Ritual killing

A Ritual killing is the killing of a victim performed in a ritualistic fashion or on a basis of rituals. If it takes place outside the societal norm, it is subject to criminal prosecution, and qualifies as ritual murder.

There is no clear line that can be drawn between ritual killing and capital punishment, since in many cases, convicted criminals were chosen as victims for human sacrifice, and execution is almost invariably combined with religious ritual even in modern instances of capital punishment. Notably, the Roman capital punishment of crucifixion became central as a symbol of sacrifice in Christian mythology.

Variations

Ritual killings and murders have occurred throughout the history of many cultures. Reasons were e.g. of religious, cultural or ethnic origin.

Ritual murders have undoubtedly occurred in the past in the form of human sacrifice, and are still occurring today, for example in medicine murder (also known as muti killings).

Motivated by religion

Main article: Human sacrifice

In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart from 1958, the author exemplifies African ritual murder demanded by an oracle, and to appease the Igbo goddess of fertility, Ani, the protagonist has to kill his adopted son.

In the Aztec culture, the existence of human sacrifice was proven by blood stains on the temples.[1]

Motivated by honor

Some cultures justify a killing or murder with a threat or damage to the personal, family's or other group's honour. The murdered in those cases did not fit into the group's expectations (conformity). Though this can be a derivative of a religious motivation, it can be more disputable and in discourse, the topic is honor, not religion, as a criticism of the murder. Especially if it is a minority group punishing an apostatic individual, some of that group may start supporting ritual killings, which can get the group in conflict with the dominant culture opposing ritual killings, causing amplifying countereffects.

Serial killer variations

Serial killers are also known to perform ritualistic murders. Identifying their rituals can help profilers to trace different murders to a single murderer. (see "serial killers")

False accusations

Main article: Blood libel

However, many false accusations of ritual murder have been made, often against ethnic minority groups.

Jews: One famous example is the blood libel against Jews, where Jews were said to kidnap Christian children and whip them and crown them with thorns before drawing off their blood for mixing into the unleavened bread eaten at Passover.

Satanists: Another example is the Satanic ritual abuse, a belief that an organized network of Satanists engages in brainwashing and abusing victims, especially children, throughout the United States or, in fact, the world. These claims remain controversial and the law enforcement sources, criminologists and religious affairs commentors generally consider this belief false or at least grossly exaggerated.

See also

• Religion and violence
• Cannibalism
• Thuggee
• Simon of Trent
• Saint Dominguito del Val
• Holy Child of La Guardia
• Damascus affair
• Beilis trial
• Honour killing
• Zebra murders
• Death penalty
• Purushamedha

References

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/27/wturk27.xml Contemporary minority group ritual murder case

External link

• Witch doctor link to boy's ritual killing