THEORIES OF SACRIFICE 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.
complementary rather than contradictory, suggesting that there appears to be some truth in all or most of them, at least
in certain cultures.”
13
In the light of the above discussion, I shall attempt to avoid the imposition of any model, but rather allow the biblical and the Supyire sources to speak for
themselves. The Supyire people will speak through transcribed stories, texts and interviews. I shall seek to understand how they see sacrifice, and how it fits into their
view of the world. I shall do the same for the biblical material, and then compare the two. It is clear that perfect objectivity is an unattainable goal, as the results are
processed through the author whose own understanding of the world will inevitably influence what is selected as important and the way the results are presented.
Nevertheless, this remains the best way for an outsider to gain a clear understanding of how the two different cultures look at sacrifice.
13
Averbeck, Rick, “Offerings and Sacrifices”, in W.A. Van Gemeren ed. NIDOTT Carlisle: Paternoster Press and Zondervan, p.997.