Yep - now we have lost the quaint practices of the South American indigenous peoples forever....
Posted on 01/23/2008 11:00:57 AM PST by SunkenCiv
The victims of human sacrifice by Mexico's ancient Mayans, who threw children into water-filled caverns, were likely boys and young men not virgin girls as previously believed, archeologists said on Tuesday... Maya priests in the city of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan peninsula sacrificed children to petition the gods for rain and fertile fields by throwing them into sacred sinkhole caves, known as "cenotes." The caves served as a source of water for the Mayans and were also thought to be an entrance to the underworld. Archeologist Guillermo de Anda from the University of Yucatan pieced together the bones of 127 bodies discovered at the bottom of one of Chichen Itza's sacred caves and found over 80 percent were likely boys between the ages of 3 and 11. The other 20 percent were mostly adult men said de Anda, who scuba dives to uncover Mayan jewels and bones. He said children were often thrown alive to their watery graves to please the Mayan rain god Chaac. Some of the children were ritually skinned or dismembered before being offered to the gods, he said... Archeologists previously believed young female virgins were sacrificed because the remains, which span from around 850 AD until the Spanish colonization, were often found adorned with jade jewelry.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
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Thanks DaveLoneRanger for the MSN link. |
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Let’s hear it for those Conquistadors!
Because, as all archaeologists know, only virgins could wear jade. I believe non-virgins preferred onyx. Those in neither category are found with mother-of-pearl.
Revisionist history to make the Spanish look less like oppressive conquerors and more like liberators. Kinda like Janet Reno commenting on the Branch Davidians. “We burned them alive because children were being abused in the compound.”
Oh yes! The rack and strappado used by the Inquisition were such 'civilized' ways of enforcing religious belief!
It’s not revisionism, because the Spanish didn’t flay the kiddies alive and then drown them.
How is it possible to worship such a god?
‘Cause if you don’t, you wind up drowned in a cenote. Some of the remains were of adults.
“Oh yes! The rack and strappado used by the Inquisition were such ‘civilized’ ways of enforcing religious belief!”
Try to find some accurate history of the Inquisition.
Sorry. A sad and sick reality in this world and modern culture.
“It’s not revisionism, because the Spanish didn’t flay the kiddies alive and then drown them.”
But they did throw babies to their dogs, according to one friar’s report.
Oh, in that case, it’s better to just forget about the earlier slaughter. ;’)
As today’s abortion debate illistrates:
It all depends on who gets to be defined as human!
I suppose the inquisitors used diplomacy and reasoned with their captors?
When you feel that your life depends on it, probably. "If Chaac doesn't get his sacrifice, it won't rain and we'll all die."
From a Wikipedia article:
At its core, sacrifice symbolized the renewal of divine energy and, in doing so, the continuation of life. Its ability of bloodletting to do this is based on two intertwined concepts that are prevalent in the Maya belief system. The first is the notion that the gods had given life to humankind by sacrificing parts of their own bodies. The second is the central focus of their mythology on human blood, which signified life among the Maya. Within their belief system, human blood was partially made up of the blood of the gods, who sacrificed their own divine blood in creating life in humans. Thus, in order to continually maintain the order of their universe, the Maya believed that blood had to be given back to the gods.And spilling your own blood played an important part in Mayan religion.
Autosacrifice was typically performed with obsidian prismatic blades or stingray spines. Blood was drawn from piercing or cutting the tongue, earlobes, and/or the genitals, among other locations. Another technique was to draw a rope with attached thorns through the tongue or earlobes. The blood produced was then collected on paper held in a bowl and often burned. The act of burning the sacrificed blood symbolized the transferal of the offering to the gods via its transformation into smoke that would rise.Generally, the location of the bloodletting on the body correlated with an intended result or a corresponding symbolic representation. For example, drawing blood from the genitals, especially the male sex organs, would be done with the intent of increasing or representing human fertility.
It’s like Islam. Women are for having babies.
Everything else is about sex, including young boys.
Do you have an "approved" bibliography to suggest?
All cultures are equally valid bump ;^)
A persistent Bermuda High off the coast served to stop rainfall in the Yucatan for a couple of hundred years.
The tour guides in Costa Maya say the Spanish Priests singlehandedly destroyed the Maya culture. Everywhere. Also that stories of human sacrifice and cannabalism were all fabrications. Guess they’ll have to revise that.
“How is it possible to worship such a god?”
They make you an offering; you can’t refuse.
[sorry].....;]
In fact, over in Venezuela they're trying to invent a brand new type ~ Coca-mocha we might call it. That's where your Presidente issues crazy orders, steals people's stuff, and chews coca leaf all the time.
Blaming the Spanish, in general, for the deeds of the Conquistidores is not only wrong, it's an insult to the Conquistidores. They did their own stuff and with little guidance from Madrid.
I think any of them would be willing to own up to his own deeds.
“That’s where your Presidente issues crazy orders, steals people’s stuff, and chews coca leaf all the time.”
Clinton?
The Mayans the Spanish met were but a shadow of their ancesters and their civilization.
I think he cut out the “middle man” part ~ the leaf, and went straight for the powder.
The Mayan civilization crashed, burned and depopulated long before the Conquistidores showed up.
A persistent Bermuda High off the coast served to stop rainfall in the Yucatan for a couple of hundred years.
Guess that "ritual mutilation" didn't do much good then.
I can think of lotsa better things to do with my genitals; all including my wife ;-)
The rituals failed. Their civilization failed. In the end they owe their biological survival and any memory of their former glory to the arrival of the Spanish.
Partially true. The Spanish priests burned all of the Mayan books--thousands of them--only three survived. But no credible scholar disputes the blood sacrifice stuff. There are too many images of it painted on the walls to deny. Only the details can be quibbled about.
*rimshot*.....;]
:’)
“Do you have an “approved” bibliography to suggest?”
Oh, tee hee hee, let’s use the word “approved” in quotation marks, as a clever way to call dsc a liar.
“I suppose the inquisitors used diplomacy and reasoned with their captors?”
I’m still grateful to the Blood Trail thread for tipping me off about Hep C and probably saving my life, but supposing that the inquisitors used diplomacy and reasoned with their prisoners is a hell of a lot closer to the truth than what you actually suppose.
The both of you can start with a simple Google search on “The Black Legend.” Then, you can read the pertinent sections of “Iberia” by Michener.
Then, you might look here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1829676/posts
“PBS will not air a movie that its officials say paints Muslims in a bad light, ‘Islam vs. Islamists,’ but it has no qualms about showing a flick that Catholics have every right to question. This film is advertised on PBS’s website with an eerie black background depicting all the ‘T’s’ as crosses. All that is missing is Dracula’s voiceover. ‘For over half a millennium a system of mass terror reigned,’ it says, and ‘Thousands were subject to secret courts, torture and punishment.’ This is plainly dishonest.
“As British historian Henry Kamen has shown in his magisterial work, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, almost all the conventional wisdom about the Inquisition is wrong. By comparison with secular courts at the time, the Inquisition’s methods were more humane, e.g., defendants could be represented by an attorney. Edward Peters, another student of the period, says, ‘Modern historiography has completely blown the old Inquisition propaganda out of the water. No one seriously contends that hundreds of thousands or millions were killed, or that the Protestant countries were any more humane than Spain was.’ Indeed, scholars today refer to the old school mythology as ‘the Black Legend,’ a tale of lies spun by Elizabethan England. No wonder that in 1994, BBC/A&E aired ‘The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition.’
“Here’s what we know. Of the approximately 125,000 cases tried by the Spanish Inquisition, 1 percent resulted in the death penalty. Of the so-called witch hunts, where women were burned at the stake, secular courts executed 50,000 (not all of whom were women); less than 100 were killed by the Inquisition. Solzhenitsyn once compared the killings that took place in the Soviet Union in 1937 and 1938 to the killings that took place during the Spanish Inquisition and found that 20,000 were killed per month in the U.S.S.R. and 10 were killed per month during the Inquisition. But don’t look for such comparisons on PBS. To do so might get in the way of the truth.”
That should get you started.
Better than having your heart torn our, being skinned and/or roasted alive.
Besides, you could always convert without the “encouragement,” whereas the wonderful pre-Columbian civilizations were happy to sacrifice you no matter what your beliefs.
Killing off the Aztec, Inca and Maya “civilizations” was a GOOD thing...
That is a very perceptive comment. The Spanish Conquistadors had just completed the 750+ year long Reconquista in which the Iberian peninsula was retaken by various Christian kingdoms from the Muslims. The prevailing belief at the time was that the one thing that differentiated human beings from animals was the existence of a soul. The thing that justified the armed struggle against Muslims and pagans was that they had forfeited their souls rendering them not human and beyond salvation and protection by God.
Further, the practices they discovered in the New World were so extreme, even in comparison to Muslims, lead to the conclusion that the practitioners were so far beyond non-human as to be Satanic.
re: sacrificing boys instead of virgins
Older alpha males of most animal families do something similar to keep down their competition. No fools they.
RE: “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to force you into transvestism, then skin or dismember you, then drown you.”
But all sacrificial lambs in every culture are sold the sizzle, not the frying pan. I imagine the follow-up to be something like:
“Then you’ll go to Chac heaven and live forever with 72 virgins we’ve either missed or elected not to deflower.”
Lamb: “Praise Chac from whom all blessings flow”
:’)
“Further, the practices they discovered in the New World were so extreme, even in comparison to Muslims, lead to the conclusion that the practitioners were so far beyond non-human as to be Satanic.”
Do you have a source for that?
“The thing that justified the armed struggle against Muslims “
The thing that justified the armed struggle against the Muslims was the same thing that justified India’s struggle against the British: they were invaders and colonial masters.
“Lamb: “Praise Chac from whom all blessings flow””
The problem with your use of Christian phraseology here is that Christianity explicitly rejects not only human, but animal and even botanical sacrifice.
I’m sure you wouldn’t like to imply anything about Christianity that wasn’t strictly true.
I don’t think a little satire about religion’s “phraseology” is bad. After all, the phrases are simply something a human wrote, not the actual words of God inscribed on stone.
Isn’t Christianity all about Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity? The sacrifice of One for the many so to speak.
And aside from the dicta of faith, if I were you, I wouldn’t want to delve too closely into the canons of liturgy and ritual that involve eating and drinking the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ.
“I don’t think a little satire about religion’s “phraseology” is bad.”
Satire is good when it sheds light on the truth; bad when it leads into error. Yours is of the latter kind.
“Isn’t Christianity all about Christ’s self-sacrifice for humanity? The sacrifice of One for the many so to speak.”
What does that have to do with error?
“I wouldn’t want to delve too closely into the canons of liturgy and ritual that involve eating and drinking the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ.”
That would explain why you have apparently refrained from delving closely enough to understand the matter.
“What does that have to do with error?”
Beats me. I didn’t bring up ‘error’ at all. You are the one who arbitrarily demonizes and consigns my satire to “error” which is merely your opinion as shaped by the teachings of your faith.
You have constructed a tautology that refuses to acknowlege any differences of opinion from your own as possibly valid. And that’s the problem I have with some religious people.
“You are the one who arbitrarily demonizes and consigns my satire to “error” which is merely your opinion as shaped by the teachings of your faith.”
Let’s review the action here…
You posted a reply to a description of the pre-Columbian religion (RE: “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to force you into transvestism, then skin or dismember you, then drown you.”) by talking about “all sacrificial lambs in every culture,” then had an Indio priest saying “…you’ll go to Chac heaven,” and the person to be sacrificed replying “Praise Chac from whom all blessings flow,” thereby fleshing out your “all sacrificial lambs in every culture” remark with a specific link between the human-sacrificing Indios and Christianity.
That is your error, as my first reply to you says: “The problem with your use of Christian phraseology here is that Christianity explicitly rejects not only human, but animal and even botanical sacrifice. I’m sure you wouldn’t like to imply anything about Christianity that wasn’t strictly true.”
This is not “demonizing,” unless you regard any difference of opinion as demonizing. And it does not “consign” your satire to error, it points out that your satire is erroneous as a matter of objective fact, not as any matter of faith, but in equating a human-sacrificing religion with one that has no provisions for such sacrifices.
“You have constructed a tautology that refuses to acknowlege any differences of opinion from your own as possibly valid. And that’s the problem I have with some religious people.”
I have done no such thing. I have pointed out that you are in error when you link or equate a religion that practices human sacrifice with one that does not.
But then, don’t you really think that all religions are equally bad, or almost so? And don’t you really think that all religions are only a matter of faith, and that faith is irrational?
43 posted on 01/25/2008 1:59:03 PM MST by wildbill
It has much to do with Paganism. What you are describing has nothing to do with Yah'shua (Jesus)
b'SHEM Yah'shua
I absolutely agree with you although I’m not sure its strictly paganism. A pagan was how Christians defined those who still worshipped the gods of ancient Rome and Greece and variations of the practice are found all over the world.
However, a Melanesian warrior from Borneo today would instantly recognize the belief in (ritual) cannibalism as a way of absorbing the power or spirit of the Other. Cannibalism has never been explained by its primitive native practitioners as a palliative for hunger or protein, but rather as a spiritual joining.
“However, a Melanesian warrior from Borneo today”
You don’t understand the first tiny thing about the Sacrament of the Eucharist. You don’t have the faintest scintilla of a clue that would be large enough for a scanning electron microscope to detect.
You congratulate yourself on your superiority to those who do understand, but in fact you wallow in misprision and disinformation. Ignorance would be a step in the right direction for you.
Yep - now we have lost the quaint practices of the South American indigenous peoples forever....
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