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''See also Religious abuse'' Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings, usually as an offering to a deity, as part of a religious ritual. Human sacrifice has been practiced in various cultures throughout history. Victims were typically ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease gods, spirits or the deceased, for example as a propitiatory offering, or as a retainer sacrifice when the King's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribal societies are cannibalism and headhunting. By the Iron Age, with the associated developments in religion (the Axial Age), human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout the Old World, and came to be looked down upon as barbaric in pre-modern times (Classical Antiquity). In the New World, however, human sacrifice continued to be widespread to varying degrees until the European colonization of the Americas. In modern times, even the practice of animal sacrifice has virtually disappeared from all major religions (or has been re-cast in terms of ritual slaughter), and human sacrifice has become extremely rare. Most religions condemn the practice, and present-day secular laws treat it as murder. In a society which condemns human sacrifice, the term ritual murder is used. ==Evolution and context== The idea of human sacrifice has its roots in deep prehistory, in the evolution of human behaviour. From its historical occurrences it seems mostly associated with neolithic or nomadic cultures, on the emergent edge of civilization. Human sacrifice has been practiced on a number of different occasions and in many different cultures. The various rationales behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice is intended to bring good fortune and to pacify the gods, for example in the context of the dedication of a completed building like a temple or bridge. There is a Chinese legend that there are thousands of people entombed in the Great Wall of China. In ancient Japan, legends talk about ''hitobashira'' ("human pillar"), in which maidens were buried alive at the base or near some constructions to protect the buildings against disasters or enemy attacks,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=History of Japanese Castles )〕 and an almost identical trope/motif appears in the Serbian epic poem The Building of Skadar where a sacrifice of a young mother still nursing her child will keep the city of Skadar (today Shkodër in the northern tip of Albania) walls from an evil Vila.〔"For example, "The Building of Skadar" (Vuk II, 25) is based on the motif of a blood sacrifice being required to make a building stand." (Felix J. Oinas: ''Heroic Epic and Saga: An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics''; Indiana University Press, 1978, ISBN 9780253327383, p. 262.)〕〔Alan Dundes: ''The Walled-Up Wife: A Casebook''; Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996, ISBN 9780299150730, p. 146〕 For the re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they killed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days. According to Ross Hassig, author of ''Aztec Warfare'', "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.〔Hassig, Ross (2003). "El sacrificio y las guerras floridas". Arqueología mexicana, p. 46–51.〕 Human sacrifice can also have the intention of winning the gods' favour in warfare. In Homeric legend, Iphigeneia was to be sacrificed by her father Agamemnon for success in the Trojan War. According to the Bible, Jephthah vowed to devote to God the first creature to come out of his house to meet him if he won the battle against the Ammonites. Judges 11:30-31; "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will Him a burnt offering." His daughter was the first to come out and meet him. Judges 11:34; "And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter." Although there is some uncertainty as to whether this was human sacrifice or consecration,〔(Eerdmans' Dictionary of the Bible ), David Noel Freedman and Allen C. Myers, Amsterdam UP - ("Whether Jephthah intended human sacrifice is unclear." )〕 academia discusses this in the context of human sacrifice, drawing parallels to Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac.〔 *(King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice ) by Francesca Stavrakopoulou (publ. Walter de Gruyter), (discusses Jepthah's daughter in parallel to Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac ). *(Fathers and Daughters in the Hebrew Bible ) by Johanna Stiebert (publ. Oxford UP) (follows suit in comparing the sacrifice with the near-sacrifice of Isaac ). *(Social Meanings of Sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible ) by David Janzen (publ. Walter de Gruyter), (explicitly discusses Jephthah's sacrifice in the context of human sacrifice ).〕 In some notions of an afterlife, the deceased will benefit from victims killed at his funeral. Mongols, Scythians, early Egyptians and various Mesoamerican chiefs could take most of their household, including servants and concubines, with them to the next world. This is sometimes called a "retainer sacrifice", as the leader's retainers would be sacrificed along with their master, so that they could continue to serve him in the afterlife. Another purpose is divination from the body parts of the victim. According to Strabo, Celts stabbed a victim with a sword and divined the future from his death spasms.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title="Strabo Geography", Book IV Chapter 4:5, published in Vol. II of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1923 )〕 Headhunting is the practice of taking the head of a killed adversary, for ceremonial or magical purposes, or for reasons of prestige. It was found in many pre-modern tribal societies. Human sacrifice may be a ritual practiced in a stable society, and may even be conductive to enhance societal bonds (see: Sociology of religion), both by creating a bond unifying the sacrificing community, and in combining human sacrifice and capital punishment, by removing individuals that have a negative effect on societal stability (criminals, religious heretics, foreign slaves or prisoners of war). But outside of civil religion, human sacrifice may also result in outbursts of "blood frenzy" and mass killings that destabilize society. The bursts of capital punishment during European witch-hunts, or during the French Revolutionary Reign of Terror show similar sociological patterns (see also Moral panic). Many cultures show traces of prehistoric human sacrifice in their mythologies and religious texts, but ceased the practice before the onset of historical records. Some see the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22) as an example of an etiological myth explaining the abolition of human sacrifice. The Vedic ''Purushamedha'' (literally "human sacrifice") is already a purely symbolic act in its earliest attestation. According to Pliny the Elder, human sacrifice in Ancient Rome was abolished by a senatorial decree in 97 BCE, although by this time the practice had already become so rare that the decree was mostly a symbolic act. Human sacrifice once abolished is typically replaced by either animal sacrifice, or by the "mock-sacrifice" of effigies, such as the Argei in ancient Rome. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Human sacrifice」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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