Sparagmos

Medea is said to have killed and dismembered her brother whilst fleeing with Jason and the stolen fleece in order to delay their pursuers, who would be compelled to collect the remains of the prince for burial.

Interpreting the ritual through the lens of the Freudian Oedipus complex, Catherine Maxwell identifies sparagmos as a form of castration, particularly in the case of Orpheus.

[4] Historically, it is presumed that women celebrating the rites of Dionysus did not actually dismember animals or eat raw flesh,[5] although it is believed those acts still had some basis in maenadic ritual.

[7] In Eric Gans' Generative Anthropology, sparagmos is a key component of the hypothetical "originary event" marking the birth of human language and culture.

It occurs as a violent release of mimetic tension following the first use of a sign, involving the dismemberment and consumption of a central object designated as sacred.