Wicker Men and the Gauls

The first known recording of the Gauls creating wicker objects shaped like men comes from Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars. Caesar describes how the Gauls would tie up criminals in the wicker men and then set them ablaze as a form of human sacrifice. He also states that when not enough criminals were found, even innocent people were bound and burned to death.

This is in stark contrast to the Germans who lived across the Rhine. The Germans worshipped the things they could see or feel, such as the sun, the moon and the earth. They did not perform human sacrifices according to Caesar, but later on we discover that Roman prisoners caught after the Varus Disaster in 9CE had their heads nailed to tress, and according to Peter Wells in The Battle that stopped Rome, they were even ritually drowned.

The use of human sacrifice was a custom among the Kelts whose Druids were the final say in all matters concerning religion, and if we believe Wells, was even practiced among the Germans to some extent.

The Latins and Greeks did not practice human sacrifice, and after the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West and with the advent of Christianity, the practice was dropped altogether.