The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

§ 3. Human Sacrifices for the Crops. 279thought it was a spirit.” 725Thus in these harvest-customs of modern Europe the person Killing ofthe personalwho cuts, binds, or threshes the last corn is treated as anrepresentative ofembodiment of the corn-spirit by being wrapt up in sheaves, the corn-spirit.killed in mimicry by agricultural implements, and thrown intothe water. 726 These coincidences with the Lityerses story seemto prove that the latter is a genuine description of an old Phrygianharvest-custom. But since in the modern parallels the killingof the personal representative of the corn-spirit is necessarilyomitted or at most enacted only in mimicry, it is desirable toshew that in rude society human beings have been commonlykilled as an agricultural ceremony to promote the fertility of thefields. The following examples will make this plain.§ 3. Human Sacrifices for the Crops.The Indians of Guayaquil, in Ecuador, used to sacrifice humanblood and the hearts of men when they sowed their fields. 727The people of Cañar (now Cuenca in Ecuador) used to sacrificea hundred children annually at harvest. The kings of Quito, theIncas of Peru, and for a long time the Spaniards were unable tosuppress the bloody rite. 728 At a Mexican harvest-festival, when [237]the first-fruits of the season were offered to the sun, a criminalwas placed between two immense stones, balanced opposite725 A. C. Kruijt, “Mijne eerste ervaringen te Poso,” Mededeelingen van wegehet Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap, xxxvi. (1892) p. 402.726 For throwing him into the water, see p. 225.727 Cieza de Leon, Travels, translated by C. R. Markham, p. 203 (HakluytSociety, London, 1864).728 Juan de Velasco, Histoire du Royaume de Quito, i. (Paris, 1840) pp. 121 sq.(Ternaux-Compans, Voyages, Relations et Mémoires Originaux pour servir àl'Histoire de la Découverte de l'Amérique, vol. xviii.).Human sacrificesfor the crops inSouth and CentralAmerica.