Death, War, and Sacrifice : Studies in Ideology and Practice

One of the world's leading specialists in Indo-Europeanreligion and society, Bruce Lincoln expresses in these essayshis severe doubts about the existence of a much-hypothesizedprototypical Indo-European religion. Written over fifteen years, the essays--six of thempreviously unpublished--fall into three parts. Part I dealswith matters "Indo-European" in a relatively unproblematizedway, exploring a set of haunting images that recur indescriptions of the Otherworld from many cultures. WhileLincoln later rejects this methodology, these chapters remainthe best available source of data for the topics theyaddress. In Part II, Lincoln takes the data for each essay from asingle culture area and shifts from the topic of dying tothat of killing. Of particular interest are the chaptersconnecting sacrifice to physiology, a master discourse ofantiquity that brought the cosmos, the human body, and humansociety into an ideologically charged correlation. Part III presents Lincoln's most controversial caseagainst a hypothetical Indo-European protoculture.Reconsidering the work of the prominent Indo-EuropeanistGeorges Dumezil, Lincoln argues that Dumezil's writingswere informed and inflected by covert political concernscharacteristic of French fascism. This collection is aninvaluable resource for students of myth, ritual, ancientsocieties, anthropology, and the history of religions. Bruce Lincoln is professor of humanities and religiousstudies at the University of Minnesota.