People Die So That Plants May Live

Note: I am NOT advocating human sacrifice as a method to increase garden yield. I just wanted to make that clear.

In times past, in many different cultures all around the world, human beings were sacrificed in the hope that their blood would ensure the harvest would be successful…….

In Ecuador, the Indians of Guayaquil sacrificed both blood and hearts as they plowed the fields. Also in Ecuador, the people of Canar sacrificed a hundred children each year at harvest. A Mexican harvest festival known as “the meeting of the stones”, a criminal was placed between two large stones and crushed to death. His remains were buried in the field. The ancient peoples of Mexico sacrificed people at all stages of corn growth, with new-born babies sacrificed at the sowing, children as the grain sprouted, and so on until they sacrificed old men when the maize was ripe for harvest. The Aztecs had a festival in September in which a young slave girl was chosen to represent the Maize Goddess Chicomecohuatl. She received offerings of maize and peppers and pumpkins from the people, and she had to stand on this pile of vegetables and then accept offers of blood from the pious, who had collected blood from cuts on their ears for a week. Finally, the girl was beheaded on a pile of maize, and her skin was removed so that one of the priests could clothe himself in it and dance in a procession.

Dionysus, the Greek god of the vine, was yet another god of vegetation whose rites were bloody. In myth, Dionysus was killed by the Titans, who tore his body to pieces and cast it over the land. In imitation of that story, the drunk and frenzied worshippers of Dionysus, the maenads, would tear a young man to pieces with their teeth and hands so that his blood and flesh could fertilize the land. Greek cities in Asia Minor had a fertility rite in the spring in which a man and woman were mated, had their genitals scourged, and were then burned. The Roman rites of Attis were derivative of earlier, bloodier rituals. On the “Day of Blood”, the priests of Cybele would dance around a pole of pine decorated with an effigy of the god Attis, and would castrate themselves and then throw the bloody organs at the pole.

In Lagos, a young girl would be impaled alive after the spring equinox. Sheep and goats would also be sacrificed, and these would be hung on stakes beside her, along with yams, maize, and plantains. Elsewhere in West Africa, a queen sacrificed a man and woman in March by killing them with hoes and spades and then buried them in a freshly-tilled field. The Marimos would sacrifice a short, stout man in the middle of a field and allow the blood to coagulate in the sun. The coagulated blood and the victim’s frontal bone and brain were then burned and the ashes scattered over the field. The rest of the body was eaten.

The Pawnees were well known for making annual sacrifices to ensure a good crops. After they sowed their fields, they took a captive put him or her to death. The captive could be beheaded with a tomahawk and shot with arrows, or slowly roasted over a fire and then shot with arrows. In any case, the flesh was cut from the bones while still warm and the blood squeezed out onto the newly-planted seeds. It has also been recorded that the chief devoured the heart of the sacrifice.

The Bagobos , of the Philippine island Mindanao, sacrificed a slave each year in December as payment for the last successful harvest and to ensure the favor of the spirits for the next harvest. The slave would be hung from a large tree with his hands stretched high above his head. He would be slain by a spear thrust, and then the body was cut clean through at the waist. The upper part of the body hung there for awhile while the lower half lay in a puddle of blood. Eventually both parts would be cast into a hole. The Bontocs and the Apoyoas of Luzon, another Philippine island, would make sure that every farm got at least one human head at planting and at sowing. They would lie in wait in the forest for the hapless victim and cut off the head, hands, and feet. The skulls would be exposed until the flesh decayed from the head.

The Khonds of Bengal offered sacrifices to the earth goddess Tari Pennu to ensure successful cultivation of turmeric, which they thought could not have a deep red color without the shedding of blood. The victim was known as a Meriah, and was either born to the position or devoted to the goddess as a child. The Meriah were considered consecrated beings and were treated well until they were to be sacrificed. Twelve days beforehand, the victim was prepared by cutting off his hair. The day before the sacrifice, the Meriah was tied to a post and smeared with turmeric, oil, and ghee, and adorned with flowers. The assembled crowd would dance around the pole and speak to both the earth and the victim. To the earth, they offered to sacrifice in exchange for good crops; to the victim, they reminded him that they had bought him and treated him well according to custom, and that no sin for his death could be laid upon them. The next day the victim would be led on procession, and since he was not allowed to show any signs of resistance, often his arms and legs would be broken, or he would be drugged into a stupor with opium. The method of death differed from place to place. Most commonly, the Meriah was strangled to death using a tree branch which had been split halfway; the victim’s neck would be inserted into the cleft and then the village priest would force the gap closed. The crowd would then hew the flesh from his bones. Sometimes the Meriah was cut up alive while being drug through the fields. Another method was to tie the victim to a wooden elephant. This elephant, which rotated on a pole, was spun around while the crowd cut the flesh from his body. A final method involved slowly roasting the victim to death. A low stage, in the form a gently-sloping V, was built, and the victim was bound and laid upon the stage. Fires and hot brands were used to make the victim roll up and down the stage as long as possible, since the more tears he shed the more plentiful the rain would be. The next day, the body would be cut up. In all cases, the head and internal organs would not be touched. These, along with the bones, would be burned the following day and the ashes scattered over the fields. The pieces of flesh would be taken back to all the neighboring villages and planted in a hole in the ground.