#like we're talking 1500s and 1600s for hitobashira

[tlaquetzqui]

So I noticed, rewatching FMA Brotherhood, that “sacrifice” isn’t actually the word the homunculi say. That would be ikenie. Nope, they say hitobashira. Which, I knew thanks to Kimetsu no Yaiba, means “person pillar” (okay I already knew hito of course).

Turns out, hitobashira, AKA dǎshēngzhuāng, is a practice throughout the Sinosphere where you bury people alive in or near a construction project, as human sacrifices to undo any bad luck caused by your building disrupting the local topomantic arrangements. It was first proposed by Lu Ban, a Chinese architect of the Zhou Dynasty later deified as patron of builders.