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Post by nellie on Jul 25, 2011 14:36:31 GMT -1
I wonder if some members of the community might have been actively chosen to become ancestors? Heron's post about water and the otherworld got me to wondering if bog bodies may have been placed so as to send them on to the otherworld more speedily and were sacrificed to become an ancestor and guide the tribe? Is it likely some people's deeds in life earnt them the right to become an Ancestor?
I can't remember the source (so like me, I'm sorry) but I believe it was said the Germanic tribes drowned criminals found guilty of sexual crimes in bogs?? So maybe I'm barking up completely the wrong tree!
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Post by redraven on Jul 25, 2011 15:57:16 GMT -1
I wonder if some members of the community might have been actively chosen to become ancestors? Heron's post about water and the otherworld got me to wondering if bog bodies may have been placed so as to send them on to the otherworld more speedily and were sacrificed to become an ancestor and guide the tribe? Is it likely some people's deeds in life earnt them the right to become an Ancestor? The precedent is sound enough, for example, the child mummies of the Andes in South America shows that some people were "marked" out for this sort of role. IIRC, Lindholme man is thought to have been marked out and killed as a possible intercessionary for the ancestors so I have to say that it is almost a certainty that individuals were, indeed marked out for this sort of role, some of them possibly from birth. RR
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Post by Lee on Jul 25, 2011 22:14:29 GMT -1
there are examples of iron age burials where the body is buried inside the house under the hearth. this stands out more as an 'ancestor' burial rather than the bog body ones to me.
i guess the question is; why does bog burial makr them our for ancestorhood when other forms of burial are insufficient, we can presume that normal disposal did the same job.
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Post by dreamguardian on Jul 29, 2011 10:24:44 GMT -1
It appears that the bog bodies suffered a 3 fold method of death, triple aspect seems to apply. Miranda Greens 'dying for the gods' is an excellent resource on the whole area.
There's also been a recent facial reconstruction of a young ironage female bog body. IIRC, she was only 13, had one side of her hair completely shaved off and again, suffered a triple method of dispatch. She was trapped under many logs!
I would imagine many criminals were executed in the most dramatic form, as a deterent and perhaps also so that the community had a sense of justice being done.
However, there are examples where perhaps the candidate was being sent to 'the otherworld' to plead or bargain direct with the Gods. I find this whole aspect fascinating.
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Post by nellie on Jul 29, 2011 11:47:54 GMT -1
Pleading ones case directly with the gods is an interesting idea. I'll have to try to get hold of a copy of 'dying for the gods' and have a read.
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Post by dreamguardian on Jul 29, 2011 13:27:51 GMT -1
Highly recommend her book which is well researched, detailed forensic inspection and thoroughly examines the whole iron age concept of human sacrifice/ritual murder.
BTW, it's not for the fluffies who prefer a sanitised neo-paganism.
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Post by dreamguardian on Jul 29, 2011 13:44:00 GMT -1
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Post by nellie on Jul 30, 2011 7:50:31 GMT -1
No there is sometimes a view that our pagan ancestors were somehow better, but there's a lot to be said for 2000 odd years of human development since. They were not perfect and nor are we, but it's worth trying to understand the whole concept of human sacrifice if only to get small clues about the cosmology that drove it. Thanks for the recommendation - I don't have a great track record of picking the best books!
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