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69-501: Suwu may refer to: Subu people , a Cameroonian ethnic group, also known as Suwu people Suwu language , a language used by Subu people Suwu, Gansu (苏武), a town in Minqin County , Gansu, China See also [ edit ] Su Wu (140BC - 60BC), Han dynasty diplomat Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

138-552: A burnt offering ( NRSV )." When he returns from battle, his virgin daughter runs out to greet him, and Jephthah laments to her that he cannot take back his vow. She begs for, and is granted, "two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I", after which "[Jephthah] did with her according to the vow he had made." Two kings of Judah , Ahaz and Manassah , sacrificed their sons. Ahaz, in 2 Kings 16:3, sacrificed his son. "... He even made his son pass through fire, according to

207-469: A ceremonial last meal. Some academics suggest there are allusions to kings being sacrificed in Irish mythology, particularly in tales of threefold deaths . The medieval Dindsenchas (Lore of Places) says that, in pagan Ireland, first-born children were sacrificed at an idol called Crom Cruach , whose worship was ended by Saint Patrick . However, this account was written by Christian scribes centuries after

276-524: A haven for repatriated slaves and escapees from the illicit trade, which continued for many more years. The British also endeavored to educate and Christianise the Bimbians. King William rebuffed the earliest missionaries because he did not agree with their insistence on prayer and opposition to polygamy . In 1844, however, Joseph Merrick convinced William to let him open a church and school in Bimbia. In 1858,

345-438: 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 typically 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. Fertility was another common theme in ancient religious sacrifices, such as sacrifices to

414-568: A policy of indirect rule , entrusting greater powers to Bakweri and Isubu chiefs in Buea and Victoria. Chief Manga Williams of Victoria became one of two representatives to the Nigerian Eastern House of Assembly . He was succeeded by another Isubu, John Manga Williams . The Isubu are primarily concentrated in the Fako division of Cameroon's Southwest Province . Their settlements lie largely along

483-518: A priestess, and burnt together with the dead chieftain in his boat (see ship burial ). This practice is evidenced archaeologically, with many male warrior burials (such as the ship burial at Balladoole on the Isle of Man, or that at Oseberg in Norway ) also containing female remains with signs of trauma. According to Adémar de Chabannes , just before his death in 932 or 933, Rollo (founder and first ruler of

552-647: A ritual practiced in a stable society, and may even be conducive to enhancing societal unity (see: Sociology of religion ), both by creating a bond unifying the sacrificing community, and by combining human sacrifice and capital punishment , by removing individuals that have an adverse effect on societal stability (criminals, religious heretics, foreign slaves or prisoners of war). However, outside of civil religion , human sacrifice may also result in outbursts of blood frenzy and mass killings that destabilize society. Many cultures show traces of prehistoric human sacrifice in their mythologies and religious texts, but ceased

621-427: A sacrifice on Moriah . Abraham agrees to this command without arguing. The story ends with an angel stopping Abraham at the last minute and providing a ram, caught in some nearby bushes, to be sacrificed instead. Many Bible scholars have suggested this story's origin was a remembrance of an era when human sacrifice was abolished in favour of animal sacrifice. Another probable instance of human sacrifice mentioned in

690-618: A sharp instrument, such as a pike, driven into their heads. There is archaeological evidence of human sacrifice in Neolithic to Eneolithic Europe. The ancient ritual of expelling certain slaves, cripples, or criminals from a community to ward off disaster (known as pharmakos ), would at times involve publicly executing the chosen prisoner by throwing them off of a cliff. References to human sacrifice can be found in Greek historical accounts as well as mythology. The human sacrifice in mythology,

759-572: A show of gratitude after a victorious battle. Ritual cannibalism also took place, in order to gain the power of the enemy. The Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum by Adam of Bremen written at the end of the 11th century claims that behind the island of Kuramaa there is an island called Aestland (Estonia), whose inhabitants do not believe in the Christian God. Instead, they worship dragons and birds (dracones adorant cum volucribus) to whom people bought from slavers are sacrificed. According to

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828-473: A single child cemetery called the "Tophet" by archaeologists, an estimated 20,000 urns were deposited. Plutarch ( c.  46  – c.  120 CE ) mentions the practice, as do Tertullian , Orosius , Diodorus Siculus and Philo . Livy and Polybius do not. The Bible asserts that children were sacrificed at a place called the tophet ("roasting place") to the god Moloch . According to Diodorus Siculus's Bibliotheca historica , "There

897-422: A special chamber was built to bury them alive. This aim was to please the gods and restore balance to Rome. Human sacrifices, in the form of burying individuals alive, were not uncommon during times of panic in ancient Rome. However, the burial of unchaste Vestal Virgins was also practiced in times of peace. Their chasteness was thought to be a safeguard of the city, and even in punishment, the state of their bodies

966-665: A thanksgiving for victory in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . Jordanes reported the Goths sacrificing prisoners of war to Mars , suspending the victims' severed arms from tree branches. Tacitus further refers to those who have transgressed certain societal rules being drowned and placed in wetlands . This potentially explains finds of bog bodies dating to the Roman Iron Age although none show signs of having died by drowning. By

1035-642: Is also known as ritual murder. Human sacrifice was practiced in many human societies beginning in prehistoric times. By the Iron Age (1st millennium BCE), with the associated developments in religion (the Axial Age ), human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout Africa , Europe , and Asia , and came to be looked down upon as barbaric during classical antiquity . In the Americas , however, human sacrifice continued to be practiced, by some, to varying degrees until

1104-617: Is literary evidence for infant sacrifice being practiced in Carthage , however, current anthropological analyses have not found physical evidence to back up these claims. There is a Tophet, where infant remains have been found, but after current analytical techniques, it has been concluded this area is more representative of the naturally high infant mortality rate. There is some evidence that ancient Celtic peoples practiced human sacrifice. Accounts of Celtic human sacrifice come from Roman and Greek sources. Julius Caesar and Strabo wrote that

1173-495: Is on communicating with the ancestors and asking them for guidance and protection for the future. The festivities also include armed combat, beauty pageants , pirogue races, and traditional wrestling . The Isubu are Bantu in language and origin. More narrowly, they fall into the Sawa, or the coastal peoples of Cameroon. Human sacrifice Note: Varies by jurisdiction Note: Varies by jurisdiction Human sacrifice

1242-516: Is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual , which is usually intended to please or appease gods , a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment , an authoritative/priestly figure, spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch'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 . Human sacrifice

1311-531: The deus ex machina salvation in some versions of Iphigeneia (who was about to be sacrificed by her father Agamemnon ) and her replacement with a deer by the goddess Artemis , may be a vestigial memory of the abandonment and discrediting of the practice of human sacrifice among the Greeks in favour of animal sacrifice. In ancient Rome, human sacrifice was infrequent but documented. Roman authors often contrast their own behavior with that of people who would commit

1380-582: The Anglophones today grow up with Pidgin as their first tongue. The Isubu have been mostly Christianized since the 1930s. Evangelical denominations dominate, particularly the Baptist church. Nevertheless, remnants of a pre-Christian ancestor worship persist. The Isubu participate in the annual Ngondo , a traditional festival of the Duala, although today all of Cameroon's coastal peoples are invited. The main focus

1449-664: The Argei , in which straw figures were tossed into the Tiber river , may have been a substitute for an original offering of elderly men. Cicero claimed that puppets thrown from the Pons Sublicius by the Vestal Virgins in a processional ceremony were substitutes for the past sacrifice of old men. After the Roman defeat at Cannae , two Gauls and two Greeks in male-female couples were buried under

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1518-470: 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. Human sacrifice can also have the intention of winning the gods' favor in warfare. In Homeric legend, Iphigeneia was to be sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to appease Artemis so she would allow

1587-620: The Bible point to an awareness of and disdain of human sacrifice in the history of ancient Near Eastern practice. During a battle with the Israelites , the King of Moab gives his firstborn son and heir as a whole burnt offering ( olah , as used of the Temple sacrifice) ( 2 Kings 3:27). The Bible then recounts that, following the King's sacrifice, "There was great indignation [or wrath] against Israel" and that

1656-639: The European colonization of the Americas . Today, human sacrifice has become extremely rare. Modern secular laws treat human sacrifices as murder . Most major religions in the modern day condemn the practice. For example in Hinduism , the Shrimad Bhagavatam condemns human sacrifice and cannibalism, warning of severe punishment in the afterlife for those who commit such acts. Human sacrifice has been practiced on

1725-512: The Forum Boarium , in a stone chamber used for the purpose at least once before. In Livy 's description of these sacrifices, he distances the practice from Roman tradition and asserts that the past human sacrifices evident in the same location were "wholly alien to the Roman spirit." The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BCE, preparatory to an invasion of Gaul. They buried the two Greeks and

1794-465: The Gauls burnt animal and human sacrifices in a large wickerwork figure, known as a wicker man , and said the human victims were usually criminals; while Posidonius wrote that druids who oversaw human sacrifices foretold the future by watching the death throes of the victims. Caesar also wrote that slaves of Gaulish chiefs would be burnt along with the body of their master as part of his funeral rites. In

1863-474: The Germanic peoples , being resorted to in exceptional situations arising from environmental crises (crop failure, drought, famine) or social crises (war), often thought to derive at least in part from the failure of the king to establish or maintain prosperity and peace ( árs ok friðar ) in the lands entrusted to him. In later Scandinavian practice, human sacrifice appears to have become more institutionalised and

1932-492: The Livonian Chronicle , describing the events after the Battle of Ümera , "Estonians had seized some Germans, Livs, and Latvians, and some of them they simply killed, others they burned alive and tore the shirts off some of them, carved crosses on their backs with a sword and then beheaded". The Chronicle explicitly states they were sacrificed "to their gods" (diis suis). Human sacrifice was not particularly common among

2001-515: The Roman occupation , to the accompaniment of revelry and sacrifices in the sacred groves of Andate . It is important to note, however, that the Romans benefited from making the Celts sound barbaric, and scholars are more skeptical about these accounts now than in the past. There is some archaeological evidence of human sacrifice among Celtic peoples, although it is rare. Ritual beheading and headhunting

2070-507: The early dynastic period at Abydos , when on the death of a King he would be accompanied by servants, and possibly high officials, who would continue to serve him in eternal life. The skeletons that were found had no obvious signs of trauma, leading to speculation that the giving up of life to serve the King may have been a voluntary act, possibly carried out in a drug-induced state. At about 2800 BCE, any possible evidence of such practices disappeared, though echoes are perhaps to be seen in

2139-580: The 10th century, Germanic paganism had become restricted to the Norse people . One account by Ahmad ibn Fadlan in 922 claims Varangian warriors were sometimes buried with enslaved women, in the belief they would become their wives in Valhalla . He describes the funeral of a Varangian chieftain, in which a slave girl volunteered to be buried with him. After ten days of festivities, she was given an intoxicating drink, repeatedly raped by other chiefs, stabbed to death by

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2208-567: The 13th-14th centuries, the Lithuanians and Prussians made sacrifices to their pagan gods at their sacred places, alka hills , battlefields and near natural objects ( sea , rivers, lakes, etc.). In 1389 following the military victories in the land of Medininkai the Samogitians cast lots which indicated Marquard von Raschau, the commander of Klaipėda (Memel) , as a suitable victim for gods and burnt him on horseback in full armour. It possibly

2277-485: The 1st century AD, Roman writer Lucan mentioned human sacrifices to the Gaulish gods Esus , Toutatis and Taranis . In a 4th-century commentary on Lucan, an unnamed author added that sacrifices to Esus were hanged from a tree, those to Toutatis were drowned , and those to Taranis were burned . According to the 2nd-century Roman writer Cassius Dio , Boudica 's forces impaled Roman captives during her rebellion against

2346-587: The Aztec god of agriculture Xipe Totec . In ancient Japan, legends talk about hitobashira ("human pillar"), in which maidens were buried alive at the base of or near some constructions to protect the buildings against disasters or enemy attacks, and almost identical accounts appear in the Balkans ( The Building of Skadar and Bridge of Arta ). For the re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487,

2415-709: The Bible is Jephthah 's sacrifice of his daughter in Judges 11. Jephthah vows to sacrifice to God whatever comes to greet him at the door when he returns home if he is victorious in his war against the Ammonites . The vow is stated in the Book of Judges 11:31: "Then whoever comes of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord's, to be offered up by me as

2484-601: The British monopoly. The Duala had gained a virtual hegemony over trade through the Wouri estuary, and the Isubu had little power left. Young King William was virtually powerless when he succeeded his father in 1878. In July 1884, the Isubu found themselves part of the German Empire after annexation by Gustav Nachtigal . Coastal territory became the heart of the new colony, but Bimbia and

2553-546: The German colonial government with petitions, legal proceedings, and special interest groups to oppose unpopular or unfair policies. In 1918, Germany lost World War I, and her colonies became mandates of the League of Nations . The British became the new colonial rulers of Isubu lands. Great Britain integrated its portion of Cameroon with the neighbouring colony of Nigeria, setting the new province's capital at Buea. The British practiced

2622-530: The Greeks to wage the Trojan War . 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

2691-583: The Israelites had to raise their siege of the Moabite capital and go away. This verse had perplexed many later Jewish and Christian commentators, who tried to explain what the impact of the Moabite King's sacrifice was, to make those under siege emboldened while disheartening the Israelites, make God angry at the Israelites or the Israelites fear his anger, make Chemosh (the Moabite god) angry, or otherwise. Whatever

2760-452: The Isubu lands had already passed their prime. German arrival on the mainland meant that the coastal peoples' monopoly on trade had ended. Years of contact with Westerners and a high level of literacy had allowed a literate upper class of Isubu clerks , farmers, and traders to emerge in Victoria and Buea. This class were familiar with European law and conventions, which allowed them to pressure

2829-596: The Spanish ousted Protestant missionaries from their base at Fernando Po. King William sold a portion of his domains to the missionary Alfred Saker , who then founded Victoria (today known as Limbe ). By 1875, numerous missions and schools sprung up in Victoria and other settlements. Victoria came to be a mixture of freed slaves, working Cameroonians, and Christianised Cameroonians from the various coastal groups. Cameroonian Pidgin English began to develop at this time. Isubu society

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2898-672: The Viking Duchy of Normandy ) performed human sacrifices to appease the pagan gods while at the same time giving gifts to the churches in Normandy . In the 11th century, Adam of Bremen wrote that human and animal sacrifices were made at the Temple at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden. He wrote that every ninth year, nine men and nine of every animal were sacrificed and their bodies hung in a sacred grove . The Historia Norwegiæ and Ynglinga saga refer to

2967-765: The abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel (NRSV)." King Manasseh sacrificed his sons in 2 Chronicles  33:6. "He made his son pass through fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom  ... He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger (NRSV)." The valley symbolized hell in later religions, such as Christianity , as a result. According to Roman and Greek sources, Phoenicians and Carthaginians sacrificed infants to their gods. The bones of numerous infants have been found in Carthaginian archaeological sites in modern times, but their cause of death remain controversial. In

3036-407: The acquiescence of the children as a product of their youthful trustfulness. The accuracy of such stories is disputed by some modern historians and archaeologists. Retainer sacrifice was practised within the royal tombs of ancient Mesopotamia . Courtiers, guards, musicians, handmaidens, and grooms were presumed to have committed ritual suicide by taking poison. A 2009 examination of skulls from

3105-409: 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. 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

3174-500: The arena to be little more than human sacrifice. Over time, participants became criminals and slaves, and their death was considered a sacrifice to the Manes on behalf of the dead. Political rumors sometimes centered around sacrifice and in doing so, aimed to liken individuals to barbarians and show that the individual had become uncivilized. Human sacrifice also became a marker and defining characteristic of magic and bad religion. There

3243-563: The burial of statues of servants in Old Kingdom tombs. Servants of both royalty and high court officials were slain to accompany their masters into the next world. The number of retainers buried surrounding the king's tomb was much greater than those of high court officials, however, again suggesting the greater importance of the pharaoh. For example, King Djer had 318 retainer sacrifices buried in his tomb, and 269 retainer sacrifices buried in enclosures surrounding his tomb. References in

3312-496: The coast of the Levant extending north into Asia Minor and west to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Most of the land was arid and the religious culture of the entire region centered on fertility and rain. Many of the religious rituals, including human sacrifice, had an agricultural focus. Blood was mixed with soil to improve its fertility. There may be evidence of retainer sacrifice in

3381-471: The coast or just inland, east of Limbe and west of Douala . They occupy the coast directly east of the Wovea , with their main settlement at Bimbia. The town of Limbe is a mixture of Isubu and other ethnic groups. The Isubu today are divided into the urban and rural. Those who live in the cities earn a living at a number of skilled and unskilled professions. The rural Isubu work as fishermen and farmers, mostly at

3450-538: The estuary and the rivers that feed it, and to establish trading posts . The Isubu carved out a role for themselves as middlemen, trading ivory , kola nuts , and peppers from the interior. However, a major commodity was slaves , most bound for plantations on nearby islands such as Annobón , Fernando Po , Príncipe , and São Tomé . By the 16th century, the Isubu were second only to the Duala in trade. The earliest Isubu merchants were likely chiefs or headmen . Bimbia,

3519-481: The ethnic group hails from Mboko , the area southwest of Mount Cameroon . Tradition makes them the descendants of Isuwu na Monanga , who led their migration to the west bank of the Wouri estuary . When a descendant of Isuwu named Mbimbi became king, the people began to refer to their territories as Bimbia . Portuguese traders reached the Wouri estuary in 1472. Over the next few decades, more Europeans came to explore

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3588-500: The explanation, evidently at the time of writing, such an act of sacrificing the firstborn son and heir, while prohibited by Israelites ( Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:9–12), was considered as an emergency measure in the Ancient Near East, to be performed in exceptional cases where divine favor was desperately needed. The binding of Isaac appears in the Book of Genesis (22), where God tests Abraham by asking him to present his son as

3657-407: The heinous act of human sacrifice, as human sacrifice was often looked down upon. These authors make it clear that such practices were from a much more uncivilized time in the past, far removed. It is thought that many ritualistic celebrations and dedications to gods used to involve human sacrifice but have now been replaced with symbolic offerings. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says that the ritual of

3726-502: 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

3795-506: 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. Successful agricultural cities had already emerged in the Near East by the Neolithic , some protected behind stone walls. Jericho is the best known of these cities but other similar settlements existed along

3864-559: The priests they blind, from others they brutally sever their hands and other limbs and wrap what is left behind in straws and burn them alive." There have been found bog graves in Estonia that have been interpreted to have been part of human sacrifice. According to Aliis Moora, mostly enemy prisoners of war were sacrificed, the main reason indicated in the Livonian Chronicle as alleviating crop failure. Sacrifices were also performed as

3933-420: The primary Isubu settlement, grew quickly. European traders did their best to support friendly chiefs against their rivals, adulating them with titles such as King , Prince , or Chief . An Isubu chief named Bile became leader of the Isubu as King William, although Dick Merchant of Dikolo village and other chiefs eventually opposed his dominance. British traders became the dominant European presence in

4002-553: The region by the mid-19th century, and the Crown used them to enforce abolition of the slave trade in the Gulf of Guinea . In 1844 and 1848, King William signed anti-slavery treaties. In exchange, the traders provided him with annual gifts of alcohol, guns, textiles, and other goods. William was also asked to forbid practices the British viewed as barbaric, such as sacrificing a chief's wife upon his death. With William's blessing, Bimbia became

4071-449: The royal cemetery at Ur , discovered in Iraq in the 1920s by a team led by C. Leonard Woolley , appears to support a more grisly interpretation of human sacrifices associated with elite burials in ancient Mesopotamia than had previously been recognized. Palace attendants, as part of royal mortuary ritual, were not dosed with poison to meet death serenely. Instead, they were put to death by having

4140-566: The subsistence level. Isu is the Isubu language. In addition, many Isubu speak Duala or Mokpwe , the languages of the Duala and Bakweri respectively. Isu is part of the Bantu group of the Niger–Congo language family . In addition, individuals who have attended school or lived in an urban centre usually speak a European language. For some Isubu, this is French ; for others, it is Cameroonian Pidgin English or standard English. A growing number of

4209-460: The supposed events and may be based on biblical traditions about the god Moloch . In Britain, the medieval legends of Dinas Emrys and of Saint Oran of Iona mention foundation sacrifices , whereby people were ritually killed and buried under foundations to ensure the building's safety. The Waldensians sect was later accused of child sacrifice by the Church. According to written sources from

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4278-485: The title Suwu . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suwu&oldid=970440441 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Subu people The predominant Isubu oral history holds that

4347-851: The two Gauls alive as a plea to the gods to save Rome from destruction at the hands of Hannibal . According to Pliny the Elder , human sacrifice was banned by law during the consulship of Publius Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus in 97 BCE, although by this time it was so rare that the decree was largely symbolic. Sulla's Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis in 82 BC also included punishments for human sacrifice. The Romans also had traditions that centered around ritual murder, but which they did not consider to be sacrifice. Such practices included burying unchaste Vestal Virgins alive and drowning visibly intersex children. These were seen as reactions to extraordinary circumstances as opposed to being part of Roman tradition. Vestal Virgins who were accused of being unchaste were put to death, and

4416-619: Was a major religious and cultural practice that has found copious support in the archaeological record, including the numerous skulls found in Londinium 's River Walbrook and the twelve headless corpses at the Gaulish sanctuary of Gournay-sur-Aronde . Several ancient Irish bog bodies have been interpreted as kings who were ritually killed, presumably after serious crop failures or other disasters. Some were deposited in bogs on territorial boundaries (which were seen as liminal places) or near royal inauguration sites, and some were found to have eaten

4485-620: Was changed fundamentally by the European trade . European goods became status symbols , and some rulers appointed Western traders and missionaries as advisors. Large numbers of Isubu grew wealthy, leading to rising class tensions. Competition escalated between coastal groups and even between related settlements. Between 1855 and 1879, the Isubu alone engaged in at least four conflicts, both internal and with rival ethnic groups. Traders exploited this atmosphere, and beginning in 1860, German, French, and Spanish merchants had established contacts and weakened

4554-419: Was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire." Plutarch, however, claims that the children were already dead at the time, having been killed by their parents, whose consent – as well as that of the children – was required. Tertullian explains

4623-439: Was preserved in order to maintain the peace. Captured enemy leaders were only occasionally executed at the conclusion of a Roman triumph , and the Romans themselves did not consider these deaths a sacrificial offering. Gladiator combat was thought by the Romans to have originated as fights to the death among war captives at the funerals of Roman generals, and Christian polemicists , such as Tertullian , considered deaths in

4692-605: Was repeated periodically as part of a larger sacrifice (according to Adam of Bremen , every nine years). Evidence of human sacrifice by Germanic pagans before the Viking Age depend on archaeology and on a few accounts in Greco-Roman ethnography . Roman writer Tacitus reported the Suebians making human sacrifices to gods he interpreted as Mercury and Isis . He also claimed that Germans sacrificed Roman commanders and officers as

4761-444: Was the last human sacrifice in medieval Europe. Pope Gregory IX described in a papal letter how the Tavastians in Finland sacrificed Christians to their pagan gods: "The little children, to whom the light of Christ was revealed in baptism, they violently tore from this light and killed, and adult men, after pulling out their entrails, they sacrifice them to evil spirits and force others to run around trees until death, and some of

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