Wicker man since 1986, an effigy of a man has been burned during Burning Man, a week-long annual event currently being held in Black Rock Desert, Nevada. Wicker man A wicker man was a large wicker statue reportedly used by the ancient Druids (priests of Celtic paganism) for sacrifice by burning it in effigy. The main evidence for this practice is one sentence in Julius Caesar's "Commentary on the Gallic war", which modern scholarship has linked to an earlier writer, Poseidonius. Modern archaeological research has not yielded much evidence of human sacrifice among the Celts, and the ancient Greco-Roman sources are now
Burning Man Francisco County Superior Court. On June 30, 2009, the California Court of Appeal for the First District upheld the trial court's grant of summary judgment to Black Rock City, LLC on the basis that visitors who deliberately walk towards the Burning Man after it is lit assume the risk of getting burned by such an obviously hazardous object. On September 3, 2017 a 41-year-old man, Aaron Joel Mitchell, fought his way past a safety cordon of volunteers and firefighters and threw himself into the flames of the primary Burning Man effigy. Mitchell died the next day due to cardiac arrest,