I can’t help think what the reaction might be if someone published a study on Auschwitz and termed the facility “terrifyingly humongous” and otherwise never mentioned that it was a venue for mass murder.
Archaeologists have discovered a new section of the historic site, which was first uncovered in 2015. The new find adds 119 skulls to the previously known 484, for a hair-raising total of 603 skulls, stacked atop one another and mortared together.
The tower is believed to be one of seven similar structure that once stood in the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City).
Let’s not jump to conclusions.
Is there any evidence that the women and children whose skulls were unearthed didn’t volunteer, as part of a rich and long-standing cultural tradition that the colonizers did not understand?
Abstract
Recent salvage excavations conducted in the Early Postclassic city of Tula, Hidalgo, exposed a residential compound containing an open patio, beneath which was discovered a massive burial, designated Feature 5. Human remains involving a minimum of 49 individuals were discovered, many of whom were arranged in a sitting or squatting position. The majority of individuals, including all of the latter, were young children. The bioarchaeological analysis suggests that they were sacrificed. Many individuals exhibited anthropogenic modification, including cut marks on the skull and postcranial skeleton, indicating the children had been flayed. Some individuals were represented only by the skull and cervical vertebrae, suggesting decapitation. The individuals appeared to be in bad health, a common attribute of children sacrificed to Tlaloc by the Aztecs. According to ethnohistorical sources, children offered to Tlaloc commonly had their throats slit, although this practice was not identified among the individuals in Feature 5, possibly owing to their young age. Sacrifice also may have been made to Xipe Totec, as suggested by the evidence of flaying and the presence of a large hollow sculpture of the deity located in an adjacent residential compound, a deity who has been also linked to human sacrifice related to regeneration and fertility.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/abs/child-sacrifice-in-tula-a-bioarchaeological-study/DD773D4781249E7D8D85D621B22927AD
This is why you eat your broccoli.
Xipe Totec sounds like he works for our modern health authorities.
The site of the municipal graveyard in Chatham is where the ‘previous occupants’ sacrificed their captives way back when. Was it Rousseau that came up with the whole Noble Savage myth?
I blame Kevin Costner and dances with wolves for the modern noble savage nonsense.
I also blame Neil Young (sorry, whose music I love) … for spreading his sophomoric misinformation about the noble, perfect, native peoples in songs such as Cortez the Killer (a fabulous tune). Where he wrote utter nonsense such as this:
And the women all were beautiful
And the men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice
So that others could go on
Hate was just a legend
War was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones
And they carried them to the flatlands
But they died along the way
And they built up with their bare hands
What we still can’t do today
Anyone who knows TRUE history just laughs at such naive (at best) beliefs.
Young’s music is fine if you’re into listening to cats getting their tails stepped on.
Yeah … I guess I’m an animal abuser … cause I’m addicted to the sound of a droning, whining, guitar of this ULTIMATE jam-band song.
https://youtu.be/04SyevARRcc?si=V1F_uOmyXOC2U2oo
I have a Test Pressing of Built To Spill performing this tune … that fills the entire side of a 33rpm record … something like 38min. long … it’s simply glorious!
Rock musicians have never been a deep thinking analytical bunch.
Apparently NY is playing “lost verses” in his latest tour. No mention of the mountains of human skulls and hearts cut out of living captors by the Aztecs.
Enjoy the jam, although I prefer “Like a Hurricane”.
Now in fairness, he’s writing a song lyric, not a history essay. He’s projecting a mood, a sense of painful and resented loss, with a certain snarling anger to it, and he wants the words to carry that attitude. So any idea that generates that response will do, even if it’s historically bullshit.
Neil Young talks bullshit when he should be serious, and we should call him out for that. But here, he’s just doing the art. Cut him some slack.
In large part it was Rousseau. But it arose from a long intellectual tradition of the joys of pastoral life. This is where the imagery of shepherds also being poets and the beauty of shepherdesses. This was transformed into fantasies about the simple life by European aristocrats in parties held by royal courts. It continued on in the 19th century via things like Thoreau’s Walden. It surfaced again in the 1960s with hippie culture and the supposed joys of natural living on the land in communal farms.
The fact is that Thomas Hobbes had the best understanding of all this, describing living in a state of nature to be “nasty, brutish, and short.” Your reference to the Chatham graveyard would provide yet more evidence that Hobbes was right.
Decapitation vs the Jab!
That’s progress.
OJ Simpson has entered the chat.
But, but, but, they were so peaceful.
Only the white thrash are the bad ones.
Just to clarify that part.
Hate was just a legend
War was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones
He came dancing across the water
Cortez, Cortez
What a killer
This history lesson was brought to you by deep thinker, 60’s era fossil, Neil Young. Neil says hate was just a legend, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, and they were all one big happy family, minding their own business liftin’ stones and stuff until that bastard Cortez came along and spoiled their party.
That is because Neil Young was, and still is, an idiot.
Sorry … I posted Neil’s sophomoric idiocy above … before I read down to see you’ve covered his idiocy quite nicely.
“Spanish conquistadors destroyed the Huei Tzompantli tower, but archaeologist are unearthing its ruins.”
Those bad evil Conquistadors….
How dare they not celebrate death … like some other religion that hasn’t quite made it out of The Dark Ages … Free! Free! Palestine! Genocide the Jews!!
I watched a documentary about the first Pilgrims landings, who were nearly wiped out by the harsh conditions and lack of food and shelter.
The reality of human cannibalism and torture by the local indigenous peoples became very real. It was a common practice to cut and eat the flesh and drink the fresh blood of their enemies so they could become stronger and mightier warriors and peoples. The capturing of their enemy’s souls was the goal to enlarge their own soul. It was a brutal and barbaric ritual, very common in the times of battle.
Those days will return, if they are not already here with the andrenachrome rituals happening among the elite.
The Iroquoi are famous for minting a brace of missionary martyrs. It was common practice to torture captured warriors. The game was for the captors to submit the prisoners to horrible torture, and for the prisoner to basically say “That didn’t hurt, is that the best you can do”. One use the native found for the wheel is to tie a man to it, break all his limbs and (the wheel being spun sorta diagonally) light a fire at the lower end and slowly roast the head while the prisoner was still alive.
But keep telling yourself that the “colonialist” Christian Missionaries were the “bad” people …
Archaeologists believe the tower was constructed between 1486 and 1502, and that the skulls belonged to victims of ritual sacrifices to the gods.
“They were all made sacred,” said archaeologist Raul Barrera in a statement. “Turned into gifts for the gods or even personifications of deities themselves.”
What a lovely positive spin to put on the chilling barbarity
“I can’t help think what the reaction might be if someone published a study on Auschwitz and termed the facility “terrifyingly humongous” and otherwise never mentioned that it was a venue for mass murder.”
We’ve seen this before. They were called Ernst Zundel and David Irving.
Why did it only take 800 conquistadors under Cortez to defeat the Aztecs? They had the help of thousands of indigenous warriors. The Aztecs were not nice to the surrounding tribes.
And/or the masses had become so accustomed to bow down before anyone who told them to. Kinda like mass immunization by a FEARFUL population …
What is not being said is that people are still capable of doing this kind of thing, and, IMHO, the left is veritably chomping at the bit to do this kind of thing, folk like Surfer and Colonialista, etc.
“What is not being said is that people are still capable of doing this kind of thing, and, IMHO, the left is veritably chomping at the bit to do this kind of thing, folk like Surfer and Colonialista, etc.”
You’re not wrong, YW…and it usually starts with little things, like describing people who oppose your hateful views as ‘subhumans’.
Wouldn’t it be something if archaeologists determined that the site was also a school. Perhaps even one where the students were in residence.
Huh. You mean the Spanish got there earlier than we thought?
I believe there is a site in Peru with a similar history.
Don’t forget the wars that went on for centuries in what is now northern Quebec between the Cree and the Inuit.
Ugly stuff but isn’t it all, looking back.. IMO they were a trash culture that burned itself out.. Good riddance to them and their ruins.. But where is the money in that?..
Now that history is being revised, they will probably get rid of the fact that during the War of 1812, Indians scalped American prisoners of war. British troops had to prevent scalpings with great difficulty.
Both the French and English had trouble controlling the First Nations that were their allies. In an episode near Champlain Lake, French allies Huron were promised booty for helping take a British fort. The Brits were given favorable terms by the French, so they surrendered. The Huron got right pissed (no booty) and dug up the adjacent graveyard to plunder. Many Brits laying there had died of smallpox and the bodies were wrapped in blankets. You can guess what happened next and who brought the blankets back to camp. Anyway the Brits were being escorted back to Brit lines by French soldiers as per the agreement. They were attacked by Huron, the French fired at them and everybody involved got upset at each other.
An old classic from NZ..;Bill Direen AKA The Builders; Beatin Hearts album; A million Hearts.
I figure all these human behaviours cycle through time,so are we ready to prevent our Progressive Comrades from committing the mass murder they so desire?
“Moderation” by the same group is attention catching.
The Aztecs were satanic and were generally incompatible with any other culture. They got what they deserved.
Well at least they didn’t burn witches!
Food supplies could be precarious, especially in an extended drought. Throughout history, societies have had to deal with plagues and famines. For those without birth control and other modern means such as trade, famines and droughts were deadly. So societies invented and invoked all sorts of ruthless means to curtail population growth or limit it to deal with a lack of food.