Voodoo History

Sacrifice is to give up something that has meaning to you as an offering to a spirit or gods or goddess. In Africa, and most other areas of the world where Voodoo is practiced, the majorities of the people raise, slaughter, and then cook their own animals. So when an African or Haitian sacrifices an animal to one of the Gods, he has given up something he has raised probably from an egg, and intended to eat (though in most cases, the Gods only consume the "essence" of the animal, and the physical component is left over for the sacrifice to eat -- nothing is wasted). In contrast, if a normal American were to go buy a live chicken and sacrifice it to a god, He would most likely have some problems with animal rights people. The only thing it would really "mean" to that person would be the money he spent buying it. And the whole ritual would be essentially fouled up with weird emotions over the killing of an animal; he would probably be at least a little sickened by the whole thing, and so on. Also, he would not be able to eat the remaining physical part of the chicken once the ritual was complete, because he would have no idea how to properly clean, cut up, and otherwise prepare a whole animal -- the animal would essentially be wasted. People who normally kill their own food don't have these problems: there's nothing "weird" about killing to them -- they do it every day, they won't become ill over it, and they certainly know what to do with the carcass once the "essence" has been consumed by the Gods This is why in modern times money is sacrificed as an offering to the gods showing that the person wanting something good to happen for them is willing to give up something so the voodoo spell will work for them.