A Meriah youth, on attaining
maturity, was generally given a wife, who was herself usually a
Meriah or victim; and with her he received a portion of land and
farm-stock. Their offspring were also victims. Human sacrifices were
offered to the Earth Goddess by tribes, branches of tribes, or
villages, both at periodical festivals and on extraordinary
occasions. The periodical sacrifices were generally so arranged by
tribes and divisions of tribes that each head of a family was
enabled, at least once a year, to procure a shred of flesh for his
fields, generally about the time when his chief crop was laid down.
The mode of performing these tribal sacrifices was as follows. Ten
or twelve days before the sacrifice, the victim was devoted by
cutting off his hair, which, until then, had been kept unshorn.
Crowds of men and women assembled to witness the sacrifice; none
might be excluded, since the sacrifice was declared to be for all
mankind. It was preceded by several days of wild revelry and gross
debauchery. On the day before the sacrifice the victim, dressed in a
new garment, was led forth from the village in solemn procession,
with music and dancing, to the Meriah grove, a clump of high forest
trees standing a little way from the village and untouched by the
axe.
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