The Knife, Sacrifice and Meaning

[FenrisWolf]

Originally Posted by Manolo

Hello Fenris (Thor must've been quite angry at your namesake )

Interesting what you say about your last rites, I didn't know such traditions were still alive, and I'm glad they are. For us (Romanian Orthodox) we hold that one mus not die without having a lit candle in hand or close by...to light the way for the soul perhaps, but it's seen as an unfortunate thing if one dies without a candle.

About your sword obtaining a ritual significance, I have a small anecdote first recounted by a researcher oh some human psychology...when making meatloaf for the family, she had the constant practice of cutting the ends of the piece of meat when she put it in the oven; her mother had done it and so had her grandmother...why? There was no reason to do it, but the family felt that the roast was somehow better if she did cut the ends off. After some research, she uncovered that her great-great grandmother had started cutting the ends of the roast because it didn't fit in the pan! The anecdote is to illustrate that original cause or intent may be lost with each subsequent generation. The Aztec priest may have used a knife simply because it was useful, but each new generation of priest may have have had a new perception of it stemming from lack of understanding or from desire for something greater.
Regards,
Emanuel

Hello, Emanuel,
How traditions and superstitions evolve is a fascinating study, one that many anthropologists and behaviorists devote their careers to. Why certain things are considered lucky or unlucky are snapshots of how religions evolve as a whole.

I work in the retail environment, and one of the things I find amusing is the cycle of seasonal decorations we sell every year, especially the secular trappings of religious holidays. Modern neopagans and heathen have an ongoing struggle to rediscover what our ancestors held sacred and why. As with many suppressed religions, the documentation is scarce and extremely fragmented, and we often have to turn to clues that are buried in folk traditions as to what the pre-Christian peoples held sacred.

Take Easter for example. I don't know how the people celebrate it in Rome (or Romania), but in the US there's a huge industry around it, focusing on candy and Easter Egg hunts, with the motif of baby rabbits and freshly hatched chicks everywhere you look. I looked very carefully last year, and despite its significance as a Christian holiday, found a total of one chocolate cross. Everything else was devoted to bunnies and chicks, both of which are fertility symbols sacred to Eostre, or Ishtar, a Pre-Christian Goddess of Spring.

There are numerous other examples, none of them very surprising. When a new religion moves in and dominates a region, especially when it is enforced from above instead of converting from below (the leaders of a people mandating that their subjects convert) the festivals and symbols are often grafted onto the new religion. The same practices continue onward, but under new names.

Now as to how this relates to weapons, well I've seen comments that there have been occasional discussions of so-called 'satanic' daggers on this board. The question that needs to be raised about any such daggers is not what the symbology represents in modern context, but what it represented in the context of whoever created it. I've seen Buddhist art objects covered in sunwheels, also known as swastikas, but I don't think anyone believes that the Dalai Llama was a Nazi. And Catholic communion involves the ritual transubstantiation of wine and bread into the blood and body of Christ, but I don't think anyone serious believes that the Apostles were cannibals. So any symbols, shapes or forms a blade or hilt might take need to be studied objectively and researched VERY carefully before any conclusions can be reached.

Fenris

[Emanuel]

If the blade of the sacrificial knife is removed and refitted to another banal handle, it loses its spiritual/sacrificial meaning does it not? Conversely, the sacrificial knife may be replaced by any other object as long as it does the job and can be integrated into ceremonial gear and aesthetics. Do the cultures that still carry out sacrifices imbue a certain spirit into the tool as the Indonesians do with the keris for example? Is there the equivalent of an Isi in the knife used by the Benin witch/priest?

I agree Fenris, Easter is a peculiar holiday, with long forgotten and disregarded meaning, but then I often feel it has passed from cult to pure consumerism. Us Orthodox we have a ritual with painted eggs - ideally red to signify the blood of Christ. The chocolate things now sold everywhere are a totally different thing unfortunately.

Emanuel