Human sacrifice is often treated as this terrible, inexplicable, evil thing and used to dehumanize and villainize ancient cultures that practiced it. I’m not saying it’s good and that we should start doing it again but I once read something that was like “In these societies, members of the community were the most important things they had. People were the most precious things they could offer the gods and that is why the most precious people amongst them, children, warriors and healthy young adults were often chosen as sacrifices.” and it changed my outlook on it. Offering the most precious thing you’ve got to the gods in an act of desperation because there are forces beyond your control. Especially in Neolithic agrarian societies where everyone’s labor was needed. They were sacrifices, not coldblooded mob murders. I know that’s not true for all sacrifices and across all societies that practiced it but it made it make so much more sense.
We have this traditional view of the sacrifice victim being terrified and betrayed and confused in their last moments but maybe some of them, many of them, went to their death thinking they were doing something honorable. Not feeling betrayed by their community but feeling like it was their duty and their honor and they were their champion.
