Aztecs Cooked, Skinned, Ate Humans (Barbequed long pig)

Discovery News ^ | January 25, 2005 | Jennifer Viegas

[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-

[Technical Editor]

Quiero.

[185JHP]

That filth raised people to eat them - kind of a feed lot thing.

[piasa]

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.

[piasa]

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.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks quidnunc. Added to the GGG catalog, but no ping to the list, similar to another.

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)

[TheRealDBear]

Can you imagine THIS culture surviving into the 21st century? Thank God for the conquistadors!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the ping. "And for dessert, Lady Fingers!" ;')

[Richard Kimball]

You're assuming. The Karankawas of the Texas coast were cannibals, as were several of the Caribbean tribes. Robert Redford's movie Jeremiah Johnson cleaned up the reputation of the man. He was, during his day, known as Liver Eating Johnson. He hunted Crow Indians, killed them, and ate their livers. Many of the tribes did the same. FWIW, when I was in Haiti, back around 96, I was documenting missionary work for the Wells of Salvation ministry. I was cautioned not to photograph in the open markets anyone who was selling meat. Some, I have no idea how much, of the meat was human, and the vendors would attack and kill people photographing them, as they feared the photographer was gathering evidence. They cautioned me not to even appear to be interested in any red meat being sold.

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.

[Larry381]

Had Europeans not colonized the Americas a visiting tourist of today would probably find the menu in the Native American restaurants rather unappealing.

[kipita]

{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/

[cdbull23]

Hmm, I don't think "flocked" describes it quite accurately...

[Poincare]

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!)

[ProtectOurFreedom]

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.

[Billthedrill]

Part of it was religion, part of it pure terrorism. The Aztecs were aggressive imperialists, and one reason the Conquistadores found it so easy to conquer them was that their subject peoples were happy to see the Spanish do it. The thing with the beating heart and the obsidian knife at the top of the pyramid wasn't done to their own people, it was done to prisoners.

We're not much better. We have the IRS.

[shibumi]

"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.

[rwfromkansas]

Cultures develop differently in different locations.

[rwfromkansas]

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.

[Poincare]

However it is thought that the Anasazi society disintigrated because they were infiltrated by Aztecs.

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.

[rwfromkansas]

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.

[BurbankKarl]

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.