DISMEMBERMENT. Among the many procedures that are carried out in sacrificial ritual, dismemberment and distribution of the victim's body figure prominently. Moreover, beyond its physical dimension, dismemberment also possesses complex and highly significant social, symbolic, and intellectual dimensions, as has been shown, for instance, in Jean-Pierre Vernant's analysis of the primordial sacrifice performed by Prometheus, according to Hesiod's Theogony. For, as Vernant has argued, the division of the victim's body in effect establishes the difference between gods, who are immortal and have no need of food (since they receive only the victim's bones and fat) and humans, who receive portions of bloody meat wrapped in an ox's stomach and whose lives are thus characterized by hunger, death, and ultimate bodily decay.

Whereas the Promethean model of sacrificial division (evident also in the sacrifices of the Greek city-states) served to discuss and establish the distinction between human and divine...