Talk:Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures
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[edit] question
What exactly are they doing for their gods? Are they asking for help and the child is payment or are they asking for forgiveness and the child is some sort of bribe?
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.243.116.127 (talk • contribs).
[edit] Moved page
I have moved the page from Capacocha to Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures since I have added substantial info about other child sacrifices in non-Inca, pre-Columbian cultures, such as the Aztec.
Now, a section about the Maya child sacrifice ought to be added.
—Cesar Tort 22:59, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Already added. —Cesar Tort 06:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] criying children
I have no access to the source that claimed they torn the nails of the children. but the Sahagun text refers to "niños llorones", that is children that cry contantly. So far the forensic analysys of the children found under the great temple shows that most of them were sick children. Most of the sickness foudn were the kind that cause a child to cry constantly. But i do not know how to explain this in correct english... Nanahuatzin 04:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
- It’s because the author, Christian Duverger, was talking about the sacrifices performed at night at the mounts near Tenochtitlan; not in the temple. Duverger wrote his book in French and it was published in 1979. Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) translated it to Spanish in 1983, and it’s still in print in Mexico. This is the FCE translation:
| “ | Los suplicios. En el contexto de las violentas estimulaciones presacrificiales, creo que conviene dejar un lugar a la tortura, justamente porque sólo es practicada por los aztecas antes del sacrificio humano. La tortura no está obligatoriamente integrada al preludio sacrificial, pero puede ocurrir. El arrancar las uñas a los niños que debían ser sacrificados al dios de la lluvia es un buen ejemplo de tortura ritual. Por medio de los sacrificios del mes Atl caualo, los mexicanos rendían homenaje a los tlaloques, y llamaban la lluvia; para que el rito fuera eficaz, convenía que los niños lloraran abundantemente en el momento del sacrificio. (La flor letal, pages 128-29) | ” |
- The Florentine Codex further explains, and this is my own translation from Spanish: “When the priests took the children to kill them, if they cried and poured many tears, then they became happy: it was the signal that water would not be in short supply that year”.
- —Cesar Tort 05:11, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
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- thanks this is a theme i have explore little. the text imlicates that torture could ocurred, but it was not esential. The archeologist that made the excavations on the main temple, comment that their findings of the sickness on the children confirmed the accounts of "niños llorones", which probably was the ussual way to assured the children were criying. Good work. Nanahuatzin 08:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yes: I have read three books by Eduardo López-Moctezuma, the headperson of the team that made excavations in the temple.
- However, those are the sacrifices at the temple, which represent a tiny fraction of children sacrifices among the Aztecs. Like its Inca counterparts far down the South, most of Aztec children sacrifices were done at the mounts around Tenochtitlan, some of them in the night. The Florentine Codex describes this rite very far from the walls of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan.
- —Cesar Tort 09:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Good work, Cesar
Cesar, congratulations on all the work you've put into this article. Very solid. Madman 03:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks, Madman. There’re a lot of misguided, though bona fide people, who mistake blood libels with actual historical info; and I was dismayed to see this anti-historical trend among some people here in Mexico.
- —Cesar Tort 03:41, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
