Omophagia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As omophagia ( ancient Greek ὠμοφαγία ōmophagía , from ὠμός ṓmos , German 'raw' , and φαγεῖν phageîn , German 'eat, consume' ) is the eating of raw meat in cult following the sparagmos called the tearing of living animals (and people) of Dionysus .

It is unclear to what extent tearing up animals or eating them raw was actually part of cult practice, or whether it just belongs to the Dionysian myth. In any case, "raw eater" ( ὠμηστής ōmēstḗs or ὠμάδιος ōmádios ) was an epithet of Dionysus.

In research, the concept of omophagia, though so far mostly associated with Dionysus and his cult, Joan O'Brien has, in a work of 1990 but on the significant use of the term in the Iliad of Homer down. There the term appears in particular with reference to Hera , but also to other characters in the epic, e.g. B. Achilles , where he functions as a metaphor for unrestrained, “barbaric” bloodthirst.

Although the actual eating raw, uncooked food as a mark of barbarians appears frequently in Greek literature, starting with the raw human flesh feasting Laestrygonians the Odyssey or the no blood haze shying "nose lots" of which Megasthenes tells the metaphorical use and reference on Hera is remarkable insofar as the question arises whether the designation of Dionysus as a "raw meat eater" should not just as easily identify him as the deity of unrestrained frenzy and savagery remote from civilization.

In a broader sense, omophagia is the eating of raw meat in a cultic context.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Hellanikos of Lesbos in FGrHist 4 F 187b
  2. Joan O'Brien: Homer's Savage Hera. In: The Classical Journal. Vol. 86, No. 2, Dec. 1990 - Jan. 1991, pp. 105-125, JSTOR 3297720 .
  3. ^ Charles Segal : The Raw and the Cooked in Greek Literature: Structure, Values, Metaphor. In: The Classical Journal. Vol. 69, No. 4 Apr-May, 1974, pp. 289-308, JSTOR 3295970 .
  4. Homer Odyssey 10.116ff
  5. Megasthenes in Strabo 15.1.57