Free An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage Page B

subjugating a new region, the Incas sacrificed its most beautiful people.
    In Egyptian temples, animals were killed and their flesh was presented to images of the gods. The gods were believed to inhabit
     the images three times a day in order to consume the life force from the offerings, which they needed to replenish the energy
     they expended to keep the universe going. Food offerings were also required to maintain the life force of dead humans, who
     had become gods. So offerings were frequently made to dead pharaohs, and tombs were filled with jars of food to sustain the
     dead in the afterlife. Similarly, in Shang China both gods and royal ancestors were offered grain, millet beer, animals (dogs,
     pigs, wild boars, sheep, and cattle), and human sacrifices, most of them prisoners of war. The gods were thought to drink
     the blood of the slaughtered victims. But the most elaborate offerings were made to the ancestors of Shang kings, who depended
     on these sacrifices as food. If their ancestors were not sufficiently well fed, the Shang kings believed, they would punish
     their descendants with poor harvests, military defeats, and plagues.
    The Mesopotamians thought humans had a duty to provide food and earthly residences for the gods, who were provided with two
     meals a day in their temples. The gods depended on this nourishment from humans: In the Mesopotamian version of the flood
     story, the gods destroy humanity and then regret their action when they grow hungry because of the lack of offerings. But
     one of their number, Enki, warns Utnapishtim (the Mesopotamian equivalent of the biblical Noah) of the coming flood and tells
     him to build an ark. When Utnapishtim emerges from his boat and offers a burnt sacrifice, the gods crowd around the smoke
     “like flies” because it is the first nourishment they have had in days. They then forgive Enki for allowing a few humans to
     survive. The Mesopotamians believed the gods could survive without humans, but only if they produced their own food—which
     is why they created humans to do it for them, and taught humans about agriculture.
    In all these cases, sacrifices and offerings channel energy back to the supernatural realm as spiritual food to nourish gods
     and ancestors and ensure that they, in turn, continue to nourish mankind by keeping the agricultural cycle going. The pre
     senta tion of sacrifices gave the elite a crucial intermediary role between the gods and the farming masses. By paying tax,
     the farmers in effect exchanged food for earthly order and stability, as the elite managed irrigation systems, orga nized
     military defenses, and so on. And by providing sacrifices to the gods, the elite in effect exchanged spiritual food for cosmic
     order, as the gods maintained the stability of the universe and the fertility of the soil.
    That such similar religious ideologies arose in the earliest civilizations, separated as they were in time and space, is surely
     no coincidence. The notion that the gods depended on offerings from mankind for their survival was peculiar to these cultures,
     no doubt because it was very con ve nient for the members of their ruling elites. It legitimized the unequal distribution
     of wealth and power and provided an implicit warning that without the managerial activities of the elite, the world would
     come to an end. The farmers, their rulers, and the gods all depended on each other to ensure their survival; catastrophe would
     ensue if any of them deviated from their assigned roles. But just as the farmers had a moral imperative to provide food to
     the elite, the elite in turn had a duty to look after the people and keep them safe and healthy. There was, in short, a social
     compact between the farmers and their rulers (and, by extension, the gods): If we provide for you, you must provide for us.
     The result was that taxes paid in earthly food and sacrifices of spiritual food, all justified by religious ideology, reinforced
     the