"[8] Ancient Phoenicia saw "a special sacrifice at the season of the harvest, to reawaken the spirit of the vine"; while the winter fertility rite to restore "the spirit of the withering vine" included as sacrifice "cooking a kid in the milk of its mother, a Canaanite custom which Mosaic law condemned and formally forbade".
[9] The death of Adonis – "a vegetation spirit who...was manifest in the seed of corn" – was marked by "the most beautiful of Phoenician festivals...celebrated immediately after the harvest".
[11] Such ceremonies took the form both of "oblations, whether bloody or otherwise", and of "rites which...consist in movements and cries whose object is to imitate the different aspects and attitudes of the animal whose reproduction is desired".
[18] Many fertility rites that have spiritual origins such as European Christians and Pagans drew their methods from "myths, imagery, and ritual practices from the religions".
This practice was performed in medieval Egypt, particularly in Cairo by a jester called the 'Ifrit al-mahmal, when the mahmal carrying the covering of the Kaaba was exhibited.
Many ritual activities performed by Indigenous communities in Mesoamerica were directed to deities of land and rain, as their understanding of fertility was intimately related to specific geographical attributes, such as bodies of water, mountains, and caves.
For this reason, ceremonies and religious rites offered to rain and earth deities were an integral part of most aspects of their socioreligious organization.
Archaeological evidence throughout Mesoamerica attests to the magnanimous importance of fertility rituals for the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec civilizations.