Beelzebub’s Tales About His Second Descent on to the Planet Earth

“With the same aim, these favorites of yours of that period even divided the beings of all other forms into ‘clean’ and ‘unclean.’

“ ‘Unclean’ they called those forms of being, the destruction of whose existence was presumably not pleasing to their gods; and ‘clean,’ those beings, the destruction of whose existence was, presumably, extremely agreeable to those various imaginary idols whom they revered.

“These Sacrificial-Offerings were made not only in their own houses by private beings, but were also made by whole groups, and sometimes even in public. There even then existed special places for slaughterings of this kind which were situated mostly near buildings in memory of something or somebody, chiefly of saints—of course, of the saints they themselves had elevated to ‘sainthood.’

“Several such special public places, where the destruction of the beings of different exterior form was carried out, then existed in the country of Tikliamish; and among them was one most celebrated, situated on a small mountain from whence a certain thaumaturgist Aliman was supposed once upon a time to have been ‘taken-alive’ up to ‘some-Heaven-or-other.’

“In that place, as well as in other similar places, especially at definite times of the year, they destroyed an innumerable number of beings called ‘oxen,’ ‘sheep,’ ‘doves,’ and so on, and even beings similar to them themselves.

“In the latter case, the strong usually brought the less strong to be sacrificed; as for instance, a father brought his son, a husband his wife, an elder brother his younger brother, and so on. But, for the most part, ‘sacrifices’ were offered up of ‘slaves,’ who then as now were usually what are called ‘captives,’ that is to say, beings of a conquered community, which according to the law of what is called ‘Solioonensius,’ had at the given period—that is, at the period when their needful tendency to reciprocal destruction was more intensely manifested in their presences—a lesser significance in respect of this chief peculiarity of theirs.

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