So
Busiris instituted the sacrifice. But when Hercules came to Egypt,
and was being dragged to the altar to be sacrificed, he burst his
bonds and slew Busiris and his son. Here then is a legend that in
Egypt a human victim was annually sacrificed to prevent the failure
of the crops, and a belief is implied that an omission of the
sacrifice would have entailed a recurrence of that infertility which
it was the object of the sacrifice to prevent. So the Pawnees, as we
have seen, believed that an omission of the human sacrifice at
planting would have been followed by a total failure of their crops.
The name Busiris was in reality the name of a city, _pe-Asar,_ "the
house of Osiris," the city being so called because it contained the
grave of Osiris. Indeed some high modern authorities believe that
Busiris was the original home of Osiris, from which his worship
spread to other parts of Egypt. The human sacrifice were said to
have been offered at his grave, and the victims were red-haired men,
whose ashes were scattered abroad by means of winnowing-fans.
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