Kondh Woman

"Woman with parasol and pot" 

Bronze, India (West Bengal or Orissa), 17th-18th century.

Compliments of Smithsonian Institution.

The Kondh are a tribal people of eastern India who worship the Earth Goddess Teri. As derived from their early creation myth, "there can be no fertility for the community without human blood falling on the ground." With time, their cult evolved the idea that human sacrifice was indispensable not only for maintaining the immediate community, but the entire world. This gave rise to the Meriah sacrifices, the victims of which were usually children. For the duration of the ceremony, the sacrificial victims were viewed as the actual incarnation of the divinity. They were then strangled and cut into pieces, the pieces then buried in the fields for the sake of agricultural fertility. (See Barbara Boal. The Kondhs: Human Sacrifice and Religious Change, 1997.)

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