Let us look at actual human victims, actually known to have been slain
in the interests of agriculture. Are, or were, these human victims put
to the infamous death of malefactors, like the mock-king of the Sacæa?
They were not. Cases are given in vol. ii. p. 238 _et seq._
1. The Indians of Guyaquar used to sacrifice human blood and the hearts
of men when they sowed their fields.[6]
2. In the Aztec harvest festival a victim was crushed between two
great stones (perhaps to represent the grinding of the maize?).
3. The Mexicans sacrificed young children, older children, and old men
for each stage of the maize's growth. We are not told _how_ they were
sacrificed.[7]
4. The Egyptians _burned_ red-haired men, and scattered their ashes
with winnowing fans. This burning is a usual feature of sacrifice, and
is not hanging or crucifying.
5. The Skidi, or Wolf Pawnees, _burned_ a victim to Ti-ra-wá, 'the
power above that moves the universe, and controls all things,' but
the victim was a deer or a buffalo. There were also occasional human
sacrifices before sowing; the victim had his head cleft with a
tomahawk, and was then riddled with arrows, and afterwards _burned._[8]
In some cases he was tied to a cross, before being slain with an axe.[9]
6. A Sioux girl was _burned_ over a slow fire, and then shot with
arrows. Her flesh, for magical purposes, was squeezed over the newly
sown fields.
7. West African victims were killed with spades and hoes, and _burned_
in newly tilled fields.
8. At Lagos a girl was impaled among sacrificed sheep, goats, yams,
heads of maize, and plantains hung on stakes. Though impalement is a
form of capital punishment, probably the girl's blood was expected to
fertilise the earth. We have no proof that crucifixion was used in
Babylon, or the same motive might be alleged for the mock-king at the
Sacæa. 'It may be doubted whether crucifixion was an Oriental mode of
punishment,' says Mr. Frazer. He does not say that it was an Oriental
form of sacrifice.[10]
9. The Marimos kill and _burn_ a human victim, and scatter the ashes on
the ground to fertilise it.