“…regarding their kings as incarnate divinities on whom the welfare of men, of cattle and of the corn implicitly depends…”
James Frazer, The Golden Bough
Introduction At the outset, let me briefly outline the explanation I attempt here. This is a human sacrifice of substitution and fertility, the latter being most prominent, with aspects of expiation/propitiation/atonement. Agricultural fertility is being ensured since it is the lifeline for the survival of the community, and perhaps a wrong has been committed or being averted. I will draw on the work of Frazer and Smith, with additional references to readings as relevant . At the beginning we are shown the saplings planted in the fields. That and the several head of goat, coupled with the nature of dwellings (carved out of rock formations) indicate this is a subsistence community, based on agriculture and livestock. The young man in fine blue attire is waiting for the proceedings to commence, looking reflective and somewhat pensive. Could he be contemplating a personal wrong as well as its implications for the community? Why does he leave the ceremonial site before the commencement? Is it a formal segregation, while he reflects on his misdeed? In any case, subsequently it appears he may be the original object of the sacrifice, but must be substituted because of his status. Communion That this is a sacrifice in the nature of communion, “an act of social fellowship between the deity and his worshippers” (Smith 1889: 207) in which “god and his worshippers unite by partaking together of the flesh and blood of a sacred victim” (Smith 1889: 209), is conclusively demonstrated as we see that body parts and blood are offered to all. If, additionally, we were to impute some guilt to this sacrifice, since a human victim has been destroyed and a regulatory principle must be in operation or the community is susceptible to unlimited violence (Bataille 1989), we can say that by sharing in the fruits of the sacrifice (the victim’s body), the guilt is being shared as well as the benefit. This does not detract from the principle of communion , and even reinforces it. The whole community, it would appear, is gathered here for the sacrifice. The presence of women tests the explanatory scope of most theorists under consideration. For Smith, while this will certainly be an eventual act of communion as he indicates (the victim is shared between gods and humans), yet in his descriptions of the religion of the Semites, women are certainly not members of the kinship clan, and are hence excluded when Arab men eat together, as are “boys who are not of full age” (Smith 1894: 279), which is also an exception here to his explanation (young boys also participate). (Smith 1894: 271-280, esp. 279-280). Fertility The ceremony heightens in tempo and intensity once the victim is dead. Increasing urgency characterizes the actions of those entrusted with carrying out the rites. As soon as the body is dismembered, the priests / ritual actors head out to perform different tasks – offering body parts and blood to the people, touching of organs and blood to saplings in the field, rubbing of blood on a crop perhaps close to harvest, and burial of a body part in the field. One reason is to transfer the vitality (and beneficent effects) of the still warm body as quickly as possible. The vitality of the sacrificial victim is transferred first and foremost to mother earth and her fruits, as well as to the members of the community. As the ashes are propagated, the queen utters the words, “Give life to the seed…”. This is the crux of the sacrifice, the propitiation of the gods to ensure the fertility of the earth, a plentiful harvest, and thus the well being of the community. Let us consider this in some more detail. At the start of the scene, we see stones painted red and yellow. The victim is made to wear headgear of similar colors, which appears to be a agricultural product that has a red ear and yellowish stalk. The victim is anointed in these two colors before he is ready to be sacrificed . The utterance of the queen (“give life to the seed and be reborn with the seed”) gives credence to the possibility that the yellow represents the harvested crop, and the red (while possibly a specific crop, as seen in the headgear of the victim) represents blood, vitality, and human life in general – symbolized and concentrated in the person of the sacrificial victim. Subsequent to the killing, of course, the various groups going to the fields (the two sacrificers and those following them, the young boy) and their actions point directly to the fertility aspect of the sacrifice. …fertility of men, of cattle and of the crops is believed to depend sympathetically on the generative power of the king, so that the complete failure of that power… would thereby entail… the complete destruction of all life.” (Frazer 1926: 269). This quote is significant not just in that it points to the aspect of agricultural fertility, it opens up the possibility that livestock (“cattle” – the disguised humans that come running to rejoin the community once the destruction and consumption of the victim is complete; also see below) are also part of the equation. Further, it also helps us understand the atonement/expiatory aspect of the sacrifice. While the prince has been substituted, he is segregated before and beaten later as well, indicating that it was some flaw of his (“failure of that power”) that brought on the necessity for this particular sacrifice. King or Coterie In addition to the rites that relate directly to fertility, back at the ceremonial site a set of actions take place that require our attention. What of the duo that is surrounded by the community members and then spat on? Is this a mimetic reversal of the regular hierarchy of the social order, the taboo against insulting royalty being broken performatively? Why is the prince being removed from the ceremonial gathering again and being beaten with branches? Critically, Why is the queen tied to a stake, same as the victim was? While Frazer’s theory of the sacrifice of a weakened king so that his soul may pass to a vigorous successor is still persuasive, and we can add the aspect of substitution [whether coming on due to the end of a fixed term (Frazer 1926: 274-279; esp. see 278 for “dying by deputy”) or the killing of a temporary king (Frazer 1926: 283-284)], perhaps we could speculate on the nature of sovereignty that obtained in this community. At first sight it appears that there is an incongruity in the age of the (so called) prince and the queen. Are they the ruling sovereign and his partner? Even if there were some tenuous truth to this (with or without the aspect of incest ), how does this solve the conundrum of the other duo we alluded to before? Note also that this duo is insulted most aggressively, but the queen is tied to a stake and surrounded too (but not touched or spat on); the prince of course is beaten quite without ambiguity. Is it possible that there is not a king in whom ultimate sovereign authority rests here, but a ruling coterie, composed these four individuals, with some variations in degree of individual authority between them? . This is one possible interpretation, but its veracity is not central to the intent and effects of the sacrifice. Expenditure of Vitality and Substitution Returning to our explanation, along with the aspect of fertility, this is also sacrifice of the king (prince), whether at the end of a fixed term, or due to the breaking of a taboo. Let us consider the second part of the queen’s utterance – “and be reborn with the seed” (emphasis added). Be reborn, not as the seed, but with it. In Smith (1889) we have seen that all acts of communion were a mechanism to acquire an aspect of the gods . This god-like aspect is concentrated in the king, who is a demi-god of sorts. Like all men, for Frazer gods are mortal based on the evidence he presents (Frazer 1926: 264-265). Since the “king is slain in his character of a god or a demigod” (Frazer 1926: 282), he must return (“be reborn”), to perpetuate the “divine life” (Frazer 1926: 282). In giving life to the seed, the divine (god through the king through the substituted sacrificial victim) provides vitality to the earth, ensuring a good harvest. He cannot assume the character of the seed, however, which is to say that he cannot simply rise from the earth as the plentiful crop. He must be reborn “with” the seed, and not “as” the seed. One might ask if the substitution was done on the day of the sacrifice, or, following Frazer’s description of a Babylonian practice (Frazer 1926: 281-282), the victim had been substituted some time before, “dressed in the king’s robes, seated on the king’s throne… and to lie with the king’s concubines”. If this were the case, and “masters and servants changed places”, perhaps it would account for the insults given to all four of the royal coterie, as the period of festival concluded with the sacrifice. This appears likely, and coheres with other aspects of continuity such as the periodic agricultural harvest, which, it may be recalled, is the main purpose of this sacrificial act according to the interpretation offered in this essay. The humans dressed as animals in the bush do not appear to be menacing. Once the victim’s ashes are propagated, they run in, joining (rejoining?) the community, singing and dancing in celebration. Can we say that these disguised figures represent the second productive activity of the community, that of herding livestock ? At the time of periodic renewal, the community calls upon the god(s), offering a human sacrifice so that both the harvest and the supply of livestock may be plentiful. The Intimacy of Profitless Destruction? Other Theoretical Considerations In Bataille, the original goal of sacrificial consumption among the Aztec is to achieve a lost intimacy (Bataille 1991: 51,53, 57), and removal from the order of “things” (Bataille 1991: 57). Later, we find the sovereign who prevented the culmination of the cycle of sacrifices i.e., his own sacrifice, with his power, and then indulged in “ostentatious squander” (Bataille 1991: 63) and gift giving. But the original sacrifice lost its meaning, because instead of removing the victim from the order of things and achieving intimacy with it in profitless destruction, now the king’s intent was utilitarian – squander for rank. The moment of consumption in our sacrifice, then, does not conform philosophically with Bataille’s original proposition, and resonates only tenuously at best with his second. While there is an analogous moment of intimate violence, and the victim is certainly representing the prince (among other things), this is always geared towards an instrumental goal (atonement, fertility, sustaining the community). Hence we cannot even call it demonstrative prodigality. The gains are concrete (a good harvest) and not notional ones such as status / rank. There is certainly an element of controlled violence here following Girard, and the sacrifice does prevent potentially unstoppable violence from breaking out. I found it more productive to consider other aspects of the ritual for the purpose of this essay rather than focus on the finely balance similarity (yet difference) of the victim from the community, the influence of Greek tragedy and other aspects of Girard’s theory of violence . Bloch (1992) asks the question, once the subjects of the sacrifice have become immortal spirits, why would they want to return to the order of mortality? Why “be reborn with the seed”? There is the principle of reality (the death that gives immortality is only symbolic, and symbolic for the very reason that if there was no need to return, there would be no need for symbolism – death would suffice) and of reproduction without which the community cannot transcend the individual. For Bloch, this is a fundamental problem for all societies – the vitality of youth must decline and eventually culminate in death. Also, in the second element of violence among the Orokavia (when the children return and hunt the mortal pigs), there is a recovery of vitality. In conclusion, could we say that in our sacrifice, the victim recovers his vitality (being reborn – the renewal of society) and in the process invests vitality into the seed, which is the basic element (literally, of the crop and figuratively, of human procreation) of production and reproduction? The foregoing is one possible formulation and interpretation of the events of ritual sacrifice witnessed in this unnamed society. References 1. Bataille, Georges, 1991, “The Accursed Share”, vol. I, New York: Zone Books 2. Bloch, Maurice, 1992, “Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience”, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 3. Frazer, J.G., 1926, “The Golden Bough”, abridged edition, Vol I, New York: The Macmillan Company. 4. Freud, Sigmund, 1950, “Totem and Taboo”, New York: Norton & Company Inc. 5. Girard, René, 1977, “Violence and the Sacred”, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, Chapter I-II, pp. 1-69 6. Hubert, Henri and Marcel Mauss, 1964, “Sacrifice. It’s Nature and Function”, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 7. Mizruchi, Susan L., 1998, “Sacrificial Arts and Sciences”, in The Science of Sacrifice, American Literature and Modern Social Theory, pp. 25-88. 8. Smith, William Robertson, 1889, “Religion of the Semites”, London: Adam and Charles Black. Appendix 1 – Edited Field notes A shepherdic (goats and donkeys/asses are seen), agricultural community. dwelling in houses carved out of caves/natural rock formations. The community slowly gathers. Red and yellow stones flank the pathway. Some women are gathered, perhaps discussing in anticipation. Men wearing sackcloth, a dress of sorts. Other men in plain black or brown cloth. All range themselves along the raised terrain. Young boys dressed in loincloth bring out a sun symbol. A young man, wearing more colorful attire of finer fabric, demarcating him from the commoners; perhaps he is the prince. The prince is reflecting, either on his own deeds, the state of the community, both, as well as what is going to take place today. Looking somewhat pensive, he smiles as if something is resolved in his mind, and walks away, through an opening, to a separated area, away from the site of the impending ceremonies. We go inside one of the cave dwellings, a young boy dressed only in loincloth hangs from a rope tied to his wrists. Everyone waits, watching in anticipation. A procession comes out, carrying various markers of the community (and kingdom perhaps?) mounted on staffs. Dead rats hang from one. The young boy seen hanging from a rope is brought out, hands bound; he wears headgear made of a plant, red with wheat colored stalks. He smiles strangely, giving the impression he is either not of sound mind or under the influence of a drug. The man we have designated the prince returns, following the young boy (henceforth the sacrificial victim or victim). He looks pensive, downcast. An effigy composed of cloth, roughly approximating a human figure is carried out. The people sit down. One lady and a man, again dressed in finer fabric to mark their distinction from the common people, accompany the prince. The man appears tense. The prince smiles at the victim. A lady, commanding, beautiful and imperious, is part of this group. She we will call variously the Queen / mother / mother-in-law for reasons that will be explicated further. She stands a little off and behind the group of three (prince, man, lady). A man (with no headgear) walks up to the victim and anoints one half of his body with a red paste and the other half with yellow, like the painted stones seen earlier. Then two men, one wearing headgear of 4 horns, another with 2, take the victim by the hands and walk him up to a stake. The victim begins to struggle but once tied to the stake, becomes passive, appearing tired. The two men take a log across his throat and choke him, either to death or until he is unconscious. Then they step aside. Another man wearing headgear in the shape of a deer / stag strides up. He cuts off the rope holding the victim to the stake with a knife, throws the knife down and with an axe in his left hand, chops off the victim’s head. Everyone watching rises up at this point, there is a general heightening of the tempo. People rush closer to the stake, some have bowls in their hand. There are little children in loincloth and green leaves wrapped on their head. Body parts and blood are handed out in the bowls. At the same time, the man with four horns leads men and women to the fields. Saplings are planted, it is the early stage of the growth of the crop. They are running, attempting to perform the rites while the body parts are still warm, and life still vital within the dead victim’s body. The leaves are dabbed with a bloody body part. At another place, the other man who choked the victim is leading some people. He takes out the victim’s heart from a bowl and starts rubbing the stalk and leaves of a green plant with it, assisted by one other commoner. The man with four horns holds out a bowl filled with blood and a body part to a group of people who are dressed mostly in black cloth. They all dip a finger in and run away. A young boy with 2 old women heads to a field where the crop of maize / wheat looks ready for harvest. He touches the crop with blood, and then buries the body part in the field. All are returning to the site of the sacrifice. A fire is lit where the remaining body parts (and sacrificial tools as well?) are immolated. Men dressed as animals (rabbits?) are shown hiding in the brush nearby. An implement is used to generate some wind and the ashes of the fire fly into the air. The queen speaks, “give life to the seed, and be reborn with the seed”. The men dressed as animals run to the main site, there is one among them who wears a yellow/gold mask, shaped like a human face. They join the community, who are all dancing and celebrating. At the same time, the man and lady who stood with the prince and the queen are spat at by many people. The prince is dragged off by some youngsters who beat him with branches. The queen is now seen, hands tied to a stake, eyes averted and a slight smile, surrounded by people. The dancing continues… We see one more scene, perhaps the next day or the same day at a later time from the sacrifice. The two who were spat at by the people stand before a group of sitting individuals, flanked by the queen and the prince, who in turn are flanked by the two who choked the victim. Appendix 2 – Additional Questions and Speculative Explanations Who is the god? What form does he take? There are two possibilities. One, The procession begins with a figure that looks like the sun being brought out by young boys. Second, after the killing of the victim, the body parts are taken to three specific kinds of vegetation – the saplings in the field, the crop (where the young boy and two old women go), and in between these two, to a plant, not as short as a sapling of crop and certainly not a grown crop. The stalk and leaves are rubbed with the body part and the blood. Following Smith, could this be a totem? An Alternative Explanation of the Ritual Let us take as the core problem, infertility – of the land and the prince, and not the perpetuation of a state of fertility. The king has died suddenly, and the prince must ascend to the throne, but a fatal flaw has been discovered. Perhaps he is impotent, unable to reproduce (Frazer: 267). Following Frazer, he should not have been installed as a king at all , but the community is in crisis, and the issue of continuing the royal bloodline, installing the new prince and ensuring a good harvest, all must be resolved. Hence we are talking fertility, but in more than one aspect and at different scales – agricultural, royal and communal. The victim of the sacrifice impregnates the wife of the prince (why isn’t she here?), but must not stake claim to the throne, and must be sacrificed to prevent that. He also represents vitality, and must be brought in contact with the fields to transmit this vitality. This fits Frazer’s conception as well, as while on one hand the impotence of the king would be occasion to kill him, there is the issue of who will replace him as the next king. This is a unique situation that the community must handle, lending a dual nature to the substitution This whole crisis is brought about because of the flaw of the prince, a flaw that needs a substitute to correct it (impregnate the wife) and also compensate for it (substitute for the prince in the sacrifice). This is why the prince appears pensive and regretful, is segregated, and then reintegrated finally when beaten with branches. The role of the mother, the queen is critical here, but not as mother or queen – rather as the mother-in-law of the pregnant queen to be, who is absent from the proceedings, either to protect her in case something untoward occurs, or because her presence is not significant to the sacrifice anyway. The impotent king must hold in trust the soul of god till the newly impregnated princess gives birth to the successor. Another possible explanation Another explanation presents itself on a partial consideration of the ritual. Following Freud, could this be a sacrifice atoning for incest and parricide? Did the prince kill his father (the king) and then have intercourse with his mother? Is this an episode following on from the story of the primal horde, with the band of brothers (already dispersed now that one – the king who was killed or someone in his ancestral line – achieved power over others), but allowed access to the women to all, allowing for the institution of family to emerge? Did the prince in question bring the existence of the whole community and its activities of reproduction and production (agriculture) into danger by repeating the act? Is the human victim now substituting for the prince, atoning for the act while at the same time ensuring the fertility of the earth so that the prince can ascend to the throne and the gods preside over a good harvest? Perhaps, but this is a partial explanation. For instance, what of the man and woman who are spat at? This duo is a conundrum. Without delving further, let us just say that the Freudian theory of primal horde and the taboo, while compelling, does not seem satisfactory in this case.
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