Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of an animal to appease or maintain favour with a divine agency. Such forms of sacrifice are practised within many religions around the world and have appeared historically in almost all cultures, including those of the Sumerians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Germanics, Celts, Aztecs, and Mayans.
All or only part of a sacrificial animal may be offered, especially in the context of ritual slaughter.
Remnants of ancient animal sacrifice can also found in various contemporary practices, the bullfights of Spain, kapparos and shechita of Judaism, or ḏabīḥah of Islam, for example.
Read more about Animal Sacrifice: Ancient World, Hinduism, Buddhism, Far East, African Traditional Religions
Famous quotes containing the words animal and/or sacrifice:
“To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“About sacrifice and the offering of sacrifices, sacrificial animals think quite differently from those who look on: but they have never been allowed to have their say.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)