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EN
Apotropaic behaviours in the Roman system of beliefs required the use of various forms of offerings in order to achieve the expected sacral goal. We may assume, that a full effectiveness of such actions was asserted only by human sacrifice. Along with the development of religious practices the Romans substituted human sacrifice however, in times of serious danger for the Roman community, they would reach for the early sacral experiences. In the system of Roman beliefs extremely important appeared to be the rituals at the turn of the year, which represented the periodic change of the tempus sacrum. Many of the rituals of the turn of the year played the role of lustrative rites, which were extended into practices of liberating the community from sacral miasma and received those rites which represented the destruction of cosmic order and its recovery to the state of primordial chaos. These types of ceremonies might have required a human sacrifice.
EN
The ceremonies in honour of the dead – Parentalia, Lemuria, Larentalia, Compitalia, mundus patet – corresponded with the spiritual needs of the Romans. The purpose of the religious event re­corded in the fasti usually resulted from its placing at a specific moment of the religious year, which was of great significance to the sacral community. A religious intuition in the Romans gave ground to the combination of official ceremonies in the honour of ancestors with important agricultural dates i.e. defined periods for the evaluation of time and space, which, often, accepted the form of apotropaic festivities with magical rituals. Often, the ceremonies of the turn of the year guaranteed human and animal fecundity as well as vegetative fertility.
PL
Celem niniejszego artykułu jest analiza azteckiej praktyki składania ofiar z ludzi, zarówno w jej oryginalnym znaczeniu religijnym i rytualnym, jak i w funkcji motywu literackiego w prozie latynoamerykańskiej XX i XXI wieku. Krwawy rytuał ofiarniczy był nieodłącznym elementem światopoglądu dawnych Azteków oraz spełniał ważną rolę religijną i polityczną. Pozwalał na komunikację ze światem nadprzyrodzonym poprzez wymianę energii życiowej, z czasem przekształcając się również w demonstrację autorytetu państwowego o znaczeniu politycznym. Cztery wybrane do analizy przykłady prozy latynoamerykańskiej pozwalają prześledzić literacką reinterpretację ofiar z ludzi nawiązującą do różnych cech konotacyjnych tego rytuału. Motyw ofiary ludzkiej w prozie współczesnej oddala się od pierwotnego, religijnego znaczenia obrzędu, przeradzając się w symbol przemocy historycznej, lęków egzystencjalnych oraz rzeczywistości pozarozumowej.
EN
The aim of this article is twofold: firstly, it examines the meaning and the role of the frightening Aztec ritual of human sacrifice in its original religious and political context. Human sacrifice was an integral part of the Aztec world view. It facilitated the communication between the supernatural forces and the human world through the interchange of vital energy. Human sacrifice also had a political meaning, as over time it intensified and was transformed into a formidable display of state power. Secondly, the article investigates the use of human sacrifice as a literary motif in modern Latin-American prose fiction. The selected examples illustrate how the Aztec ritual has acquired different connotative values, distant from its original denotation. It has been transformed into a symbol of historical violence, existential fears and irrational reality.
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