Posted on 08/23/2006 9:54:02 AM PDT by Marius3188
CALPULALPAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people travelling with invading Spanish forces in 1520.
Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archaeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say.
The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children travelling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king of the Aztec empire's No. 2 city of Texcoco.
Experts say the discovery proves some Aztecs did resist the conquistadors led by explorer Hernan Cortes, even though history books say most welcomed the white-skinned horsemen in the belief they were returning Aztec gods.
"This is the first place that has so much evidence there was resistance to the conquest," said archaeologist Enrique Martinez, director of the dig at Calpulalpan in Tlaxcala state, near Texcoco.
"It shows it wasn't all submission. There was a fight."
The caravan was apparently captured because it was made up mostly of the mulatto, mestizo, Maya Indian and Caribbean men and women given to the Spanish as carriers and cooks when they landed in Mexico in 1519, and so was moving slowly.
The prisoners were kept in cages for months while Aztec priests from what is now Mexico City selected a few each day at dawn, held them down on a sacrificial slab, cut out their hearts and offered them up to various Aztec gods.
Some may have been given hallucinogenic mushrooms or pulque -- an alcoholic milky drink made from fermented cactus juice -- to numb them to what was about to happen.
TEETH MARKS
"It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected," Martinez said, standing in his lab amid boxes of bones, some of young children.
"You can only imagine what it was like for the last ones, who were left six months before being chosen, their anguish."
The priests and town elders, who performed the rituals on the steps of temples cut off by a perimeter wall, sometimes ate their victims' raw and bloody hearts or cooked flesh from their arms and legs once it dropped off the boiling bones.
Knife cuts and even teeth marks on the bones show which ones had meat stripped off to be eaten, Martinez said.
Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual.
In Aztec times the site was called Zultepec, a town of white-stucco temples and homes where some 5,000 people grew maize and beans and produced pulque to sell to traders.
Priests had to be brought in for the ritual killings because human sacrifices had never before taken place there, Martinez said.
On hearing of the months-long massacre, Cortes renamed the town Tecuaque -- meaning "where people were eaten" in the indigenous Nahuatl language -- and sent an army to wipe out its people.
When they heard the Spanish were coming, the Zultepec Aztecs threw their victims' possessions down wells, unwittingly preserving buttons and jewellery for the archaeologists.
The team, which began work here in 1990, also found remains of domestic animals brought from Spain, like goats and pigs.
"They hid all the evidence," said Martinez. "Thanks to that act, we have been allowed to discover a chapter we were unaware of in the conquest of Mexico."
BBQ ping!
I've never seen a good recipe for conquistidor.
Go Yale!
What's interesting about this is so many mainstream historians dismissed the account by the conquistadors as wild exaggeration, utter fabrication, based on bigotry against natives etc... Well it turns out the spanish simply told the plain truth in their accounts on this one...
Ah yes, the noble savage.
Mmm...new official US immigration policy - announce that captured illegals will get the "aztec treatment".
"I've never seen a good recipe for conquistidor."
That's because you have to cook them slowly to get them tender. You are better off cooking the monks that accompanied them -- especially the Friars.
It wasn't so much the recipe but the presentation. They would serve the cooked Spaniards on their own armor which was the first time a Mexican waiter said, 'Careful, the plate is hot'.
But they were noble savages, so much more advanced than the depraved Europeans!
There are different ones for male and female.
Cause sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
"Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual."
America worships the same pagan gods today.
Oh! The humanity!
Well of course they cooked them first- boiling kills off the smallpox, don't you know.
I've heard they taste just like chicken.
LOL!!
It sounds like ethnic cleansing, noble savage-style.
"Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual."
America worships the same pagan gods today.
I give you a 9.9 out of 10.0 for that comment....
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Tapas?
Hate to tell the scholar, but I've seen the evidence written about years ago; back before PC took hold. We studied this in a middle school social studies class. Of course, the teacher there (last of a dying breed) also stated that he was saddened by the rewriting of history and that future students would not get a full education due to concerns we may actually be offended by others and not just ourselves. I need to add that he used an old social science book and not our current, timid, "feel good", hate America books. These were the same titles, by the same company, but 30 years apart in publication.
The truth can only be hidden so long.
The members of that unfortunate caravan were apparenly doing jobs that the conquistadors refused to do...
I remember reading History of the Conquest of Mexico, forgot by who. It detailed a number of 'bbq' eat outs and other peaceful hobbies.
Yep, just living in harmony with his fellow man and good ol' Mother Earth!;)
(On hearing of the months-long massacre, Cortes ...sent an army to wipe out its people.)
Too bad we didn't do that to the people who slowly cut our people's heads off.
Finally, absolute proof that Moslem explorers discovered and converted Mexico before the Spaniards!
"It shows it wasn't all submission. There was a fight."
Mexicans once AGAINST immigration?
There is a historical fiction written by Gary Jennings called Aztec that gives very graphic accounts of these rituals.
Love the headline -- makes it sound as though the Aztecs never invaded anywhere.
Poor put upon Aztecs.
That would be mainstream media and leftist university historians and anthro-apologists, who project their own kumbuya narcissism onto people who lived long ago. They tell us the Neanderthals died out from global warming and lack of a free lunch program and free health care when the truth is we killed them off in war. They can't stand that humans are the product of a violent killer past, that we owe our high speed evolution and high intelligence to war making. They foolishly pontificate the violence has been bred out of us and it's now time to disarm our military and spend the savings, preferably on them.
...who are we to say that one culture is superior or more civilized than any other.
Winner! LOL!
Then why do they call it "long pig"?
A full generation is usually enough.
Mexico is still against illegal immigration--when it comes their way.
Just try and live there without a permit. I double dog dare ya!
And as for getting employment (taking away some Mexican's job), forget it.
Violating any of the above will get you into some very nasty trouble. I guarantee you wont like Mexican jails.
Just a peaceful religion, very misunderstood
Well, of course they boiled the bones. How else are you going to make stock?
A colleague gave me a copy of "Aztec" the day I reported for duty at the Embassy in Mexico City. It should be required reading for anyone planning on visiting Mexico. It was fascinating reading; obviously, Jennings did some serious research.
IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!
The Aztecs are still romanticized in Mexico, and that is really too bad.
What type of marinade did they use I wonder.As for the ones waiting in line,I think they would need to be cleansed very well to get the smell of going #1 and #2 in their britches after hearing their future beforehand.I remember seeing the first Faces of Death video,where there were three men being executed by beheading.They were placed in somewhat of a triangle,on their knees,facing each other.After the first one was beheaded,the anguished looks on the remaining two,is a sight to behold.And remember.The swordsman was very good at his profession.
Impossible. Everyone knows that the Native Americans were peaceful nature-lovers who never hurt a fly until the evil Europeans arrived. /sarc
"The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz
It is a first hand account of the whole adventure.
The aztec chief's favorite dish was fried newborn baby.
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