1:;:’:’:,1,y,!,,’!lZ!!:::::i):f,lF;*n ,48-68; A Kor,andt, Current t;:::i:W:.:1″i1;ti i” ;;’;'(‘;;;;;:;;:”i,ili!”:”,t;[::i:;’;;,i:,:;::; _;;,ti,””,’;,”‘;;ffi ;;.ffi ; # [ “tr;iil!,i;”‘jlT:,,1H,ny.lii lr :[*;:: ;!i;fl]:f? ,i:::!’!:#:’ican zz8t, sei31, 3,-a.,and cr p r. wirson, Man n.s. ro y; #,’**’fl1l,i,;i’;:: ilil :T,l ;n ru$, “, :: * :,t; 1″”:l Xi* il;’i:r,#r’i:rliTuu’ ‘ot, Burkert (re67) zfi-87.see generaly K. Lindner, Lt chasse rfi;rt,,fi;l.f !i.::**’with the Missing Link (e5o),7e7*2o4; cf. toe-rs,,,rhe An- t6 r7 1i SACRIFICE. HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS man’s work-in contrast to all animal predators-requiring both speed and strength; hence the male’s long, slender thigh’ By contrast’ since women must bear children with ever larger skulls, they develop round, soft forms. Man’s extraordinarily protracted youth, his tteo- teny, which permits the development of .the mind through learning and the transmission of a complicated culture, requires long years of security. Ihis is basically provided by the mother at home. The man urr,r*”, the role of the family breadwinner-an institution universal to human civilizations but contrary to the behavior of all other mammals.’u The success of the “hunting ape” was due to his ability to work cooperatively, to unite with other men in a communal hunt. Thus, man ever since the development of hunting has belonged to two over- lapping social structures, the family and the Miinnerbund; his world falls into pairs of categories: indoors and out, security and adventure, women’s work and men’s work, love and death. At the core of this new type of male community, which is biologically analogous to a pack of wolves, are the acts of killing and eating. The men must con- stantly move between the two realms, and their male children must one day take the difficult step from the women’s world to the world of men. Fathers must accept their sons, educating them and looking after them-this, too, has no parallel among mammals. When a boy finally enters the world of men, he does so by confronting death. What an experience it must have been when man, the relative of the chimpanzee, succeeded in seizing the power of his deadly enemy/ the leopard, in assuming the traits of the wolf, forsaking the role of the hunted for that of the hunterl But success brought its own dan- gers. The earliest technology created the tools for killing. Even the wooden spear and wedge provided man with weaPons more dan- gerous than his instincts could cope with. His rudimentary killing in- hibitions were insufficient as soon as he could kill at a distance; and males were even educated to suppress these inhibitions for the sake of the hunt. Moreover, it is as easy, or even easier, to kill a man as it is to kill a fleeing beast, so from earliest times men slipped repeatedly into cannibalism.2’Thus, from the very start, self-destruction was a threat to the human race. If man nonetheless survived and with unprecedented success ‘oMorris (t967)37-39;LaBarre (t97o79-81. Ontheroleof manasbreadwinnerseeM. Mead, Male and Female j949, r8B-94. 27on the “gesicherten Tatsache von Ritualtotungen” in palaeolithic times see Mtiller- Karpe (1966) z4o (Ofnet cave), z3z-33 (Monte Circeo), z3o (peking Man). Cannibalism is probable: see La Barre j97o) 4o4-4o6, 4 n.)o) M. K. Ropea ,A Su.u”y of Evidence for lntrahuman Killing in the pleistocene ,’, Current Anthropilogy to (196), 422- i1g. PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER even enlarged his sphere of influence, it w_as,,bec1use -rn place of his natural instincts he developed th” ..ries of cultural tradltiin,lnus ar_ tificially forming and differentiatinj r.rltiuri. inuorn’u”iu,r’ior. u,o,,rr_ ical serection rather than consci”ul piun”ir.,g determined”t-# *ou.u_ tional processes that helped fo.”.,;;; ,o ihut n” .orrJ f”i, uoup. himself to his role. A man hud i; U”*.ou.ug”ous to take part in the hunu therefore’ courage is arways rr,.i]a”a”ir, ;”;”-d,ro. or u., ideal man’ A man hadlo uu.”riJutu, utie to wait, to resist a momen- tary impulse for the sake of u rong-.u.rge goal. He had to have en- durance and keep to his word. il:h;;;. h.a vior pattern s t hat were. ra cLi n g i n u n ; ;;:liJ: [T” li’*:[* 3; closely analogous to the U”nu”i8, oif”urr, of prey.r, Above all, the use of weapons was controlled by the strictest-if also artificial_ rules: what was allowed una n”.””rurf ir’r o.r” rearm was absolutely forbidden in rhe other:,1lrilla;l””.”ripf,ri,^ent in one was murder in the other. The decisive point is the vlry possibility that man may submit to laws curbing his individu”r i”i”iiis!”;;;il”;;;,uuiri,y ro. il-” riu: of societar prldi.tubtity i;; “iu.ur,u” power of tradition at- 4il|j,Xf#nd him in an irreversibt” p.ocess anatogous to bioiogical On a psycho,o*l:ullevel, hunting behavior was mainly deter_ 11i.:1 o{ ln” qec”lil interpiay “r-tr,? Igg.urri,u” and sexuat com_ plexes’ which thus gave form to some of the foundations of human society’ whereas resiarch on biorog”ui iunu’ior, at reast in predatory animals, carefully distinguisher i”irurp”.irrc aggression from the be- havior of huntine u.a Ltir.,g,; ;hi#;;_ction obviously does not hold for man. Ra”ther, these”two U”.*r””rrperimposed at the time when man unexpectedly assumed *r” u”rruuior of predatory animals. Man had to outdo himielf in his transiiio., to the hunt, a transition 28A. Kortlandt , Current Anthropolo* U tn6rt, ffl ::i”: $,il’H:”,::T_,::i ,n”.,TF itit”i or tn” rnun,ur dexterty or an arborear rruit eater with rhe ,*i ,”j:.:::::,.r.:;l;”;;;il”T:J:?,”TffiXtJj.:1,,::r.’::l il:|:.’ On the human tendency to submii to authority see Ejbl_Eibesfeldt (r97o) non the biorogicar fact of im.printing see K. Lorenz, ,.uber tierisches und menschriches I;Hll’il;–“;:-f:’;i#t9i’ ‘ ‘lti-+8, ‘2″-2,”i*i,e ry),); E H Hess, science ,jo ff1,,:.;3:’:j’; ;ffiffiT.::ffi:-i,,1i”.,?”1ffi iij: ;i:”+ll*:iiL*:1, rh;;;”; ;;;;;ilil;;:H ;:{:i!,:;}’;l;;;# ?,1 ifi;;:ij:jl ;:,tln; ttdeals with secular m-an, ignorls .”:rigi.”, .i,””ij. “” ‘Lorenz A96:) rc; Eibl-Eibesfeldt e97o) 7_g,with a.polemic against R. A. Dart (n. z5 :llJi];”?”1_lijl,LTi,i;.’,i.’;’;;:”‘;”n;;;;;’,’;ii,”,,u,,.”. S*rc trii,” Jviousry r8 L9 SACRIFICE/ HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS requiring implementation of all his spiritual reserves’ And because thissortofbehaviorbecamespecifictothemalesex’thatistosay’,,men,s work,,, males.o”iJ-oi” easily adapt themselves to,the intra- specific aggression ptog’u-tud for courtship fights and the im- prllr”, of JJxual frusiration (see I’7)’ It is not easy tor adult males to cooperate’ and especially the “naked ape,” whose ‘”””uUty clearly grew out of proportion in order to bind men to women and thus insure that the family would be sup- i”rr,J; in” n”ignt”ned aggressiveness thus aroused could be i;; to the ,”rri.” of the iommunity by means of redirection, as irll u*” a”scribed by Konrad Lorenz;3′ for it is precisely group. dem- onstration of aggression toward outsiders that creates a sense of close oersonalcommunity.TheMiinnerbundbecomesaclosed’conspir- ;;;i;;;p through the explosjve potential of aggression stored in- ternallli This aggrelsion was released in the dangerous and bloody hunt. The inteinal and external effects of aggression mutually en- hanced the chances of success. Community is defined by-participa- tioninthebloodyworkofmen.TheearlyhunterSoonsubduedthe world. Becausethehunter’sactivitywasreinforcedbybehavioraimed originally at a human partner-that is, through intraspecific. aggres- ,i.i-iri pf”ce of a biol,ogically fixed relationship of beast and quarry’ something curious occuired: the quarry became a quasi-human ad- versary, eiperienced as human and treated accordingly’ Hunting con- centraied on the great mammals, which consPicuously resembled men in their body structure and movements, their eyes and their ” faces,” their breaih and voices, in fleeing and in fear’ in attacking and in rage. Most of all, this similarity with man was to be recognized in kiilir;g and slaughtering: the flesh was like flesh’ bones like bones’ phallis like phaiius, ani heart like heart,33 and, most important of all’ ih” *ur- running blood was the same’ One could’ perhaps’ most clearly grasp the animal’s resemblance to man when it died’ Thus’ the ouarrv turned into a sacrificial victim’ Many observers have told of PRIMITIVE MAN AS HUNTER the almost brotherly bond that hunters felt for their game,.. and the exchangeability of man and animal in sacrifice”r”.”.r?r-u Lyi^otogi_ cal theme in many cultures besides the Greek.35 J’ – In the shock causedAy the sight of flowing blood36 we clearly ex_ f.'”_t::ry th.e lemlant of a biologlcal, life-preserving inhibition. But tnar ls preclsely what must be overcome, for men, aileast, could not afford “to see no blood,”.and they were educated accordingly. Feer- ings of fear and guilt are the necessary consequences of overitepping one’s inhibitions; yet human tradition, in the form or .”rgio.,. clearly does not aim at removing or settling these tensions. on tle contrary, they are purposefu’y heightened] peace must reign within the group, for what is cailed for outside, offends within. drder has to be observed inside, the.extraordinary finds release without. outside, something utterly different, beyona the norm, frightening but fas_ cinating, confronts the ordinary citizen riving withii the tiriits of the everyday world. It is surrounded by barriers to be broken down in a ,comqlicaled, set-way, corresponding to the ambivalence of the event: sacrarlzatlon and desacralization around a-central point where weap- lons, blood, and death establish a sense of human io.^””ity. The ir- reversible event becomes a formative experience for aI pariicipants, provoking feelings of fear and guilt and increasing desire io make .ep- aration, the groping attempt at restoration. For t”he barriers that had been broken before are now ail the more willingly .ecognir”a. th” rules are confirmed precisely in their antithetical tension. As an order embracing its opposite,^always endangered yet capable of uauftutior, and development, this fluctuating bara”nce entered the tradition of hu- man culture’ The power to kilr ind respect for life ilruminate each other. with remarkable consistency, myths teil of the origins of man in a xMeuli (1946) 248-52, and cf. H. Baumann, paideuma + Fg5o), tgg, zoo; Meuliffi 16o. ]rMorris (1967) 5o’ .roz; putting some limitations on his theses, cf Eibl-Eibesfeldt (r97o) 749-BZ, esp. 770-72. “Lorenz Q961 z5l-y8; Eibl-Eibesfeldr (r97o) r87-9o. “Human and animal onayyva bore the same names from the earliest times’ but whereas the animal’s *”.” *”il known from slaughter, human entrails became visible only in those wounded in war or during human sacrifice. Their visible Presence was basic for the consciousness of one’s own “subiectivity”-heart, diaphragm, and gall in Greek; liver and kidneys as well in other languages (cf. R. B. Onians, Origis of Euro- peanThought [r95r], esp. zr-43 and 8+-8S). 3sFor an animal substituted for a man see the story of Abraham and Isaac in cen. zz: 11; Iphigenia..in Aulis, Apollod. Epit. 1.zz; virgin and goat at Munichia, Zen. Athous r.8 p’ 35o Miller; Paus. Att. e 15 Erbse; for Veiovis immolatur ritu humano capra cer. 5.72.1.a. The reverse situation, that a man dies instead of a sacrificiar animal, is a beroved motif in tragedy: see Burkert eg66) n6. substitution, however, also occurs in ritual: see the Bovtucia instead of human sacrifice at salamis/Cyprus, porph. Abst. 2.54;for the fre- quent substitution of child- and animal-sacrifice aiCarthage see G. Char-les-picard, Les ‘:l’s’:”: de^t’At’rique antique ft954), 49r; for children designated as carves and sacrificed see Luk’ syr’ D. 58; for a calf treated as a child and sairificed see Aer. Nat. an. 12.34 (Tenedos).rFor folkloristic materiar see H. L. strack, Das Brut int craubert und Abergrauben der Menschheit (t9oo7); F. Rrische, BIut, Leben rna SnUlrg3o); J. H. Waszink, R/C Il 11954), SACRIFICE, HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS fall, a crime that is often a bloody act of violence'” The CreifLiflc”- lated that this was Pr”.;;;l;y a’golden 19: of modest vegetananrsm’ ending in the “^rrra”i)lll;; ;fi*-o””{ccordingly’ anthropologists once saw the peaceful gatherers’ :l:.Y-^1 tn” fr”rri”t3′ as,:l:::]ginal form of human civilizafion’ The study of piehistory has’changed this pi.i,,,g,*u.,b”*-u’liili’13’,”,,:tllla*.lUf f*,’i,,1,Xff1}$; 111,”ili3:T:::::’T”‘rut’;i;:”^”TLln::.:”:*n”-::n”-‘ terized the state “f t’itti”a’ divorced from the gods-and dependent on food, by quotingE*p”aon”s: “Such^are the conflicts and groan- inqs from which yt”itui” U””n born”‘ As one of the Old Testament miths seems t. t”ll;;;;nl’e tne children of Cain’ Yet killing’ if it was a crime, *u. ,uli-utlon at the same time’ “You saved us by shed- ding blood,” the Mithiaists address their savior-god’ Mithras the bull- slaver.'” What has;;;;;;ystic paradox hal been iust fact in the beginning. j. Ritualization Although sacrifice began in the hunt’,it appeared at its most me- ticulous and brilliant in th; ancient city cultures’ and at its most grue- some in Aztec civiliz”ii””‘ ft maintained its form and perhaps even I i RITUALIZATION acquired its purely religious function outside the context in which killing was_ necessary for life. For the action to be thus redirected and maintained, there had to be ritualization. The concept of ritual has long been used to describe the rules of {r,. religious behavior. Biology’s recent usurpation of the term appears, however, to confuse the concept, mixing the transcendent with the infra-human. But perhaps these two do indeed meet within the fun- damental orders that constitute life. Thus, we deliberately start from the biological definition of ritual, and from there we will soon be led deep into the nature of religion. Since the work of Sir Julian Huxley and Konrad Lorenz,l biology has defined ritttal as a behavioral pattern that has lost its primary function-present in its unritualized model-but which persists in a new function, that of communication. This pattern in turn provokes a corresponding behavioral response. Lorenz’s prime example is the triumph ceremony of a pair of graylag geese, which is no longer prompted by a real enemy. The victory over a nonexistent opponent is meant to demonstrate and draw attention to the couple’s solidaritv and is confirmed by corresponding behavior in the paitner, who un- derstands the ritual communication because of its predetermined stereotypy. In the triumph ceremony, communication is reciprocal and is strengthened by the reactions of each side. But it can also be one-sided, as, for example, when a threatening gesture is answered by ritual submission, which thus upholds a hierarchy. This commu- nicating function reveals the two basic characteristics of ritual behav- ior, namely, repetition and theatrical exaggeration. For the essentially immutable patterns do not transmit differentiated and complex infor- mation but, rather, just one piece of information each. This single piece of information is considered so important that it is reinforced by constant repetition so as to avoid misunderstanding or misuse. The fact of understanding is thus more important than what is under- stood. Above all, then, ritual creates and affirms social interaction.- santa Prisca in Rome Q965), zt7-zo In the lacuna, eternali had been read, but this can- not have been there: S. Panciera in U. Bianchi, ed., Mysteria Mithrae eg7), rqf|. tSir;ulian Huxley, Proc. Zool. Soc. (r9r$,511-15 on “ceremonies” of the Great Crested Grebe; Lorenz Qg63) 89-tz7;’A Discussion on Ritualization of Behavior in Animals and Man,” Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. LondonBz5r (t966), 247-526, with articles by Huxley, Lorenz, and others; Eibl-Eibesfeldt e97o) 6o-7o; p. Weidkuhn, Aggressioiidt, Ritus, Siikularisierung (1965). In defining ritual as “action re-done or pre-di”ne,,, J. Harrison (Epilegomena to the study of Greek Retigion figztl, xliii) recognized the displacement of behavior but not the communicatory function. Now E. R. Leach, for example, finds that “communicative behavior” and “magical behavior” in ritual are not basically dif- ferent (Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. London Bz5i, l:’966l, 4o)-4o4). a.qq-7;.For a psychologitutl”-“p”ttlve on the shock caused by blood see G’ Devereux’ Uinii, Ethnopsychiatry and Suicide (t96r’ t4′ 4′-!5… i –^ !L^ r-.,-e Fti{ Vr. f;:::::;:::;;”‘;’;'”* the irood or areberrious god see the Enuma Eris vI’ ANET 68, and cf . ANET ,*,i”t’*””t n’o)’atcr Ttrawxilg#t””” Plat’.Le6 7orc’ prob- ably following the Orphic;;;; ;;*t ‘lo-X]lnLl the transition to the lron Age’ the flisht of Dike, and the “t”f;i;;i;i;pr’*-o* cr’ w’ R’ Smith (r894) 3o6-1o8;B’ Catz’ ‘;2;;;;;; ;;i;;’, 2,,t una sinnuerwandte vorstettungen $e67)’ 165 -7t’ $cited by Meuli (1946) zz6; Empedokles B ru4 z-in-Porph’ Abst l’27 ilx te vetxiav Porph., Ex re crova’11[o, D”l’, ftilowing the parallel traditiori)’ Plut Cono’ sept’ sap’ r59c-d: Q 6’dueu *o*arr”‘,1rr;pou rilv”ainoi o.onnPiau &p’ipgvov 6 Beds ‘trettoir.xe’ rcinq; rip gitow dpailv “{*at litt’Lr}erxov’.A’ E’ tensen’s’tieatment’ “Uber das To- ten als kulturgeschichtlicrre ilr.i”i^'”tg,” Paideuma.41r95.d’ 4- .: : yy,thos unil Kult bei Naturadlkern ttrrtl, trl-lri,’ir’it”ta1*””t”1 and rich in source material His thesis that this is the expressio. oi ^u.t basic realization that he is dependent on organic food can be made more specific from an historical.perspective: it is the ideology of the hunter, still maintained in the planter’s culture Cf Straube (t95) zoo-zo4′ e Et nos seruaEti f . . .1 sanguine fuso: inscription in the Mithraeum of Santa Prisca’ Rome: M. |. Vermaseren and C. C. van Essen, ihe txcauations in the Mithraeum of the Church of 2) SACRIFICE/ HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS , Aggressive behavior evokes a highly attentive, excited response. {Pretended aggression thus plays a special role in ritual communica- tion. Raising one’s hands, waving branches, wielding weapons and torches, stamping the feet while turning from attack to flight, folding the hands or lifting them in supplication, kneeling and prostration: all these are repeated and exaggerated as a demonstration whereby the individual proclaims his membership and place in the community. A rhythm develops from repetition, and auditory signals accompanying the gestures give rise to music and dance. These, too, are primordial forms of human solidarity, but they cannot hide the fact that they grew out of aggressive tensions, with their noise and beating, attack and flight. Of course, man has many modes of expression that are not of this origin and that can be ritualized. But in ethology, even laughter is thought to originate in an aggressive display of teeth., Gestures of jdisgust or “purification” are not far removed from the impulses of ag- {gression and destruction. Some of these ritual gestures can be traced with certainty to the primates, from waving branches and rhythmic drumming to phallic display and raising the hand in supplication.! It is disputed to what extent ritual behavior is innate or learned.o We will have to wait for further ethological research. There is even a possibility that specific learning or formative experiences may activate innate behavior. Universal modes of behavior suggest an innate stock from which they are drawn. Yet, building upon these, cultural educa- tion creates special forms delimiting individual groups almost as if they were “pseudo-species.” Fortunately, in studying the effect of rit- uals as communication in society, the question of their biological roots is comparatively unimportant. I Ever since Emile Durkheim, sociologists have been interested in the role of rites, and especially of religious rituals in society. “it is through common action that society becomes self-aware”; thus “the . collective feelings and ideas that determine Isociety’s] unity and char- I acter must be maintained and confirmed at regular intervals.”s A. R. 2Lorenz 9963) 268-7o; cautiously, Eibl-Eibesfeldt (rg7o) r97. 3Burkert OgZq 1.9-+S.On drumming see Eibl-Eibesfeldt (r97o) 4o; on phallic display see I.7 below; on the outstretched hand see Eibl-Eibesfeldt (r97o) zo4-zo5; Morris (1967) r57, 166. oOn the socially learned behavior of the primate see, for instance, L. Rosenkotter, Frankfurter Hefte zt (1966),521-13, and cf. Lr.n. r above. sE. Durkheim, ks formes ebmentaires de Ia aie religieuse (rgtz; tg6oa),59g: ,,c,est par l,ac- tion commune qu’elle Isc. la soci6t6] prend consiience de soi,,; 6ro: ,,entretenir et raffer- mir, i intervalles rdguliers, les sentiments collectifs et res id6es coilectives qui font son unit6 et sa personnalit6.,, RITUALIZATION Radcliffe_Brown has been the most tho tional perspu.tir”, a society can exist “:?.:fl|’: developing this func- cepts and feelings which,’in t;;;”;;”‘I by means of common con- effect on the ini?viuual’ “The t”‘”-o;’i”Ieloped through society’s il!qHg,I#;i”,l.m:mt;t*#*’:xif+;ij;T::,,i.:’:”:the term se n t i ie n t’ w ith t n o u gii r s;r r, ; ;iy_:: :,.y9’ld perha.ps repra ce r[[“xi:,;y,lffiif I,T,” j.:X”,:,:[:?::::’iii:’:,::’;H:T,n; call it “statut Jtututttu tion,”‘ uttnount-ulihe existing order’ we maf cannot establish ana aefine a ^;;;,rJl.,his is not to say that a rite Besides this functio”uf_U”f,uriJri, co n tra d icti n g i t, i s *’ ” p,v.r’ ou ff’: :i:,ffj’3liii; il1 ixr: :”:H fiIjl ;*iJI;:’ ?ilJ [**ru T I – A”.., to o, *-u-iiirl se t be – this view, neurosis b””.,-* ]’rl’::L^l:LU:tary’ pragmatic function. In uarbecome,.”,,”.,?.::”:”‘;#g!il’fr:’*’i1x?ff ‘:'”f lil.”o.,,- avoid anxierd ;r”J;; i””l’1,’ji;#iifl :,’,,:in”.p’y.n- tries toI ca n n o t a ccep t ” . o,.l1l. i:;# : U;:: :”: : tr f : gj;:T ;r,;f, :Tr.”l, alit’ it seeks to escape- utter madness. Thus, religion is seen’as an ir- rational outburst, a ;ghost d”;;;j;;””‘ ” The contrast, however, is more one of perspective than of sub_ il:ffi; #:,;:ll,X’:r,sy ,;u;;;, ;””;;” one hand, observe the ror_ lU:,**J#ri”ffi :#Hj;?;;:””f””,’:’#lff ‘*il*1y, forma ti on o f pri va te .ri tu.r.. th; ili ji,::Hk l:?”,,Hy::ff ,.:: ;i;'”: :T:::il.ilmplement to p’v.f,olo$v. e .un.,oig,a,p ,eri- construct”.rv.'”,’,ii””.ffi 6:,:*;l:””..”.1,;l jn*lri any,case, are impressive evidenc””fo, ^”, sands or y”u,r, u,iJ “ven ir they “;r;;”,,;T:ilj,lr::il?i”fr;T:- :?ffilJ,|], :;[‘;iH f::i: I;’; ;;: “”,. “, n “,1″.,”.,,’i.,”^ The first of these ru.to.r ir ,r”gative. A ritual can persist in a com- -tA.*.nua.ln”-u.o*nh’7For the ;;,”;;:’; ‘Jll!’:::,:,tanders ee33) 44 yj,rliirr:iiit;|u”,f: * Youns, Initiation c,,r^onir,’ i Cross-Cutturat study of status ;?:it $iilti”,::T J-f,#:ff :Hj:T:3 ;:, :,:”,T ” “, ( r e7o ) see s Freu d / 194t), t2g- 39. , wes. Jchr. rc (ry24), 2to_2o = Ges. Werke 24 25 SACRIFICE, HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS munity only so long as it does not threaten that community with ex- tinction. Some religious developments have indeed tended in this di- rection. The swift fall of most Gnostic movements and the final fall of Manichaeism were undoubtedly caused by their negation of life, just as the monks of Mount Athos, who were maintained by the outside world’s consciousness of sin, are dying out today. If, however, prac- tically all human cultures are shaped by religion, this indicates that religious ritual is advantageous in the process of selection, if not for / the individual, then at least for the continuance of group identity.’Re- ‘ ligion outlives all non-religious communities; and sacrificial ritual plays a special role in this process. .tr Furthermore, those rituals which are not innate can endure only when passed on through a learning process. The impulse for imita- tion, which is highly developed in man and especially in children, is decisive here, and it is encouraged by the theatricality of ritual. Chil- dren act out weddings and funerals again and again. This alone, how- evet cannot preserve the form of ritual, which remains rigid and un- changing over long periods of time. For this, the rite must be established as sacred. A religious rite is almost always “serious”: some danger is evoked arousing anxiety, which then heightens atten- tiveness and lifts the subsequent proceedings out of the colorful stream of daily experience. Thus, the learning process leaves an in- eradicable impression. By far the greatest impression is made by what terrifies, and it is just this that makes aggressive rituals so significant. ‘ But even this is not enough to guarantee the permanence of the f ritual: deviations are corrected by elimination. Ritull was evidently so important for the continuance of human society that it became one of the factors of selection itself for innumerable generations. Those who will not or cannot conform to the rituals of a society have no chance in it. Only those who have integrated themselves can have influence and affect action. Here, the serious character of religious ritual becomes a very real threat. The psychological failure to meet this threat causes personal catastrophe. For instance, a child who consistently laughs during solemn occasions will not survive in a religious community.-1 Apollonios of Tyana once declared such a boy to be possessed by a demon, but luckily the evil spirit quickly left the frightened young rascal.lo In the Middle Ages, abbots foug]r^t^:h”. d:yil with very real #iq::’; ?:*,;:rii:’ LU*:,*::, 1″* r'”.'”,e d ” d e vi rr -i i p,, u r – ritual. r D rrtrrps ro account tor the durability of aggressive The biologicar-functional view of rituar has a consequence that is serdom rearized’ beca.use it seems to go uguinrt the intention of hu- manism, which sees,its mission l” p”.”riir”,g a phenomenology of the mind or sour and in discrosing ;;”;;;;.oncepts or ideas. Ever since wilhelm Mannhardt and Rob”erts”;;#;, the study of rerigions has focused on ritual’ The evidenc” .f th; ii;;;ary tradition no ronger sat_ isfied’ since it had become evident that iiwas secondary. Thus, schor- ars looked for its rool: in ,,aeepef;’,Lore primitive ideas.,,,, It was, and is’ considered serf-evident’tn”t titr”l, especialry rerigious ritual, must depend on an anrecedent ;i;;;/;{“n though it afways turns out that those peopl:_lnr,: nlri., hul b”ur., able to observe stilt practlclng ritual ,,no longer,, unaurrtuJir, ,,d””pu. meaning.,, After the ra tionaris tic bia s in, tfr e.coffi i, i’rr’ ) t_exposed, schorari rooked instead to’iexperien.”:::i-‘d;:;f;.*,,t .,3 for the roots which, as L iJ:::,J:.lli3lli:, fl :1: ::1, j, :;l .so”., o r osy, h ow e ve r _ a n d, i n RITUALIZATION thi s case, hi story- rons aso revoru ti on iz”;Ti?rtf”$:.ff “.,i li; .il toPhilostr. V Ap.4.zo. z8 (1928), 8r-ros. Cf. Heinrich 1r85a), I. ch. 5 On the Teufelspeitsche see A: f:9Uy, Schweiz. errn,, y.iEii, the story of the ,,witch..s .r,ira. iil c;,,rr’ila,l”ii:,1; Der sri)ne eSo already O. Gruppe, RML Suppl., ,,Geschichte der klassischen Mythologie und Reli- gionsgeschichte” (r9zr), 243. Group selection is not accepted by the molern theory of evolution-see R. Dawkins, fhi Setfish Gene i976)-but it is still granted that,,a grudger’s strategy” is ,,evolutionarily stable,,: iUii. |99_ ror,. rrFor instance’ Mannhardt Qg7) 6q states his concrusion as follows: ,Als Uberlebser der primitivisten Entwickelu.;-r;;i#” ;”, -l’r*n,nnen Geistes hat sich . . . die Vorstellung von der Greichartig”keitil tilil; una a”, Baumes gere*et. Die Uber_ zeugung ‘der Baum hat ejne.SJele *f” a”. V””*h,, und aer Wunsch zu wachsen und zu b’ihen wie ein Baum’ sind die ‘,”.”””in”. weitverzwei’;ten Glaubens und mannigfacher Gebrauche gewesen”; that is, the conception and wish give rise to the iJ’lljl;,*X,”t”lilll,:n:.t or tr,” ia”u, u^p.”*”a.,” the rituar t.aditiJn, ..ideen, die men tar idea .r,,,” _..”0,1″.1 il’,i.”Tl tlfr ::;,li1:-a ;;*i “r, J# jffi ; t.e+8’l’ 33o) sought behind-ttr” r”t1rt”g'”;;r’,,# Geschichte der Vorsterungen., as tne building btoiks of an “Entwickiur!rg.;.*.;ls menschrichen Geistes.,, ”E.g., Nilston (r95) z:,,Es gibt Glaubenssdtze . . iujiati,tin Hanalunien’,; we are obliged ,,die allee aus ihnen entspriessen . . . die “”]11 o”‘religicisei Handrungen t.rlrlrrl.L-,ii”n”T”‘n”n Vorstellungen zuerst auf a””*l:fr,’;^t’;{::'”:;:”:y,’iitze (ryo7),42, ror instance,_spoke or ,,rerigioser Emprin_ rooks to ,,den natLirlich”;i1″in Vorstellungen und.in Handlung”.r.;’;t:;ir: In{“ur, !;x;:i::;’I;f ;*J’iJffi flxi*rk”;,”ffu;’;n’:*:’;i; rhe rite.s demonstrative.#:,:r.i*,, s1._rog, in which, r.”*lirJ.] r*,riurirl,”* ” z6 lll l SACRIFICE, HUNTING/ FUNERARY RITUALS not Produce ritual; rather, ritual itself produces and shapes ideas, or even experience and emotions. “Ce ne sont pas des 6motions ac- tuelles, ressenties ir I’occasion des r6unions et des c6r6monies, qui en- gendrent ou perp6tuent les rites, mais I’activit6 rituelle qui suscite les 6motions.”‘n ‘A specific practice or belief . . never represents a direct psychological response of individuals to some aspect of the outer world. . . . The source of their beliefs and practices is . . . the historic tradition.” ” It is this, by transmitting the custom as custom, that pro- duces ideas, shapes experiences, excites desires. This change in perspective, of course, takes us back to a basic as- sumption of primitive religion which religious studies constantly try to transcend: the source of religious custom is the “ways of our ances- tors.”16 Ever since the pre-Socratics, people have stubbornly asked how mankind came to have its religious ideas; and they have done so although all men of the historical era, and certainly countless pre- historic generations, were taught their religious beliefs by the genera- tion immediately preceding them. Plato expressed it thus: children come to believe in the existence of the gods by observing how “their own parents act with utmost seriousness on behalf of themselves and their children” at sacrifice and prayer.” Even the most radical innova- tions in the history of religion proceed from this basis. To be cautious, let us say that all human action is accompanied by ideas, surrounded by images and words. Tradition embraces lan- Buage as well as ritual behavior. Psychoanalysis even speaks of “un- conscious ideas.” But to what extent these ideas, which are then raised after all into the realm of linguistic presentation, are just her- meneutic accessories or factors that exercise a demonstrable causality is a difficult question, at best answerable only in the context of psy- chology itself. By means of interpretation, one can attribute ideas to any aiiion.flnituil has an undersiandable function within society-of course, it often has many, and changing, functions, for, as we know, biological selection favors multiple functions. Human beings can usu- ally understand ritual intuitively, at least in its constituent parts. Thus, ritual makes sense in two ways. It is quite right to speak of “ideas” or “insights” which are “contained” in ritual and which it can ‘uC. L6vi-Strauss, Le totimisme auiourd’hui (1962) tozf . ‘5A. L Hallowell, American Anthroltologist z8 (:1926), 19. M. Mead, Male and Female (1949,6r, stresses that even childhood experiences bear the stamp of the adult world, “a process of transmission, not of creation.,, ‘oCf. Preface n. 7. l’1Plat. Leg. 887d. MYTH AND RITUAL express and communicate_as, for instance.,. the reality of a higher, transcendent power or the ,u..”ar,us of life y;;”ur”””,,,.,1 _o.u problematic to say thatritual has ro-” ;p.,rqose,,, since *” t’o* *,ut its course is predetermined and tnui u ,ip”iimposed p.r.poru-.un.,o, change it but can at most provoke ii*?t*rr”re. There is no lustiti.u- tion for viewing the ,’idea),”””n ir.ir, fi].guistic manifestation, as an_ terior to or decisive for rituar. I” rh; ii;;;ry of mankind, rituar is far older than linguistic communication.,B Neitirer th” ;;;;, ;;;i”r,grrO that can be extracted as a partiar clarification by interpreting the rituar nor the emotions and,expJanati”;r;;;;;rsed by participints in the cult are the basis and, origin ,i ,f,”li’if,ey simply accompany it. Thanks to its theatrical, minetic ;;;;;’ “r” n”‘iil:T-::.::y1 tha t its, u..u d, ” r ” _”r,y “” ^ i ;;;;;;, : : :, ll:$””:l”Lilo*1*, t,” 4. Myth and Rituql Ritual, as a form 3f .9om-munication, is a. kind of language . It is F f natural’ then, that verbarized ru”g”ugu,’-an’s most effective system of communication, shourd be a;;;Hfi *i*r .it.,ut. Arthough the ac- complishment of language resides in communicating some content and in projecting ” r3a,”i.or reahty, it’irll’tr,” same tirie u^””t**”ty social phenomenor,, it brings ;;;;;-;;procal personal contact and H:T::::t:;iT;Tr”‘ *lo u”to”g’ tJth” s’;”t i;;;;;’,1″,p* k””p’;;;l;,;,;”‘*#;L:1,:rlT:il.:Jl].*nTTil.ili,1,,; seems less important. in everyd;t ltf” i;;; rhat something is in tact *tO ;L:,lg roe.”th:.. i n silence ir’u f _ori’lr.bearabte. i Doubtlesslor this rea son, ritual and language have gone hand in :$r”J'”J’.tff ,tff ntffi#*,’derthar ma n .ou,o .ffi gl”e”,” proc. seaenth i,, llt:,ti:::;,f’,lfu’-u1: “o… u..” e'”rr,i;;;;,#; r””- *1e”,”procsnenthi,;C”Ts,”;;;;;;;,J””rili?;”,?l#:r,,i:y;E:;:,Tfl11#il.’t”,liffl;t.?.,i1:jl;l:t b r-r xr””, a’):,i)i’o,,n*p”tosist 74 (ts7zt, zB7-)o7: r1976). yet there was nr”r,1Tt_”-“”.,and speech,” Annals.New york Acatd. sciences zgo to*”.putu”oiiii,r.in,,”.,,,.r, cannibalism, and buriat_b”, n. p,.,orili ].t_in tt” [:. :i o.*#:;’:;*”lT [:,f ilUiT.v.3i#,:H,””r oJr*”ir,” ir”, “””‘u- ‘5ee Morris (t9671 zoz- zo6on ,,grooming talk.,, z8 29 SACRIFICE/ HUNTING/ FUNERARY RITUALS ,, hand since language began. Any number of forms are conceivable for ‘ such a combination, and many are indeed attested; from a responsion of expressive cries during the ritual, to naming that which seems present in it and invoking it,2 to a more or less direct account of what is happening there.lThis leads us to the problem of myth’ The theme of myth and ritual is still the subject of great contro- versy. While some see the ritual backdrop of a myth as the only ac- ceptable meaning for something that at first aPPears absurd, others champion the cause of free fantasy and speculation. After Robertson Smith had determined “the dependence of myth on ritual,” which Jane Harrison then distilled into the theory that myth is often just “ritual misunderstood,”:5. H. Hooke postulated on the basis of an- cient Near Eastern and biblical material that there was a unity, a nec- essary connection between myth and ritual: myth is “the spoken part of the ritual.” o The occasional claims that this thesis resolved the ques- tion absolutely have caused a variety of strong reactions,s but these ‘?The divine names Paian (L. Deubner, “Paian,” Nlb zz ftgrgl, 185-4o6; Nilsson [1955] 54j; see already the Mycenaean pa-ja-wo-ne, G6rard-Rousseau [1968] t64-65) and Iakchos (Foucart lr9r4l rrr; Deubner |t%zl 7); Nilsson lt955l 661 arose out of the cul- tic cries i’fice flarov and “IoxX’ 6 “Iax1e . 3W R. Smith (1894) t7-zo; for “absurd mythology” seen as “ritual misunderstood” see J. Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens Q89o), xxxiii. Cf. Harrison (t927) 327-1r, where the meaning of myth is recognized once again: “the myth is the plot of the dromenon” b3r). The connections between myth and ritual were already strdssed by F. G. Welcker (Die aeschylische Trilogie Prometheus und die Kabirenweihe zu Lem- nos [r8z4l, esp. 159, 249- 50) and Wilamowitz (e.g., Euripides Herakles I [1889], 85; “He- phaistos,” NGG 1895, zj4 : Kl. Schr. Y z, 2)-zd. ‘S. H. Hooke, ed., Myth and Ritual Og1;), ), myth is “the spoken part of the ritual,” “the story which the ritual enacts.” As early as 1910, A. van Gennep stated that myth is “eine Erziihlung . . . , deren Bestandteile sich in gleicher Sequenz durch religiris- magische Handlungen (Riten) dussern” (lnternationale Wochenschrilt 4. rr74). In the meantime, empirical ethnology had arrived on the scene: B. Malinowski, Myth inPrimi- tiae Psychology (1926). For an attempt at an overview see D. Kluckhohn, “Myths and Rituals: A General Theory,” HThR 35 Q94z), 45-79; also S. H. Hooke, Myth, Ritual and Kingship (1958); and Th. H. Gaster, Thespis: Ritual, Myth and Drama in the Ancient Near East (rg5o, 196r’?). Lord Raglan, The Origins of Religion (1949), and A. M. Hocart, Social Origins $954, went so far as to reconstruct an Ur-ritual, rooted in ancient Near Eastern kingship. Alongside this debate-carried on almost exclusively among English-speaking schol- ars-are parallel attempts in the early work of G. Dum6zil (k crime des kmniennes IrS24l; Le problime des Centaurs [1929]) on the one hand, and, on the other, in Germany where W. F. Otto, Dionysos (tSlt, 44, spoke of the “Zusammenfall von Kultus und Mythos,” and O. Hofler (1934) derived the sagas about hordes of wild men and about werewolves from ritual. sH. J. Rose, Mhemosyne n.s. 3 (r95o), z}r-87; M. p. Ni.lsson. Cults, Myths, Oracles and MYTH AND RITUAL have been unable to dampen the fascinal . an d -ritua r,.n ;”t a”*.’,'” ir,” ;3 Gili l;[Tj?:l’il :i: mvrh – than that of ritual, a solution satisfacLry to-all is virtually n.O”r”it:” A radical way out is to say tnat *rJaeri”i”g f;;;;oi”#rrn, u, opposed to saga, fairytale, ur,d ro’.tut”, i, i,, connection with rituar.o ffi”#::flfacts argue against this: siories that are;;vorrir,au”_ inbothancient;oT'””#f,l:i,?”.,:J’,ff.1:T:*’ffj;?.l,l,,iilj:: sponding’ expricatory myths.’a”a utihough one could attribute the Iack of a correspond;:c; rn antiquiil iJ i.,.o.npt”te documentation preserved by chance, it is hard to’attacf the proofs brought forward by ethnology.* one courd, “r.o.r^”,-Jr-gue that myths wit-hout rituals derive nonetheress from rost rituurr,’?ilut myth is so much easier to transmit and takes so. much t”t” “*pu.,re that tailil;;eud una grow on its own’ Butthis hypothesis iun.,ot be verified. Rituar is far older in the history of evolution; ;il;j;;”es back even to animals, whereas myth onlv b”crm” posriui” -i r-r ine advent of speech, a spe- cifically human auitity. yytn, h”;”;;;;;nnot be documented before the era in which *.iti.,g *u, i.rt”.-#d-,*arthough i;;’.tio.rrty present long before. somewher” rr, u”i*””n, in the vast reaches of the unknowabre, are the ‘origins.; il;;; reft with the fact that sto- ries are somethins “”: ll:”{ri”. to Uiofogically observable rituat. To this extent’ myth does not grow directly Lut of ritual. on the other i,fliSiX]ilo”1tic’ do not a;’put” iiui^’.it”r ,.,a -y*, .u^” ,” u” According to the broadest definition, a mythis a traditional tale., This is alreadyienough to airpor” or’tr,l opi.io.,, herd from Xenopha- ?;”:;;’ :, l: ;: “i :;: ;; :,, ::’,, o, a n d cf N i,s s on (,m (,g66); K,k r,;;;i;;,:;|,lJ:iJ”:jr,llS,.i’:J?;:I l:Xn:;;;*,,,jlii,irf:,;: gre (re6t), and K. Ker6nv i. Die Lrofuing ;r;;;g;;;r”rrm Mythos (ts67), therituat rhe_ :y–“PT”^ only marginalty. Cf. Burkeit t,s8o)l-”’^ ,*:iiilpi”t;i;i;;i;,*#:$i*i:r ,””0 4 ab.ve) and E R Leach, ,;::j::::: rituars oierrap rather than 0″,”,,”,”.0″|o”llX’Ll,view see Kirk (re7o) z8: d;;:.il:v’,rl:;i,:;:,::”t: see E otto’ “Das Verhdrtnis von Rite und Myrhus im srri n i;rt tiio)1,’iri.*’8 (1958), r; c. J’ Bleeker, Egyptian re’t,uats,-r.n in’riir rl o* ,rurk (r97o) z5_zg. ,,ror Kirk (r9zo), the ,,tradj ;ffi “,T:f ti,[:*,ji1′.,’1]1#”;1,’i’:Tiil:,,’ff i'”1T:I.”*#’lily,l’,..1″,,:: )o 3a SACRIFICE, HUNTING, FUNERARY RITUALS nes up through modern classicists, that myths y:1″ :::””:”^1bv the poet’s fancy, if not in historical times, then in ?1:hiti”t{:,1″i::1″”t^t of its origin, myth is characterizedby its suitability for telltng and re- telling. Although it does not derive from empiri::.t “,b::T:^t1″1:l;i: dividiral “*p”.i””..” and can be only partially verified’ at best’^TI^,t: extraordinarily lucid. lts themes are often. surprisingly-::it^t?,”t’ t” spite of the many fantastic and paradoxical motifs that shape lts un- mistakable identity; even though slightly distorted’ they return again “”a “g”f” For this reason, psycnoa”utysis sees myth as a projection of specific structures in the to,’I, utt elaboration of inborn psychologi- .”ii*p”tiaions.” From a strictly evolutionary standpoint’ however’ *” -.it, suPPose that even these archetypei, like valleys hollowed out by ancient streams, were created by a process of s.election be- tween various ways of life open to Palaeolithic man’ And if the ways of life were determined by rituals, then from the very start they shaped the mYthic Patterns. This is speculaiion’ We can be certain, however, that myths and rituals successfully combine as forms of cultural tradition. There is no need for the myth itself to be part of the ritual, as the strict orientation of the myth-and-ritual school would have it. Continuous stories ap- p”u, i., ritual only exceptionally. The ritual can be discussed outside it, o*. context, either in prepaiation or to explain it afterward;.in this way, the Greeks connecteh aimost every ritual with a story explaining ineachcasewhyaquestionablecustomwasestablished.”onlythe opposite question, wiether in turn all Greek myths refer to rituals’ is l0,,Der Mythos ‘ . . entsteht in der Phantasie des Dichters,,, Wilamowitz (lg3t) 4z’ a thesis restated programatrcally by E’ Howald, Der .Mythos als D,ich.tung !1SlZ), To be sure, it is perfecity legitimate t; in;estigate each particular individual manifestation of a ^ytt, U”i it is no less legitimate to slarch for the underlying themes which are the given for every Poet historically known to us’ ;C. G. 1.-,.,g, Eranos-lb. (1938), 4o3-ro, on archetypes as “Funktionsformen”; idem’ Mon oni uii synbols (tg6+); i . iu.oii, Ko^p”

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