Thus it was a more or less general rule among several races that the
domestic animals were deified and held sacred, and were slain only at
a sacrifice. It followed that it was sinful to kill these animals on
any other occasion. It has already been seen that the Arabs forbore
to kill their worn-out camels for food except when driven to it by
hunger as a last resort. "That it was once a capital offence to kill
an ox, both in Attica and the Peloponnesus, is attested by Varro. So
far as Athens is concerned, this statement seems to be drawn from the
legend that was told in connection with the annual sacrifice at the
Diipolia, where the victim was a bull and its death was followed by a
solemn inquiry as to who was responsible for the act. In this trial
everyone who had anything to do with the slaughter was called as a
party; the maidens who drew water to sharpen the axe and knife threw
the blame on the sharpeners, they put it on the man who handed the
axe, he on the man who struck down the victim, and he again on the
one who cut its throat, who finally fixed the responsibility on the
knife, which was accordingly found guilty of murder and cast into
the sea." [374] "At Tenedos the priest who offered a bull-calf to
Dionysus anthroporraistes was attacked with stones and had to flee
for his life; and at Corinth, in the annual sacrifice of a goat
to Hera Acraea, care was taken to shift the responsibility of the
death off the shoulders of the community by employing hirelings as
ministers. Even they did no more than hide the knife in such a way
that the goat, scraping with its feet, procured its own death." [375]
"Agatharchides, describing the Troglodytes of East Africa, a primitive
pastoral people in the polyandrous state of society, tells us that
their whole sustenance was derived from their flocks and herds. When
pasture abounded, after the rainy season, they lived on milk mingled
with blood (drawn apparently, as in Arabia, from the living animal),
and in the dry season they had recourse to the flesh of aged or
weakly beasts. Further, 'they gave the name of parent to no human
being, but only to the ox and cow, the ram and ewe, from whom they
had their nourishment.' Among the Caffres the cattle kraal is sacred;
women may not enter it, and to defile it is a capital offence." [376]
Among the Egyptians also cows were never killed. [377]