At the Mordvinian horse sacrifice, as described by the Italian traveller Barbaro, who saw it at the end of the 16th century, the horse was tied by the neck to the sacrificial stake in the pit of sacrifice, as victims were tied in the ritual of the Indian Barbishadah, described in p. 23 5, and killed with arrows. The skin stufi'ed with straw was lifted to the top of the sacred tree of the sacrificial ground and adorned with rags and ribbons 9. The head of this year-horse slain at the beginning of the year symbolised the resurrection of the sun-god of that preceding it, who was again to die at the end of his year's course.