Stretched On The Altar...

[malins]

Yeah, thanks guys. Would anyone care to comment on my poem?​

(regardless of the fact that this is ancient bedrock of cruxforum culture ...)

...what I like a lot about the design of the ritual is how it needs a number of conditions for it to go all the way.

So there are living members of the community like Mòrag who have been through the (incomplete) ritual and are surely well-regarded for that ...

having 'survivors' around will make it easier for a chosen girl to begin on the journey of the ritual, and for the community to let her go ... it's all a game ...

if you're sacrificing from your midst and not captured enemies, slaves, outcasts etc. an element of social consent is going to be important in the culture.

So it's built up such as that in the end it's really up to the god if he wants to consume this particular offering and usually that doesn't happen. Perhaps sometimes a lifetime passes without it happening.

But if the god roars then surely men must obey! - they are making the necessary offering to the god, but as it's not their decision whether the girl's life is demanded, they just carry out the god's will and can return to the community without the same burden of responsibility, as if they just picked someone to kill at a certain date and that was it.
A’Chailleach will keep a secret and come up with a story, the existence of complicit & enabling female figures in such rituals is also quite realistic.
'choosing cakes' of course live on in many ways including the re-dedicated ones for Epiphany

So while @Eulalia caveats that 'it doesn't pretend to historical or archaeological accuracy' there is narrative credibility, it's not unimaginable it could work somewhat like this, including details such as the repeated ‘Only when Moon...’ verse which encapsulates the basic rules in an easily memorized rhyme that everyone in such a community would be familiar with...

The thing about a lot of these accounts of neolithic sacrifice rituals (and is this even really neolithic in the 4th century BCE?), is that they have often been sensationalized for political ends, notably to emphasize the immorality of pagans, to promote Christianity. This is not to say that human sacrifice did not go on - it almost certainly did among druidic religions, and in the Norse religion. However, the orgiastic nature of such sacrifice has been brought into some dispute. Full on depravity was not likely part of the actual ritual. Makes an interesting story for a site like ours, or for Deviant Art, perhaps.

Interestingly what I remember from school history lessons as well as the popular history books I devoured in young years - (early 1980s) they heavily de-emphasized sacrifice (as well as cannibalism) as cultural practices and basically discounted everything as either "The Romans badmouthing their opponents and we are only reading their version of history" or exaggerations by colonizers and conquistadors - Aztec sacrifices were accepted as occasionally having happened but not being in any way a central element of their cultic procedures.

Nowadays it seems much more accepted that quite a bit of sacrificing was going on and sometimes yes it was central to the religious cult.

The orgiastic nature is certainly also often exaggerated because even modern scientific authors doing actual research find it somewhat titillating,
Then they end up titling their papers such things as "Brutalised Bound & Bled" which could be a title for a cruxforums story

BRUTALISED, BOUND AND BLED: A CASE OF LATER IRON AGE HUMAN SACRIFICE FROM WINTERBORNE KINGSTON, DORSET | The Antiquaries Journal | Cambridge Core

BRUTALISED, BOUND AND BLED: A CASE OF LATER IRON AGE HUMAN SACRIFICE FROM WINTERBORNE KINGSTON, DORSET

www.cambridge.org

Still it remains difficult when looking at archaeological remains to decide clearly that it was a sacrifice.

This one got a lot of attention last year
'A ritual murder shaped the Early and Middle Neolithic across Central and Southern Europe'

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adl3374

summarizing write ups

Evidence of Ritual Human Sacrifices, Mainly of Women, Found in the European Neolithic Era

Recent archaeological findings in Europe have shed new light on the practice of ritual human sacrifice during the Neolithic period. Researchers have identified multiple cases of what appears to be ligature strangulation or positional asphyxia at ritual sites from approximately 5500 to 3500 BCE. A

www.labrujulaverde.com

Strangled In The Dark For A Good Harvest?

Using modern forensics to solve a Neolithic ritual murder

www.stoneageherbalist.com

All in all the idea of a peaceful harmonious Neolithic has been slipping away...

 

[Eulalia]

there is (IMHO) very interesting artist on Deviant: DominiGori,

Yes, I have discovered DominiGori - I think one of your choices is in my 'favourites' collection (which includes a 'sacrificial victims' gallery), but I need to investigate further.

is this even really neolithic in the 4th century BCE?

I don't think he's saying that - that image portrays a Phoenician sacrifice, and the previous one - where he does mention the Neolithic origin - shows an Iron Age re-use of the ritual site. He's fairly careful about his archaeology, though of course Druids and their doings are largely based on the lurid accounts of Roman writers - and not chiefly Christian ones, Caesar and Tacitus take a good bit of the blame.

 

[captivecuties]

(regardless of the fact that this is ancient bedrock of cruxforum culture ...)

...what I like a lot about the design of the ritual is how it needs a number of conditions for it to go all the way.

So there are living members of the community like Mòrag who have been through the (incomplete) ritual and are surely well-regarded for that ...

having 'survivors' around will make it easier for a chosen girl to begin on the journey of the ritual, and for the community to let her go ... it's all a game ...

if you're sacrificing from your midst and not captured enemies, slaves, outcasts etc. an element of social consent is going to be important in the culture.

So it's built up such as that in the end it's really up to the god if he wants to consume this particular offering and usually that doesn't happen. Perhaps sometimes a lifetime passes without it happening.

But if the god roars then surely men must obey! - they are making the necessary offering to the god, but as it's not their decision whether the girl's life is demanded, they just carry out the god's will and can return to the community without the same burden of responsibility, as if they just picked someone to kill at a certain date and that was it.
A’Chailleach will keep a secret and come up with a story, the existence of complicit & enabling female figures in such rituals is also quite realistic.
'choosing cakes' of course live on in many ways including the re-dedicated ones for Epiphany

So while @Eulalia caveats that 'it doesn't pretend to historical or archaeological accuracy' there is narrative credibility, it's not unimaginable it could work somewhat like this, including details such as the repeated ‘Only when Moon...’ verse which encapsulates the basic rules in an easily memorized rhyme that everyone in such a community would be familiar with...


Interestingly what I remember from school history lessons as well as the popular history books I devoured in young years - (early 1980s) they heavily de-emphasized sacrifice (as well as cannibalism) as cultural practices and basically discounted everything as either "The Romans badmouthing their opponents and we are only reading their version of history" or exaggerations by colonizers and conquistadors - Aztec sacrifices were accepted as occasionally having happened but not being in any way a central element of their cultic procedures.

Nowadays it seems much more accepted that quite a bit of sacrificing was going on and sometimes yes it was central to the religious cult.

The orgiastic nature is certainly also often exaggerated because even modern scientific authors doing actual research find it somewhat titillating,
Then they end up titling their papers such things as "Brutalised Bound & Bled" which could be a title for a cruxforums story

BRUTALISED, BOUND AND BLED: A CASE OF LATER IRON AGE HUMAN SACRIFICE FROM WINTERBORNE KINGSTON, DORSET | The Antiquaries Journal | Cambridge Core

BRUTALISED, BOUND AND BLED: A CASE OF LATER IRON AGE HUMAN SACRIFICE FROM WINTERBORNE KINGSTON, DORSET

www.cambridge.org

Still it remains difficult when looking at archaeological remains to decide clearly that it was a sacrifice.
View attachment 1581190
This one got a lot of attention last year
'A ritual murder shaped the Early and Middle Neolithic across Central and Southern Europe'

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adl3374

summarizing write ups

Evidence of Ritual Human Sacrifices, Mainly of Women, Found in the European Neolithic Era

Recent archaeological findings in Europe have shed new light on the practice of ritual human sacrifice during the Neolithic period. Researchers have identified multiple cases of what appears to be ligature strangulation or positional asphyxia at ritual sites from approximately 5500 to 3500 BCE. A

www.labrujulaverde.com

Strangled In The Dark For A Good Harvest?

Using modern forensics to solve a Neolithic ritual murder

www.stoneageherbalist.com

All in all the idea of a peaceful harmonious Neolithic has been slipping away...

Now, some just strangle each other in the dark for a good orgasm!