But I also note that this gruesome confirms, in an odd way, the natural human inclination to think in terms of justice and reciprocity. What were the ancient Cahokians trying to do, by slaughtering so many men and woman, and sacrificing so much bounty? Increase the aura of their upper class, to be sure. But they were also trying to bargain with the gods. In return for all this virgin blood, you big spirits need to make the crops grow and our enemies diminish. It is terrible to say so, but only a basically moral animal could think that way.
--Lewis M. Hoppe, Religions of the World, 1976 (quote from Ruth Underhill, Red Man's Religion, 1965)
Posted by: Rob Schmidt | Aug 7, 2009 7:41:48 AM
I wonder where you got the idea that "mass human sacrifice was so prevalent in Native American cultures." Can you cite a source for this claim?
Besides the Aztecs, Maya, and Cahokians, which Native cultures practiced human sacrifice? These are only three of the thousands of cultures that existed in the Americas. Unless you can list several hundred Native cultures that practiced human sacrifice, your argument fails.
Posted by: Rob Schmidt | Aug 7, 2009 7:47:19 AM
You point to a grand total of two sites. Imagine pointing to Auschwitz and Buchenwald and making the same claim, "Why was genocide so prevalent among Europeans?"
I also didn't see any sign that these sites were of sacrifices. They could've been executions of criminals or captives seized in war. (Which doesn't justify them. I'm personally opposed to the death penalty for anything other than the most heinous war crimes.)
But obviously you think in stereotypes. Indian dead = human sacrifice. Never mind that human sacrifice was common in Europe during the Spanish Inquisition. Never mind that lynching has every feature of human sacrifice except cannibalism, including the collecting of body parts for trophies.
Any good scholar would look at all possible explanations. Obviously you want a reason to imagine Indians are barbaric.
Posted by: Al Carroll | Aug 8, 2009 9:53:50 AM
For more on the subject, see Were the Aztecs Murdering "Animals"? and Uncivilized Indians.
5 comments:
I don't think its imperative to juxtapose the cultures of Latin and Central America with those of Northern America.
It is obvious that the person citing unsupported claims that North American Indians were engaging in mass human sacrifices, is very preposterously and woefully ignorant on this subject matter. Anyone who is educated on the true history of North American Indian studies will dispute that claim(excluding those who cite the same argument based upon a fallacy).
GENO--
Yes, there was a great variance among cultures.
I've read some accounts of old Ojibwe, Odawa, and Sioux customs. Some by whites who were quite contemptious/intolerant, and would not have hesitated to make hay about the human sacrifice thing, if there were any truth to it for these cultures. But I don't recall it being mentioned at all in these accounts.
From the Mexican region down to South America the facts are if you dig enough, that it was a horrific child eating cannibalistic nightmare on a mass scale. I have noticed great efforts by american scholars to defend North American Indian behavior, but now that I have started rea ding about the mohawks in the American Northeast, the hamatsa in the North West, skidee Pawnee in the center, the karankawa in Texas. When you start adding this evidence together and then look at the pervasiveness and similarity to the practices of human sacrifice and cannibalism you have to start to take off the clear candy coating of American scholars and wonder why the hell they tried to cover that up....
Correction/omitted text:
Similarities to the human sacrifice and cannibalism (in the indigenous tribes in other areas throughout the Americas)
human children have been found buried under native totem poles. sounds like sacrifice to me
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