The Sacrifice of Princess Inikpi

Statue of Princess Inikpi

Between 1515 and 1516 there was a war called The Igala–Benin War. It was a short conflict between the Igala Kingdom and the Kingdom of Benin in what is now Nigeria. For the Iglas people, their land seemed to be in trouble. It's said that streams of water were poisonous and the people were starving. All due to the Beni's

Ayegbu Oma Idoko, the Atta of the Igala kingdom would consult an oracle for help with their problems. However, the oracle would give him devastating news. His beloved daughter Princess Inikpi had to be buried alive for there to be victory. This would devastate him.

For seven days he would mourn the idea of either losing his daughter or losing his people. He would refuse to eat or drink and was in a depressed state. Inikpi seeing her father this way worried her. She would ask him what was wrong and in turn, he refused to talk. This is until the eighth day when he admits in tears to Inikpi and tells her of the oracle's prediction.

Surprisingly Princess Inikpi would take the news well. She loved her father and loved her people just as much as she was loved. She would not go against fate and volunteered for it. She had either gone to the bank of River Niger at Idah or market square. She and nine virgin slaves would be buried alive. The slaves buried with her were to help her on the other side.

It's said that Inikpi's sacrifice did protect her people. The Bini armies came to attack, but they saw the town in flames and retreated. They saw no point in attacking a town on fire and being destroyed already. It was said that the blood of the princess was what deceived them.
Princess Inkpi's sacrifice still stands as an important event. To this day she is still seen as a hero who saved her people from slaughter. A statue of the princess stands at “Ega” in Idah. Today many of the people in Idah are named in her honor.

SOURCES:

Wikipedia (The Igala–Benin War)

Wikipedia ( Princess Inikpi)

Steemit

The Gaurdian July 28, 2019

Pulse October 26, 2022

The Incan Woman

 

Panzer et. al, PLOS ONE 2014

Allegedly, in the 1890s, during her trip to South America Princess Therese of Bavaria received two mummies. It's unknown what had happened to one of the mummies, but the other was that of an Incan woman. Parts of the legs of the woman were destroyed during WWII, but still remain well intact other than her missing legs.  She was donated to the Anatomical Institute of the Ludwig-Maximilian University in 1904. 

It was initially thought that she was a European bog body at first. After an Analysis of her hair though it showed that she was from South American Origins. This made sense because the braided style of her hair was not common in Europe. The bands holding her hair together were made from alpaca or llama hair and had a high diet of seafood and maize. This likely means she is from near the coastline of Peru or Chile, but there was a change in diet the 10 months before her death. She either changed her diet or moved from the area where she lived. She was likely buried in the dry sands of the Atacama Desert to preserve her body. 

It's believed that she was a pre-Columbian Incan woman.  She was between the ages of 20 to 25-years-old. 

A CT scan of the woman shows that she was murdered. It is unknown if she was a sacrifice or not, but it was likely.  She had been killed by being hit with a sharp object several times to the front of her skull. The skull bones were found in her brain cavity. However, even if she wasn't killed she was dying from Chagas disease caused from parasites. 

SOURCES:

National Library of Medicine

Archeology

Mummipedia

Sarita

 

In September of 1996, the body of a teenage girl was found on the East face atop the 18,070 ft Andean peak in Sara Sara, Peru. She was discovered by Johan Reinhard, a senior researcher at Mountain Institute in West Virginia, and José Antonio Chavez, dean of archaeology at the Catholic University in Arequipa, Peru. It was found that the girl was a sacrifice 500 years ago for the Inca Gods including the sun moon and mountain. There was evidence that Sarita had been killed with a blow to the head. 

Sarita was a teenage girl around 14-years-old. She was slender and weighed 80 lbs at the time. She was healthy and her bones and teeth were strong. She had a well-balanced diet and had fasted the day before her death. 

She was found in the fetal position and placed on a platform along with three gold and silver statuettes and a small bundle of coca leaves, these were traditional offerings to the mountain gods. There were 7 more offerings with her, a seven-inch tall silver female statuette wrapped in textiles, one silver and gold male statuette, a female figurine, a llama carved out of spodylus shell, and on a nearby platform was one gold and one silver llama.

Because Sarita had been left on the sun-drenched east face of the mountain, her body had decomposed. Reinhard and his team moved the mummy to the snow-covered south face to freeze it before a 20-hour journey to the conservation laboratory at Catholic University, where Sarita will be preserved and eventually unwrapped.

SOURCES:
Archeology

PNAS

Crystal Links