{"id":2937,"date":"2009-04-08T20:46:22","date_gmt":"2009-04-08T18:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roumazeilles.net\/news\/en\/wordpress\/?p=2937"},"modified":"2009-03-31T10:32:46","modified_gmt":"2009-03-31T08:32:46","slug":"aztec-human-sacrifice-and-cannibalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roumazeilles.net\/news\/en\/wordpress\/2009\/04\/08\/aztec-human-sacrifice-and-cannibalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Aztec human sacrifice and cannibalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Masque\"
Masque<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An advanced civilisation if there was one, Aztecs lived in Central America from IXth Century to XVth Century (when their decline was essentially precipitated by their encounter with the Spanish conquistadores<\/em>). Many facets of this civilisation stay unknown principally because they were wiped out wy the first European colonizers.<\/p>\n

But one aspect stayed deep in the minds because it was an immediate shock to those who were meeting it for the first time: Aztecs practiced extensive human sacrifice when Cort\u00e9s arrived in America. Rare are the Europeans who observed it first-hand, because it stopped quickly then, but many traces are left for the historian.<\/p>\n

Generally, religious reasons (“gods are asking for peace brought to them through human bloodshed in their honor”) are shown as the main driving factor. I found a group of articles quite intersting because they discuss the vertus and weaknesses of another theory: That Aztecs needed to enrich their meals with meat that could only be obtained from cannibalism.<\/p>\n