Posted on 08/24/2006 6:50:58 AM PDT by forty_years
I don't know how many of you are fans of archeology, let alone that of Meso-America, but there are certainly those of you interested in the politically-correct whitewashing of terrorism. How are the two subjects related? Let me explain. The whitewashing of current-day terrorism is advocated by the same ilk, those who would rewrite the modern-day cause of terrorist atrocities, as well as those who would rewrite, for example, the pre-Columbian history of Mexico.
I recently watched a History Channel "documentary" which either 1) rationalized the Aztec tribe's insatiable appetite for human sacrifice on the grounds that they were "deeply religious" people, afraid that, if not enough ritual blood was spilled, the sun wouldn't rise the next day; or 2) the Spanish Conquistadors, led by Hernando Cortez, made up their accounts of mass Aztec human sacrifice rituals as a form of propaganda.
First, I agree with FrontPageMagazine's Lowell Ponte:
Was Cortez a brutal exploiter and enslaver? Yes. Were the Aztecs brutal exploiters and enslavers? Yes.
So both the Aztec leadership and Cortez were terrorists. So what? Is this an excuse to rewrite history? No. Unfortunately, there are those (like the Aztlan crowd), who want to elevate one murderer above the other, because the Aztecs were an "indigenous" people.
The Aztec leadership may have been megalomaniac dictators, but were clever nonetheless. Their use of human sacrifice was not founded in deep religious convictions, but rather a tactic to maintain power by terrorizing their own people and by terrorizing the numerous neighboring tribes they conquered.
Second, a recent archeological discovery dispels the "deeply religious" Aztec myth. From the very politically-correct Reuters:
Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people traveling with invading Spanish forces in 1520.Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archeological 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 traveling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king of the Aztec empire's No. 2 city of Texcoco. ...
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. ...
"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. ...
When they heard the Spanish were coming, the Zultepec Aztecs threw their victims' possessions down wells, unwittingly preserving buttons and jewelry for the archeologists. ...
"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."
Again, Ponte:
But the Aztecs, like the Romans, were also warlike imperialists who brutally conquered, taxed, exploited and enslaved the peoples around them. They sent raiding parties with razor-sharp obsidian-edged swords as far north as the Southwest United States to bring back captives for human sacrifices to their bloodthirsty gods - if we take the Spanish propaganda and not that of today’s revisionist whitewashers (or should we say white-dirtiers?) of the Aztecs to be the true story.One reason Conquistador Hernando Cortez with a mere handful of Spanish soldiers could overthrow this mighty empire is that other Native American tribes rallied to him as a liberator who would free them from the evil Aztecs.
I myself have traveled to Mexico, and witnessed first-hand the ancient frescos depicting Aztec (and Mayan, Toltec, etc.) scenes of ultra-violence. This was ancient propaganda, meant to terrorize.
Terrorism is nothing new. Its purpose is to terrorize the victims and especially the survivors into submission. We could learn a little from history -- that is, only if it remains unedited.
http://netwmd.com/blog/2006/08/24/873
I think academics and journalists are trying to get there first and rationalize ancient behavior which any normal person knows cannot be rationalized.
Going back to the original sources is illuminating.
La Casa del Libro in Madrid is one of my favorite, most fantastic places in the universe. Of course, being fluent in Spanish helps.
Hey, I've got a great idea. Let's overuse the word terrorist to the point that it becomes completely meaningless.
Putting Cortez, the Aztecs and Osama bin Laden into the same pigeon hole is not helpful at understanding our current situation vis a vis terrorism.
JMO.
Cortez wasn't "indigenous?" I thought Spanish was the original language of the Western Hemisphere before the Big Bad Gringos messed everything up?
To their credit, it seems that the gruesome heart sacrifice the Aztecs used as a sacrament and as punishment and population control, was adopted by them from indigenous tribes when they arrived in the valley of Mexico in the 11th century. The Toltecs and the Chicimecs were the main practicers of this rite when the Aztecs migrated there from the north of Mexico and the border area. They adopted and outstripped their progenitors however, as one account has the Aztecs sacrificing as many as 20,000 Zapotec captives in a single day. Imagine the mess!
This very subject is now being discussed on Laura Ingraham as I type this. If there is an ancient Meso-American civilization that might deserve admiration, it would be the unnamed people that built and inhabited the classic city of Teotihuacan in central Mexico, who were contemporaries of the Classic Maya in Guatemala and Central America. Here was truly a golden age for the region and culture, though we know so much less about them.
KALI-MA.......KALI-MA....
Putting Cortez, the Aztecs and Osama bin Laden into the same pigeon hole is not helpful at understanding our current situation vis a vis terrorism.
JMO.
I understand where you're coming from, but I've often thought that there is a current "religion" that may have to go the same way the Aztec's "religion" did, before our current problems are solved. You don't see many Aztecs running around capturing and sacrificing people anymore. That little problem has been solved. There's a lesson there somewhere.
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