In 1491, Charles Mann makes the case that the number of ritual sacrifices was far fewer than the number of public executions in European countries during these times. In both cases, people were killed in an effort to bind the citizenry together in the shared belief in the leadership.

The initial horror at the Aztec using innocents is tempered when you think about the crimes that many in Europe would likely have committed. I think medieval European justice is probably not much better.

>In both cases, people were killed in an effort to bind the citizenry together in the shared belief in the leadership.

Are you suggesting that it doesn't make a difference whether you're executing people for crimes or for fun? Yes, the medieval European justice system was far from perfect, yes, it was so imperfect that people now call things "medieval" when they're cruel and stupid, but surely there is something to be said for the fact that the people being executed in Europe had sometimes done something wrong to get there.

First off, I’m just relaying information that I found interesting. Relax and try to have an interesting conversation rather than win an internet point.

I think the European criminal system was far more widespread than Aztec sacrifices, so net net maybe it would be similar. It’s also probably worth noting the religious aspect of it - people in religions sometimes seem willing to sacrifice their life for their gods, so I’m not 100% sure that the sacrifice victims or society didn’t get something out of it. In fact, they got the same thing as Europe - a tighter societal bond.

That being said, we know so little about the Aztecs compared to Europe that it would be impossible to make an informed if absurd decision as to which way I would want to be executed.

>I think the European criminal system was far more widespread than Aztec sacrifices, so net net maybe it would be similar.

You have to evaluate ideological systems by their net good/evil per follower, otherwise their relative scales would dominate any comparison. For example, medical malpractice has killed unimaginably more people than any suicidal cult ever has. Still, that does not mean it's better to join a suicidal cult than it is to visit the doctor's office.

>we know so little about the Aztecs compared to Europe that it would be impossible to make an informed if absurd decision as to which way I would want to be executed.

The reason you'd want to pick the justice system is that justice systems, even when imperfect, can still declare innocent people innocent. A justice system sometimes makes mistakes, the Aztec temple only made mistakes.

I'd line the Aztecs up against the witch purges of Europe.

> Prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft reached a highpoint from 1580 to 1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, when an estimated 50,000 people were burned at the stake, of which roughly 80% were women, and most often over the age of 40.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_early_mode...

there were roughly this many skulls arranged into towers in front of the main temple at tenochtitlan. not bad for a single city-state

Nice. Smaller, less networked geographical area, but maybe a longer time scale to accrue them all? All signs point to "at least same order of magnitude" here.

Edit I'm seeing 6 figure conquistador estimates and a 3 figure number acquired so far? Do you have a cite for 50k? Seems like a likely enough number just curious if anything has been refined since this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5893933/The-...

the aztec empire lasted for less than two centuries.

the six figure estimate provided by the conquistador was written off as fabricated or exaggerated, unti the skull towers were discovered by archaeologists, and a few years later were discovered to roughly match the dimensions provided by the conquistador. i gave half his number as a conservative hedge.

the aztecs are believed to sacrificed tens of thousands of people a year; i do not think it is as outlandish as it may sound.

the aztecs were a truly, historically, uniquely bloodthirsty people.

Here a source for the skull towers https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/feeding-gods-hundred...

I wouldn’t say uniquely. The ancient Assyrian’s we’re pretty into their horrific brand of terrifying their neighbors. The Cultural Revolution also seems pretty bad to cite a more recent example.

> Not understanding the implications of this request, Achitometl acceded to the honour; his daughter went to Tizaapan, where she was splendidly arrayed and sacrificed. Following an old custom, the body was flayed and a priest donned her skin in an ancient agricultural rite symbolising the renewal of life. The unsuspecting chieftain Achitometl, invited to participate in the concluding festivities, suddenly recognised the skin of his daughter on the body of the priest.

this was a traditional rite; the skin would then be placed in a clay vessel underneath a temple or shrine alongside many others

I’m familiar with the story. That’s sort of my point the ancient Assyrians were well known for flaying thousands of people alive all at once after recapturing a city. They decorated their palaces with scenes of it.

Gnarly!! And ty for the source elsethread. Fascinating stuff. Sounds like a no-good empire! Not a fan.

Seem's a little disrespectful of others' belief systems. How can you possibly know that the God's sacrifices were a "mistake"?

Ancient religions had not evolved to be unfalsifiable like modern ones have. The Aztecs believed that they could get something by earning favor - and since they weren't actually getting anything, they were factually wrong in a way no modern religion can manage.

Is it true the Aztecs didn't get anything, though? A religion sacrificing people is a show of power likely to keep any common citizens rebelling against the priesthood. In modern times we have police kneeling on the necks of people until they die from lack of air. Both are just a means to kill powerless people to keep the powerful people in power. Our modern rulers put non-religious names on things, like "The War on Drugs", but it's the same thing.

I in general agree with most of your points in this thread and disagree with the claim that you've been disrespectful (to GP and to the Aztecs :)), but I do think there's an interesting and important space between your idea re. Aztec rituals and those who'd say your view is "disrespectful".

It's plausible, in my opinion, that evaluating the Aztecs' ritual sacrifice practice in terms of the modern scientific POV leads to a categorically incorrect analysis. I.e. the questions--whether the Aztec gods exist, whether unfalsifiable claims "make sense" or can be operative, etc--might not be relevant or interesting.

I.e. the function describing the relationship between how closely our actions align with true facts as we understand them intellectually and broad outcomes in quality of life (defined however you want) is almost certainly not monotonic.

I guess in short all I'm saying is that our conscious, intellectual understanding of the world is not the only useful motivator. And I don't mean this in some sort of supernatural, metaphysical, spiritual way: I mean that objectively rational behavior sometimes results from subjectively irrational behavior.

Thomas More, author of "Utopia", had six people burned at the stake for heresy when he was Lord Chancellor of England in 1529-32.

That's no different from human sacrifice to a god.

It's difficult to weigh the difference between two extreme bads, so I understand how you could come to that conclusion. However "don't say anything on this list of things not to say" is an order that could at least by choice be complied with. Imagine yourself in Europe and also in Central America. Would you rather live under the fear of heresy laws or under the fear of human sacrifice? In the former case you could choose between complying with the unjust ruler or standing up to them, in the latter, you just die.

I'm curious about how much do we actually know about was picked for sacrifice under the aztec rule. It seems like there is a consensus on this thread that all were innocent common citizens, but a lot of documentation shows that at least a sizeable portion of sacrifices were prisoners of war.

This doesnt make it morally more excusable, but it tempers your point as not everyone was a potential target of sacrifice.

Honestly, if you gave me a choice between living in the Aztec Empire or in Spain in 1500, I would pick the Aztecs. Probably even knowing what was going to happen in 20 years and knowing that I would be alive for it.

One would probably have better odds of living for 20 years in the Aztec empire (assuming you were a member of the ruling ethnicity).

Tenochtitlán is said to have been a beautiful city of floating gardens. In Madrid, shit flowed in open sewers on sidewalks.

"Would you rather live under the fear of heresy laws or under the fear of human sacrifice?" citations needed

The fact that the justice system was so shoddy, and the fact that public executions were a form of entertainment, really makes this a distinction without a difference.

Their justice system had some amount of accuracy. Human sacrifice has no accuracy. If a distinction of degree is a distinction without a difference, then I propose that I give you 0% of my possessions in exchange for 10% of yours. ;)

Execution “for fun” seems inappropriate here, doesn’t it? The comparison to medieval European justice also seems a little apples and oranges. Maybe a comparison to the Inquisition and/or the burning of supposed witches - both religious in nature, both horrendous, both seemingly an attempt to unify societies under a common belief?

The Inquisition is getting closer, but moving the conversation from the justice system to the inquisition does make it look like we're just trying to compare the moral goodness of Europeans and Aztecs. Well, groups like "Europeans" can't have a level of moral goodness, only individual people can. Obviously any European serial killer was worse than the average Aztec. So if that's the discussion we're implicitly having, that's a poorly founded discussion.

Religious death to religious death seems like a more reasonable comparison in the first place right?

Also you managed to miss the (in my mind) legitimate criticism of your characterization of their sacrifices as being 'for fun'.

Separating the church (religion) and justice in medieval europe doesn't make much sense, as the church was the highest political power in europe back then.

Moral relativism is a black hole. It's hard to say the actor in one atrocity is better or worse than another actor in another atrocity. But I think it could be said that the Aztec civilization was complicated, and of which the kidnap and brutal sacrifice from its neighboring tribes was one (rather sensationalized) aspect. And I've said it elsewhere, but the podcast really gives you a sense of what it was like to live in the place and time - as much as one can from researching the extant artifacts.

A lot of "witches" and heretics tortured and executed in medieval times probably didnt do much wrong

That seems like a fair comparison, though the scale of Aztec sacrifice was pretty remarkable[1]. I would say in either case that it's incredible to me to think of societies where people were more valuable dead than alive - I suppose it suggests they were flourishing, to be able to afford it, but it's hard to imagine.

1: https://phys.org/news/2018-06-skull-tower-rack-evidence-azte...

Did the Aztecs execute criminals in similar proportion to Europeans?

"I think medieval European justice is probably not much better. "

I also rarely hear people suggesting to learn from medieval europe.

But there is still respect, for example it does bother me, that all those kings still have a "great" in their name, when what it was what they were good at, was large scale slaughtering. King Karl the great? Not for me. By that standards Hitler would be a "Great", too.

And that our awesome justice system roots in ancient rome. Which was mainly a empire. Conquering the world to steal riches and slaves.

Consider this sentence: "Covid19 has caused a great loss of life."

The word 'great' is not simply a more emphatic word for 'good', though in some contexts it might mean that. Great Britain isn't great because it's better than the other Britains, but because it encompasses all of the British Isles. I think it may also be the case that people are called great when their impact on history seems to have a great scale. For instance I think Catherine the Great is called great not because she was particularly benevolent (she personally owned half a million people), but because Russia became more powerful and expansive during her reign.

"catherine the Great is called great not because she was particularly benevolent, but because Russia became more powerful and expansive during her reign. "

Yes, I am aware of that. But in classic history this seems to be the same. Good and great is having conquered much. And also in the general perception. The hollywood movies of Caesar or Alexander? Pure admiration. No serious criticism(or any at all), I remember of. Nothing against presenting history as it was. But there is still lots of glorification going on.

My school history classes were also speaking mainly great of the "great" people. Even though we would call them brutal dictators and barbaric enslavers if they would exist today.

I think people are attracted to extreme things in general and power in particular. The great white shark is great because it's huge and powerful, though it's considered monstrous in popular culture. In my experience it's also the favorite shark of nearly any kid who likes sharks, probably because it is immense and powerful.

"World's [blankiest] [blank]" is generally a pretty popular genre, regardless of the subject. Whether it's the tallest mountain, most venomous snake, longest railroad or fastest plane, people are fascinated with extremes. I think the obsession with the world's 'great' leaders like Genghis Khan or Alexander is just another manifestation of this.

"I think the obsession with the world's 'great' leaders like Genghis Khan or Alexander is just another manifestation of this."

It is, but would you not object to calling "Hitler the great"? Even though he was great by standards of conquering and slaughtering?

I only know as much from the podcast I mentioned in the sibling comment, but it seem they were somewhat caricaturized. If you listen to the Podcast you learn the other side of how they were massacred by Cortes, which doesn't really cast the Spanish in a good light. (But surely we can learn from the Spanish despite the acts of Cortes?)

Edit:

A cursory wiki search leads to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_cultu...

By "massacred by Cortes", surely you mean "Massacred by 700 Spanish people, and 90,000 natives who were really pissed at the Aztecs and wanted revenge". Sources indicate(if you can trust them) that the Spanish tried to stop some of the widespread atrocities that the allied natives were doing to the Aztecs, but were powerless against a group 100x their size.

Supplying the armor and weapons necessary to an army that size, knowing the likely outcome, makes Cortes culpable. And the outcome is exactly what he intended, and enabled. This could be said of any of the proxy wars fought around the world today.

But yes, not excusing a brutal tradition of sacrifice. I think my argument stands, though, that you can learn positive things from any population/civilization that has cruel actors (or cruel traditions) within it. Be it the Spaniards, despite the conquistadors, or the Aztecs, because of the warrior elite.

Not excusing any behavior by Cortes. However, the sacrifices seem to have been as gruesome as typically depicted. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/feeding-gods-hundred...

What does Cortes have to do with their practice of human sacrifice?

Nothing, he's simply drawing the parallel that the Spanish did atrocities as well and that did not stop us from learning "from" them.

I say we can all appreciate the good without embracing the bad.

Not sure where I came across this info but there's a theory that observations of sacrifices may have been at a time of great despair for Aztec society, sacrifice being an act of desperation.

Yeah, I vaguely recollected (again that podcast I linked) while their civilization was under siege by Cortes, they wondered why the gods had forsaken them. The whole thing is really tragic.

Edit: The wiki article states around 20k prisoners per year were captured for sacrifice, though perhaps the number might have been inflated to intimidate their enemies.

> Every Aztec warrior would have to provide at least one prisoner for sacrifice. All the male population was trained to be warriors, but only the few who succeeded in providing captives could become full-time members of the warrior elite. Accounts also state that several young warriors could unite to capture a single prisoner, which suggests that capturing prisoners for sacrifice was challenging

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_cultu...

> which suggests that capturing prisoners for sacrifice was challenging

Who knew... mortal combat was challenging?

The prisoner did not have to be a warrior or adult.

I don't know exactly of the aztecs, but in general the harder to get the sacrifice, the bigger the gods favour. So they probably wanted the biggest warriors, but took children as well, if possible.

Were they worst then Ancient Greecks, Romans, Sparta, whatever church done in European history, genocide of native Americans called for by American founding fathers? Human sacrifice was a real thing and Aztecs were cruel toward those they dominated. So were those above mentioned - and many colorful reports of human sacrifice are result of torture and paranoid imagination.

Some dominant groups are more appaling then others - nazi and Stalin come to mind. But we are not throwing away everything German or Russian either. Nor we are throwing away everything Sparta despite them being literally violent totalitarian state.

Good question, but to counter: we do not throw away everything German, but everything in the Nazi ideology, dont we? It is not that I say we shouldnt learn from the successors of the culture, but isnt this post saying we should learn from that culture itself? To me (bringing back in the German example) it sounds like (trying to transfer the example) 'learn how to get organized with nazi ideology'.

Adressing your first point, I really think that human (including children) sacrifice is quite unique and not present in the cultures you mentioned.

> we do not throw away everything German, but everything in the Nazi ideology, dont we?

No, we did not. To large extend, people don't even know what Nazi ideology and goals actually were except that they killed most Jews. But first here, you would have to show they were overall like Nazi.

> Adressing your first point, I really think that human (including children) sacrifice is quite unique and not present in the cultures you mentioned.

Soldiers working for colonial Britain would cut kids hands if parents did not worked fast enough. Columbus did cut peoples hands too, I think that including children hands if locals did not produced as much as he wanted. He also took kids as sexual slaves for his men. Cortes behavior was not normal either. Hunting witches and torturing old people assumed is not generally normal either.

American slavery routinely involved kids being sold away from parents before age of 10 .. and quite a lot of them died.

None of it is exactly same as human sacrifice, but not much better either.

do you have sources for any of that stuff regarding Columbus? I hear people say stuff like that about him but I have never seen any primary sources

The Wikipedia article seem to give weight to actually cutting hands for not filling quota, but I guess you could argue that his "system" was not how he actually acted.

"Columbus's forced labour system was described by his son Ferdinand: "In the Cibao, where the gold mines were, every person of fourteen years of age or upward was to pay a large hawk's bell of gold dust; all others were each to pay twenty-five pounds of cotton. Whenever an Indian delivered his tribute, he was to receive a brass or copper token which he must wear about his neck as proof that he had made his payment; any Indian found without such a token was to be punished." The monarchs, who suggested the tokens, called for a light punishment, but any Indian found without a copper token had their hands cut off, which was a likely death sentence.[118] Since there was no abundance of gold on the island, the natives had no chance of meeting Columbus' quota and thousands are reported to have committed suicide."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

It's not quite so black-and-white. Most of our historical sources are people who definitely want to play up the human sacrifice aspect. The Europeans would do so in order to justify the genocide they would commit; the Aztecs themselves to demonstrate their legitimacy to power. So the extent to which Aztecs did human sacrifice is probably exaggerated, although most historians would agree that Aztecs were the most prolific practitioners we know of nonetheless.

A more important thing to consider is the actual context of sacrifice in Aztec religion. Their mythology held that the gods literally sacrificed themselves to bring the (current) world into existence, and they recreated these sacrifices both as a means of honoring their gods as well as ensuring the continuation of the effects of that sacrifice. This isn't actually all that far off from Christianity, which recreates the sacrifice of Jesus in the form of the Eucharist, which can (and historically was!) be seen as a form of human sacrifice. Indeed, in broader theological terms, Aztecs need to undergo personal sacrifice of their own flesh and blood, while Christians make do with merely sacrificing personal possessions or (more commonly) abstract desires.

The Aztecs had made so many enemies from slavery and sacrificing children in their rise to power, the Spanish had a broad choice of allies. Even if the Aztecs had instead sacrificed those 20k warriors on Spanish swords instead of the priest's knives, they still would have lost.

History is written by the victors. It would be in their interests to demonize the Aztecs as much as possible. Stories about sacrifices should be taken with a grain of salt unless there is hard evidence. Even if there were sacrifices, it would be good to find the exact reasons and circumstances for why that occured.

> Stories about sacrifices should be taken with a grain of salt unless there is hard evidence

Such hard evidence has been found, in the form of human remains mutilated in the manner described by contemporary sources.

Ehh, not even trying to be snarky - the US was basically sacrificing children during the industrial revolution, purely in the name of profit.

AFAIK, the aztecs at least thought they were appeasing all powerful gods when doing it. Don't think the same could be said of us...

> the US was basically sacrificing children during the industrial revolution

Well, and more recently...for example, just a few years ago on a huge scale in Iraq. (Not to mention ongoing birth defects)

You could probably argue that the US children were also sacrificed to gods... they just happened to be represented by money rather than some metaphysical beliefs.

This kind of moral equivocation is why our society is so divided.