Archeologists have discovered the remains of two dozen children who were apparent sacrificial victims to a rain god by Mexican Indians nearly a thousand years ago, researchers said Tuesday.
The bones of the children, dating from about 950 to 1150, were found on the outskirts of the Toltec archaeological zone of Tula, said Luis Gamboa, an archaeologist with the National Institute of Anthropology and History. The discovery about 40 miles north of Mexico City predates the Aztecs, an advanced civilization conquered by the Spanish in the 16th century.
The bodies of the children, who ranged in age from 5 to about 15, were found in a single pit during excavations that began last month near a police station just outside the archaeological site.
All of the bodies were laid out in the same position — facing east — around a shrine to the god Tlaloc, leading archeologists to believe “this was something collective, done simultaneously,” in a single ritual, Gamboa said.
“They had some incisions on the vertebrae that suggested they had used some sort of (stone) to cut their throats,” he said.
Don’t be given the glowtard (global warming retards) movement any ideas!
Well, I’m sure that all you sneering and jeering commenters here at SDA are just going to make hay out of this.
Well, I believe that every culture is equal and righteous and we should do something to ensure that the Toltec culture does not disappear from the face of the earth forever.
Honeybunch: glowtards is great. I think I will expropriate that as my own!
jlc: “do something to ensure that the Toltec culture does not disappear”
We don’t have to, it is already flourishing – something about a recent car bomb with kids as passengers rings a bell n’est pas?
jlc are you volunteering to be the first modern sacrifice to the god Tlaloc?
But for heaven’s sake don’t JUDGE another culture for what they do. How are we to know whether sacrificing children to a rain god is better or worse than sacrificing children to the abortion god? After all, they only killed a few dozen. Not 110,000 a year.
Interesting article. It changed my views.
I thought for sure that their hearts would be torn out of their bodies and then their heads would be cut off and thrown down a bunch of steps – but – I’m still guessing that this sacifice was a precursor to a lunar eclipse of the sun.
Does anyone know how I can get my Toltec Citizenship?
Are you passing judgement on communism? Oh wait, that was 150 million dead. Sorry.
It is clear from the comments here that I have misjudged SDA readers.
I can see that there is great respect for the long lost Toltec (and other noble) culture(s).
Oh,I know that there are a few RWDBs out there, but I am heartened to know that the majority of SDA readers support the need to bring back the Toltec civilization.
The Toltecs didn’t despoil mother Gaia the way our society does. It’s time to return to simpler times with simpler ideals.
All praise to TLALOC
…hey jlc, do ya pay GST on that stuff yer smokin’?
😉
I can’t speak to the Toltecs, but the Aztecs were capable of dispatching that many in a week.
“If all cultures are equal, cannibalism is a matter of taste.”
– Leo Strauss
Doug:
Good point, but the communists were/are ardent abortionists as well. cf China’s one child policy.
But hey life is cheap!?!
Young, old, politically unreliable, challenging to the ‘existing order’, Falun Gong (organ harvesting), Buddhists, Christians, the communists were/are equal opportunity killers.
Methods of dispatch include mass murder, starvation, assassination (a favored standby by despots) to the recent more ‘advanced’ polonium 210 poisoning. Polonium 210, isn’t that a space thing they put in kid’s breakfast cereal prizes?
Human sacrifice to the prevailing political order is a feature set of the human condition. Just try not to make yourself a target, or carry a ‘bigger club’.
All of you are racist, ‘heternormative,’ imperial, warmongering, sexist, colonialist, capitals pigs!!!
How dare you judge the culture of non-European cultures and claim to oppress the indiginous society’s right to mass murder children!! It wreaks of colonialist racism!
tomax – I refuse to use any sarcasm/ irony meter.
If you don’t see it then either I have failed or you are stupid.
Tough call
Warwick – I totally agree. What right have we to judge people who murder their kids, when we are in the process of destroying the entire planet
Glowtard, LMAO!
jlc- I suggest that you support your naive romanticism with more than empty and ignorant rhetoric.
Start to act.
First, get rid of your computer; that’s a development of industrialism. Industrialism was not and could not be developed by any ancient culture.
Then, call up and have your hydro, water, heat etc, turned off. These are all industrial products.
Third, go read a book on ethics. Try one on logic as well. You might find that only a moron, i.e, one intellectually incapable of differentiation and categorization, would say that ‘all is one’, ie, that all cultures are ‘equal and righteous’.
They aren’t. A totalitarian state is not identical in value to a democratic state. It doesn’t have much that is ‘equal and righteous’ about it.
A society that can only support 1,000 to 100,000 people is not capable of supporting a population of multi-millions. They aren’t ‘equal and righteous’.
By all means, bring back the Toltec culture. It would be a two-class system, with rigid authoritarian hierarchical rule, a warrior authority – all supported by fear and fierce religious rites. No freedom, no democracy. But, of course, that’s just OK in your opinion.
Remember, stop using your computer and all industrial goods; the Toltec couldn’t invent them. And if you want to ‘be Toltect’, then, there’s no such thing as freedom of speech. I suggest a meek silence would be constructive.
I think that jlc was being sarcastic. I certainly was.
At least I hope he was…
I support the movement to bring back Toltecism. I volunteer for the position of choosing those who will be honoured with sacrifice.
This is true. Archeologists and historians have known for years that the Aztecs and several other tribes did perform some pretty gruesome human sacrifices to their gods. The victims are believed, and are very likely to have been prisoners and slaves, since I doubt that there were any volunteers.
jlc fits the Modus Operandi as the triple identity fraud we have seen around here lately.
This member of the “compassionate” left wants to stifle all economies including the developing world’s for his righteous cause. I would love haul his ass in front of the poor of the developing world and have him tell them they have to stay just where they are because he and people like him are saving the world from the fraudulent GW boogy man.
Right because European/American/Canadian history is devoid of any violence. At least we didn’t burn witches at the stake. Opps.
Dados,
No witches were harmed in the making of Canada.
As for everywhere else, of course there has been violence and stupidity everywhere.
The difference is that if you take your average university class, the Euro/US/CDN society is deemed to be the root of all evil and the indiginous people are either care-free peaceniks at one with nature or only violent because they were made so by us.
The leftards, such as yourself, perpetrate a condescending and hypocritical “nobel savage” myth. This story is one step in your new education. “natives” of this continent and the southern hemi are no different than us. You need to repeat this to yourselves until it sinks in.
No witches were harmed in the making of Canada.
We are apart of western culture no? And if you look back, you’ll find enough atrocities in our history as well.
The leftards, such as yourself, perpetrate a condescending and hypocritical “nobel savage” myth. This story is one step in your new education. “natives” of this continent and the southern hemi are no different than us. You need to repeat this to yourselves until it sinks in.
As a sessional lecturer at a University who teaches Native Studies I find it interesting that you know what I know or what I teach. I teach the noble savage myth as just that, a myth. I’m not disputing what the Toltec did, or the Aztecs, or the Cree or the Blackfoot. There was violence. I just find it rich for them to be criticized by a people who have perpetuated more violence throughout history than one cares to imagine. Start with your religious wars of the 16th and 17th C, then move on to the campaign of genocide against Indigenous peoples of the Americas (do any of you know how the Conquistadors treated the locals?). Then mix in some witch burnings and lynching and you have a people who are in no place to make a judgment about violence in another culture.
In Charles Mann’s book 1491, which you would like I presume because he dismisses the noble savage myth, he talks about the human sacrifice of the Aztec. He then goes on to say that between 1530 and 1630, the Brits hung, beheaded, disembowled etc.. over 75,000 people (with crowds of thousands watching). The Brits had a population of 1/10th the Aztec at the time – if they had the same population, the Brits would have been executing roughly 7500 a year, more than twice the Aztecs were sacrificing (the number of sacrifices came from Cortes).
Dados,
I think my assumptions of what you are was more accurate than I originally thought.
I have the right to judge who I please as I can think and use logic, reason and my sense of morality.
You think that I’m responsible for the actions of others? That sons are responsible for the sins of the father? Yes, I tagged you extremely accurately.
And just who the hell are you to presume that any wars a few centuries ago are MY religious wars!!??
I’m an atheist, wasn’t around then, and haven’t been violent towards anyone. The actions of others are their responsibility alone.
I am not responsible for anyone but myself. I reject completely and uncategorically collective guilt. I especially reject collective guilt that is inherited down through generations. I’ll double plus reject it for collective guilt inherited down generations and transported across oceans based soley on race.
You leftards claim you’re against racism but are the most hypocritical racists around.
primitive eh
Gotta question your numbers there, Dodos. 15th century sacrifice by the Aztecs was on the order of 250,000 per year. Not sure about the numbers of executions in England at that time, but I know it was nothing near that.
While not condoning the savagery or extent of capital punishment in England at the time, it’s a bit of a stretch to compare it to the religious sacrifice of humans. I think the Romans stopped the Britons from doing that about 1500 years earlier.
I think we can all agree that human sacrifice is bad, regardless of which group of humans is doing it.
You think that I’m responsible for the actions of others.
No I don’t. And I have no idea why you’ve brought that up.
My reply was in response to Kate’s post re: the Toltec sacrifices. The post’s tone was pointing to how savage they were. I merely replied that we are in no place to judge their actions of savagery given our societies history with violence and savagery. If we are to judge them as being savage or ultra violent in the 10th and 11th C, what do we think of our own history?
Toltecs ?
Are they related to the Monbac Tribes that work for UPS now ? You know the Monbac Tribe, the ones that stand behind the UPS Trucks at the Frieght Terminals and go ” Mon Back , Mon Back !”
,
Gotta question your numbers there, Dodos. 15th century sacrifice by the Aztecs was on the order of 250,000 per year.
Not my numbers, Herman Cortes’ numbers. Since he was actually there, I’ll take his word on it 🙂 Where do you get the number of 250,000 a year?
Not sure about the numbers of executions in England at that time, but I know it was nothing near that.
If you aren’t sure of the numbers, how can you dismiss the one’s I put forth 🙂 Honestly, they come from Mann’s book 1491 and he sources Cambridge historian V.A.C. Gatrell.
Boy, there is one poster here (who shall remain nameless but has initials ET) who consistently demonstrates the complete absence of a sense of humour or irony.
As for the topic at hand, Warwick is correct – nobody should be judged on the sins of their fathers. Therefore, what probative value do we get in our own world from this discovery of brutality that occured a millenium ago?
As for the claim that those who criticize the policies of Western countries are “anti-West” or “anti-American” or whatever, in my mind that is totally inaccurate. On the contrary, they recognize that the western culture is superior, and part of the greatness of our culture is that we are democratic and that it is possible for the people to become powerful enough to affect change. We rank and file have no power when it comes to the despots in the other parts of the world, but we can sure try to keep our own houses in order. Merely striving to be “not as bad as the other guys” isn’t setting the bar high enough in our enlightened society. Why not demand a more perfect union?
Warwick, he’s not saying you’re responsible for anything. You just can’t condem other cultures for their use of violence, when our own is just as guilty. The fact that you’re an athiest really has nothing to do with it.
But I really do love how you get offended at something as small as “your religous wars”. Then you go right ahead and try to call people with a belief other than your own mentally handicapped.
Abortion and Euthanasia may one day be thought to be a barbaric ritual.
I wonder if a future Canadian govenment will apologise for allowing abortion to happen and compensate anyone who was ever a kid?
“I just find it rich for them to be criticized by a people who have perpetuated more violence throughout history than one cares to imagine.”
OK Dodos, well I’m one of your pet indians – so I guess by your criteria I have the right to criticize other cultures. So those other cultures were nasty and were probably thousands of years from being as enlightened and free as we are now so I guess we’re lucky to be rid of them.
We’re lucky to be rid of a lot of primitive culture. We’re lucky to be rid of the potlatch where slaves were burned alive, we’re lucky to be rid of indian hunter-gatherer societies, where herds were marched off of cliffs and we’re lucky
to be rid of taliban culture where people were murdered because of their race and religion.
Are my hands clean enough to venture a valid opinion, professor? Can you feel free to criticize me or are you too choked with guilt about something some dead person you’re related to did to some dead person I’m related to?
How about this, why not keep your racial hang-ups between you and your psychiatrist, and try and argue based on fact and logic?
Warwick – that’s an excellent post to Dodos.
That’s exactly right -the ignorant claim by such as Dodos, that actions are heritable, is actually a tactic of domination. That type will claim that ‘your ancestors did such and such’, and, using the empirically and illogical claim that behaviour is heritable – will assign guilt and blame to you, who are currently alive.
Then, they go onto say ‘Therefore, your criticism of people now, is invalid, because, 500 years ago, people of the same ethnic group as you, did such and such.
Dodos – actions are not inherited. OK?
And the British in the 16th century population was about 5 million. The Aztec population about the same time was about 18-19 million. The last time I checked in basic math, 5 million is not one tenth of 19 million.
Dodos – I hope that you rapidly dismiss the romantic nonsense of the Noble Savage. Then, I hope that you move on to reject inherited identities (such as the alcoholic native, such as the bloodthirsty savage) and then, go onto study exactly WHY the native societies were organized the way they were.
Do you deal with the ecological constraints of their territories? Do you deal with the ecological nature of Europe that led to its constant overpopulation and need to colonize? Do you deal with the carrying capacities of different economies – such as hunting/gathering, pastoral nomadic and horticulture? Do you deal with WHY these economies are found in each society? Do you deal with the resulting social organization – the fact that the social organization validates the economic system?
Those type of analyses would greatly benefit the students. So – what do you teach?
“My reply was in response to Kate’s post re: the Toltec sacrifices.”
You should probably do a word count on what I wrote before wasting time explaining what I meant by it.
I didn’t say I was offended by violence nor did I bother comparing the relative violence of early American cultures with western cultures of the time.
I don’t care what it took. I’m just glad they came out on the winning end.
Only Kate knows what this particular posting achieves. Shes probably patting herself on the back for belonging to some kind of western “civilization” responsible for wiping out this horrid race.
Children were sacrificed, albeit at an altar for a God. The difference between sacrificing a child in that way and sacrificing a child in the many many many many wars that western civilization has fought within itself is vastly different, of course. A child killed during a war died for a good cause, regardless of which side of western civilization the child is unfortunate to be born in.
Pat your back, Kate. The children of the United Kingdom were sacrificed for the same good as the children of Dresden as the war continued. Russians, Germans, Britishers, Americans, (all westerners) sacrificed many children, albeit those children usually were sacrificed because they fell on the wrong side of some border built on linguistic lines. Thats not to say that the Japanese werent busy “sacrificing” Chinese and other Asian people, and they in turn had their children “sacrificed” by the Americans.
The only difference between the children sacrificed in various parts of the world is the method used. Slit a throat or drop a bomb, or a nuke for that matter. What difference does it make? Its all for the greater good isnt it. One is dedicated to god, the other to the nations state.
Oh, did I forget to mention that all cultures show a remarkable ability to sacrifice the children of others, families, or tribal groups or nations, or civilizations? I dont think the Toltec can take all the credit here.
jeremiah – your sophistry of relativism, which means that every act is equivalent to every act, means that every act is therefore without meaning. That’s a clear inability to reason, for reasoning requires a capacity to differentiate and understand causality.
In your view, there’s no difference between fighting to prevent a totalitarian fascist regime from supreme domination in the world – and fighting to actually set up that totalitarian fascist regime!
That’s quite a remarkable perspective – everything is the same. Causality doesn’t matter. So, if you kill someone because you are psychotic and like killing (Hannibal Lector) – and you kill someone because they are psychotic and attempting to kill you…to you, ‘it’s all the same’.
Such an inability to differentiate between actions is a symptom of a lack of critical thinking ability – as well as a lack of morality and ethics.
Your ‘child imagery’ is an emotional appeal and is therefore fallacious.
If behaviour is not heritable, then it is illogical to assume that the ritual of sacrifice that occured 1000 years ago would still be continuing today if that society had remained in existence.
JW:
“Warwick, he’s not saying you’re responsible for anything. You just can’t condemn other cultures for their use of violence, when our own is just as guilty.”
Wanna reread your sentence? If you and Dados are not saying I’m responsible, how come I can’t comment on something because “my own is just as guilty?” My own culture bears no resemblance to what was on offer 30 years ago here in Canada, never mind 300 years ago an ocean away.
That “my culture” may have perpetrated violence in no way detracts from pointing out/condemning that of other cultures. I can and will. I can also point out that violence like in Hapsburg Spain who drove the inquisition or the Kaiser’s Germany who (along with the Habsburg’s Austria) started WWI, wasn’t cultural as it was top-down, non-representative and oppressive form of government which victimized its own citizens as much as their supposed enemies.
But that obscures the real point. I can criticize all cultures on the same basis: that of a free minded, non-violent individual responsible for no other person but myself. I condemn the Spanish Inquisition and the Aztecs child murder. I’m responsible in no way for either. Even a German can decry violence so long as that German wasn’t a Nazi. Collective blame/guilt is the basis of hate and racism.
What I object to the most with campus lefties is the identity politics and group grievance-mongering. People are individuals first, not part of the borg.
Let the guilty bear responsibilities for their actions. Let the innocent’s good name not be tarred by the guilty. Let the universities hire some people who can tell the difference.
OK Dodos, well I’m one of your pet indians – so I guess by your criteria I have the right to criticize other cultures. So those other cultures were nasty and were probably thousands of years from being as enlightened and free as we are now so I guess we’re lucky to be rid of them.
Pet Indian? Sorry, there are laws against that now.
I guess my problem is characterizing these cultures just as violent. Were there violent aspects? Sure, there are in every society and culture. These cultures were also dynamic and complex and advanced in many other areas – philosophy, theology, etc… The Aztec, Inka and Mayan cities awed Conquistadors with their size and sophistication (I think it was Aztec cities that had undergound sewers!).
Are my hands clean enough to venture a valid opinion, professor? Can you feel free to criticize me or are you too choked with guilt about something some dead person you’re related to did to some dead person I’m related to?
Why does everyone keep bringing up guilt? I don’t feel guilt one bit.
How about this, why not keep your racial hang-ups between you and your psychiatrist, and try and argue based on fact and logic?
Hey, I have facts.
Um ET, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never said that traits were heritable. All I did was say that it is rich for people today to criticize a past society as being too violent or savage when our society itself has just a violent past, if not more. It is a simple argument.
It seems so obvious, but I guess it still needs to be said:
People dieing in a war is not morally or ethically the same as people being ritually sacrificed. Both are evil, but they are not equivalent. And besides, we know that in addition to their habit of human sacrifice, the Aztecs also killed people in war, took slaves, burned villages, etc. So jeremiah, what the heck is your point anyway?
I am not saying that one is better than the other mind you, but it seems to me that jeremiah is playing the moral equivalence game here.
My point about all of this is as follows: To those who deny the fact of human sacrifice by various tribal societies usually do so (in my view) because of a certain smugness of position that arises from their self appointed position as the judge of cultures, but then they ironically deride others because they presume to judge other cultures. But these folks get around this by judging their own culture harshly so they can take pride in their repentance (and subtly elevate themselves above the sin they decry), while at the same time they judge tribal cultures leniently, so they can take pride in their ability to see past the racism of their own culture. But all the while they seem to me to be woolly headed limousine liberals with a few “pet indians” (as Robert so aptly put it) about the place for a bit of colour.
My undergrad degree is in Anthropology, and yes, I met more than a few of this type along the way, most of them tenured.
dodos – it isn’t an argument at all; it’s your opinion and it’s untenable. Read what Warwick has said. Read it. He’s saying something very important and you are missing it.
You are denying us the right to critique. Why? In this situation, the issue is state violence. Carried out for socioreligious reasons. We are critiquing it. And our critique is that it is unacceptable.
You, and jlc and jeremiah (are you all one?) come into the picture and say that we, who are here now, cannot critique this state violence, that we have no right to critique this state violence, because our ethnic ancestors were guilty of state violence.
What on earth does such a link have to do with our individual right – and duty- to think, analyze, reason and critique?
You are committing a logical fallacy. It goes like this..
The Aztec were evil (carried out state violence)
Your ancestors were evil
Therefore, you are evil (ie, tainted and have no ethical right to criticize).
The above outline, your argument, is logically fallacious.
Now, again – what exactly are you teaching your students? Have you explained the reasons for the difference between population sizes, between social organizations, between societal norms?
Dados:
Earlier you said:
“I just find it rich for them to be criticized by a people who have perpetuated more violence throughout history than one cares to imagine.”
This is the basis in your logic which is at the root of my objection. I don’t think it was a mere slip that you said the posters here on SDA in 2007 are “a people who have…”
This statement is one in which you condemn. When you condemn today’s people for actions of the past you are placing blame in a way that is racially hereditable. You are in effect saying that we are responsible for actions we did not perpetrate because we share racial characteristics with the people who did.
This is the same racist attitude that makes other lefties whine about “reparations” to victim groups generations after any wrong that was inflicted even long after anyone who could have been effected is long dead.
This is the same thing as saying the sons are responsible for the sins of the father.
I reject that and point out again that a critics of the Aztecs does not preclude one from criticizing the Europeans, Canadians or Imperial fricken Japan. They are unrelated issues.
You backtrack in your current post only after being confronted with the illogic of your bias. Keep backtracking.
Ahhhhh….the sweet pungent smell of leftist indignation comming from Jeremia is enough to clear ones sinuses in the morning.
“Thats not to say that the Japanese werent busy “sacrificing” Chinese and other Asian people, and they in turn had their children “sacrificed” by the Americans”.
War is brutal, ugly and extremely unfair to civilians. However, the Americans did not start the second world war it was the Japanese and the Germans who did. The fact that Japanese and German civilians were killed by the Allies is a tradgedy. However, judging the rightness in war can only be done by assessing who’s intentions are the least evil. A big clue here for you is the fact the Japanese and the Germans were attempting to dominate the world and committed genocide in the process. The allies along with the Americans did everything they could to avoid war but ended up being drawn into fighting a brutal enemy who did not fight fair.
I thank God everyday that is the far from perfect Americans who are the only super power in the world today. I cannot imagine the hellhole this planet would have become without them.
ET,
In fact, the logical fallacy being employed by Dodos is called “Tu Quoque”. For anyone who is interested, a good explanation of it can be seen here: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/tuquoque.html
Warwick.
This is the basis in your logic which is at the root of my objection. I don’t think it was a mere slip that you said the posters here on SDA in 2007 are “a people who have…
I didn’t not mean people here specifically, just that we are apart of a culture and a society with a violent past. All of us. This does not mean that I think you are guilty of that violence, just that it is part of our past. But those people are our ancestors – they are apart of our society, our culture. They laid the foundation, hence why I say that they are our people – we would need be here without them or their actions.
You are in effect saying that we are responsible for actions we did not perpetrate because we share racial characteristics with the people who did.
I am in no way saying that at all. I am using the term people to mean our culture – our society. No-one is responsible for the sins of their fathers.
I reject that and point out again that a critics of the Aztecs does not preclude one from criticizing the Europeans, Canadians or Imperial fricken Japan. They are unrelated issues.
Violence is violence. How are the issues unrelated? My sense from reading the comments before I posted my first one was a sense of moral superiority – look at what those savages did. I was simply pointing out that while many look at them as savage, our history has a similar history in brutality. Doesn’t that make us savage then? How can we sit on our moral high horse criticizing others, when our shared history as a culture has similar actions?
I merely replied that we are in no place to judge their actions of savagery given our societies history with violence and savagery.
That’s absurd. Where’s the logic in that dumb comment. My Stone Age ancestors probably murdered Neandertals, so am I disqualified from ever uttering a rational critique regarding the dysfunctional behavior of others past or present?
Get a grip.
So, where does the clock start or stop for your Original Sin disqualifier?
Let me guess, as a muddled thinking lefty, when logic and reason overwhelms you, throwing out a lame and poorly developed challenge is the best you can do.
So, are you saying that if dad, yours, is a lifer with a homicide conviction, you are unfit for jury duty? Couldn’t process the evidence and be trusted to come to a reasonable verdict with your family history? Just answer that direct question or don’t bother with a reply. I really want to hear your answer.
Let me make this simple:
1) Do you acknowledge that our culture has a checkered and violent past to each other (eg Spanish Inquisition) and to Indigenous peoples around the world?
2) If you acknowledge that, what is the point in citing the savagery of the Toltec or Aztecs? Is it to justify what happened in the last 500 plus years?
I guess my point is, what is the point of this post? What is the intent of raising the supposed savagery of the Toltec 1000 years ago?