The Homeric epics deliberately censored human sacrifice from their narratives.

Evidence

When enslaved Africans arrived in the American colonies, they brought with them traditions of percussive rhythm that could be made on a drum as easily as with the body. The Christianity that defined colonial life had alternative musical priorities, melody being the most substantial. But, gradually, the dislocated, reluctantly acculturated Africans made modifications. One of these became known as the ring shout, wherein people would dance and chant in a circle. Rhythm merged with harmony, culminating in survival songs chiefly inspired by the Bible’s most salient tales. When enslavers made the Bible available, they often removed all of Exodus, with its stories of divine justice, of the Lord delivering Israel from bondage. The enslaved people who were familiar with those stories, firsthand or otherwise, built them into sermons and incorporated them into songs, songs intoned in small prayer houses and formal churches. They sang while they worked, achieving conversance in a book many of them were never allowed to become literate enough to read, a book whose allegories some enslavers deemed too resonant for the fertile imaginations of the enslaved. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1093 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Enslavers censored the Bible’s Exodus story to suppress liberation narratives — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 1093

Broader Connections

• Enslavers censored the Bible’s Exodus story to suppress liberation narratives #expands (0.78) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1093