1. The Indians of Guyaquar used to sacrifice human blood and the hearts of men when they sowed their fields.[6]
2. In the Aztec harvest festival a victim was crushed between two great stones (perhaps to represent the grinding of the maize?).
3. The Mexicans sacrificed young children, older children, and old men for each stage of the maize's growth. We are not told how they were sacrificed.[7]
4. The Egyptians burned red-haired men, and scattered their ashes with winnowing fans. This burning is a usual feature of sacrifice, and is not hanging or crucifying.
5. The Skidi, or Wolf Pawnees, burned a victim to Ti-ra-wá, 'the power above that moves the universe, and controls all things,' but the victim was a deer or a buffalo. There were also occasional human sacrifices before sowing; the victim had his head cleft with a tomahawk, and was then riddled with arrows, and afterwards burned.[8] In some cases he was tied to a cross, before being slain with an axe.[9]
6. A Sioux girl was burned over a slow fire, and then shot with arrows. Her flesh, for magical purposes, was squeezed over the newly sown fields.
7. West African victims were killed with spades and hoes, and burned in newly tilled fields.
8. At Lagos a girl was impaled among sacrificed sheep, goats, yams, heads of maize, and plantains hung on stakes. Though impalement is a form of capital punishment, probably the girl's blood was expected to fertilise the earth. We have no proof that crucifixion was used in Babylon, or the same motive might be alleged for the mock-king at the Sacæa. 'It may be doubted whether crucifixion was an Oriental mode of punishment,' says Mr. Frazer. He does not say that it was an Oriental form of sacrifice.[10]
9. The Marimos kill and burn a human victim, and scatter the ashes on the ground to fertilise it.