Comments on: Aztec, Mayan Brutality

By: Xavier

Xavier — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 07:20:35 +0000

Smallpox out killed the Aztecs, Incas, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Americans, French, etc. combined.

I don’t think anyone who is going around killing other people is what one would call an actual practicing Catholic, Protestant, etc. They are living false lives. Christ said to forgive and continue to forgive, not kill. Those aren’t His teachings……and don’t give me the religion has caused more wars than anything else B.S. WWI, II had zero to do with religion. As did Korea, Vietnam, etc.

As for the Spanish not caring for the Aztecs human sacrifice? Who would? Would that crowd of U of M just passively line up for their hearts to be cut out? I suspect they would be against it and their cultural “relativism” would disappear awfully quickly. See some of the Spanish were sacrificed. They were committed. Students at the U of M? Reading about it 500 years later…..wow, talk about taking the easy way out. It was wrong. Oh me, oh my. Say that when your head is on the chopping block and your chest is being cut open.

Hypocrites.

By: Flora

Flora — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:02:10 +0000

Of course,Aztec and Mayan sacrifice was despicable and horrendous,but why do you all forget that Spanish and other so-called “civilized” “christian” Europeans destroyed almost completely native american culture and customs?! they massacred savagely,raped,stole indian lives and lands in the name of God and catholich church,and today,American government does NOTHING to preserve ancient wisdom and knowledge,instead,they force them to live in reservations,treat them as inferior race.AND THIS IS AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM?!
Sure,native indian culture had its faults,but Europeans weren’t innocent either,don’t you ignore that!!!!!!! if you want the truth,mesoamerican culture was,is and will always be great deal more superior and advanced than barbaric,blinded by fanatism and devoid from all medical,scinetific,and techincal knowledge European one,which claims to be the best,but it isn’t.

By: Lore

Lore — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:43:30 +0000

Indeed, all cultures are bloodthirsty. Whether it be the Mayans, Aztec’s, Spaniards, Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Arabian or Roman, they have all had their bloody wars, and violent crimes. Roman Gladiators, African “Tribal” wars and Slave trade, Piracy, Salem Witch trials, Spanish conquistadors… it matters not. It is simply a matter of human nature. We are addicted to the adrenaline rush when the blood starts to flow, and we like to sit on the edge of our seats in those “shoot-em up” action films. It starts with kids throwing rocks at one another to shooting bullets through their enemy gang member’s head. Religious debates to road rage to getting into flame wars on the internet, we all get excited with how we can next put someone down. Human’s are despicable creatures, no better than two dogs fighting over which is dominant, when in truth, we are all equally cursed with our own personal demons of corruption, and all together equal in this fact. It is a primal desire to move up the food chain, even if it has evolved to a point to where it is all mind games due to our sentient evolution putting our species at the top. The sad part is, no one can argue this without proving the point even further.

I wish the world wasn’t so corrupt, but thats how we are, in the end.

By: NancyGee

NancyGee — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:46:29 +0000

PS: I am Mexican American, thus I have Aztec and Spaniard blood in my veins. I know both sides were murderers but I mean, as ancestors, what can we do now? What happened, happened que no

By: NancyGee

NancyGee — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:41:51 +0000

EVERYONE in this world are violent blood spilling savages. It is in every culture. Ancient or modern. The violence and death is only increasing. As humans, we have those instincts to fight and in some cases even kill. . All the atrocities in this poor world

By: sam-sam joy

sam-sam joy — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 17:21:06 +0000

look guys(and ladies) i only had time to read abt the 1st 12 or so, so sorry to the rest of u. this is from a 15 year old, so if u want go ahead and discount it as nothing important but reality check im a part of the future. look, BOTH were wrong. iv been reading up on Aztec religion and literally was sick from it. if u know the brutality which they did this with, you might be sick as well. they held captives down (the priests did this) and stabbed them with a knife made of volcanic rock. they then tore the heart out, lifted it to the sky, and then burned it. they then pushed the body down the steps of the temple and continued with this. i tamed that down alot. if u do not find that sickening, then i have no more reason to wonder why there is so much violence in our schools, since that is how many of us were raised. but i know 1 thing, THAT IS WRONG!!!!! i dont care if u believe in allah or muhammad or The Christ, even a 15 year old can tell that thats wrong. yes its sacrificing to their gods, but as stated above they felt pain. also, every1 has a built-in sense of right and wrong. weather you admit it or not.

By: HispanicPundit

HispanicPundit — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:32:31 +0000

Great post! I completely agree.

By: Relativism

Relativism — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:15:55 +0000

HP,

when studying ancient cultures or their remains it is important not to apply ones own moral standards. This is not cultural relativism but scientific objectiveness. I can easily study any given culture, including any of their cruel traditions and habits without approving or rejecting them. why? because it is not the purpose why i or other historians or archaeologist study the past. The main objective is to understand the past and people’s behavior, culture, rites, laws, morals etc. it is quite a pointless task to run around and say: “Oh, the aztecs were so bad because they killed their children.” or “Oh, the Spanish were so bad running around killing all the aztecs.” unless you want to make a political statement or utilise the past for ones own agendas. but this is not the purpose of the researcher. if any historian or archaeologist would directly apply modern day values to their research their findings would be quite distorted. An example: archaeologists of the 19th and early 20th century marginalised the role of women in prehistory, claiming they were of lower rank and had very little rights. this view was solely based on the fact that archaeology was basically practised by men who grew up in a society where women had no rights. they projected their own standards and values on the material culture of a past society with no real proof that this was in fact the case. what they found were very gender specific grave goods - weapons for men, domestic articles for women. this was evidence for gender specific role assignments but it did not mean that prehistoric women were seen as lesser beings just because they were doing work that is nowadays seen as inferior to the work associated with the male gender.
so it is dangerous to apply ones own values because it leads to misinterpretation. it is indeed immoral to do so because it is the job of a historian or archaeologist to educate people about the past and not impose their own moral values onto people. this is rather the job of philosophers and politicians.
besides, i find it quite pointless to demonise the spanish or the aztecs when everybody knows that both only did what they thought was right but ended up doing the wrong thing. i suppose hindsight is always the best sight.
what i find more important though is how we apply the lessons from the past to our everyday lives? look around you and what do you see? history repeats itself over and over again because humans refuse to learn from the past.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:45:08 +0000

First of all who is this guy? Mark Stevenson from The Associated Press, have you asked yourselves anything about his background, questioned whether he may be biased, racist, bigoted, ignorant, prejudiced, now dont take my words out of context I said may be, a possibility? Do you always believe what you read? And these archeologists, how experienced are they? Julio Sueco I couldn’t have worded it any better’ “if you are thinking as a human being with morals that only have in place for the past 2000 years. How can you judge them wrong? What higher authority have you to deem so? And why does it bother you so much? One, you weren’t there and Archeology is based, like any imperical science, in speculation.” Thank goodness that there are people who are smart enough to know that there may be biases in archaelogy, I have to question do they know for certainty that these remains were killed by their own, how do we know they weren’t from the hands of the Spanish? Great point brought up you weren’t there, we can only speculate until some solid evidence is presented. I bring you this article to analyze, Columbus Day Celebration? Think Again… by Thom Hartmann
“Gold is most excellent; gold constitutes treasure; and he who has it does all he wants in the world, and can even lift souls up to Paradise.” — Christopher Columbus, 1503 letter to the king and queen of Spain. “Christopher Columbus not only opened the door to a New World, but also set an example for us all by showing what monumental feats can be accomplished through perseverance and faith.” –George H.W. Bush, 1989 speech If you fly over the country of Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, the island on which Columbus landed, it looks like somebody took a blowtorch and burned away anything green. Even the ocean around the port capital of Port au Prince is choked for miles with the brown of human sewage and eroded topsoil. From the air, it looks like a lava flow spilling out into the sea. The history of this small island is, in many ways, a microcosm for what’s happening in the whole world. When Columbus first landed on Hispaniola in 1492, virtually the entire island was covered by lush forest. The Taino “Indians” who loved there had an apparently idyllic life prior to Columbus, from the reports left to us by literate members of Columbus’s crew such as Miguel Cuneo. When Columbus and his crew arrived on their second visit to Hispaniola, however, they took captive about two thousand local villagers who had come out to greet them. Cuneo wrote: “When our caravels… where to leave for Spain, we gathered…one thousand six hundred male and female persons of those Indians, and these we embarked in our caravels on February 17, 1495…For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Spaniards who manned the island’s fort) in the vicinity that anyone who wanted to take some of them could do so, to the amount desired, which was done.” Cuneo further notes that he himself took a beautiful teenage Carib as his personal slave, a gift from Columbus himself, but that when he attempted to with her, she “resisted with all her strength.” So, in his own words, he “thrashed her mercilessly and d her.” While Columbus once referred to the Taino Indians as cannibals, a story made up by Columbus - which is to this day still taught in some US schools - to help justify his slaughter and enslavement of these people. He wrote to the Spanish monarchs in 1493: “It is possible, with the name of the Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which it is possible to sell…Here there are so many of these slaves, and also brazilwood, that although they are living things they are as good as gold…” Columbus and his men also used the Taino as slaves: it was a common reward for Columbus’ men for him to present them with local women to . As he began exporting Taino as slaves to other parts of the world, the -slave trade became an important part of the business, as Columbus wrote to a friend in 1500: “A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for s; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand.” However, the Taino turned out not to be particularly good workers in the plantations that the Spaniards and later the French established on Hispaniola: they resented their lands and children being taken, and attempted to fight back against the invaders. Since the Taino where obviously standing in the way of Spain’s progress, Columbus sought to impose discipline on them. For even a minor offense, an Indian’s nose or ear was cut off, se he could go back to his village to impress the people with the brutality the Spanish were capable of. Columbus attacked them with dogs, skewered them with pikes, and shot them. Eventually, life for the Taino became so unbearable that, as Pedro de Cordoba wrote Ferdinand in a 1517 letter, “As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen . Occasionally a hundred have committed mass . The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth… Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.” Eventually, Columbus and later his brother Bartholomew Columbus who he left in charge of the island, simply resorted to wiping out the Taino altogether. Prior to Columbus’ arrival, some scholars place the population of Haiti/Hispaniola (now at 16 million) at around 1.5 to 3 million people. By 1496, it was down to 1.1 million, according to a census done by Bartholomew Columbus. By 1516, the indigenous population was 12,000, and according to Las Casas (who were there) by 1542 fewer than 200 natives were alive. By 1555, every single one was . This wasn’t just the story of Hispaniola; the same has been done to indigenous peoples worldwide. Slavery, apartheid, and the entire concept of conservative Darwinian Economics, have been used to justify continued suffering by masses of human beings. Dr. Jack Forbes, Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis and author of the brilliant book “Columbus and Other Cannibals,” uses the Native American word wétiko (pronounced WET-ee-ko) to describe the collection of beliefs that would produce behavior like that of Columbus. Wétiko literally means “cannibal,” and Forbes uses it quite intentionally to describe these standards of culture: we “eat” (consume) other humans by destroying them, destroying their lands, taking their natural resources, and consuming their life-force by enslaving them either physically or economically. The story of Columbus and the Taino is just one example. We live in a culture that includes the principle that if somebody else has something we need, and they won’t give it to us, and we have the means to to get it, it’s not unreasonable to go get it, using whatever force we need to. In the United States, the first “Indian war” in New England was the “Pequot War of 1636,” in which colonists surrounded the largest of the Pequot villages, set it afire as the sun began to rise, and then performed their duty: they shot everybody-men, women, children, and the elderly-who tried to escape. As Puritan colonist William Bradford described the scene: “It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire and the streams of quenching the same, and horrible was the stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they [the colonists] gave praise therof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully…” The Narragansetts, up to that point “friends” of the colonists, were so shocked by this example of European-style warfare that they refused further alliances with the whites. Captain John Underhill ridiculed the Narragansetts for their unwillingness to engage in genocide, saying Narragansett wars with other tribes were “more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies.” In that, Underhill was correct: the Narragansett form of war, like that of most indigenous Older Culture peoples, and almost all Native American tribes, does not have extermination of the opponent as a goal. After all, neighbors are necessary to trade with, to maintain a strong gene pool through intermarriage, and to insure cultural diversity. Most tribes wouldn’t even want the lands of others, because they would have concerns about violating or entering the sacred or spirit-filled areas of the other tribes. Even the of “enemies” is not most often the goal of tribal “wars”: It’s most often to fight to some pre-determined measure of “victory” such as seizing a staff, crossing a particular line, or the first wounding or surrender of the opponent. This wétiko type of theft and warfare is practiced daily by farmers and ranchers worldwide against wolves, coyotes, insects, animals and trees of the rainforest; and against indigenous tribes living in the jungles and rainforests. It is our way of life. It comes out of our foundational cultural notions. So it should not surprise us that with the doubling of the world’s population over the past 37 years has come an explosion of and brutality, and as the United States runs low on oil, we are now fighting wars in oil-rich parts of the world. That is, after all, our history, which we celebrate on Columbus Day. It need not be our future.

Did you read the part, the women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth… Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.” Maybe perhaps that is what happened when they found some kids who knows? Sacrificing one’s self to God was seen as a courageous thing, so who are you to judge that? You shouldn’t really talk when you weren’t in their shoes and have no idea where they were at mentally when the Spanish came and enslaved them, to justify the Spanish as they deserved it mentality, let me remind you they killed for greed and that was not right, I doubt they cared if the “Aztecs” which I believe is a wrong term I think the english came up with that word the correct term is Mexica, killed themselves or their offspring, the better for them to be able to steal their wealth and resources.

By: Faye

Faye — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:41:35 +0000

I would like to bring up an issue related to Spanish brutality.

I would like to know what you think of those who arrived in what it is nowadays the US and killed EVERY Native American or put them in reservation camps to avoid the horror of being reminded of their extreme brutality.

I would like to know whether South American natives would have chosen, given the chance, being conquered by other cultures, those who exterminate pity, and leave no trace of their shame.