lecture 7

Question 1

define human sacrifice

Answer 1

Human sacrifice is defined as the ritualized, religiously motivated killing of a human being.

Question 2

In a survey of 93
traditional Austronesian societies, researchers
found that __% of the societies practiced human sacrifice

Answer 2

43%

Question 3

why is caution needed when references historical evidence of human sacrifice

Answer 3

Ritualized killings may be an attempt by colonial societies to
dehumanize Indigenous peoples
as part of justification for colonial administration. Incidences of cannibalism was also likely embellished.

Question 4

Cahokia: East St Louis, Illinois - Mound 72

Answer 4

AD 1050-1350

Long pit dug and lined with white sand. 39 men and women found in a mass burial

Mass grave contained the remains of 53 females ranging in age
between 15–30. evidence of strangulation. neatly placed.

Question 5

The Ancient Maya

Answer 5

AD 250 to AD 1600s

“divine king” who ruled (with family)

CLASSIC PERIOD (AD 250-900)
- Human sacrifice
- Public events tied to religious beliefs and cosmology.
- to appease the gods for fertility, harvest, and protection.
- Social hierarchy reflected in choice
of sacrificial victims
- Methods of sacrifice varied, including decapitation, heart extraction, and bloodletting
- must be public
- sacrificial artifacts = flint knives, ceremonial vessels

Question 6

Who was killed during human sacrifices

Answer 6

Criminals
Prisoners of War
Slaves
Children

Question 7

4 Early Theories of Human Sacrifice

Answer 7

1.) gift to gods (Taykor 1871)
2.) ritual slaying of a god (frazer 1891)
3.) parricide (freud 1913)
4.) control misfortune (evans-pichard 1950)

Question 8

4 later theories of human sacrifice

Answer 8

1.) scapegoat mechanism (rene girard)
2.) protein deprivation (michael harner)
3.) state control (barbara price)
4.) social control (joseph watts)

Question 9

describe the scapegoat theory

Answer 9

• violence = endemic in human society therefore retaliation
• how to maintain social stability when in the face of propensity of violence
• “scapegoat” is chosen to be sacrificed
• the scapegoat (sacrificial victim) is the root idea of all religious ideology

Question 10

describe the protein theory

Answer 10

• Complex societies with high population
  densities had difficulties meeting the
  nutritional needs

Question 11

describe the political conflict theory

Answer 11

human sacrifice in combination with cannibalism stabilizes and reinforces an existing system

Question 12

describe the social control hypothesis theory

Answer 12

human sacrifice legitimizes political authority and social class systems

predicts that the sacrifice:
1.) co-evolves w social stratification
2.) increases the chance of a culture gaining social stratification
3.) reduces the chance of a culture losing social stratification once stratification has arisen

Question 13

t/f human sacrifice co-evolved with social stratification

Answer 13

t

Question 14

t/f Human sacrifice affects the rate at which cultures lose social stratification

Answer 14

t

Question 15

t/f Human sacrifice functioned to stabilize
social stratification once it had arisen

Answer 15

t

Question 16

marxism and historical materialism

Answer 16

SUPERSTRUCTURE
ideology/cosmology
(art, religion, philosophy, games, etc.)
|
v
BASE
maintains and justifies:
means of production (tools, tech, land, materials) and relations of production (slaves, armies, property, aristocracy)
|
v
determines and maintains superstructure

Question 17

what are the 2 categories of cannibalism

Answer 17

endocannibalism:
eating insiders

exocannibalism:
eating outsiders

Question 18

franklin expedition

Answer 18

he presence of cut marks on approx one quarter of the remains
supports 19th-century Inuit accounts of cannibalism on the expedition

Question 19

what is medicinal cannibalism

Answer 19

A Spanish medical text from 1732 discusses the power of meat from executed criminals as useful in love magic as well as for treatment of broken bones, smallpox, and general wounds.

Common in Europe through the 19th century for human fat rendered from executed criminals to be used for treatment of illnesses

Question 20

what is Gastronomic Cannibalism

Answer 20

In cases where there may have been protein and fat shortages, eating the bodies of sacrificial victims

Question 21

what is Ritual Cannibalism

Answer 21

Cannibalism used to be the normal treatment for all Wari’ who died of any cause, except for a few
circumstances in which bodies were cremated rather than eaten. In some funerals, especially funerals for children, all or most of the flesh was eaten

For dying individuals, the idea of disappearing into fellow tribes members’ bodies apparently was
considerably more appealing than the alternative of being left to rot in the ground

Question 22

what is kuru

Answer 22

Infectious protein (prion) found in
contaminated human brain tissue

found among people from New Guinea who practiced a form of cannibalism in which they ate the brains of dead people as part of a funeral ritual. This practice stopped in 1960, but cases of kuru were reported for many years afterward

Question 23

what is Vengeance cannibalism

Answer 23

Translations to enable conversion of
Indigenous Tupinambá peoples in Brazil by
Jesuit missionaries merged the theophagous
doctrine of the Eucharist with Tupi-Guarani
vengeance and Exocannibalism.
Because the Jesuits did not recognize the
presence of religion among the Tupinambá,
they ignored the devotional values that
underlay ceremonial cannibalis

The term Tupã rara (literally “to take thunder”
was the term used to describe the
Eucharistic to the Tupinambá), and the
consumption of a body was not unusual. It
was facilitated by using cauim in place of
wine during communion

Translations to enable conversion of
Indigenous Tupinambá peoples in Brazil by
Jesuit missionaries merged the theophagous
doctrine of the Eucharist with Tupi-Guarani
vengeance and Exocannibalism.
Because the Jesuits did not recognize the
presence of religion among the Tupinambá,
they ignored the devotional values that
underlay ceremonial cannibalism.

Question 24

what is fetish cannibalism

Answer 24

Through the 1800s vampires feature
across a wide range of Victorian literature.
In 1897, Bram Stoker published the famous novel Dracula that defines the genre

Vampire stories implicitly ask us: Would
I pay that price for such freedom, such
pleasure? Would I trade the light for
immortality? Would I become a killer
to cheat death? Could this be who I am?
Thus, although the vampire has
great power, it is also a figure of pathos,
an outsider, and this fusion of
mastery and vulnerability invites our
complex identification with it.