Posted on 01/27/2005 10:37:51 PM PST by quidnunc
New finds from an archaeological site near Mexico City support certain written and pictorial evidence concerning Aztec human sacrifice that historians previously doubted because the accounts seemed too exaggerated to be true.
The discovery adds to the growing collection of evidence supporting human sacrifice and cannibalism among the founders of the Mexican empire. It also suggests that researchers might now be able to verify some 16th century Spanish accounts on the subject.
The Spanish and the Aztecs documented at least four observations of cannibalism in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), whose men conquered the Aztecs in 1519, wrote in a letter that his soldiers had captured an Aztec man who had roasted a baby at breakfast time.
While it probably would be impossible to validate that specific account, the Aztec site at Ecatepec, north of Mexico City, has just yielded the remains of eight children whom the Aztecs likely sacrificed.
Archaeologist Nadia Velez Saldana discovered the remains. She told the Associated Press, "The sacrifice involved burning or partially burning victims. We found a burial pit with the skeletal remains of four children who were partially burned, and the remains of four other children that were completely carbonized."
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at dsc.discovery.com ...
Tastes like.....?
Who's to say who's right and who's wrong?
Que se yo?
The summer wind
came blowing in
from across the sea...
If all the American Indian tribes came from the same Bering Sea crossers how come the ones in S. America became human sacrificers and the N. American Indians did not? Or am I just assumeing this?
The other white meat.
Hardly news. If you want to read facinating accounts of human sacrifice rituals in the New World and just about everywhere else in the World, read Frazer's "Golden Bough." Quite horrifying things were done on a very regular basis.
I can't understand why anyone would find this surprising, or even scandalous. Primitive peoples have always indulged in cannibalism; ritual and otherwise. Part of it is based on the universal superstition regarding the transferabilty of "spirit" from one entity to another.
I think I read that some Indians in Florida were cannibals, and there is evidence of cannibalism in the ruins of the Anasazi Indians.
However it is thought that the Anasazi society disintigrated because they were infiltrated by Aztecs.
I can't see any functional difference between this and Wahab Islam.
Yo Quero Taco Bell!
A lot of assumptions on your part.
Yet, I would suggest -- if there is any validity to your theory -- the drug use (psychoactive plant use) contributed a lot.
BTTT
I think you're just assuming it. Read James Fraser's "The Golden Bough." He's got quite a few examples of cannibalism among the North American Indians. The one that sticks in my mind concerns a missionary whose skin was slit open and pieces of fat inserted inside the slits, to keep him well-basted during the cooking process. He managed to escape, and lived for a number of days on the pieces of fat.
Well you could say that about many peoples. For instance what made Germans turn into Nazis, while their cousins in the UK did not.
We all have the capability to do horrendous things, it is simply a result of what contrains such behaviour in any given society. No genetic involved, just culture.
all culture is relative....all culture is relative.....all culture is relative....all culture is relative.
NOT!
Oh yech! That's one book I'm never going to read.
Modern "historians" (revisionists) only doubted these stories because to do so would cast a suspicious and evil eye onto the Catholic Church, of which Cortez was a member. The historcial evidence that Cortez and his small band of men witnessed the horrific sacrifice of babies and females is ample; but rejecting this historical evidence has enabled the liberals to attack the Spanish Explorers, (Catholics), by claiming they unfairly conquered and oppressed the native populations.
When one thinks of how little evidence these "historians" need as "proof" to assert that the likes of Columbus and the Spanish explorers were nothing but brutal conquerers and oppressers of innocent natives it becomes neauseatingly clear that they filter everything through an anti Christian mindset.
If what I heard recently is correct, there's a newer theory that humans populated this hemisphere not from north to south, but from south to north.
Archaeologists discover the Aztecs were notoriously bad cooks, their empire having never discovered the meat thermometer.
Quiero.
That filth raised people to eat them - kind of a feed lot thing.
They didn't come from the same crossers... there were different waves of widely separated migration from different Asian peoples and there is some reason to believe, based on similarity of tool types in eastern north America and Europe, that some early stone age Europeans may have arrived on this continent and blended in as well. There are some fairly strong physical differences and linguistic between American prehistoric groups of people as a result of having different ancestoral stock.
In the midwest, the artwork of the Spiro mounds people and their contemporaries deteriorated markedly at one point- it may have something to do with the increase in the number of jimson weed seeds found in their habitations.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Can you imagine THIS culture surviving into the 21st century? Thank God for the conquistadors!
Thanks for the ping. "And for dessert, Lady Fingers!" ;')
The Aztecs are of particular interest because, compared to most other tribes, which were essentially stone age before interaction with Europeans, they had developed a pretty advanced civilization, but were absolutely merciless. There's an interesting reference page here. The stone age tribes saw human flesh as meat, and ate it. The Aztecs placed it in a religious context.
Of course, many pagan religions teach that eating portions of a vanquished enemy is a method of obtaining their courage. It's also a sign of ultimate dominance, and embeds fear in the surviving foes.
Had Europeans not colonized the Americas a visiting tourist of today would probably find the menu in the Native American restaurants rather unappealing.
{Hardly news. If you want to read facinating accounts of human sacrifice rituals in the New World and just about everywhere else in the World, read Frazer's "Golden Bough." Quite horrifying things were done on a very regular basis.}
http://www.bartleby.com/196/
Hmm, I don't think "flocked" describes it quite accurately...
So right you are. Marvin Harris wrote of how the Spanish explorers wrote secret letters to the Pope about how the Aztecs were meeting their protein needs decades ago. He drove the PC professors like Marshall Sahlins nutz.
Spanish and Catholic "imperialism" was aimed at saving the souls of those cannibals. Kinda like how Bush's "imperialism is aimed at giving liberty to those enslaved by islamofacism.
(No blood for blood!)
I recall reading that Indian tribes (in today's eastern U.S.) would dismember their captives, roast their limbs and eat them before their victim's eyes. I also remember reading a diary of frontier life in Ohio where a settler had his abdomen cut open, one end of his bowels tied to a tree and he was forced to walk around the tree, wrapping his entrails around it, before he died. The brutality gave me the shivers.
We're not much better. We have the IRS.
"If all the American Indian tribes came from the same Bering Sea crossers how come the ones in S. America became human sacrificers and the N. American Indians did not?"
BBQ - it's a summertime thing.
Cultures develop differently in different locations.
Not really blockbuster news.
It has been known for a long time they had some gruesome practices.
I get the groups mixed up, but one of the Meso-American ancient cultures even played soccer with human heads.
The Aztecs hunted many hundreds of miles away for their needed protein. The Anasazi had taken defensive measures (their famous lookout network for one) but eventually fell.
I'd say rather that the Anasazi infiltrated the digestive systems of the Aztecs.
How horridly terrifying.
My history professor doesn't focus on the violent aspects of the Natives, but he does love to talk about how the Natives plundered the land a lot more than we are typically taught. We are taught they respected the Earth, when really, some Indians actually chopped down trees like there was no tomorrow and wasted natural resources like crazy.
I was walking to the Rose Bowl a couple years ago and the San Diego State fans were doing some of the very same rituals....that and smoking a lot of pot.
oh my.
Because of the pagan nature of ancient Mexico and South America, I have very very little pity for my ancient pagan Hispanic ancestry. I'm SOOOO VERYYY HAPPY that Catholic missionaries came and changed the Americas!
--SaltyJoe...in a white wine sauce
(uh, it's a Monty Python reference)
Can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing if I had been in their position. I recall reading how the Plains Indians used to slaughter huge numbers of buffalo, just for the hell of it. But this kind of thing scandalizes the PC crowd, who just must have their own peculiar vision of the Indian. For my part, I'd rather know the truth.
Fortunately I'm old enough to have attended school before political correctness took over - when we studied the native peoples of America, we heard all about the human sacrifices they made. It makes one think more kindly of the Conqusitadors - it was indeed the triumph of civilisation.
Regards, Ivan
Indeed. The Plains tribes, before the reintroduction of the horse to North America, hunted Bison by using fire to drive a huge herd off a cliff, then butchered the dead and dying beasts, taking only choice parts, leaving tons of dead bison to rot. I said that the horse was reintroduced to North America, and it's true. There had been large herds of wild horses some centuries before, but the Native Americans had eaten them into extinction...
the infowarrior
Example: La Virgen de Guadalupe - a depiction of the Virgin Mary as an indiginous woman.
Wow. Where did you read this stuff?
As I recall, the bit about the bison drives came from a Time/Life book on the Native Americans, which I read in the 1970's (would be about 1978-1979). The part about the horses I read somewhere on the internet, about three years ago, although I cannot for the life of me recall which site I read that particular gem on...
the infowarrior
exactly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
