Joe Campbell says that in the primitive hunting cultures,
the death of the game animals is seen not as killing, but
as a willing sacrifice to sustain the people.
When agriculture began, this sacrifice was transferred to
the Goddess of the grain, which sustained the people. So
now we see the burial of grain, and the rising out of the
ground as the Mother Earth giving birth to her children,
as the vast herds had done every spring for the hunting
cultures.
The very earliest reports of Demeter, Persephone, Kore,
or other names for the female godhead tell of figures of
the goddess being made of bread and ritually eaten. Kore,
the Goddess of the moon, being celebrated by the women in
particular, because of the menstrual cycle.
It had long been known that as the moon waned to a thin
sliver every month, that Kore would die, but that three
days later, she would rise again as the new moon.
Funny too, how bread made from the grain, was fashioned
into the figures of the Goddesses so that men could eat
the flesh of God, and drink the blood (wine) so that they
might be sustained in life... because the God, like the
game animals of primitive times, was sacrificed for the
benefit of all mankind.
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