Scapegoating is an archaic ritual - in the tribes of Israel, there was a ceremonial day each year where the whole group would bring their troubles in the form of articles of clothing, dolls, rocks and various symbolic representatives to the edge of the village. They would have a purging ceremony to cleanse their families, themselves and their village of any evil influences that had caused their troubles to manifest. These troubles might be infertility, madness, loss of crops or animals, financial distress, lack of marriage partner for an elder daughter - anything that might beset any family or person in any time, culture or circumstance.
.....I will let fall a shower of roses. I will spend my Heaven doing good upon earth.
They would then pile all their 'troubles' into a basket and place it on the back of a goat and drive it out into the desert. The goat then became the carrier of the evil, the figure of burden and the one who bore the troubles of the collective. Even as late as the sixth century, it was an Ionian practice to use scapegoat-magic to read their villages of such burdens.
OK guys....quit messing about. Put me down now!
The ancient Athenians had a formal ceremony each year in which the citizens would inscribe upon an ostracon - a broken piece of pottery - the name of someone particularly odious to them or the community. It was largely a political ritual, but occasionally an ordinary citizen's name was found upon an ostracon. When the ostraca were all placed in a great vessel, they would be separated and counted. The person whose name was most frequently found upon an ostracon would be sent out of the city into exile for the year. Thus ostracized from his community, the citizen would have purged the city of its 'evil' person.
image credit as above
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