The roots of Aztec human sacrifice - gruesome but nifty
- Thread starter RangerWickett
- Start date
Shemeska
Adventurer
The_lurkeR said:If you wanted to go with the Eberron example... what about a scene like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The party is seated at a large feast as guests, and instead of the monkey brains dessert, it's humans, or halflings or something?
I had my PCs as 'guests' of a Rakshasa in his palace on the 2nd layer of Carceri. Very elegant dinner, very interesting texture to the main meat dish. Upon asking one of the servants about the meal's composition they got back the following answer: 'Elf'.
Someone
Adventurer
I recall a book where this work was expanded. While I don´t know if it´s already discredited or not, nor care if it´s, there were explanation for several of the rebuttals presented here. I post them for our common enlightenment:
That´s exactly the article´s point. You don´t take the pain, work, and reduced investment rate to grow food on the water if you don´t have to feed a enormous population. The Aztects reached the point where their technology didn´t them room to grow.
Exporting from Peru to Mexico in a preindustrial age? Not likely. If you say that they could have adopted themselves the llama and the alpaca, maybe we could ask ourselves why there are not llamas and alpacas in Mexico: because maybe they can´t live there, for whatever reason.
They started wars all the time,as the article says. And actually, wars are not a very good long term way to reduce population. Women are quite able to, er, refill the gap in a single generation.
It´s true that turkeys, chickens and other birds can make true miracles of transubstantiation of plants into meat, but they have a fundamental flaw: they eat grains. You can´t feed them anything that you couldn´t eat. Feeding turkeys for food is a waste of food. Other cultures had anmals like the pig in China, that were feed with waste and scraps of vegetables, and the cow in other cultures
(cows eat grass)
I find that as abhorrent as you do, but after living for decades under the threat of nuclear annihilation sometimes I doubt our right to look the Aztecs with disdain. Think on the irrationality of having that sword over our heads, ready to wipe the life out of the earth, and how we arrived atit through a perfectly reasonable path of technological, political and social reasons.
That´s exactly the article´s point. You don´t take the pain, work, and reduced investment rate to grow food on the water if you don´t have to feed a enormous population. The Aztects reached the point where their technology didn´t them room to grow.
Exporting from Peru to Mexico in a preindustrial age? Not likely. If you say that they could have adopted themselves the llama and the alpaca, maybe we could ask ourselves why there are not llamas and alpacas in Mexico: because maybe they can´t live there, for whatever reason.
They started wars all the time,as the article says. And actually, wars are not a very good long term way to reduce population. Women are quite able to, er, refill the gap in a single generation.
It´s true that turkeys, chickens and other birds can make true miracles of transubstantiation of plants into meat, but they have a fundamental flaw: they eat grains. You can´t feed them anything that you couldn´t eat. Feeding turkeys for food is a waste of food. Other cultures had anmals like the pig in China, that were feed with waste and scraps of vegetables, and the cow in other cultures
(cows eat grass)
I find that as abhorrent as you do, but after living for decades under the threat of nuclear annihilation sometimes I doubt our right to look the Aztecs with disdain. Think on the irrationality of having that sword over our heads, ready to wipe the life out of the earth, and how we arrived atit through a perfectly reasonable path of technological, political and social reasons.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Cannibalism and human sacrifice has been around for as long as humans themselves, and it would be, I think, fairly ethnocentric of anyone to dismiss an accepted and transcultural practice on their own cultural ideas of life, food, and acceptable sacrifice. Likewise, I think it's fairly ethnocentric to claim that cannibalism and human sacrifice are somehow motivated purely by environmental factors and that humans had no choice in the matter.
The fact is that cannibalism, human sacrifice, and the like, have come about in a multitude of circumstances, in a mulititude of cultures, all with broadly similar ideas and trappings. Blaming it on "not enough grain!" seems to dismiss the fact that it happened in many other circumstances. Carribean hunter/gatherers are hardly hard-up for food, but there are people who still practice cannibalism today, and to claim that there is no seed of truth in the idea that "witches eat children" or that there were no "real vampires" is probably to gloss over your own history with a veneer of acceptable imagination.
People eat people today, and have since the dawn of people. Symbolically and literally. It's not just because they didn't have enough turkey to eat.
*********
In the game, sacrifices are most prominent in the field of spellcasting -- every material component is a sacrifice of some sort. Creating a human-sacrificing priesthood is as simple as, say, making a spell that gives an entire population of a city a +1 luck bonus on every skill check they make...and the material component is a single life. To die for your country takes on a new meaning when your death has a demonstrative mechanical effect on how your country fares.
The fact is that cannibalism, human sacrifice, and the like, have come about in a multitude of circumstances, in a mulititude of cultures, all with broadly similar ideas and trappings. Blaming it on "not enough grain!" seems to dismiss the fact that it happened in many other circumstances. Carribean hunter/gatherers are hardly hard-up for food, but there are people who still practice cannibalism today, and to claim that there is no seed of truth in the idea that "witches eat children" or that there were no "real vampires" is probably to gloss over your own history with a veneer of acceptable imagination.
People eat people today, and have since the dawn of people. Symbolically and literally. It's not just because they didn't have enough turkey to eat.
*********
In the game, sacrifices are most prominent in the field of spellcasting -- every material component is a sacrifice of some sort. Creating a human-sacrificing priesthood is as simple as, say, making a spell that gives an entire population of a city a +1 luck bonus on every skill check they make...and the material component is a single life. To die for your country takes on a new meaning when your death has a demonstrative mechanical effect on how your country fares.
Desdichado
Legend
No it isn't. The point was that a certain element of malnutrition due to lack of meat was present. Which is untrue anyway.Someone said:
Why is export in a pre-industrial age difficult? Haven't you ever heard of the silk road? This trip wouldn't be nearly as difficult. Also the idea that llamas can't live in Mexico is ridiculous. Domesticated llamas live there now.Someone said:
Did you read the article? It didn't say anything about overall famine, just lack of certain dietary elements. That complaint is meaningless in light of what the article is trying to say.Someone said:
All of which are reasons I find more compelling than environmental and nutritional reasons, personally.Someone said:
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Dude, the silk road was long, but it was over steppes for most of the trip. Long, flat plains are a lot easier to maintain trade on than rugged, pocketed mountains and petty valley kingdoms (not that it was easy, but far eaiser than in a mountainous situation). Plus, it had silk powering it, which meant nobles powering it, and nobles aren't going to power the food trade because they generally get all the food they want from beating up the local peasantry.
Trade occured, no doubt, but it wasn't very long-distance, except in a Telephone-style transport. Obsidian, jade, etc. were the main trade items -- luxury goods, not food.
Just this week, people will be killed and eaten by their fellow human beings. As you were celebrating Memorial Day Weekend, some person somewhere was eating someone's mother, someone's daughter, someone's son, somone's father; heck, he was probably doing it with all his friends, gathered around a big fire...
These people aren't malnourished. Hunter-Gatherer lifestyles are really good at getting a diverse set of dietary supplements into your diet. No, they eat people because there is some inherent symbolic value in the act that someone from ancient Mesopotamia understands just as well as that flesh-eating cannibal does today.
In-game, I don't even remember the Book of Vile Darkness giving general cannibalism powers (though things like eating the heart, etc. were present)....
Desdichado
Legend
Actually, the Silk Road went through the passes of the Pamir, Hindu Kush and Karakorum mountain ranges. And, where it splits into three, two of the three branches circle the Takla Makan desert, which is in the running for "most inhospitable locale on the planet." And the third goes through the Junggar Basin which is only marginably better, and longer and more out of the way as well. And the area to the immediate west of those mountains; Bactria and whatnot, is more desert than steppe. Although Soviet industrialization of the region has no doubt contributed to that...Kamikaze Midget said:Dude, the silk road was long, but it was over steppes for most of the trip. Long, flat plains are a lot easier to maintain trade on than rugged, pocketed mountains and petty valley kingdoms (not that it was easy, but far eaiser than in a mountainous situation). Plus, it had silk powering it, which meant nobles powering it, and nobles aren't going to power the food trade because they generally get all the food they want from beating up the local peasantry.
Livestock by itself isn't food.Kamikaze Midget said:
Uh, yes. That was my point too. Although I didn't say anything about cannibalism in Mesopotamia...Kamikaze Midget said:
I agree with the writer that high population density pressure were the major causes of the escalation of human sacrifice under the Mexica but beyond that initial premise, I have little time for the argument.
Yes, increases in human sacrifice were a response to ecological decline. But this was because ecological problems were a manifestation of the hunger of the Earth Monster. If there were environmental problems, the Earth Monster was not receiving a sufficient number of sacrifice victims.
But the idea that human sacrifice, even at peak scale, played any role in the nutritive regime of anyone other than the elite of the priest class is really very dubious.
Mexica civilization was successful without domestic animals or significant hunting because people in the Mexico Valley and Yucatan learned very early how to make complete proteins by combining corn with the right things such as wood ash. But the domestication of the avocado is really the thing by which the civilization rose and fell -- while, in Mediterranean agriculture, olives had to be pressed on a large scale to produce the level of fat necessary to sustain a person on an essentially vegetarian diet, avocadoes, completely unrefined, did the job vastly vastly better.
The reason the scale of human sacrifice increased so dramatically under Mexica hegemony was essentially the same as the reason tournaments got out of hand in High Medieval Europe but on a much larger scale. There were far more states in the Mexico Valley, with a much greater combined population in a smaller area than there were in Western Europe in the 13th century. Furthermore, Mexica hegemony effectively shut down war far more profoundly than the peace of God. Essentially, the Mexico Valley was a dense, acrimonious, heavily militarized society with no outlet for aggression -- the states outside the Valley weren't worth attacking and the states within the Valley were all under the domination/protection of the Aztec Confederacy.
The increase in sacrifice victims was in direct proportion to the increased scale of the Flowery War (the ritualized religious inter-state war in which warriors were captured as sacrifice victims but never killed). The 15th century was not a period when new sources of sacrifice victims were sought out; what took place was that the already existing sources ie. the Flowery War and the ball games produced new sacrifice victims on a hitherto-unknown scale. This was a period of adaptation where a highly militarized society turned its military infrastructure into religious infrastructure with very strange results. Environmental decline, no doubt, increased the number of volunteers for the ball games and the Flowery War but its impact was on the supply side of sacrifice, not the demand side.
Yes, increases in human sacrifice were a response to ecological decline. But this was because ecological problems were a manifestation of the hunger of the Earth Monster. If there were environmental problems, the Earth Monster was not receiving a sufficient number of sacrifice victims.
But the idea that human sacrifice, even at peak scale, played any role in the nutritive regime of anyone other than the elite of the priest class is really very dubious.
Mexica civilization was successful without domestic animals or significant hunting because people in the Mexico Valley and Yucatan learned very early how to make complete proteins by combining corn with the right things such as wood ash. But the domestication of the avocado is really the thing by which the civilization rose and fell -- while, in Mediterranean agriculture, olives had to be pressed on a large scale to produce the level of fat necessary to sustain a person on an essentially vegetarian diet, avocadoes, completely unrefined, did the job vastly vastly better.
The reason the scale of human sacrifice increased so dramatically under Mexica hegemony was essentially the same as the reason tournaments got out of hand in High Medieval Europe but on a much larger scale. There were far more states in the Mexico Valley, with a much greater combined population in a smaller area than there were in Western Europe in the 13th century. Furthermore, Mexica hegemony effectively shut down war far more profoundly than the peace of God. Essentially, the Mexico Valley was a dense, acrimonious, heavily militarized society with no outlet for aggression -- the states outside the Valley weren't worth attacking and the states within the Valley were all under the domination/protection of the Aztec Confederacy.
The increase in sacrifice victims was in direct proportion to the increased scale of the Flowery War (the ritualized religious inter-state war in which warriors were captured as sacrifice victims but never killed). The 15th century was not a period when new sources of sacrifice victims were sought out; what took place was that the already existing sources ie. the Flowery War and the ball games produced new sacrifice victims on a hitherto-unknown scale. This was a period of adaptation where a highly militarized society turned its military infrastructure into religious infrastructure with very strange results. Environmental decline, no doubt, increased the number of volunteers for the ball games and the Flowery War but its impact was on the supply side of sacrifice, not the demand side.
John Morrow
First Post
Andre La Roche said:
FYI, I've heard that the reason why vegitarians in developed Western nations have more nutritional problems than vegitarians in less developed countries and historically is that our food is too pure. Many vegitarians in more primative environments eat quite a bit of protein through the bugs and bug parts that make their way into their food supply. In fact, quite a few bug parts and rodent hairs are considered acceptable even in heavily processed and inspected food in the developed world.
Of course if you want to see the flip side of how shocking cannibalism can really get during a famine, look up the Chinese phrase "yi zi er shi" on Google.
Andre La Roche said:
When looking at theories like this, I think it's important to try to take off one's political glasses and look at the evidence. Whether this theory is right or wrong has nothing to do with whether it justifies colonialism or not. The original meaning of the phrase "politically correct", has to do with judging whether an idea, theory, or fact is "correct" based on political considerations rather than logical, evidence, or accuracy. At it's worst, it means making up facts to support your beliefs and rejecting the truth because it's not convenient. And, yes, it happens both ways because the facts just don't exist to perfectly support ideologies.
I'm not saying that I believe this theory (I tend to be skeptical of all "single reason" theories, anyway, since things often happen in the real world for a combination of many different reasons) but I get even more concerned when people tell me that it's "important" to discredit a theory because the implications are "dangerous".
Similar Threads
