"Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler ...
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or an authoritative/priestly figure, spirits or the dead ancestors, such as a propitiatory offerings or as a retainer sacrifice when a king´s servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribal societies are cannibalism and headhunting.
Human sacrifice was practised in many human societies beginning in prehistoric times. By the Iron Age (1st millennium BCE), with the associated developments in religion (the Axial Age), human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout the Old World, and came to be looked down upon as barbaric during classical antiquity.[citation needed] In the New World, however, human sacrifice continued to be widespread to varying degrees until the European colonization of the Americas. Today, human sacrifice has become extremely rare." - (en.wikipedia.org 26.04.2021)
