6 ms·

Ancient Mass Child Sacrifice in Peru May Be World's Largest

39 points by curtis 8y ago

yosito 8y ago
Having read A Death in the Andes and 1492 and having spent a few months in the Andes myself, it didn't surprise me to read that this child sacrifice included llamas and was likely an attempt to appease supernatural forces as plagues and natural disasters threatened precolombian civilizations. The Andes are a very strange superstitious place even today. Native cultures and traditions are still present. Llama sacrifice is extremely common and can be seen regularly in the open. When I was there I even heard plenty of rumors that human sacrifice is still practiced fairly regularly. Usually they'll sacrifice the mentally ill, homeless or other societal outcasts, luring them into pits that have been dug to lay the foundation for new buildings. It's believed that burying sacrifices in a building's foundation will protect it from harm and bring it prosperity. I wonder what kinds of studies have been done on exact how common these types of sacrifices really are now.
- tptacek 8y ago
  We're talking about an archeological find dated roughly 3500 years ago. Within the same span of time, human sacrifice was practiced in parts of Europe as well. Few of us use that fact as an opportunity to spread rumors that the modern-day Italians or Welsh continue to do so.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Vowel sacrifice is still practiced in the open in Wales.
  - yosito 8y ago
    We must have read different articles. The one I read said it was dated around 1450AD.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      Ah, you're right. I must have mixed it up with something else I was reading; that article (someone posted it on Fb) sent me off on a reading jag. My point stands! But, like, an order of magnitude attenuated.
      - adrianratnapala 8y ago
        It's an important order of magnitude. We are talking about religion here, and among other things, religions are tools for transmitting cultural knowledge and practices down through centuries and millenia. 550 years is not really such a long time for a religion.
spanxx 8y ago
I wonder if this kind of customs helped the Spanish conquest and subsequent colonization of the Inca/Aztec Empire. Because, no matter what culture you're part on, having your kill killed is going to make you be against the current rulers. No surprise small Spanish groups of sailors and great armies of native allies could topple several empires through America.
- Jedd 8y ago
  > I wonder if this kind of customs helped the Spanish conquest and subsequent colonization of the Inca/Aztec Empire. I don't think so. It's probably mostly down to what Jared Diamond describes - Guns, Germs, and Steel. The occasional score of children and conquests slaughtered voluntarily is dwarfed by the numbers of natives that died from smallpox (f.e.).
  - yosito 8y ago
    Guns may have had much less to do with it than is commonly believed. I recommend the book 1492 if you're curious about why that is.
    - Jedd 8y ago
      I tend to agree. I suspect the availability of guns was useful in a few key engagements, but the accidental weaponisation of smallpox (for example) was much more effective in wiping out indigenous forces.
      - yosito 8y ago
        Another thing to consider is that European guns sucked during that time period. Bows and arrows and other native weapons were probably very competitive.
- jslsfsafas 8y ago
  At least for the Aztecs, this is in fact the case. The Aztec kept subjugated peoples alive to husband them to supply human beings for their sacrifices. The Spaniards allied themselves early with these would be victims, who therefore helped remove the numeric superiority the Aztecs would have otherwise enjoyed. These allied tribes (see the Tlaxcala) then became a privilege class among the natives. The guns, and the horses, obviously helped - but we're talking 4 orders of magnitude advantage if the Spaniards had not allied themselves with the locals. Even pandemics cannot erase that advantage (and they take time to spread)
bambax 8y ago
Why "sacrifice" and not murder? > "People sacrifice that which is of most and greatest value to them," he explains. But then: > isotopic analysis indicates that they were not all drawn from local populations but likely came from different ethnic groups and regions of the Chimú Empire To accept to have your own child taken from you and cut open to offer its heart to some angry God supposes an amount of "faith" difficult to imagine. Isn't it more likely, they were taken by force? It's always strange when we assume ancient people would necessarily be superstitious; maybe some were, and some weren't. Isn't it reasonable to think that mass killing would be a punishment inflicted on one group to another, following, say, a long war, or simply a conquest?
- tptacek 8y ago
  The Nazis deliberately murdered children by the thousands, but nobody would call those “human sacrifices”.
  - kasey_junk 8y ago
    I bet you can find literary or sociological texts that y’all about those as sacrifices to some modern diety concept.
  - dustincoates 8y ago
    Incidentally, that's what "Holocaust" means, and why many instead use the word "Shoah." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Holocaust > The word "holocaust" originally derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning "a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering," or "a burnt sacrifice offered to a god." > In Judaism, Shoah (שואה), meaning "calamity" in Hebrew, became the standard term for the 20th century Holocaust[2] (see Yom HaShoah). This is because 'Holocaust' connotes a sacrifice, and Jewish leaders argue there was no sacrifice.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      Wow. TIL.
DanAndersen 8y ago
I recommend Darryl Cooper's "MartyrMade" podcast, which did a few episodes [0] examining the questions of human sacrifice and ritual human cannibalism. The episodes were a companion to Daniele Bolelli's "History on Fire" episodes [1] about the first contact between the Spanish and the Mexica (Aztecs), but whereas Bolelli focuses more on the narrative drama of the events of these two incompatible cultures clashing, Cooper's episodes are more psychological explorations about the human condition that try to examine just where in our human minds arises these primal urges toward cannibalism and sacrifice of other humans and how early cultures dealt with the trauma of it in the form of rituals. There's a progression to it too, where cultures tend to move between different phases (cannibalism to human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to purely symbolic sacrifice) where those 'psychic urges' can be played out in more and more abstract ways. It's reminiscent of Dan Carlin's episode about gladiators and public executions [2] and how our modern culture still wants to see the violence but to have it be virtual. The MartyrMade podcast's analysis does a great job of juggling the two opposing ways of looking at these cultures. On one hand there is a human universality in that every culture and every people almost certainly has cannibalism and human sacrifice somewhere in its deep past. On the other hand, it's too easy for us in modern Western societies to try to interpret these other cultural behaviors in rational ways as if deep down they're just like us. Culture shapes its participants fundamentally; truly alien ways of being are the norm. You can't read the account [3] of a young women ritualistically standing in for a Maize Goddess, being beheaded, flayed, and having her too-small skin being stretched and worn by a priest dancing before a crowd without being reminded of the quote "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." When people talk about the "cultural iceberg" [4], this exemplifies just how deep those icebergs go; it's not just language and food and dress and dance. --- [0] http://www.martyrmade.com/tag/human-sacrifice/ http://www.martyrmade.com/tag/human-sacrifice/ [1] http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/?tag=Aztec http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/?tag=Aztec [2] https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-61-blitz-painfotainment/ https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-61-blitz-... [3] http://www.bartleby.com/196/146.html http://www.bartleby.com/196/146.html [4] https://sokokisojourn.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/the-cultural-iceberg.png https://sokokisojourn.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/the-cultur...
RyanRies 8y ago
How did they get red pigment on the kid's skull?
- jcoffland 8y ago
  It started out on the skin. The skin decomposed but the red pigment remained to settle on the skull.

39 points by curtis 8y ago

Having read A Death in the Andes and 1492 and having spent a few months in the Andes myself, it didn't surprise me to read that this child sacrifice included llamas and was likely an attempt to appease supernatural forces as plagues and natural disasters threatened precolombian civilizations. The Andes are a very strange superstitious place even today. Native cultures and traditions are still present. Llama sacrifice is extremely common and can be seen regularly in the open. When I was there I even heard plenty of rumors that human sacrifice is still practiced fairly regularly. Usually they'll sacrifice the mentally ill, homeless or other societal outcasts, luring them into pits that have been dug to lay the foundation for new buildings. It's believed that burying sacrifices in a building's foundation will protect it from harm and bring it prosperity. I wonder what kinds of studies have been done on exact how common these types of sacrifices really are now.

tptacek 8y ago
We're talking about an archeological find dated roughly 3500 years ago. Within the same span of time, human sacrifice was practiced in parts of Europe as well. Few of us use that fact as an opportunity to spread rumors that the modern-day Italians or Welsh continue to do so.
- pvg 8y ago
  Vowel sacrifice is still practiced in the open in Wales.
- yosito 8y ago
  We must have read different articles. The one I read said it was dated around 1450AD.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Ah, you're right. I must have mixed it up with something else I was reading; that article (someone posted it on Fb) sent me off on a reading jag. My point stands! But, like, an order of magnitude attenuated.
    - adrianratnapala 8y ago
      It's an important order of magnitude. We are talking about religion here, and among other things, religions are tools for transmitting cultural knowledge and practices down through centuries and millenia. 550 years is not really such a long time for a religion.

spanxx 8y ago

I wonder if this kind of customs helped the Spanish conquest and subsequent colonization of the Inca/Aztec Empire. Because, no matter what culture you're part on, having your kill killed is going to make you be against the current rulers. No surprise small Spanish groups of sailors and great armies of native allies could topple several empires through America.

Jedd 8y ago
> I wonder if this kind of customs helped the Spanish conquest and subsequent colonization of the Inca/Aztec Empire. I don't think so. It's probably mostly down to what Jared Diamond describes - Guns, Germs, and Steel. The occasional score of children and conquests slaughtered voluntarily is dwarfed by the numbers of natives that died from smallpox (f.e.).
- yosito 8y ago
  Guns may have had much less to do with it than is commonly believed. I recommend the book 1492 if you're curious about why that is.
  - Jedd 8y ago
    I tend to agree. I suspect the availability of guns was useful in a few key engagements, but the accidental weaponisation of smallpox (for example) was much more effective in wiping out indigenous forces.
    - yosito 8y ago
      Another thing to consider is that European guns sucked during that time period. Bows and arrows and other native weapons were probably very competitive.
jslsfsafas 8y ago
At least for the Aztecs, this is in fact the case. The Aztec kept subjugated peoples alive to husband them to supply human beings for their sacrifices. The Spaniards allied themselves early with these would be victims, who therefore helped remove the numeric superiority the Aztecs would have otherwise enjoyed. These allied tribes (see the Tlaxcala) then became a privilege class among the natives. The guns, and the horses, obviously helped - but we're talking 4 orders of magnitude advantage if the Spaniards had not allied themselves with the locals. Even pandemics cannot erase that advantage (and they take time to spread)

bambax 8y ago

Why "sacrifice" and not murder? > "People sacrifice that which is of most and greatest value to them," he explains. But then: > isotopic analysis indicates that they were not all drawn from local populations but likely came from different ethnic groups and regions of the Chimú Empire To accept to have your own child taken from you and cut open to offer its heart to some angry God supposes an amount of "faith" difficult to imagine. Isn't it more likely, they were taken by force? It's always strange when we assume ancient people would necessarily be superstitious; maybe some were, and some weren't. Isn't it reasonable to think that mass killing would be a punishment inflicted on one group to another, following, say, a long war, or simply a conquest?

tptacek 8y ago
The Nazis deliberately murdered children by the thousands, but nobody would call those “human sacrifices”.
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  I bet you can find literary or sociological texts that y’all about those as sacrifices to some modern diety concept.
- dustincoates 8y ago
  Incidentally, that's what "Holocaust" means, and why many instead use the word "Shoah." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Holocaust > The word "holocaust" originally derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning "a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering," or "a burnt sacrifice offered to a god." > In Judaism, Shoah (שואה), meaning "calamity" in Hebrew, became the standard term for the 20th century Holocaust[2] (see Yom HaShoah). This is because 'Holocaust' connotes a sacrifice, and Jewish leaders argue there was no sacrifice.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Wow. TIL.

DanAndersen 8y ago

I recommend Darryl Cooper's "MartyrMade" podcast, which did a few episodes [0] examining the questions of human sacrifice and ritual human cannibalism. The episodes were a companion to Daniele Bolelli's "History on Fire" episodes [1] about the first contact between the Spanish and the Mexica (Aztecs), but whereas Bolelli focuses more on the narrative drama of the events of these two incompatible cultures clashing, Cooper's episodes are more psychological explorations about the human condition that try to examine just where in our human minds arises these primal urges toward cannibalism and sacrifice of other humans and how early cultures dealt with the trauma of it in the form of rituals. There's a progression to it too, where cultures tend to move between different phases (cannibalism to human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to purely symbolic sacrifice) where those 'psychic urges' can be played out in more and more abstract ways. It's reminiscent of Dan Carlin's episode about gladiators and public executions [2] and how our modern culture still wants to see the violence but to have it be virtual. The MartyrMade podcast's analysis does a great job of juggling the two opposing ways of looking at these cultures. On one hand there is a human universality in that every culture and every people almost certainly has cannibalism and human sacrifice somewhere in its deep past. On the other hand, it's too easy for us in modern Western societies to try to interpret these other cultural behaviors in rational ways as if deep down they're just like us. Culture shapes its participants fundamentally; truly alien ways of being are the norm. You can't read the account [3] of a young women ritualistically standing in for a Maize Goddess, being beheaded, flayed, and having her too-small skin being stretched and worn by a priest dancing before a crowd without being reminded of the quote "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." When people talk about the "cultural iceberg" [4], this exemplifies just how deep those icebergs go; it's not just language and food and dress and dance. --- [0] http://www.martyrmade.com/tag/human-sacrifice/ http://www.martyrmade.com/tag/human-sacrifice/ [1] http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/?tag=Aztec http://historyonfirepodcast.com/episodes/?tag=Aztec [2] https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-61-blitz-painfotainment/ https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-61-blitz-... [3] http://www.bartleby.com/196/146.html http://www.bartleby.com/196/146.html [4] https://sokokisojourn.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/the-cultural-iceberg.png https://sokokisojourn.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/the-cultur...

RyanRies 8y ago

How did they get red pigment on the kid's skull?

jcoffland 8y ago
It started out on the skin. The skin decomposed but the red pigment remained to settle on the skull.