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At 7:05 PM -0800 on 4/2/03, James A. Donald wrote:
> We also have archaelogical evidence of human sacrifice in pre
> roman Britain
...and in pre-roman Europe in general. Besides the "druids", there
were several bog-slaughter :-) cults, among them the frisians
("Hettinga" is frisian for 'guy who lives on a hill' :-)).
Pre-christian "bog-men" some a thousand years old or more, have been
found with their throats slit, buried in various peat bogs from the
British Isles up through Denmark.
An ancient norse spring equinox holiday was celebrated by hanging a
male of every available species, including a human, from the branches
of a tree.
"O Tannenbaum", indeed...
Nasty, brutish, and short, and all that. When life expectancy is in
the mid-to-upper 20's, life, in general, is cheap.
Speaking of liberal paganism, :-), Americans and other western
European cultures didn't start worshiping their children until the
mid-1850's, when infant (much less maternal) mortality dropped to low
enough levels that an emotional investment in childhood development
was even possible.
Before 1840 or so, "for the children" was "for the birds". Of course,
after 1950 or so, Rachel Carson made even birds the object of
re-mystification...
Cheers,
RAH
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
