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- Title
BULL SACRIFICE AT ESFANJAN, A CASE OF RITUAL SYNCRETISM.
- Authors
ASKARPOUR, Vahid; KHALILF, Mohaddese; MOTTAGHI, Neshat; MOTTAGH, Neshat; MOGHADDAS, Amirhossein
- Abstract
Annual sacrifice of bull is a local ritual performed in one of the villages near Tabriz, known as Esfan.jan. The ritual contains some features in terms of its date of exercise. its eminent emphasis on the bull. and the narrative which surrounds it, that absolutely take it apart from the current religious context of the village's inhabitants, Islam. The present paper concerns with resolving this dilemma by looking for its possible pre-Islamic roots, through an in-depth examination of sacrifice within Avestan traditions. Through a consideration of sacrifice und its status within pre-Islamic religious traditions of Iran. and comparing their basic features with findings of ethnographical observations, it is shown that there ix a tight match between the observed cult and pre-Islamic doctrines on animal sacrifice. As a relevant theoretical framework, syncretism is adapted here to discuss the hybrid nature of the Esfanian event. which is composed of both Islamic and non-Islamic features. Although the exact origin of the Esfanjan bull sacrifice remains unknown, something is clear: it is not a passive remnant of something lost forever, but an active product of a creative process. through which some new and hybrid creature comes out of a successful interbreeding of two different belief systems.
- Subjects
RITUALS (Liturgical books); DILEMMA; ISLAMIC countries; CROSSBREEDING; ZOROASTRIANISM
- Publication
Iranica Antiqua, 2021, Vol 56, p261
- ISSN
0021-0870
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2143/IA.56.0.3290278