11. SACRIFICE AND RITUALIZATION Caroline Humphrey and James Laidlaw The ethnographic case of a rite of animal sacrifice (taxilag) in a Buddhist monastery temple in Inner Mongolia, together with other associated rites from the same region, is used to test a theory of ritualization put forward by the authors in previous publications, where the ethnographic case was the quite dif- ferent and contrasting Jain puja, from Western India. This prompts some clari- fications to the analytical category of sacrifice, and a clear distinction between it and ritualization. The ritualization of the ceremony in which a sacrifice is per- formed need not imply or require ritualization of the sacrifice itself. I n the summers of 1998 to 2002 we 1 were investigating sacred land- scapes in Inner Mongolia. The southern side of the Mona Uula moun- tain range, running parallel to the Huang-He (Yellow) River, is an area believed by Mongols to be densely permeated with spirit powers. These, called “masters” (ejid), inhere in rivers, spring, crags, animal trails, water- falls, caves, tops of mountains, and especially in green and bushy trees. There are also various artifacts in this landscape, such as stupas, victory flag-staffs, and round stone cairns called oboo, where the same or similar “masters” dwell or can be called into presence. It was impressed on us that the most obvious thing the local people do with regard to these sites and objects is to offer them, or the spirits in them, “sacrifices.” More exactly, they hold events called taxilag (from the verb taxi-, to propitiate), which we identified with the anthropological idea of sacrifice. Most of these occasions involve the killing of a domesticated animal, the offering of cer- tain of its organs to the spirit power, and the subsequent consumption of the edible parts of the dead beast. Clearly ritual and clearly sacrifice, one might think. But as we observed the haphazard, ad hoc character of these taxilag, which nevertheless include certain extremely formalized sections, and when we considered the range of activities that can be called a taxi- lag—an event that sometimes deliberately omits the killing of an ani- mal—we began to query both of the key terms. What was “ritualized” about these events? And what was “sacrificial”? The more we thought 255 11-HumphreyLaidlaw.qxp 7/8/2007 12:29 PM Page 255