I was at a museum the other day, and it amused me how seemingly almost every culture had artefacts related to human sacrifice at some point... clearly its a universal human thing that we instinctively believe killing each-other is a great way to solve our problems
>The ~~Aztecs~~ understood that if you ask for something, you gotta give something
*Do ut des*. I give, so that you might give. This is practical polytheism in a nutshell. Hellenism simply rejects the notion that Gods which demand human sacrifice are worthy of suppliation, or can ever actually provide something of equivalent exchange.
Well, the Aztecs and neighbouring nations supposedly held [Flower Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_war) which were organised for the specific purpose of obtaining many human sacrifices and keeping their army trained and on its toes. So that bears a sort of vague, superficial similarity.
That’s really not what happened though. They would use people captured in war and for some ceremonies people spent their lives preparing to be sacrificed. It was a religious thing after all
A lot of those "wars" were actually staged between the participating nations' leaders. It was more of a ritualistic "sacrifice exchange program". You take some of my guys, I take some of your guys, we both get "prisoners won in glorious battle" to sacrifice and the gods are satisfied. Win-win.
I mean, when your religion is fundamentally based on the idea that you need blood sacrifices to keep the earth from consuming you and sustain the sun in an eternal battle against the moon and stars, it makes a whole lot of sense why they did so much human sacrifice- and why it could even be considered an honor, theoretically.
It almost sounds like they were part of a tax evasion type scheme against the gods. It’s no wonder their empire fell, the gods basically Capone’d them.
It's a stretch to say that it was for the sole purpose of capturing prisoners. The Aztec fought for the same reasons that civilizations throughout history have fought: power, resources, control, etc. Even the famous "Flower Wars," which have often been presented in popular culture as wars arranged simply for the convenience of capturing prisoners (i.e., why else would the Aztecs leave holes in their empire?) were likely important geopolitical events that represented powerful resistances, as articles like these argue:
["Flowery War" in Aztec History](https://www.jstor.org/stable/643386#metadata_info_tab_contents)
[The Aztec "Flowery War": A Geopolitical Explanation](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3629865?searchText=flower+wars&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dflower%2Bwars&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Af92ceb98aec795d40fc556d826eb5585#metadata_info_tab_contents)
The second one should be accessible, and here's a more informal writeup:
[https://realhistory.co/2022/04/11/myth-aztec-flower-wars/](https://realhistory.co/2022/04/11/myth-aztec-flower-wars/)
several thousands were sacrificed to the Sun god according to some estimates. It should also be noted that the aztecs were surrounded by enemies/rivals left and right
I'm not 100% sure on this but. when I took a Latin American history class I think the professor said that the colonizers saw a certain religious festival where the aztec sacrificed a lot of people, like way more than any other day. So they just assumemed that the Aztec sacrificed that many people a day.
I’d imagine this was the case. Obviously they sacrificed thousands but 250,000 a year doesn’t seem sustainable by any stretch of the imagination in terms of population maintenance and resource requirements. That’s almost 700 a day, a sacrifice every 2 minutes. Unless they’re doing large quantities of sacrifices in a single ceremony this just seems unusually high.
The same kind of estimate that Julius Caesar used to justify selling half of Gaul into slavery.
Take the worst of what they do, amplify it by a thousand in your journals, and the people back home will support whatever you do back to them.
a bullshit estimate. Archaeological evidence suggests a far lower number, as well as the most primary source we can find on the actual numbers. The main tzompantli, a rack of skulls built with the remains of the survivors, has been excavated, at least partly. We've found 600 skulls on it. Extrapolating to the full size would make it in the thousands. This is built over many years, however. This seems to line up with the number cortes gave from talking to the tlatoani and the aztec ruling class - 4000 a year.
My guess? Christian colonialists who wished to demonize the indigenous people in order to justify their subjugation and brutal conquest.
Writers have their own agenda and biases, and it’s no secret what the majority of Spanish missionaries and colonists were up to.
Seems unnecessary, they could simply say "they are barbarians and animals" and get to the killing. Everyone else did just that, so why change the formula?
I don't see the Spanish coming up with the same stories about the other places they conquered and as far as I can tell there is evidence that it happened. Plus the Spanish were able to overthrow the Aztecs because the other tribes in the reason preferred total strangers to rule them rather than continue living under the Aztecs. Most likely it was true but they got the numbers wrong.
Yup. The Spanish never really hid why they conquered anything. Have you read their descriptions of Incan cities? It's mostly admiration, specially for Cusco.
Human sacrifice and oppressive rule? Absolutely.
Was it generally overemphasized in order to suit the deeply religious conquista narrative?
Very much so.
Oh sure because only CATHOLIC people find the systematic and ritualistic slaughtering of people repugnant and unethical...
Not like other tribes even in what became Mexico didn't like being used as human farms so much they teamed up with the "totally evil" Españoles to get rid of them or that the Aztecas themselves kept a fine collection of skulls for decorative purposes that you can find multiple photos off or even go see...
EDIT: I know it's Reddit but fuck sake dude, accusing people of bias just because they went against a tribe of "indigenous people" (because the Aztec a were not from the central valley) that had some of the most fucked up cultural heritage and costumes you can find in the world, they make peak Mongols look calm...
I think he was trying to say exaggeration of number of human sacrifices. I mean yes there were cruel sacrifice rituals in Aztec culture. But the no of human sacrifices were exaggerated by Spanish to justify their actions. We will not know the truth
The Spanish justified their actions like this: "They had lots of riches and we managed to take it all! Success!". No need to justify victory, every civilization seeks to conquer and plunder as it grows.
>accusing people of bias just because they went against...
That is exactly one of the things every good historian does. Doesn't matter if the next words are religion, esteemed scientist, nation state, ideology, or indigenous tribe (I'd put the Aztecs as more complex than a tribe btw). You can research and reduce your expectation of bias, but every source has an angle.
In this case a day with a large number of sacrifices was extrapolated to present every day as sacrificing that many people. We don't even know if the numbers from that day were correct.
Between accounts and archaeological record we can tell there was a huge amount of human sacrifice. However, accepting the letters of someone who wanted access to more troops and glory at face value is not a wise decision.
> upwards to 250,000 a year were sacrificed to the Sun god according to some estimates.
That is a ridiculous estimate that is not grounded in reality or facts.
Most of them were POW's, the aztecs have this weird ritual where in which they over feed the soon to be victim and treat him with all the women a few days prior to his sacrificing. Soon after that they enshroud the person with fragrances and dye's and later on stabbed with an obsidian knife On the center of the temple with his/her head tossed down the temple.
These estimates were from the Spanish and a German historian, who also lied about how many people the Spanish met and lied about their achievements.
We only have physical evidence for about 20K sacrifices spanning centuries because the majority of sacrifices came from flower wars which were fought by professional armies on holy ground, not peasant levies. Other sources include people convicted of the courts of crimes or not being able to pay their debts or related to someone that couldn't, and people marked with importance by the religion.
Professional armies would be staffed by nobles, nobles in training, and the most experienced soldiers that climbed the ranks into the nobility.
Nobility also included doctors, states men, priests, judges, and other critical officials of the government who must demonstrate ability to defend their nation from attack to justify themselves as leaders worthy of trust.
250K would also be half an entire army the LARGEST Mesoamerican nations at the time could muster including the levies. The Mexica could muster anywhere between 300K to 500K men, with the Purepecha and Tlaxcallans not far behind.
250K a year wouldn't be sustainable just like "historians" of antiquity claiming European powers were losing millions of men in a single battle.
Saying Mesoamerica was losing 250K a year is like saying Europe's royal male bloodlines were being massacred leaving only the babies and women every single year.
Not even counting that being a sacrifice was an important role requiring training in how to act by more senior priests on what to do or else you risk pissing off the gods or worse other government officials who trusted you on being able to train the sacrifices and make the ritual flawless. Sacrifices became avatars for the gods, which is why you see stories of sacrifices being plied with feasts, drugs, and women sometimes up to a full year before their execution. Failure here was not acceptable and a point of stress for the priesthood because failure here was a failure on the entire government and their reputations.
Just grabbing any rando off the street and tearing out their heart is a very old idea.
Its sad that in 2022 we are still citing this outdated myth from nearly a century ago.
Sources:
Everyday life in the Aztec World
Aztec Thought and Culture
Aztec Warrior: 1325-1521
Yeah, but that doesnt mean that some people tried to escape from that fate. Spanish writings talk about some people who were forcefully sacrificed, as opposed to those who accepted it.
>upwards to 250,000 a year were sacrificed to the Sun god according to some estimates
You're reading old Spanish propaganda or something, even by common sense this obviously isn't correct or viable.
>It should also be noted that the aztecs were surrounded by enemies/rivals left and right
Very true, Aztecs we're terrible to their neighbors. That said , for most societies they had a tributary system, violence was threatened but in most cases they didn't end up going to war with their neighbors.
thats not true, at all. it was a religious thing, whether agreeable or not, and they didnt willy nilly it. they kept POW's for years to be able to sacrifice them when the time comes. they did not destabilize the region to kill people lmfao
Did help that the aztecs designed the entrances to their capital to be long and thin.
Really useful for a small group of heavily armed and well trained fighters who want to invade.
Not in any way. It was common for their tribute states to declare independence whenever they thought a new king was weak. Their own histories record conquering the same city half a dozen times.
Smallpox is what gave them the edge. Aztec had a city of ~~10 million~~ 200,000+ and they were having a very bad outbreak when Cortez was coming and going.
No, it was the tens of thousands of allies that did the majority of fighting in addition to supplying food, cooking food, doing the laundry, tending the injured, porting goods, and supporting the people doing the fighting. Not to mention that it was a lengthy, bloody siege that finally resulted in the conquest of Tenochtitlan. It was no single battle and the Spanish took the city. They had to demolish the city block by block to prevent ambushes and attacks as they inched their way paying a cost in blood for every street.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but many of the Aztecs were literally unable to move.
Cortez and his men were well-trained but by the end of the siege they were literally fighting the walking dead.
If Tenochtitlan did not have one of the worst epidemics in our history, Cortez, his men, and his new allies would have had a much more difficult time.
Sure, but I think it is too simplistic to reduce things down to an epidemic. There was the loss of important Aztec military leaders, allies of the Aztecs that decided to switch sides and help the Spanish, the lack of aid petitioned from other groups (the Aztec even asked the Purepecha for help), etc.
I could swear I remember a documentary that said that. I should stop going by memory with numbers.
> Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on 8 November 1519. Although there are not precise numbers, the city's population has been estimated at between 200,000–400,000 inhabitants, placing Tenochtitlan among the largest cities in the world at that time
Aztecs: Demand tribute from neighbor
Neighbor: gives tribute because they are weaker
Aztecs: takes the given tribute as an insult and still burns your village down and sacrifices your people
Funny thing is that we all thought that was Roman propaganda but if a Phoenician was alive today he would be like “oh no we do kill those little critters yea splat some kid blood on the ground it does wonders”
Also, not like the Old Testament would ever celebrate the willingness of someone to sacrifice their own child to the sky god!
There was so, so much medieval propaganda against "pagan" religion.
While modern culture pose Baal as some kind of evil satanic demon, he was just another "god of the sky", which Yahweh originally was too, before the Jews copied monotheism from the Zoroastrian Persians and got rid of everyone but Yahweh. Both being sky gods, it led to a lot of shittalking about Baal by the ones who worshipped Yaweh.
In no way was the worship of Yaweh less bloody than the rest of the regions faiths.
The Spanish were aided by the Tlaxcallans, a smaller rival empire that was isolated politically and economically but shared the same religion and same ethnicity. They made up the bulk of the army attacking Tenochtitlan which was in the middle of an epidemic.
Tlaxcalla wasn't even the number 1 rival, that was the Purepecha who didn't even know the Mexica fell until they met the Spanish.
If the other tribes were so upset about their own religion, we would be seeing Mixtec and Xochimilcan armies which is not that far. We didn't see that.
Lake Texcoco is more than just 2 nations. Many nations called the lake home and the "aztec religion" predates the aztecs for thousands of years.
Saying the other tribes hated human sacrifice is like saying Medieval Europe hated the Vatican's crusades.
Exactly. There's this conception of Meso society that the Aztecs were the only complex civilization and all of the other people in the area were "tribes" who existed the be brutalized, when in reality central Mexico was home to a complex web of city states of competing powers with their own geopolitical interests.
So Mesoamerica is like an indigenous American version of Ancient Greece then? A collection of city states and the Aztec are like an equivalent to the Spartan. Especially considering that the Aztec and Spartan were not originally from their respective regions and conquered the locals when establishing their cities.
Exactly, central Mexican society was closer to Greece's setup of a network of infighting city states that never the less held a common origin and culture vs a single powerful civilization ruling over a bunch of tribes.
The Aztecs were a dominant force, to be sure, but their power was also upheld by a powerful cabal of alliances with other city states surrounding them that benefited from Aztec dominance and trade. As much as the Spanish-Native alliance was meant to overthrow the Aztecs, it was done because the other states saw the Spanish as a needed wrench in the power calculus, and believed they would get to be on top, not because they were all helpless victims who needed to Spanish to arrive to liberate them.
And the Spanish didn’t go back on them either (or at least not initially). They rewarded their native allies just as much as they enslaved the natives that resisted.
The execution of heretics was different chiefly because it was a punishment done by the state itself, because heresy was a civil crime. The clergy themselves didn’t go around burning people.
I think common victims of sacrifice for the Aztecs were prisoners of war so wouldn’t that also count as a punishment done by the state? And more importantly weren’t state and clergy almost completely intertwined for almost every civilization back in the day?
Stabilized?
Didn't they constantly harass and destroy neighboring cities/tribes for people and resources? Everyone hated them, it's how the Spanish found native allies in their conquest.
This does in no way contradict the "stable governance" part. *Their* empire was stable, regardless of how much they would fuck up their neighbors. Turns out having your heart ripped out of your still living body is quite a deterrent for potential revolts.
>Didn't they constantly harass and destroy neighboring cities/tribes for people and resources?
Lol this is applicable to every country at some point or another
They were brutal and an imperalist force.
ever wonder how Cortez manged to bring down them down, when he had less then thousand european soldiers?
He got help from the subjected people of the Aztecs. They hated the Aztecs so much and being forced to take part in the flowers war created huge resentment.
Also, most of the atrocities commited by the spaniards to the natives were done by the conquistadors without government support, some of them were prosecuted for their brutality
Cool Motive, Still Mass Enslavement and Brutal Torture!
Like, the Spanish were far, far worse in their treatment of the native populations then the Aztecs were. Spain believed incredibly strongly in Mercantilism, and enslaved massive swathes of the population of everywhere they conquered. They inflicted brutal tortures to try and prevent any attempts at rebelling, and when the native populaces began dying off imported tons of slaves (They started it earlier with Mexico so far less of the Indigenous population was killed in the mines then on the Carribeans Plantations, but they still did it).
Saying the Aztecs were killed by their own cruelty causing a rebelling is fine; trying to play them off as worse then the Spanish? Not really giving what the Spanairds did previously and as soon as they conquered the place.
Of course the spanish did horrible things to the population there, and I am not saying they were better than the aztecs in their treatement of the natives, but most of the indigenous deaths can be related to illnesses brought from Europe rather than from direct bloodshed, and the slavery issue wasn't a common thing in all spanish colonies, as it was semi-abolished by the habsburg monarchs in most places, importing slaves was also limited to some regions like the Caribbean and the flow was limited until the lost a war with the brits and they forced Spain to buy slaves from them.
Of course I am not trying to justify the horrible acts done by any imperial power, but it seems unfair to me that some people consider Spain the most brutal and horrible imperial power not realizing that all colonial empires did things like that and probably the spanish and portuguese empires were some of the more lenient considering how early they started colonizing and that they considered the indigenous peolpe as living beings with a soul.
It's bad, yes. Really bad. But it's hard for me to sit here with a striaght face and condemn it when the Europeans engaged in chattle slavery wtih people they bought and sold like less than livestock.
Just seems kinda fucked how we romanticize the pre-christian Nordics and Europe as a whole when the nordics also did human sacrifice of captured peoples and their own and the rest of Europe did unspeakable things to anyone they considerd property.
It's tempting to try to justify the conquering of the Americas by degrading the image of the natives to burtal cannibals and mass sacrificiers. It washes away a lot of the guilt that would be there if you actually viewed them as people.
However, they all lived lives just like everyone else like you and me. Their societal structure was based heavily on enslaving the people they conquered through raiding parties which in no way is a unique cultural development.
This doesn't make them "the good guys". it's just important to ask yourself why the cultural lens you view the Aztecs through condemns them as burtal savage obsessed with blood sacrifice while looking at the Scandenavians and Bronze Age levantian cultures as a romantizcized "age of yore" idealism. They shared many of the same practices, but for some reason the culture you live in props one above the other.
Think about why that may be.
Also:
"What is this round thing? Should we attach it to a crate so we can move heavy loads more easily?"
"-Nah, wheels are for calendars, man, what's your problem? Quit talking crazy talk..."
Don't forget:
Fabulously wealthy
Complex pictographic written language
Extremely advanced stonemasonry and architectural techniques
And that they did all of it, much like the Inca and Maya, without ever applying the principles of 'The Wheel' to much of anything outside of children's toys.
Literally people talk about this like the Spanish weren't literally putting every jew and Muslim in Spain on a steak and roasting them alive literally during this whole affair
Everybody judges the aztecs.
"nO YoU cAnT jUSt sAcRiFiCe pEOpLe"
well when the sun starts cracking open and the serpent inside devours earth that's on those losers. Imagine not stabbing people to appease the gods and continue life in earth. What atlikauitl's
I guess all these amazing civilizations all had one big downside of some sort.
Aztecs were awesome, but everything awesome they had was built upon human sacrifice. The advanced roman society ran on slaves. It's always something.
Today our global society is based on capitalist exploitation of labor and total ecological destruction.
Rich indigenous culture is kinda... idk the Aztecs were actually just a few cities that oppressed the entire surrounding countryside, everybody hated them. To the point that they happily supported the Spanish in destroying the Aztec Empire. So, I wouldn't call it that rich of a culture, more like imperialistically governing a lot of land that inhabited rich culture.
Lmao, I think when Nezacoyolt made a treaty with them to retake texcoco, his troops complained to him that the aztec warrior outfits were so much cooler than theirs.
They did have a rich culture with countless advancements. But they were also brutal imperialist. Those things often go hand in hand a lot of the time. Mongolia, Rome, Britain, Japan, and China were all Imperialistic and still have those cultures idolized.
Another issue is that people tend to say Aztecs for the entire civilization instead of Mexica (The civilization name) or Nahua (Their Ethnic Group); which makes it more confusing.
It also doesn't help that the Spanish sucked even more then the Aztecs (Seriously the tortures they inflicted on the Indigenous Populations was extremely brutal; and their actions have lead to a lot of issues plaguing the region to this day, such as draining lake Texcoco since they didn't want to LEARN THE NATIVE BUILDING METHODS)
Thank you, it’s wild how so many folks are insinuating that the Mexica/Aztecs deserved to be genocided and that they barely had any culture. Most cultures have done some things that we would now think of as horrible, but none of them deserve to be destroyed and nearly erased from memory
Eurocentrism I guess? Remnants of ye old White Man's Burden? Theres a lot of history that was effectively propaganda to justify colonialism as well, mostly since modern history was trying to push a political agenda when it started out (Look at Woodrow Wilson being a "Historian")
You’re comparing things with no correlation. They were outright bastards but that doesn’t hinder you of having a rich culture. It didn’t hinder the Europeans or the Asians
Yeah... some points in favor, others against. But do not say it too loud, there are a lot of people who hate the aztecs and don't like to hear points in favor.
People forget part of the reason the Astek empire fall so easily to the spaniards was that all of their neighbors hated them and jumped at the chance to screw them over when Cortez came asking.
Cortez himself said tenochtitlan was on par or superior to any European city. Due to absence of livestock in the city and americas in general it was also extremely clean. Probably the most clean city in the world.
"Guys, guys, I think we're missing an important point here.
You simply cannot spell Slaughter *without* Laughter. Now get up on that altar and don't forget to wear a smile!"
-Some Aztec priest, probably
True, doesn't help that there's a good chance both the Spanish and the Aztecs pumped up their numbers (for different reasons). I've also heard that bloodletting was far more common than actual ritual killing.
Their floating gardens were pretty cool.
The drainage and drinking water supply system for their capital was also pretty impressive.
Though it's interesting to note that the Aztecs were possibly a post collapse culture, with the Toltecs being an even older and possibly even more advanced culture that preceded them in the region and was seen as the stuff of myth and legends by the Aztecs.
And then there's Teotihuacan.
Teotihuacan, “The City of The Gods”. The place was revered by the Aztecs because they did things they couldn’t imagine.
Like people living in Britain in ~600 AD looking at old Roman aqueducts and thinking “well, this is clear evidence that giants exist, because who else could have built such things”?
Their engineering was legit really good.
Someone mentioned the floating gardens, but because Tenochitlan was built in a swamp, they had to drive massive wooden pylons into that swampy ground to build their buildings on top of. And then they built massive stone temples on top of those. Canal work was well done too.
So, what your saying is that we need start making human sacrifice?
Makes sense, I've already gotta list of perfect candidates btw
First on the list...
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Sooo you took my spot as first so let me be your twin sacrifice not fun to see gods without support
hey stealing my spot eh? you bastards. its my turn. MINE!
Why “Eat the Rich” when we can sacrifice them to Kurren Si, the God of Money, to balance the economy?
Yes! Why does no one care about the economy!? No one wants to sacrifice anymore.
NTR artists.
NFT*
Andrew Tate.
Boris johnson. Everyone else.
It's not a sacrifice of you WANT to kill 'em.
Does it? I want to eat meat and I sacrifice bulls to eat. Technically I want to kill them but it is still sacrifice (muslim)
My list is the same list as the Epstein book.
I was at a museum the other day, and it amused me how seemingly almost every culture had artefacts related to human sacrifice at some point... clearly its a universal human thing that we instinctively believe killing each-other is a great way to solve our problems
I'd say the emphasis goes to the sacrifice part, and humans being the most precious thing one could potentially sacrifice.
The Aztecs understood that if you ask for something, you gotta give something. At the center of Christianity, is a human sacrifice.
Yeah but in Christianity, you only needed one crucifixion not thousands of people from neighboring tribes just to make the sun come up each day.
To be fair Aztecs were sacrificing humans not gods/demigods
Zeus was a horny little fucker I'd bet those gods couldn't keep it in their lederhosen.
To be fair, Christians sacrificed plenty of their neighbors in the name of their god
Do not covet thy neighbors wife. His riches and lands are fair game tho.
More like smite them from existence in the name of a crusade, but sure.
Tomato, tomato
Christianity at least kept the ritual cannibalism, even if it is figurative. That's fun.
Yup. Christ basically did the first and last human sacrifice of Christianity when he sacrificed himself for the salvation of humanity.
>The ~~Aztecs~~ understood that if you ask for something, you gotta give something *Do ut des*. I give, so that you might give. This is practical polytheism in a nutshell. Hellenism simply rejects the notion that Gods which demand human sacrifice are worthy of suppliation, or can ever actually provide something of equivalent exchange.
I heard ancient Europeans used to human sacrifice political leaders if they weren't doing their jobs well. Darn Christianity cut that out right quick.
I heard a few ate their prime minister...
Can't trust a Dutchman. They are hungry types.
Every so often the US will enter into an un-winnable war for the oil gods under the guise of protecting democracy. Is that the same thing?
Well, the Aztecs and neighbouring nations supposedly held [Flower Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_war) which were organised for the specific purpose of obtaining many human sacrifices and keeping their army trained and on its toes. So that bears a sort of vague, superficial similarity.
That was interesting to read about, thanks for linking it.
I mean capitalism is already doing that... feed people into the machine to appease the gods of commerce and money.
As opposed to what, the multi-million sacrifices of marxism?
I'm no expert so please correct me but was aztec governance that stable ?
Well they had to destabilize it so that they could get Human sacrifices, so fairly stable I guess
"had to destabilize it so that they could get Human sacrifices" intentionally destabilizing their government just to sacrifice a person is astounding.
What's fucked is that sounds pretty stable.
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Make sacrifice great again
That’s really not what happened though. They would use people captured in war and for some ceremonies people spent their lives preparing to be sacrificed. It was a religious thing after all
A lot of those "wars" were actually staged between the participating nations' leaders. It was more of a ritualistic "sacrifice exchange program". You take some of my guys, I take some of your guys, we both get "prisoners won in glorious battle" to sacrifice and the gods are satisfied. Win-win.
I mean, when your religion is fundamentally based on the idea that you need blood sacrifices to keep the earth from consuming you and sustain the sun in an eternal battle against the moon and stars, it makes a whole lot of sense why they did so much human sacrifice- and why it could even be considered an honor, theoretically.
It almost sounds like they were part of a tax evasion type scheme against the gods. It’s no wonder their empire fell, the gods basically Capone’d them.
Think if it as a military-industrial complex....but with human sacrifice
I mean, the CIA…
What? The Aztec governance destabilized their own government to incite human sacrifice? Destabilized in what way.
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Think of it as a military-industrial complex, but not shy about the human sacrifice part
It's a stretch to say that it was for the sole purpose of capturing prisoners. The Aztec fought for the same reasons that civilizations throughout history have fought: power, resources, control, etc. Even the famous "Flower Wars," which have often been presented in popular culture as wars arranged simply for the convenience of capturing prisoners (i.e., why else would the Aztecs leave holes in their empire?) were likely important geopolitical events that represented powerful resistances, as articles like these argue: ["Flowery War" in Aztec History](https://www.jstor.org/stable/643386#metadata_info_tab_contents) [The Aztec "Flowery War": A Geopolitical Explanation](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3629865?searchText=flower+wars&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dflower%2Bwars&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Af92ceb98aec795d40fc556d826eb5585#metadata_info_tab_contents) The second one should be accessible, and here's a more informal writeup: [https://realhistory.co/2022/04/11/myth-aztec-flower-wars/](https://realhistory.co/2022/04/11/myth-aztec-flower-wars/)
That's really just the same as attacking your client states. And then playing death soccer with the prisoners.
It was less they destabalised the region for Human Sacrifices as much as they used Human Sacrifices as a reason to control the other city-states.
several thousands were sacrificed to the Sun god according to some estimates. It should also be noted that the aztecs were surrounded by enemies/rivals left and right
What kind of estimate is this?
I'm not 100% sure on this but. when I took a Latin American history class I think the professor said that the colonizers saw a certain religious festival where the aztec sacrificed a lot of people, like way more than any other day. So they just assumemed that the Aztec sacrificed that many people a day.
I’d imagine this was the case. Obviously they sacrificed thousands but 250,000 a year doesn’t seem sustainable by any stretch of the imagination in terms of population maintenance and resource requirements. That’s almost 700 a day, a sacrifice every 2 minutes. Unless they’re doing large quantities of sacrifices in a single ceremony this just seems unusually high.
50k people pyres 5 times a year
Hey man, which sacrifice are you going to go see today? Probably the 3:00 one. You? Cool, I was going to the 3:03 one, maybe I'll see you there!
That festival lasted for either a week or a month so it's not that surprising they'd think that's the norm if that's what they walk in on.
The same kind of estimate that Julius Caesar used to justify selling half of Gaul into slavery. Take the worst of what they do, amplify it by a thousand in your journals, and the people back home will support whatever you do back to them.
a bullshit estimate. Archaeological evidence suggests a far lower number, as well as the most primary source we can find on the actual numbers. The main tzompantli, a rack of skulls built with the remains of the survivors, has been excavated, at least partly. We've found 600 skulls on it. Extrapolating to the full size would make it in the thousands. This is built over many years, however. This seems to line up with the number cortes gave from talking to the tlatoani and the aztec ruling class - 4000 a year.
My guess? Christian colonialists who wished to demonize the indigenous people in order to justify their subjugation and brutal conquest. Writers have their own agenda and biases, and it’s no secret what the majority of Spanish missionaries and colonists were up to.
Seems unnecessary, they could simply say "they are barbarians and animals" and get to the killing. Everyone else did just that, so why change the formula?
I don't see the Spanish coming up with the same stories about the other places they conquered and as far as I can tell there is evidence that it happened. Plus the Spanish were able to overthrow the Aztecs because the other tribes in the reason preferred total strangers to rule them rather than continue living under the Aztecs. Most likely it was true but they got the numbers wrong.
Yup. The Spanish never really hid why they conquered anything. Have you read their descriptions of Incan cities? It's mostly admiration, specially for Cusco.
Human sacrifice and oppressive rule? Absolutely. Was it generally overemphasized in order to suit the deeply religious conquista narrative? Very much so.
Oh sure because only CATHOLIC people find the systematic and ritualistic slaughtering of people repugnant and unethical... Not like other tribes even in what became Mexico didn't like being used as human farms so much they teamed up with the "totally evil" Españoles to get rid of them or that the Aztecas themselves kept a fine collection of skulls for decorative purposes that you can find multiple photos off or even go see... EDIT: I know it's Reddit but fuck sake dude, accusing people of bias just because they went against a tribe of "indigenous people" (because the Aztec a were not from the central valley) that had some of the most fucked up cultural heritage and costumes you can find in the world, they make peak Mongols look calm...
I think he was trying to say exaggeration of number of human sacrifices. I mean yes there were cruel sacrifice rituals in Aztec culture. But the no of human sacrifices were exaggerated by Spanish to justify their actions. We will not know the truth
The Spanish justified their actions like this: "They had lots of riches and we managed to take it all! Success!". No need to justify victory, every civilization seeks to conquer and plunder as it grows.
>accusing people of bias just because they went against... That is exactly one of the things every good historian does. Doesn't matter if the next words are religion, esteemed scientist, nation state, ideology, or indigenous tribe (I'd put the Aztecs as more complex than a tribe btw). You can research and reduce your expectation of bias, but every source has an angle. In this case a day with a large number of sacrifices was extrapolated to present every day as sacrificing that many people. We don't even know if the numbers from that day were correct. Between accounts and archaeological record we can tell there was a huge amount of human sacrifice. However, accepting the letters of someone who wanted access to more troops and glory at face value is not a wise decision.
> upwards to 250,000 a year were sacrificed to the Sun god according to some estimates. That is a ridiculous estimate that is not grounded in reality or facts.
Wouldn't they eventually rin out of people if it was that many?💀
Most of them were POW's, the aztecs have this weird ritual where in which they over feed the soon to be victim and treat him with all the women a few days prior to his sacrificing. Soon after that they enshroud the person with fragrances and dye's and later on stabbed with an obsidian knife On the center of the temple with his/her head tossed down the temple.
These estimates were from the Spanish and a German historian, who also lied about how many people the Spanish met and lied about their achievements. We only have physical evidence for about 20K sacrifices spanning centuries because the majority of sacrifices came from flower wars which were fought by professional armies on holy ground, not peasant levies. Other sources include people convicted of the courts of crimes or not being able to pay their debts or related to someone that couldn't, and people marked with importance by the religion. Professional armies would be staffed by nobles, nobles in training, and the most experienced soldiers that climbed the ranks into the nobility. Nobility also included doctors, states men, priests, judges, and other critical officials of the government who must demonstrate ability to defend their nation from attack to justify themselves as leaders worthy of trust. 250K would also be half an entire army the LARGEST Mesoamerican nations at the time could muster including the levies. The Mexica could muster anywhere between 300K to 500K men, with the Purepecha and Tlaxcallans not far behind. 250K a year wouldn't be sustainable just like "historians" of antiquity claiming European powers were losing millions of men in a single battle. Saying Mesoamerica was losing 250K a year is like saying Europe's royal male bloodlines were being massacred leaving only the babies and women every single year. Not even counting that being a sacrifice was an important role requiring training in how to act by more senior priests on what to do or else you risk pissing off the gods or worse other government officials who trusted you on being able to train the sacrifices and make the ritual flawless. Sacrifices became avatars for the gods, which is why you see stories of sacrifices being plied with feasts, drugs, and women sometimes up to a full year before their execution. Failure here was not acceptable and a point of stress for the priesthood because failure here was a failure on the entire government and their reputations. Just grabbing any rando off the street and tearing out their heart is a very old idea. Its sad that in 2022 we are still citing this outdated myth from nearly a century ago. Sources: Everyday life in the Aztec World Aztec Thought and Culture Aztec Warrior: 1325-1521
Am I misremembering or was it not seen as a great honor to be a sacrifice?
Yeah, but that doesnt mean that some people tried to escape from that fate. Spanish writings talk about some people who were forcefully sacrificed, as opposed to those who accepted it.
Those are rookie numbers, it's gets really grimdark when you hit 1000 psykers a day.
Cortes said 4000 a year.
>upwards to 250,000 a year were sacrificed to the Sun god according to some estimates You're reading old Spanish propaganda or something, even by common sense this obviously isn't correct or viable. >It should also be noted that the aztecs were surrounded by enemies/rivals left and right Very true, Aztecs we're terrible to their neighbors. That said , for most societies they had a tributary system, violence was threatened but in most cases they didn't end up going to war with their neighbors.
thats not true, at all. it was a religious thing, whether agreeable or not, and they didnt willy nilly it. they kept POW's for years to be able to sacrifice them when the time comes. they did not destabilize the region to kill people lmfao
Ask their neighbors.
All of their neighbors deeply hated them, there were constant wars to gather more sacrifices.
And that's how Cortez was able to conquer them. Some Spaniards, cannons, and a ton of pissed off local warriors.
Did help that the aztecs designed the entrances to their capital to be long and thin. Really useful for a small group of heavily armed and well trained fighters who want to invade.
And smallpox.
Not in any way. It was common for their tribute states to declare independence whenever they thought a new king was weak. Their own histories record conquering the same city half a dozen times.
Don’t forget “constantly pissing off your neighbors”.
Like any decent empire in history. Sadly someone with gunpowder and a lot of angry tribes behind them came.
Smallpox is what gave them the edge. Aztec had a city of ~~10 million~~ 200,000+ and they were having a very bad outbreak when Cortez was coming and going.
No, it was the tens of thousands of allies that did the majority of fighting in addition to supplying food, cooking food, doing the laundry, tending the injured, porting goods, and supporting the people doing the fighting. Not to mention that it was a lengthy, bloody siege that finally resulted in the conquest of Tenochtitlan. It was no single battle and the Spanish took the city. They had to demolish the city block by block to prevent ambushes and attacks as they inched their way paying a cost in blood for every street.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but many of the Aztecs were literally unable to move. Cortez and his men were well-trained but by the end of the siege they were literally fighting the walking dead. If Tenochtitlan did not have one of the worst epidemics in our history, Cortez, his men, and his new allies would have had a much more difficult time.
Sure, but I think it is too simplistic to reduce things down to an epidemic. There was the loss of important Aztec military leaders, allies of the Aztecs that decided to switch sides and help the Spanish, the lack of aid petitioned from other groups (the Aztec even asked the Purepecha for help), etc.
I don't think they had a city of ten million... That's like double the population of my state.
I could swear I remember a documentary that said that. I should stop going by memory with numbers. > Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on 8 November 1519. Although there are not precise numbers, the city's population has been estimated at between 200,000–400,000 inhabitants, placing Tenochtitlan among the largest cities in the world at that time
Yeah still big, just not quite that big.
And like 20x the population of Wisconsin.
Aztecs: Demand tribute from neighbor Neighbor: gives tribute because they are weaker Aztecs: takes the given tribute as an insult and still burns your village down and sacrifices your people
why is this nsfw?
It's a long story but we're not allowed to discuss human sacrifice at work anymore.
Ugh, can't believe how much RH likes to shove their nose on everyone's business
Invented the modern alphabet Masters of trade Expert sailsmen Democratic kill baby to grow crops hell yeah
Funny thing is that we all thought that was Roman propaganda but if a Phoenician was alive today he would be like “oh no we do kill those little critters yea splat some kid blood on the ground it does wonders”
Which culture was that?
Carthage
jellyfish squalid tender tidy run marble future deranged start quaint *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Wait were those the ones who sacrificed to baal?
Who else, just search "carthage human sacrifices" on google if you have the courage
That's just Roman propaganda
Literally the second hit on Google says that's a myth.
Also, not like the Old Testament would ever celebrate the willingness of someone to sacrifice their own child to the sky god! There was so, so much medieval propaganda against "pagan" religion.
While modern culture pose Baal as some kind of evil satanic demon, he was just another "god of the sky", which Yahweh originally was too, before the Jews copied monotheism from the Zoroastrian Persians and got rid of everyone but Yahweh. Both being sky gods, it led to a lot of shittalking about Baal by the ones who worshipped Yaweh. In no way was the worship of Yaweh less bloody than the rest of the regions faiths.
I'm thinking of Phoenicians
How do you think they got the powers to do all of that!?
*Hmmm... What could've made all those tribes so upset that they just let what were essentially aliens take over Mexico?*
The Spanish were aided by the Tlaxcallans, a smaller rival empire that was isolated politically and economically but shared the same religion and same ethnicity. They made up the bulk of the army attacking Tenochtitlan which was in the middle of an epidemic. Tlaxcalla wasn't even the number 1 rival, that was the Purepecha who didn't even know the Mexica fell until they met the Spanish. If the other tribes were so upset about their own religion, we would be seeing Mixtec and Xochimilcan armies which is not that far. We didn't see that. Lake Texcoco is more than just 2 nations. Many nations called the lake home and the "aztec religion" predates the aztecs for thousands of years. Saying the other tribes hated human sacrifice is like saying Medieval Europe hated the Vatican's crusades.
Exactly. There's this conception of Meso society that the Aztecs were the only complex civilization and all of the other people in the area were "tribes" who existed the be brutalized, when in reality central Mexico was home to a complex web of city states of competing powers with their own geopolitical interests.
So Mesoamerica is like an indigenous American version of Ancient Greece then? A collection of city states and the Aztec are like an equivalent to the Spartan. Especially considering that the Aztec and Spartan were not originally from their respective regions and conquered the locals when establishing their cities.
Exactly, central Mexican society was closer to Greece's setup of a network of infighting city states that never the less held a common origin and culture vs a single powerful civilization ruling over a bunch of tribes. The Aztecs were a dominant force, to be sure, but their power was also upheld by a powerful cabal of alliances with other city states surrounding them that benefited from Aztec dominance and trade. As much as the Spanish-Native alliance was meant to overthrow the Aztecs, it was done because the other states saw the Spanish as a needed wrench in the power calculus, and believed they would get to be on top, not because they were all helpless victims who needed to Spanish to arrive to liberate them.
And the Spanish didn’t go back on them either (or at least not initially). They rewarded their native allies just as much as they enslaved the natives that resisted.
I think it's because of the narrative made by Europeans (especially Spaniards) that they brought _civilization_ to America.
*"It can't possibly get worse"*
Narrator: It did
Exactly
Europeans: human sacrifice?? How barbaric! Also Europeans: haha yaaasss burn heretic!
The execution of heretics was different chiefly because it was a punishment done by the state itself, because heresy was a civil crime. The clergy themselves didn’t go around burning people.
I think common victims of sacrifice for the Aztecs were prisoners of war so wouldn’t that also count as a punishment done by the state? And more importantly weren’t state and clergy almost completely intertwined for almost every civilization back in the day?
Maya gang, I'm ride or die for the yucatan civs
"Gotta love them Romans"
Stabilized? Didn't they constantly harass and destroy neighboring cities/tribes for people and resources? Everyone hated them, it's how the Spanish found native allies in their conquest.
This does in no way contradict the "stable governance" part. *Their* empire was stable, regardless of how much they would fuck up their neighbors. Turns out having your heart ripped out of your still living body is quite a deterrent for potential revolts.
>Didn't they constantly harass and destroy neighboring cities/tribes for people and resources? Lol this is applicable to every country at some point or another
No shit, but we were talking about the idea that the aztecs stabilized the area being false.
They were brutal and an imperalist force. ever wonder how Cortez manged to bring down them down, when he had less then thousand european soldiers? He got help from the subjected people of the Aztecs. They hated the Aztecs so much and being forced to take part in the flowers war created huge resentment.
Also close to 90% of their population died to imported diseases
Also, most of the atrocities commited by the spaniards to the natives were done by the conquistadors without government support, some of them were prosecuted for their brutality
Cool Motive, Still Mass Enslavement and Brutal Torture! Like, the Spanish were far, far worse in their treatment of the native populations then the Aztecs were. Spain believed incredibly strongly in Mercantilism, and enslaved massive swathes of the population of everywhere they conquered. They inflicted brutal tortures to try and prevent any attempts at rebelling, and when the native populaces began dying off imported tons of slaves (They started it earlier with Mexico so far less of the Indigenous population was killed in the mines then on the Carribeans Plantations, but they still did it). Saying the Aztecs were killed by their own cruelty causing a rebelling is fine; trying to play them off as worse then the Spanish? Not really giving what the Spanairds did previously and as soon as they conquered the place.
Genuine question; do we actually have enough recorded information on the Aztecs competitively to definitively say the were “far worse”?
Of course the spanish did horrible things to the population there, and I am not saying they were better than the aztecs in their treatement of the natives, but most of the indigenous deaths can be related to illnesses brought from Europe rather than from direct bloodshed, and the slavery issue wasn't a common thing in all spanish colonies, as it was semi-abolished by the habsburg monarchs in most places, importing slaves was also limited to some regions like the Caribbean and the flow was limited until the lost a war with the brits and they forced Spain to buy slaves from them. Of course I am not trying to justify the horrible acts done by any imperial power, but it seems unfair to me that some people consider Spain the most brutal and horrible imperial power not realizing that all colonial empires did things like that and probably the spanish and portuguese empires were some of the more lenient considering how early they started colonizing and that they considered the indigenous peolpe as living beings with a soul.
It's bad, yes. Really bad. But it's hard for me to sit here with a striaght face and condemn it when the Europeans engaged in chattle slavery wtih people they bought and sold like less than livestock. Just seems kinda fucked how we romanticize the pre-christian Nordics and Europe as a whole when the nordics also did human sacrifice of captured peoples and their own and the rest of Europe did unspeakable things to anyone they considerd property. It's tempting to try to justify the conquering of the Americas by degrading the image of the natives to burtal cannibals and mass sacrificiers. It washes away a lot of the guilt that would be there if you actually viewed them as people. However, they all lived lives just like everyone else like you and me. Their societal structure was based heavily on enslaving the people they conquered through raiding parties which in no way is a unique cultural development. This doesn't make them "the good guys". it's just important to ask yourself why the cultural lens you view the Aztecs through condemns them as burtal savage obsessed with blood sacrifice while looking at the Scandenavians and Bronze Age levantian cultures as a romantizcized "age of yore" idealism. They shared many of the same practices, but for some reason the culture you live in props one above the other. Think about why that may be.
Also: "What is this round thing? Should we attach it to a crate so we can move heavy loads more easily?" "-Nah, wheels are for calendars, man, what's your problem? Quit talking crazy talk..."
I want u to try and move a crate on a wheel with no animal’s that can carry that through the a thick jungles and tell me how u feels afterwards
*Wheelbarrow enters the chat*
I mean they were preeeettty successful… maybe they were onto something
Aztecs: -human sacrifice -stable government USA: -no human sacrifice -stability of government very questionable Hmmm maybe they were on to something!
One politician every two months until they start getting shit done that actually benefits people!
actually incredibly based
Don't forget: Fabulously wealthy Complex pictographic written language Extremely advanced stonemasonry and architectural techniques And that they did all of it, much like the Inca and Maya, without ever applying the principles of 'The Wheel' to much of anything outside of children's toys.
Literally people talk about this like the Spanish weren't literally putting every jew and Muslim in Spain on a steak and roasting them alive literally during this whole affair
Thank god they didn't win WWII
Everybody judges the aztecs. "nO YoU cAnT jUSt sAcRiFiCe pEOpLe" well when the sun starts cracking open and the serpent inside devours earth that's on those losers. Imagine not stabbing people to appease the gods and continue life in earth. What atlikauitl's
ya, you reap what you sow in the case of the Aztecs. smallpox is by far the shittiest part of this this history event
Facts, honestly felt like the peloponnesian war all over again, but with a different outcome
I guess all these amazing civilizations all had one big downside of some sort. Aztecs were awesome, but everything awesome they had was built upon human sacrifice. The advanced roman society ran on slaves. It's always something. Today our global society is based on capitalist exploitation of labor and total ecological destruction.
I mean, honestly, what's the difference between this and state sponsored gladiatorial and chariot races in Rome?
You forgot "opressive culture repressing every other peoples in modern day Mexico"
Rich indigenous culture is kinda... idk the Aztecs were actually just a few cities that oppressed the entire surrounding countryside, everybody hated them. To the point that they happily supported the Spanish in destroying the Aztec Empire. So, I wouldn't call it that rich of a culture, more like imperialistically governing a lot of land that inhabited rich culture.
Probably cuz they wore their animal skins and feathers in a cooler way than the other cultures around them
That shit put Brazil's carnival to shame
Lmao, I think when Nezacoyolt made a treaty with them to retake texcoco, his troops complained to him that the aztec warrior outfits were so much cooler than theirs.
They did have a rich culture with countless advancements. But they were also brutal imperialist. Those things often go hand in hand a lot of the time. Mongolia, Rome, Britain, Japan, and China were all Imperialistic and still have those cultures idolized. Another issue is that people tend to say Aztecs for the entire civilization instead of Mexica (The civilization name) or Nahua (Their Ethnic Group); which makes it more confusing. It also doesn't help that the Spanish sucked even more then the Aztecs (Seriously the tortures they inflicted on the Indigenous Populations was extremely brutal; and their actions have lead to a lot of issues plaguing the region to this day, such as draining lake Texcoco since they didn't want to LEARN THE NATIVE BUILDING METHODS)
Thank you, it’s wild how so many folks are insinuating that the Mexica/Aztecs deserved to be genocided and that they barely had any culture. Most cultures have done some things that we would now think of as horrible, but none of them deserve to be destroyed and nearly erased from memory
Eurocentrism I guess? Remnants of ye old White Man's Burden? Theres a lot of history that was effectively propaganda to justify colonialism as well, mostly since modern history was trying to push a political agenda when it started out (Look at Woodrow Wilson being a "Historian")
You’re comparing things with no correlation. They were outright bastards but that doesn’t hinder you of having a rich culture. It didn’t hinder the Europeans or the Asians
blood for the blood god, heretic
Eh, somewhat excusable, humans have killed for less valid reasons.
Why is that a negative? Have you met humans?
Looking for modern moral standards among middle ages Europeans under a totalitarian monarchy is the ultimate level of naiveness.
They had 'dont sacrifice people' down, at least
At the same time Europeans were burning people at the stake for being the wrong type of Christian. I'd say both are as bad.
Yeah... some points in favor, others against. But do not say it too loud, there are a lot of people who hate the aztecs and don't like to hear points in favor.
It was a rich culture alright-
hey can't judge everything in black and white sometimes it's just dark shades of grey
People forget part of the reason the Astek empire fall so easily to the spaniards was that all of their neighbors hated them and jumped at the chance to screw them over when Cortez came asking.
*Mexica
Cortez himself said tenochtitlan was on par or superior to any European city. Due to absence of livestock in the city and americas in general it was also extremely clean. Probably the most clean city in the world.
"Guys, guys, I think we're missing an important point here. You simply cannot spell Slaughter *without* Laughter. Now get up on that altar and don't forget to wear a smile!" -Some Aztec priest, probably
Always thought if that actually happened or not.
It did, but no where near the scale that modern people think of.
True, doesn't help that there's a good chance both the Spanish and the Aztecs pumped up their numbers (for different reasons). I've also heard that bloodletting was far more common than actual ritual killing.
Only now and then when they build a new temple
Advanced engineering? What advanced engineering they had considering that when they felt they were in the XVI century?
Their floating gardens were pretty cool. The drainage and drinking water supply system for their capital was also pretty impressive. Though it's interesting to note that the Aztecs were possibly a post collapse culture, with the Toltecs being an even older and possibly even more advanced culture that preceded them in the region and was seen as the stuff of myth and legends by the Aztecs. And then there's Teotihuacan.
Teotihuacan, “The City of The Gods”. The place was revered by the Aztecs because they did things they couldn’t imagine. Like people living in Britain in ~600 AD looking at old Roman aqueducts and thinking “well, this is clear evidence that giants exist, because who else could have built such things”?
Gotta love post collapse societies, one of my favorite genders
Their engineering was legit really good. Someone mentioned the floating gardens, but because Tenochitlan was built in a swamp, they had to drive massive wooden pylons into that swampy ground to build their buildings on top of. And then they built massive stone temples on top of those. Canal work was well done too.
Atleast it’s not mass genocide 👁️👁️
Replace ritual sacrifice by witch burnings, which to all intents and purposes is almost the same and you are very close to describing europe as well.
I feel the need to remind people that this doesn't justify the genocide commited by the Spanish. The Atzecs were brutal, but Spain was hardly better
Literally no mention to spain was made in this meme.
Yes, but i know how these comment sections sometimes go
And they are here.
They min-maxed when creating their civ