Or, given the flowers found in Neanderthal graves, second oldest?
Gangstas to this day pour part or all of an alcoholic drink on the ground in honor–or propitiation–of their fallen friends. Hell, I’ve been known to do it, too, for the recently deceased to fortify them for their journey, and this is one of those practices found around the world. I know we can’t tell if cavemen did it, unlike the floral burials, but given its universality and the likely early development of booze, is this likely one of the oldest religious practices?
Or third, in light of the pocket-sized, pornographic statues of plump ladies–“Dear Gods and Goddesses, please give me a wife with big boobs and a nice round butt!”
I know the ancient Greeks poured libations to the gods. I’m sure the practiced existed before that. It wasn’t alwys for the dead, though, usually a bit of wine was spilled as an offering to the gods before a meal or whatever. It was only polite to offer them a pull on your 40.
I was about to come in with something similar to Diogenes-- the early Greeks had large vases-- intact kraters just to receive the drink (choai-libation) at the funeral or sometimes without bottoms that they would use as grave markers-- basically ritual funnels over the grave. Many old civilizations did libation to Gods, and interestingly there are rhytons from numerous cultures (sort of ritual scoop/funnels), not just Greeks-- Mesopotamians from the 2d Millennium BCE.
Given how mothers everywhere feel about feeding people and how common it is to find god-images in kitchens (from the lares to today, and from what I’m told, also in pre-roman excavations and pre-hispanic america), I’d say either sacrifices of food-drink or banquets.
Perhaps both, a banquet with a portion set aside for the spirits.
On the libation theme it used to be quite common in England for someone who’d knocked over a salt celler to throw a pinch of salt over their left shoulder in appeasement (haven’t seen it myself for a few years though ) plus isn’t breaking a bottle of champagne over a ships bows during the launch ceremony the same sort of thing ?
Oh,just remembered,over here "touching wood"to stave off bad luck is still quite common ,apparently deriving from the Druids veneration of trees as being sacred.
(guilty look that someone devoted to science is so superstitious–but it couldn’t hurt!) I do it.
DeLorean was doomed from the start because the field they chose had a sacred ash tree in the middle. Folks warned John not to cut down that tree but…well, we saw what happened. It had nothing to do with boring styling three years out of date, availability on only one color, lackluster performance, or selling coke to keep the company going. It was that tree.
Rapper 2Pac (Tupac Shakur) is pretty much responsible for popularizing the “pour out a little liquor” tradition in the urban/gangsta community. I don’t know where he got it, as the tradition obviously predates him, but he rapped about the practice in many of his verses.
I always figured, and this is just a guess, that this was popular among that crowd for the simple reason that liquor is a highly valued commodity in these circles, so sacrificing some out of respect for the dead seems like an appropriate gesture. I know this wasn’t part of your question, but I can’t help share my little bit of tangential knowledge on a subject that interests me.
In Egypt in pre-dynasty times they had a bread and wine sacrifice to Osiris They didn’t pour it on the ground, but used it as many Christians do today. There was a program on PBS several years ago and a woman archeologist said there was still the practice by a few even now.
Many sailors and fishermen pour the first sip overboard to appease the waters. Big ships still have a bottle of booze broken on the prow at the first launch.
In southern Ghana (and probably over much of West Africa) one always pours a few drops on the ground for the ancestors before pouring a round of celebratory drinks.
