Beyond Sacred Violence: A Comparative Study of Sacrifice

2 Reevaluating the Role of Killing in Sacrifice

c h a p t e r t w o Reevaluating the Role of Killing in Sacrifice Sacrifice is ritual slaughter. — wa lt e r b u r k e r t In the popular imagination, sacrifice is most closely associated with killing . Similarly, scholarly approaches to sacrifice have also tended to emphasize the importance of killing. As a result, research on sacrifice has overlooked the importance of other activities performed during sacrificial ritual.∞ In fact, the theories of sacrifice that dominate religious studies today focus almost exclusively on killing and violence. This chapter addresses these mischaracterizations and attempts to put killing in its proper place in the broader context of sacrificial activity. Numerous scholars assume that sacrifice is the killing of an animal victim. M. F. C. Bourdillon, in his introduction to the edited volume Sacrifice, notes that one contributor to the volume ‘‘confines his comments to rituals which involve the immolation by death (at least symbolically ) of a living being. Most of the essays presented in this volume presume that this is the principal denotation of ‘sacrifice.’ ’’≤ Bourdillon’s phrasing suggests that he recognizes that limiting ‘‘sacrifice’’ to the ‘‘death . . . of a living being’’ is somewhat arbitrary. Yet he quickly moves past this potentially fruitful insight, and the traditional fascination with and em- Reevaluating the Role of Killing in Sacrifice 45 phasis on death goes unquestioned, not only in his introduction but throughout the entire volume. Unfortunately, Bourdillon’s willingness to associate ‘‘sacrifice’’ with the death of an animal victim is quite common. This problem can be traced back to Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss. In Sacrifice: Its Nature and Functions, Hubert and Mauss describe the death of a sacrificial oblation as ‘‘the culminating point of the ceremony.’’≥ Numerous influential scholars have followed in their footsteps. I have already noted that Frits Staal arbitrarily chooses to limit ‘‘sacrifice’’ to the ritual slaughter of animals within the Vedic system. Walter Burkert, another important scholar of sacrifice, focuses on the death of the animal oblation, arguing that sacrifice is rooted in hunting practices: ‘‘The central, practical, and necessary act would be to kill animals for food. Sacrifice is ritual slaughter.’’∂ Repeatedly scholars have called attention to the death of the animal victim as the singular and defining act in sacrificial ritual. No scholar is more closely associated with the notion of sacrifice as ‘‘violence’’ than René Girard, so it is important to explain his argument clearly. Girard begins his classic work Violence and the Sacred with a critique of Hubert and Mauss, claiming that their argument is circular: ‘‘Because the victim is sacred, it is criminal to kill him—but the victim is sacred only because he is to be killed.’’∑ In response to this apparent problem,Girardaskswhysacrificeissofrequentlyassociatedwithviolence. Quickly thereafter he links sacrifice and murder, noting that ‘‘sacrifice and murder would not lend themselves to this game of reciprocal substitution if they were not in some way related.’’ Throughout the book Girard develops the argument that sacrifice is centered on notions of substitution and deferred violence: a sacrificial victim receives the deflected violence originally intended for the sacrificer. Thus sacrifice is a violent act, with the death of the victim at its core. Within human society the sacrificial victim acts as a scapegoat, toward which violence has been redirected. In modern contexts, in which ‘‘blood sacrifice’’ no longer occurs, the original violence istransposedintosomeotherformofsocietalconflict—butitneverlosesits violent nature. At the heart of Girard’s argument is his assumption about religion in general: ‘‘[T]here is a common denominator that determines the e≈cacy of all sacrifices and that becomes increasingly apparent as the institution grows in vigor. This common denominator is internal violence —all the dissensions, rivalries, jealousies, and quarrels within the commu- 46 Beyond Sacred Violence nity that the sacrifices are designed to suppress. The purpose of the sacrifice is to restore harmony to the community, to reinforce the social fabric. Everything else derives from that.’’∏ Before proceeding too much further, let me emphasize that I do not want to minimize the significant contributions that scholars such as Girard , Burkert, and Staal have made to the study of sacrifice, and I am not denying the important role that...