sacrifice

Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly existed before that. Evidence of ritual human sacrifice can also be found back to at least pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica as well as in European civilizations. Varieties of ritual non-human sacrifices are practiced by numerous religions today.
Sacrifice (particularly blood sacrifice) is an exclusively male rite almost worldwide that serves to bond men: "it establishes a kinship which goes above and beyond the 'natural' bloodshed of childbirth." Among other points, Korte draws a connection between sacrificial blood and fertility-related blood.

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