On Lies of Aztec Human Sacrifice

reply to post by denynothing


My family with the exception of my uncle was/ is Francoist. My grandfather fought early in the civil war against the communists that occupied our city. They did some bad things to my family during their occupation. Killed some and did worse to others.

We spent the second half of the civil war in hiding. When we returned to our city my grandfather found work in the weapons factory.

My grandfather supported Hitler and worked in the cities weapons factory under a German engineer who oversaw the factory during WW2. He was appointed as weapons master and second in command of production. He figured out a flaw in a rifle that even engineers in Germany couldn't. They were impressed with him and so he made decent money there when everyone around us was starving.

My father was too young to fight and his older brother/ my uncle is rumored to have helped the communists in Madrid. After the civil war my uncle returned to a divided family because of those red bastards. I didn't live it, but the way I see it, what they did to us will not soon be forgotten.


EDIT:
I just wanted to add that the reason why the church skewed the Aztec image was because of the massive sin they were comfortable letting sefaradi Jews commit so long as they got the gold to fund future military campaigns.

The crown was appraised of the situation with the conquistadores and ordered a halt of all activities. The problem was that it took months to get the message there, have trial and send word back to the colonies. The massacre of the Incan royal families caused the Spanish royal family to be horrified by what was done. It was too late and it was thought better to forget it all and say they were savages who needed Romanizing.


ADD:

The reason why it was so easy is because

1. the church made sure to kill the remaining scribes and the codex we have were written without their permission by boys that were apprentice scribes to the Aztecs. While teaching them scripture, the missionaries made them write the handful of codex we have. Poor copies that didnt have 1/3 of the meaning and content of the originals. These kids barely understood what their former teaches started to teach them. The quality was shoty and the content was half in spanish and half in original pictographs.

They say that the church burned thousands of pages of bound Aztec books. The missionaries tried in vain to preserve something of what they admitted was an important loss akin to a library of Alexandria burning down. Everything from medicine to history. Lost because the pictures were scary.

2. The culture was forced into abject slavery and forced to speak Spanish, worship JC, and never mention the past.

When the name "Aztec" could be pronounced again without punishment, what was done was forgotten and who they were was a memory in the eyes of a few elderly people that actually lived under Aztec rule. The truth died with them. A truth they barely understood, having been children when it all happened.

Think to native American people in the US. Same deal. They were made out to be savages too. The truth is while they had wars....they lived in relative peace before a conquering force arrived gold hungry and with blood lust.

reply to post by Alexander2533


I've read evidence of just what you are talking about a while back and came up with a similar conclusion.

Originally posted by Skid Mark
THANK YOU! Sorry for the caps but really I can't thank you enough for this thread. I'm so sick of the lies that are spread about Indigenous cultures. Orwell said "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." - -- George Orwell
That is so true. he Spanish all but obliterated the Aztecs and who's story is the one of believed?
You are so right. It is propaganda. It's also an example of cognative dissonance. First, the Spanish reported how Native people were such good people and in touch with God-hence the word Indian (which comes from Una gente en dios. It means a people in God. The phrase just got mutilated over time. Translator) Then, gold was discovered and they had to have a reason to pursecute the people and get rid of them so they could get their greedy hands on it. What better way than to report back to the pope and tell him how devilish the people were?
I had a friend that was Aztec and talked to him about this once. He said that his people had a written language and books. The Spanish destroyed these. He also said that they performed open heart surgery and that's what the Spanish witnessed. Makes sense to me.

Surgeons, butchers what's the difference ?

reply to post by randyvs

Where would they make use of a wheel ? Please. Jungle, mountains ? No horses ?

Spoken like a man who's read Guns, Germs & Steel.

Oh, I don't know. Pulleys? Windlasses? Throwing pots?

Wheelbarrows on construction sites? City streets?

Roulette wheel for deciding who gets their heart cut out next?

I had never heard this before. If true, it wouldn't surprise me. It's sad that the indigenous Americans experienced an apocalypse that wiped out 90% of their population...

Great info and good thread.

reply to post by Astyanax

Spoken like a man who's read Guns, Germs & Steel.

Are you denying the fact that colonizing Europeans learned metallurgy from Africans and the recipe for gunpowder from the Chinese and used this knowledge to create explosive projectile weaponry that they then used to suppress and conquer the small populations of indigenous cultures that were left after being decimated by germs imported by the same colonizing Europeans?

Oh, I don't know. Pulleys? Windlasses? Throwing pots?

Wheelbarrows on construction sites? City streets?

And yet somehow the absence of this miracle device known as a wheel in no way stopped the Meso-Americans from building massively complex cities, stone pyramids, and canoes.

here are 2 sites amongst many available with pre-Colombian wheeled toys.

www.precolumbianwheels.com...

www.atoda.com...

reply to post by BIHOTZ


Like the pics mate.

I personally think that the whole "they didn't have the wheel" storyline is the same type of urban legend as "we only use 10% of our brain."
They might not have used a circular object in the same fashion as Western Culture, but they obviously employed its use.

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by randyvs

 

Where would they make use of a wheel ? Please. Jungle, mountains ? No horses ?

Spoken like a man who's read Guns, Germs & Steel.

Oh, I don't know. Pulleys? Windlasses? Throwing pots?

Wheelbarrows on construction sites? City streets?

Roulette wheel for deciding who gets their heart cut out next?

edit on 20/7/12 by Astyanax because: I found another use for a wheel

Oh I got one Astyanax ! Did they have paddle boats ?

The Aztecs surely sacrificed people as an offer to the gods. They were a brutal people, yet very intelligent. Look at the games they would play where usually the losers were put to death. However, The Spanish Inquisition was full of lies and deception. They destroyed these peoples history all in the name of some man made fairy tale. I am sure they painted a much worse pitcure than what the truth really is, but The Aztecs did sacrifice people. Even modern day cartels sacrifice people because they believe that the gods will protect them from the authorities. This is just a fact.

Also, you can remove a heart from a human body, but's it's no easy task. I have watched a Deer's heart being removed, and it takes some effort and knowledge. Never hunted again after watching that by the way, but I would if I had to eat. As far as the Aztecs performing heart transplants, thats just rubbish. Sure, they performed minor surgeries, they were very intelligent, but not one single successful heart transplant where the patient survived I assure you of that.

More importantly, The Spanish Inquisition destroyed ancient technology that may never be replaced or found again by mankind. Foolish mortals. ~$heopleNation

reply to post by Dragoon01


I just wanted to say that all archeological evidence of bodies found at sites like the base of the pyramids is sketchy at best.

The entire capital was demolished and burried and used as back fill in some cases for new buildings. The stones and materials available from existing structures were used to build churches and other European structures slowly over hundreds of years.

Also it is unknown what remains are from
1, the original conquest by the Spaniards.
2, the bodies possible ceremonial decapitation after death by disease.
3, the bodies from the period of wars before the Spanish conquest.

If they had practiced ritual sacrifice with zeal as you say then we would have human remains literally everywhere you walk.

They had a HUGE population even after the massive reduction. If they had been killing in "massive" numbers then the amount of remains would make entire cities since they still managed to keep large populations.

We have a large amount of remains from about the time the Spanish arrived. Not as much before or after.

Again. Look to source material and witness accounts. It is available in many languages and from several perspectives. Missionaries, soldiers, the conquerors, the courts and their accounts on what happened. They had many trials on the subject back home. The Aztecs themselves, everybody.

It is actually well documented. The thing is what was taught is an interpretation of the material and a favoritism to only mention what the conquerors said happened, or what the church said happened. Not even the missionaries were taken into account when they cried to high heaven about the sheer loss of a God loving and worthy culture.

They had flaws and problems, dark times and outright evil. They also had the corresponding counter virtues of a stable and growing people. All the attributes we give an advanced culture are present in these empires. Consider that if wrangled by constant war they could not achieve any level of sophistication.

Think to Ghangis Kahn. He was powerful but left nothing. Rome left legacy and that is what we find here. A lost human legacy. Another perspective from a worthy people. A wealth of knowledge lost to careless bigotry and cavalier opportunism.

We lost, not them. They are dead. We live with these stains. I am a Spaniard. We don't hide this fact. We know what we did better than anyone. The truth is we lied too.

reply to post by SheopleNation

The Aztecs surely sacrificed people as an offer to the gods. They were a brutal people, yet very intelligent. Look at the games they would play where usually the losers were put to death.

Look mate... I really enjoyed the majority of your post, but I do not understand how you came to this conclusion.

Every interpretation of Aztec culture is biased.
Unless of course, you talk to an actual Aztec descendent, and even then their view of their own history could very well be biased because the ancient Aztec population was forced into slavery while being taught Christianity to somehow make up for the fact that they were being forced into slavery.

We really don't know what those pictograms mean.

The Aztec language of Nahuatl was itself Latinized.
The only known remnant of the language is written in Latin script.

The majority of the codices left are post-invasion Codices that contain explanations of the pictograms and recordings of Aztec culture; however, these explanations and recordings are written in Spanish, Latin and Latinized Nahuatl.
The Aztecs who wrote these post-invasion codices were limited to those who had been taught/brainwashed by the conquering Spaniards.
They were Aztecs who either obviously suffered from Stockholm Syndrome or acquiesced to the desires of the plundering Spaniards in order to save their own hide.

To say that these codices were recorded under duress is an understatement.

At best, the only objective conclusion possible is that we truly do not know how the pictograms in the pre-invasion codices translate.

The mainstream POV is that the pre-invasion codices contain pictograms showing religious ritual.

The supposed human sacrifices.

But let's think critically for a moment...

Forget that fact that the actual interpretation of the pictograms is heavily biased.

The status quo view is that the invading Spaniards burned nearly all of the Meso-American codices.
But somehow the monks managed to save a few.
How fortunate and timely, especially for those who benefit from portraying the Aztecs as savages.
Who benefits you ask?
The same monks who saved the codices.

And the few that the monks saved are now used to give insight into the Aztec culture.
But the few that they saved also happen to be the ONLY cultural remnants that supposedly validate this idea of human sacrifice.
I simply refuse to believe that the Spaniards burned these codices because they were appalled by the Aztec practice of human sacrifice.
This makes no sense.

First... The central figure of their OWN religion was a human freaking sacrifice.
And second.... The invading Spaniards conquered the Aztecs through murdering them.
How can anyone with a modicum of critical thinking skills reconcile this?

This story makes much more sense if the motive for burning the codices was the fact that the conquering Spaniards and the monks that sought to convert the Aztecs to Christianity had the primary goal of destroying the Aztec's history in order to revise it and portray them as savages.
And the best way to do this would be to save the very few codices that supposedly validate this revised history of human sacrifice.
And it just so happens that the very same monks who desired to convert the Aztecs and save them from their barbaric history somehow fortunately saved the same codices now used to convince future generations that the Aztecs were savages who practiced human sacrifice.

And what exactly did the monks use to save these savage Aztecs from their barbaric practice of human sacrifice?
What system of belief will relieve them of the burden of sacrifice?
A religion built upon having faith in a mythological man who himself was a human sacrifice.

How can anyone buy into this boloney?

reply to post by kyviecaldges


Yeah um the greeks actually weren't that good at math. The folks from the middle east were great at it. They invented algebra, but not the greeks. not every culture will be math whizzes but you seem to have stated that the aztec's math was no worse than the greeks which isn't saying much for the aztec math.

I'm not saying the aztecs were crappy at math either just that they were not nor have ever been the pinnacle of math during the times they reigned. They had decent math.

Also, pretty sure the greeks got their astrology from the Egyptians and Babylonians.

reply to post by BIHOTZ

It is actually well documented. The thing is what was taught is an interpretation of the material and a favoritism to only mention what the conquerors said happened, or what the church said happened. Not even the missionaries were taken into account when they cried to high heaven about the sheer loss of a God loving and worthy culture.

They had flaws and problems, dark times and outright evil. They also had the corresponding counter virtues of a stable and growing people. All the attributes we give an advanced culture are present in these empires. Consider that if wrangled by constant war they could not achieve any level of sophistication.

Exactly.

I feel sure that murder happened in Meso-American Aztec culture.
And it very well could have been state sanctioned murder in the form of punishment of a crime.
Or perhaps the murder of captured enemy soldiers.
Or even the straight up murder of an enemy.

And this could be exactly what we see portrayed in the pictograms of the early pre-invasion codices.

But that doesn't make it human sacrifice.

We do all those very same things right here in good 'ole America.
Except maybe murdering captured enemy soldiers.

We save them for torture.

The thing is what was taught is an interpretation of the material and a favoritism to only mention what the conquerors said happened, or what the church said happened.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Cheers mate.

reply to post by kyviecaldges


You are correct on a few things. The codices were poorly written by the unfinished and young apprentice scribes to the Aztecs. They were chosen because they were literate and so could learn Latin and read scripture. They were to be priests themselves to their conquered people.

They did not remember how to even speak their language with the same skill as before since years had already passed since the burnings. They were kids remembering what they practiced a year or three ago.

The codices aren't really about sacrifice. I don't remember which do contain an explanation if any of sacrifice. They are more about time and Aztec customs. a few lessons and myths they recalled that were probably oral history Anyways.

The elites libraries which were the real wealth of information about these sacrifices was lost. Priests scribes and rulers were the first killed. Their kids were stolen from them and made Catholic priests at gun point.

We just don't know. Consider this. If all our written language was lost and a future culture were to discover our house of worship, they would see we worshiped a tortured cadaver nailed to a cross, and we drink his blood and eat his flesh. That is what the few inscriptions and images would tell them.

reply to post by BASSPLYR

Yeah um the greeks actually weren't that good at math. The folks from the middle east were great at it. They invented algebra, but not the greeks. not every culture will be math whizzes but you seem to have stated that the aztec's math was no worse than the greeks which isn't saying much for the aztec math.

I'm not saying the aztecs were crappy at math either just that they were not nor have ever been the pinnacle of math during the times they reigned. They had decent math.

I am not here to debate the Greeks, but if you think that calculating the circumference of the Earth accurately, calculating the distance from the Earth to the Moon accurately, calculating the value of Pi accurately, and calculating the value of Phi accurately... without the aid of computation equipment...
Isn't that "good", then you my friend are someone who requires way too much effort to be stimulated.

The Greeks might not have been fans of Algebra as a whole, but they were big into Geometry.

And you might know these names from your study of math- Pythagoras, Aristotle, Anaxagoras, Euclid, Archimedes, Thales, and Aristarchus.

Considering that the Aztecs were at the very least equal to the Greeks, and in some ways surpassed the Greeks, I would give them a vote for a highly evolved system of mathematics.

If you don't view this from a historical perspective, then of course it is not impressive.

We live in a world built upon the shoulders of giants, including the Meso-Americans.

But I would bet green money that if we had all our computers and calculators taken away, then most of the modern world would become the bumbling idiots that they actually are.

How do you misinterpret a drawing of a guy being held down while a high priest is holding the mans heart in his hands covered in blood holding a big knife. And the guy being held down has a huge hole in his chest. Sure looks like a form of execution, murder or sacrifice. I'll go with sacrifice. See the other indians had records too and they noted the human sacrifice element to the aztec culture too. It's pretty clear that the sacrifices weren't a smear job done by the spaniards. The spanish may have embellished the figures but probably not by much.

The aztecs were actually pretty good poets. I remember reading a book on aztec poetry. They had some good stuff. One poem I'll remember for a while remarked about how humans are like flowers. we re born, we grow up and mature, we have a very small window where we are at our fullest and then we age and shrivel just like the petals of a flower and eventually die. It was written in prettier prose but it was a insightful poem and unexpected from a group that sacrificed people in horrific ways. Although getting your heart cut out while you are still alive is probably better than getting burned to death.

As for cutting out a heart with ones hands. SHouldn't be too difficult. Buy a pig carcass and see if you can rip the heart out with your bear hands once the incision is made. Bet you can do it. It's pobably even easier if you have a knife. Just three easy cuts. Lower vena cava... slice Upper vena cava...slice, aorta...slice. presto removable heart. Probably doesn't take too long to get good at the motions after your 20th sacrifice victim for the day.

Got no knife you say? NP. The guys being held down. Do a knee drop on his sternum splintering it. Have a few sharp fingernails that are grown out dig in pick sternum splinters aside and yank hard on heart. Not too hard if one is a dedicated hig priest who's job it is to sacrifice humans.

I agree with you that if you took away our calculators than most of us would become bumbling idiots again. We depend way too much on them. However it would be reasonable that the average aztec wasn't schooled in much math and that higher math was the specialty of priests. So I would also put money down that the average aztec was probably as bumbling with math as the average modern man.

Just curious have you visited the aztec temples before? They are stunning to walk around. The sheer effort gone into building them was pretty impressive.

reply to post by BASSPLYR

How do you misinterpret a drawing of a guy being held down while a high priest is holding the mans heart in his hands covered in blood holding a big knife. And the guy being held down has a huge hole in his chest. Sure looks like a form of execution, murder or sacrifice. I'll go with sacrifice.

So you begin by asking me how I can think that this is not a human sacrifice...

And then you openly admit that it could be murder or sacrifice.

Think about that for a second.

See the other indians had records too and they noted the human sacrifice element to the aztec culture too.

And what exactly are these records that you speak of.

I would bet that the only other Meso-American "records" that might discuss this supposed human sacrifice are from other native cultures who were conquered by the Spaniards and then accused of practicing human sacrifice.
(btw... Indians are not from America, unless naturalized US Citizens, and even then, if they are Indian then they are from India)

It's pretty clear that the sacrifices weren't a smear job done by the spaniards.

Didn't you just say that it could be murder and not sacrifice?

Hell, it could've been surgery or some form of crazy body modification. I don't know and I don't pretend to know just because the obviously biased history tells me so.

It was written in prettier prose but it was a insightful poem and unexpected from a group that sacrificed people in horrific ways. Although getting your heart cut out while you are still alive is probably better than getting burned to death.

You have totally lost me man.

As for cutting out a heart with ones hands. SHouldn't be too difficult. Buy a pig carcass and see if you can rip the heart out with your bear hands once the incision is made

I have never made this argument.
This is called a straw man argument and it is a logical fallacy.