Khambesvari puujaa with buffalo sacrifice

[Allen W Thrasher]

Stephen Hodge said:

<<The Celts practised head-hunting and had a cult of skulls but for
really gory sacrifices some of the Nordic people were outstanding as
Roman (and later) accounts relate.  The so-called "spread-eagle"
sacrifice was particularly imaginative -- the victim's chest was cut
open (while alive), the rib-cage expanded and the lungs pulled out
and
draped over the shoulders like wings !   After that, plain old
decapitation seems rather boring :)>>

Ronald Hutton, in The Pagan Religions of the British Isles, their
Nature and Legacy, (Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell,
1991) maintains there was no such practice, and the belief that there
was is a misunderstanding of the texts.  His main point throughout the
book is that we know almost nothing about the pre-Christian religions
of the later UK and Ireland, and most of what we think we know we
don't.  Also that the inhabitants were quickly and thoroughly
converted to Christianity and few medieval or modern customs that are
thought to be continuations of pre-Christian customs are.

Allen Thrasher