Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

[anunitu]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

Perhaps along the line of religious history,instead of the actual "arguments for or against"..Just saying."

[MaskedOne]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

Perhaps along the line of religious history,instead of the actual "arguments for or against"..Just saying."

Or just stay on topic...

The thread is only currently in peril because it went wildly off topic. Yes, human sacrifice nets extra scrutiny but it has been a successful topic before so stay on topic, don't go in wildly offensive (or just plain stupid directions) with it and it'll be fine for some time.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

Honestly, nobody seems to be particularly interested in the topic, so maybe we could just drop it?

If nobody cares, nobody cares - that's why it goes off topic...

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

Honestly, nobody seems to be particularly interested in the topic, so maybe we could just drop it?

If nobody cares, nobody cares - that's why it goes off topic...

I personally do not think it's a matter of not being interested as much as a difference of perspective. For me personally it's not worth getting into, especially when the focus seems more about power, abuse and being offended by modern standards than what the sacrifice was done for.

[thalassa]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

I'd like to see a study like this applied more fully to cultures outside that area. How strongly does such a correlation hold in other regions?

If you look at human sacrifice in terms of evolution, is it something that independently in all of the cultures that had it? OR, is it something that existed before ancestral group migrated and spread out that was lost by some cultures and not other? Why did it die out in some cultures and not others, or arise in those same cultures, etc...


And, if human societies were originally egalitarian (which they are thought to have been) at what point was human sacrifice introduced? Or, did egalitarianism have to reappear? What caused it to do so? How does this compare to other primate species behaviors?

Look at the difference, for example, of the common and bonobos chimps, in behavior--the former is quite violent and territorial, even known to not only kill but cannibalize the young of other troupes while the latter makes love, not war, with pretty much everything...


So, if this is an adaptive behavior, what it is an adaptive behavior for? What is driving this?



While cultural evolution is a bit different than biological evolution, in terms of societies vs species doing things that are energetically wasteful and perhaps bad for survival (then again, maybe not if you look at biological evolution from a sexual selection POV), there still needs to be something that drives that...


(I might add that I was interested in this topic, but didn't have time to get to it until now...work has been busy.)

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

Other interesting things - the author left out some important data.

In Mezo-America, where human sacrifice was practiced by a progression of cultures, the priests would perform some pretty horrendous mutilations on themselves. How does that fit in to the general theory of human sacrifice as a form of control?

Also, what about those cultures where people sacrificed their own children, willingly, to "the Gods"? How does that affect the general thesis?

There is a lot going on here, and a simplistic explanation does not give the whole story.

It will require some kind of understanding of how it fit into the social environment of a culture, at a time - but it won't be a reductionist answer. It will be complex.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

Look at the difference, for example, of the common and bonobos chimps, in behavior--the former is quite violent and territorial, even known to not only kill but cannibalize the young of other troupes while the latter makes love, not war, with pretty much everything...

That's not quite a true statement. Bonobos have been recorded at least 5 times hunting and killing other apes. Tried to find the original article in Current Biology but this is the closest I can find at the moment. http://io9.gizmodo.com/5062446/femal...nthropologists

Sad part is the feminist movement tends to showcase the Bonobos as a prime example of both a Matriarchy and an egalitarian Society while ignoring the fact there is no matriarchal society that can be observed in human society. It gets even more un-provable when one considers that Matrilineality does not mean its a matriarchal society where women hold power over men or that there is equality between all members of a given group.

I do wonder at times though if human sacrifice does not have some historical connection to periods where food was scarce and cannibalism was resorted to? I recall the Anastazi are though to have used human sacrifice but also some evidence of cannibalism has been found as well. Granted that is just one possible reason for its inclusion in human historical records. Yet it might also explain why cannibalism is such a taboo thing for many societies even when resorted to as a desperate attempt to survive.

[thalassa]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

That's not quite a true statement. Bonobos have been recorded at least 5 times hunting and killing other apes. Tried to find the original article in Current Biology but this is the closest I can find at the moment. http://io9.gizmodo.com/5062446/femal...nthropologists

I was talking about intra-species behavior, not interspecies competition. They don't ordinarily kill one another. Other species are fair game for nearly all species.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

I was talking about intra-species behavior, not interspecies competition. They don't ordinarily kill one another. Other species are fair game for nearly all species.

But doesn't it also suggest or imply that if killing is acceptable outside the community it is possible to occur within the community? Yet the Bonobos are always flagged as being peaceful and using sex to control or manipulate within their social structure. Given that even the cited group was not well studied nor do I believe the normal studied group is under observation 24-7 that it is possible it has occurred.

Not to say that the group cited was not experience a situation where food was scarce. Which most of the reports and research i've read have suggested is the main reason the Chimp is aggressive while the Bonobo is more peaceful due to an over abundance of available food sources.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

Anecdotally, there are lots of news stories about children killed by "the mother's boyfriend". I have wondered if this is an instinctual thing, like it is with some other primates, for males to get rid of another's bloodline.

From a religious aspect, as an appeasement to a higher being, it's pretty much everywhere - the Jesus story as prime example, the whole "He died for your sins" thing.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

From a religious aspect, as an appeasement to a higher being, it's pretty much everywhere - the Jesus story as prime example, the whole "He died for your sins" thing.

Isn't this more like a willing scapegoat - one who takes on the sins of others, willingly, so that they can be cleansed?

In Mezo-America the sacrifices made fit an appeasement model better, I think.

[thalassa]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

But doesn't it also suggest or imply that if killing is acceptable outside the community it is possible to occur within the community? Yet the Bonobos are always flagged as being peaceful and using sex to control or manipulate within their social structure. Given that even the cited group was not well studied nor do I believe the normal studied group is under observation 24-7 that it is possible it has occurred.

Not to say that the group cited was not experience a situation where food was scarce. Which most of the reports and research i've read have suggested is the main reason the Chimp is aggressive while the Bonobo is more peaceful due to an over abundance of available food sources.

I have never, in all my years of education, biology-wise (including animal behvior and human evolution classes, articles, lectures, etc. heard of bonobos as "peaceful" being applied to anything other than their intra species relationship. I'm not saying there aren't people the have otherwise applied this to their lifestyle, just that intersection violence or the lack of it has never been what the common vs bonobos discussion and study have been about. It's been about the cause of the behavioral change. Additional, even if there are instances of violence among bonobos themselves, the fact that their is so relatively few compared to the common chimp begs for a "why". (Scientists have a good idea of "why", and it boils down to a difference in resources due to ecological change).

I've not lately done a perusal of the research, but I'm going to call John Oliver on how some people and groups might be choosing to interpret the research I have read and heard.

Which is sort of my point here--the difference in behavior (and there should be a note that behavior in real world research is generally a matter of statistically significant degree and not absolutes) is adaptive, whether it's bonobos intra-species peacefulness vs common chimp territoriality (in school I watched two troupes in a border skirmish--in which one troupe snatched a juvenile and an infant from its mother as the other troupe retreated, and proceeded to drag them off and beat them to death, ate the baby.

Which behavior in humans is adaptive....the sacrifice or the lack of it. And what conditions is it adaptive for? Religion is an incredibly expensive and complex adaptive behavior in general...and human sacrifice is sort of the heights of that excess.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

Isn't this more like a willing scapegoat - one who takes on the sins of others, willingly, so that they can be cleansed?

In Mezo-America the sacrifices made fit an appeasement model better, I think.

Yes, in a way - the religion sprang up around him after his death/resurrection. They were going to kill him in any event. Today we have families carrying out "honor killings" which are religion-based. The ancients were more dramatic, from what we know, and more like "make the corn grow; here's a girl", etc. and maybe not as a punishment-oriented thing? So, you have a sacrifice asking for or thanking for something, and you have one where a rule was broken and the guilty party must die. Seems like the first was prominent in ancient times, and the second persists.

[DragonsFriend]

Re: Human sacrifice: What's it good for?

In the first recorded human civilization (Sumer) there is a lot of information about animal sacrifice and plant based offerings to deity. I have seen little on human sacrifice in the thousands of years of history on Sumer. It might be interesting to note that the only common natural disasters were floods which the population learned to control with a system of dams and dikes.
In Chile and in the Hawaiian Islands there were earth quakes and volcanic activity which could have been interpreted as messages from deity that they were displeased. As sacrifices go the most demanding of the people would be the offering of children to deity. Since the appeasement of deity would require the utmost of sacrifices it would seem natural to make the greatest sacrifice possible. The Inca routinely sacrificed captured enemy soldiers to their war deities for continued success but what is sacrificed for the fertility of the land or needed rain? Since the lack of sacrifice cost the lives of the most vulnerable it would seem that they were the ones that deity wanted. Sacrificing a few of the many children to bring health to the nation might seem a good trade. The temple maidens were obvious choices because they had already given themselves to deity.

I'm not an anthropologist and I haven't studied these cultures but looking at the "natural" assumptions that people might make when dealing with vindictive gods and goddesses it is not a stretch to go this route. Nobody (an absolute that will bite me later) today can understand the "why" of actions made by peoples living in a universe that was completely without explanation. The ground would shake because the gods were displeased and to change it you tried to please the gods or it just shook and there was nothing you could do about it. Humans usually find a way to take the blame and find a way to make it better - something we still do to this day.