Sacrifice

The practice of sacrifice particularly animal sacrifice though also in certain cases human sacrifice has played a very prominent and important role in traditional paganism, though these days it seems that the ritual and ceremonious art of sacrifice has developed quite a bad rap, the very word itself tends to conjure up mixed images and feelings, ranging from uncivilized, barbaric, savage, satanistic, cruel, and so forth, there is a variety of reasons for this, and it is largely to do with peoples misconceptions and misinformation about what sacrifice really is or they simply choose to ignore certain facts for the sake of proving their point or because it does not fit into their view of what sacrifice should be.

So for starters some of the key factors in why the very word sacrifice seems to carry such a stigma today, evolve of course, Christian vilification of Pagan traditions and beliefs in their quest to spread Christianity, as the association sacrifice with the occasional cultic group of a bunch of young punks who call themselves Satanists or Devil Worshipers or some such, who will slaughter some innocent animal in the name of "sacrifice" and though theoretically this might be a sacrifice it is technically not what true sacrifice is all about and does not relate in anyway to the old traditional ceremony of sacrifice, and there is the media, primarily Hollywood that makes sacrifice scenes sensesananolized and as bloody and gory as possible.

And of course one of the biggest problems which is often a factor when dealing with history there is the fact that people try to analyze sacrifice and judge it based upon the modern world and the way we view things now without trying to understand the way people thought back in the time of the event, and without viewing the rite of sacrifice from their eye and view point and taking into consideration what was going on with the world in their time. All too often people try to apply modern ideals to historical events.

The rite of sacrifice was seen as very important, it was the way in which the people appealed to the gods, gave thanks to the gods, and appeased the gods, the animals which were chosen for the sacrifice were highly revered in many cases, and widely respected, the people were grateful to them, and saw it as a great honor that they were to die for the sake of the people and often the animals that were chosen for the sacrifice were pampered up until the day of the sacrifice. To die in sacrifice for either animal or human was often viewed as the most elated death a living thing could know or have.

In many cases these sacrifices were actually very humane as well, as the idea was not to cause the animals harm or to torment them, and they were often granted a swift and merciful death in which they would be killed by one single blow, one common method for killing a sacrificial animal was to cut open the throat which causes instantaneous death.

And one of the key and most important things to remember is that after the sacrifice there would be held a great feast in which the people would eat the flesh of the animals that were killed, and often a great many people would get to eat, and the animals that were typically used in sacrifice were not the typical game of which the peasantry could commonly get, and so the feast provided an opportunity to eat the kind of food which they would not normally have the opportunity to enjoy.