Elements of Luo Traditional Sacrifice: An Anthropological Approach

Abstract

Every religion has some form of sacrifice. In fact, sacrifice is the most widespread of all rituals. It derived from two Latin words: “sacer”, which means holy, sacred or set apart and “facere,” which means to do or to make. So, to sacrifice is to make holy or to set something apart for supernatural powers. Most rituals imply an offering and quite often a blood sacrifice. A blood sacrifice is a displacement of mystical forces made possible by God himself, thanks to the intercession of a spirit, divinity or ancestor and the mediation of a priest for the satisfaction of the sacrificing community. The blood of the victim, when poured on the altar, releases the vital force contained in it and feeds the spiritual beings directly alerted by the words of the priest. We have here an offering of food given to the sacred forces, which gives life to the sacrificing community through a common meal. We also have the words of the priest to the divinity or ancestor who intercedes to God. The response of God comes in an inverted way: it goes to the sacrificing community through the ancestor and the priest. Note here that God does not feed on the blood of the victim; God is the very source of the vital force; for him the vital force does not diminish. It is the whole community, which performs what we can call the rite of diverted violence. When the animal is killed, sometimes very cruelly, the violence, which would be directed to people is done on the animal, which is their substitute. It is at the same time an elevated violence since it is transported from the profane to the sacred. It is also a transcended violence since it enables the community to transfer the grudges, rivalries, hatred, tension and the tendencies of aggression within it to an animal victim. This is the way the community “deceives” its own violence by directing it to victims which do not call for vengeance. All in all, sacrifice in whatever form is for respect of life, that is, in sacrifice, life is not lost; it just becomes sublime. Sacrifice occupies a fundamental place in the practice of African traditional religion. It is through sacrifices that the African relates to the spiritual. The religious nature of African ritual, as historians of religions have stressed, is such that: “A ritual is religious, if it carries an ultimate value, meaning, sacrality and significance for someone, that is, if it somehow functions for someone as the foundation of what is considered real and sacred” (Richard 1978: 65).