USAGE OF TERMS INTRODUCTION

of the argument. 9 They rejected the evolutionary schemes of their predecessors, and aimed rather to provide a general model applicable to all religious systems. For them, the opposition between sacred and profane is the foundation of all societies. 10 Sacrifice is the means par excellence of establishing communication between the sacred and the profane worlds. Sacrifice is a rite of passage. When a victim is consecrated, it becomes progressively divine. As it penetrates the sacred zone, it becomes so sacred that the sacrificer hesitates to approach it. But he must, as his personality and that of victim are merged. The killing separates the divine principle in the victim from the body, which continues to belong to the profane world. The sacrificer then performs an exit ritual to return to profane, and to rid himself of any contamination that he may have suffered in the ritual. However de Heusch in his critique of Hubert and Mauss points out that their model suits Vedic Indian, but not necessarily the African or Indo-European contexts. 11 There is a real danger in imposing a model from outside. An example of how easy it is to fall into this trap of imposing a model is Evans- Pritchard’s study of the Nuer religion. If a Nuer man infringes an interdiction, he is in a state of nueer, kor or rual, depending on the circumstances. Evans- Pritchard translated all three by the word “sin” and argued that sacrifice fulfils a purifying and expiatory function among the Nuer. Indeed Evans-Pritchard himself clearly admits that these concepts have been imported from the Judeo-Christian worldview: “I must confess that this is not an interpretation that I reached entirely by observation, but one taken over from studies of Hebrew and other sacrifices, because it seems to make better sense than any other as an explanation o f the Nuer facts.” 12 Averbeck, surveying the different theories, comments that most “have been both reductionistic i.e. illegitimately reducing the diversity of sacrificial phenomena to one rationale and evolutionistic proposing that all offerings and sacrifices evolved from one primal form. Scholars today tend to disregard the reductionist and evolutionary features and treat them as 9 De Heusch, Sacrifice in Africa, p.2. 10 De Heusch, Sacrifice in Africa, p.3. 11 De Heusch, Sacrifice in Africa, pp.3-4. 12 Quoted in de Heusch, Sacrifice in Africa, p.9.