ABSTRACT
The Kuranko term for sacrifice is sarake. The type of sacrifice offered and the spirit category invoked depend on the instructions of a diviner, and practically all consultations with a diviner entail subsequent votive offerings. In Kuranko thought a sacrificial gift is given in the name of a spirit category, while ordinary gifts are given in the name of persons or groups of persons. Sacrifice, like gift-giving, involves giving things which are highly-valued as life-sustaining. The sacrificer is thus brought obliquely into a social relationship with external powers; the dangerous and quixotic aspects of the communication explain why an intermediary is used. The distribution of the flesh of sacrificial animals is clearly an important index of the system of social values. The assumption of the Islamic High God, at once otiose and common to all men, can thus be regarded as a result of social necessity rather than as a consequence of the contingencies of history.
