Horse sacrifice

Illustration of the Hindu epic Ramayana depicting Ashwamedha (horse sacrifice) by Sahib Din, 1652. Kausalya is depicted slaying the horse (left) and lying beside it (right).

Many Indo-European religous branches show evidence for horse sacrifice, and comparative mythology suggests that they derive from a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) ritual.

Context

In most instances, the horses are sacrificed in a funerary context, and interred with the deceased. There is evidence but no explicit myths from the three branches of Indo-Europeans of a major horse sacrifice ritual based on a mythical union of Indo-European kingship and the horse.^[1] The Indian Aśvamedha is the clearest evidence preserved, but vestiges from Latin and Celtic traditions allow the reconstruction of a few common attributes.

Some scholars, including Edgar Polomé, regards the reconstruction of a PIE ritual as unjustified due to the difference between the attested traditions.^[2]

Etymology

The Gaulish personal name Epomeduos is from ek'wo-medhu- ("horse + mead"), while aśvamedha is either from ek'wo-mad-dho- ("horse + drunk") or ek'wo-mey-dho- ("horse + strength").

Mythology

The reconstructed myth involves the coupling of a king with a divine mare which produced the divine twins. A related myth is that of a hero magically twinned with a horse foaled at the time of his birth (for example Cuchulainn, Pryderi), suggested to be fundamentally the same myth as that of the divine twin horsemen by the mytheme of a "mare-suckled" hero from Greek and medieval Serbian evidence, or mythical horses with human traits (Xanthos), suggesting totemic identity of the Indo-European hero or king with the horse.

Comparative rituals

Vedic (Indian)

A coin struck by Samudra Gupta commemorating an Ashvamedha ritual.^[3] The tethered horse is depicted on the left and the queen, carrying ritual equipment, is on the right.

The Indian Ashvamedha involves the following:

1. the sacrifice is connected with the elevation or inauguration of a member of the warrior caste
2. the ceremony took place in springtime
3. the horse sacrificed was a grey or white stallion
4. the stallion selected was one which excelled at the right side of the chariot
5. it was bathed in water wherein a sacrificed dog had been deposited
6. it was sacrificed alongside a hornless ram and a he-goat
7. the queen underwent "mock-coupling" with the stallion
8. the stallion was dissected and its portions awarded to various deities

Roman

The Roman Equus October ceremony involved:^[4]

1. the horse was dedicated to Mars
2. the sacrifice took place in September to October (corresponding to the Indian "month of the yoked horses" (ashvayuja))
3. the horse sacrificed was a stallion which excelled at the right side of the chariot
4. the slaughtered stallion is dismembered and various parts (head and tail, and possibly the penis) are sent to different locations

Irish

The Irish ceremony' as recorded by Geraldus Cambrensis, involved:

1. the king likely (Geraldus is not explicit) couples with the mare to be sacrificed
2. the horse is dismembered and cooked in a cauldron, and consumed by the king who is also sitting in the cauldron

Norse

The Norse ceremony according to the description in Hervarar saga of the Swedish inauguration of Blot-Sweyn, the last or next to last pagan Germanic king, c. 1080:

1. the horse is dismembered for eating
2. the blood is sprinkled on the sacred tree at Uppsala.

The Völsa þáttr mentions a Norse pagan ritual involving veneration of the penis of a slaughtered stallion.^[5] A freshly cut horse head was also used in setting up a nithing pole for a Norse curse.^[6]

Archaeology

The primary archaeological context of horse sacrifice are burials, notably chariot burials, but graves with horse remains reach from the Eneolithic well into historical times. Herodotus describes the execution of horses at the burial of a Scythian king, and Iron Age kurgan graves known to contain horses number in the hundreds. There are also frequent deposition of horses in burials in Iron Age India. The custom is by no means restricted to Indo-European populations, but is continued by Turkic tribes as the cultural successors of the Scythians.

Notes

References

• Dearborn, Fitzroy (1997). J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams (eds.), Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture.
• DuBois, Thomas A. (2006). "Rituals, Witnesses, and Sagas". in Andrén, Anders; Jennbert, Kristina et al. Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions. Lund, Sweden: Nordic Academic Press. pp. 74-78. ISBN 978-91-89116-81-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=gjq6rvoIRpAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Frazer, James George (1922). The Golden Bough. New York: Touchstone. ISBN 0-684-82630-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=pRDqoO_5HhEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Hoernle, August Friedrich Rudolf; Stark, Herbert Alick (1906). A History of India. Cattuck: Orissa Mission Press. http://books.google.com/books?id=d4MqAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Mallory, J. P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (2006). The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-928791-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=yfZZX1qjpvkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Mallet, Paul Henri; Percy, Thomas (trans.) (1847). Northern Antiquities: or, An Historical Account of the Manners, Customs, and Laws, Maritime Expeditions and Discoveries, Language and Literature, of the Ancient Scandanavians. London: George Woodfall & Son. http://books.google.com/books?id=Q_yOJHxjC5oC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 

See also

• Animal sacrifice
• Domestication of the horse
• Epona
• Horse worship
• Kurgan hypothesis
• Parilia
• Proto-Indo-European religion