Ritual murder
A ritual murder is the killing of a person as a ritual act. The term describes this as murder , so it presupposes that religious human sacrifices are not covered by social consensus. Constructed ritual murder legends are a classic stereotype of anti-Semitism .
Killing and ritual
In religious studies, “ritual killing” has often been used as an umbrella term for human sacrifice. Based on Walter Burkert's definition of ritual as a communicative act, ritual killing has been defined as “killing that is carried out in a particular circumstance, in a predetermined and stereotypical manner and with a communicative function of some kind”. Human sacrifice, on the other hand, is used when the sacrifice is offered to a superhuman being - or even a dead person - or when a person is killed in the same way, with the same givenness and with the same ritual intention as the killing of a (corresponding) sacrificial animal.
Critics of this definition point out that in every age of history and in the present ritual elements can be found in every kind of human killing , such as executions , acts of retaliation , killings in combat operations. How far one can carry out ceremonial executions, e.g. B. Suicide attacks , known as ritual murder, depend on the way they are carried out and the importance attached to religious motives.
Occurrence
Ritual killings of people occurred in various archaic cults and religions, e.g. B. with the Aztecs , in India with the worship of the goddess Kali , in the cult of Moloch in the pre-Israelite Canaan u. a.
The hypothesis of a prehistoric ritual murder is being considered for “ Ötzi ”, the glacier mummy from the Copper Age found in 1991 . The killing does not seem to have taken place at the place where the body was found. But with her one found broken arrows and a valuable copper hatchet as gifts. One therefore suspects a human sacrifice as the execution and subsequent honor of a fugitive. If one could prove the rejection of human sacrifice in this society, this would be the oldest known ritual murder in history.
One spoke of a ritual murder in various individual murders in the 20th and 21st centuries:
- to Helmut Daube on November 19, 1928 in Gladbeck ,
- to Sharon Tate and others through Charles Manson and the Manson Family ,
- to Sandro Beyer in 1993 in Sondershausen
- in the murder of Witten on July 6, 2001.
Ritual murder legends
In so-called ritual murder legends , socially discriminated minorities - mostly Jews - are accused of ritual murders of members of the majority society . They serve to defame the alleged group of perpetrators, justify and intensify their oppression and persecution. Their colporteurs often take up unsolved cases of kidnapping, accidents or death, especially of children , and offer scapegoats for them. Such legends can not only be found as folk tales rooted in superstition , but are also specifically constructed and used for propaganda by religious, state, regional or local interest groups. They often cause pogroms , lynching and judicial murders of the groups accused of ritual murder.
literature
- Miranda Aldhouse Green: Human Sacrifice - Ritual Murder from the Iron Age to the End of Antiquity Magnus Essen 2003 ISBN = 3-88400-009-8
- Walter Burkert: Homo necans. Interpretations of ancient Greek sacrificial rites and myths , De Gruyter, Berlin 1972
- Dennis D. Hughes: Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece , Routledge, London - New York, 1991
- Rainer Erb: Third picture: The ritual murder . In: Julius H. Schoeps / Joachim Schlör (eds.): Images of hostility towards Jews . Anti-Semitism - Prejudices and Myths. Augsburg 1999, pp. 74-79, ISBN 3-8289-0734-2
- Giovanni De Luna: Il corpo del nemico ucciso. Violenza e morte nella guerra contemporanea , Einaudi, Torino 2006
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ W. Burkert: Homo necans , pp. 31-39
- ↑ DD Hughes: Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece , p. 3f (Ü.dV)
- ^ G. De Luna: Il corpo del nemico ucciso
- ↑ Innovation Report, January 16, 2002: Did “Ötzi” fall victim to a ritual murder?
- ↑ Driven by the hatred of the people , Welt Online from December 2, 2001
- ↑ Georg R. Schroubek : The "ritual murder" of Polná - traditional and modern delusional belief. In: R. Erb , Michael Schmidt (ed.): Anti-Semitism and Jewish history - studies in honor of Herbert A. Strauss. Berlin 1987, pp. 149-171.