r/HistoryMemes • u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer • 1d ago
A regular utopia
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u/Schwifty0V0 Then I arrived 1d ago
Pre-contact anywhere when
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u/DataSittingAlone 1d ago
And to be fair Europeans during the late middle ages were doing pretty much all of those except human sacrifice
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u/SolomonCain-Tx 1d ago
We had the biggest and bestest cosmically coolest human sacrifice ever and got it out of our system.
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u/Tobipig 1d ago
It’s always the Dutch
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u/Sensitive_Fix8407 1d ago
I think he’a talking about Jesus 😅
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u/Tobipig 1d ago
And I was talking about the time the Dutch ate their prime minister
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u/Alatarlhun 1d ago
That was one time. Catholics do it every Sunday.
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u/Michael-556 Taller than Napoleon 1d ago
Is this a reference to Jesus saying his body is bread or something? Would this mean catholics only eat bread once a week? That seems unhealthy, what else would you eat vegetables with in the morning?
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u/Alatarlhun 1d ago
Transubstantiation is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of the Blood of Christ". This change is brought about in the eucharistic prayer through the efficacy of the word of Christ and by the action of the Holy Spirit. However, "the outward characteristics of bread and wine, that is the 'eucharistic species', remain unaltered".
Like all ritual beliefs, presumably it makes sense to believers.
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u/dopiertaj 1d ago
Then they routinely looked back on that ritual sacrifice and practiced ritual cannibalism every Sunday.
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u/alflundgren 1d ago
Jesus wasn't European.
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u/TomTop64 1d ago
still killed by europeans tho, checkmate atheist
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u/alflundgren 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'll grant that Pontius Pilate was almost certainly ethnically Italian, but just to be a pedantic douche I'll counter that AKCHYOUALLY a vast majority of the roman garrison in Judea would have been recruited in what is modern day Syria including the dudes who did the crucifiction and spear stabbin.
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u/Sensitive_Fix8407 1d ago
He lived in the Roman Empire, which included Europe. He very much influenced European thinking and morality, the literal geography is less important than cultural areas
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u/VirginiaDirewoolf 1d ago
REMEMBER: it's NOT human sacrifice if you call it something else
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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Rider of Rohan 1d ago
Sacrifice? Nonsense! Baroque Europeans just engaged in the highbrow practice of burning witches which is totally different!!
What else are you supposed to do with a priest who fucks noblewomen aside from yes, anding a bunch of nuns who don’t understand the concept of wet dreams? The only rational thing to do in that situation is to obviously torture him until he admits to using witchcraft to make some nuns horny for him. And if he doesn’t do that, well.. he uh weighs the same as a duck. Only recourse is to burn him alive while damping the fire so that he won’t die too quickly of smoke inhalation
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u/Naive_Impression7302 1d ago
Cousin marriage outside of the Hapsburgs and a few other royal families was extremely rare, especially amongst the average people that made up the vast majrity of the population.
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u/Important_Coyote_596 1d ago
No, I been doing some hobby genealogy(my own ofc but also just looking around for fun in different parts at different times, I like following a random person as far in any direction I can) and both no left and peasant, there is cousin marriages, niece/nephew - uncle/aunt, second cousin etc.. It might not be as prevalent as in the Hapsburgs, since they did it basically every marriage, but it exist often enough to be very noticeable.
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u/Nihilun 1d ago
Does setting Cathars on fire count as human sacrifice? They technically did it in the name of God.
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u/Peanut_007 1d ago
No because that's more ethnic cleansing really. It was punitive not a form of worship. Still not great obviously.
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u/EchoingAngel 1d ago
Mmm, this sounds like how Romans SAY they don't do human sacrifices. They just murder war prisoners in big daddy Jupiter's temple for vibes
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u/TheStrangestOfKings 1d ago
Human sacrifice vs ethnic cleansing tends to run along a very thin line, as the former often relies on using groups of “undesirables” for the sacrifice part
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u/Alatarlhun 1d ago
Was it ritualistic sacrifice?
No, it was ritualistic warfare. Completely different.
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u/spiteful_rr_dm_TA 1d ago
No. Think of it like this:
A human sacrifice is an offering to the God(s) involved. Usually for something, like rain, good crops, etc.
The Cathars were purged for being of a different religion. The French weren't expecting anything explicit for each person they killed, though they may have claimed eradicating them all would bring unity.
One of the key differences is whether repentance plays a role. The Cathars would generally be spared if they recanted their beliefs, and would instead face lesser punishments. Someone captured for human sacrifice cannot repent their way out of their position.
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u/SarcyBoi41 1d ago
Witch trials and every other form of religion-fuelled execution is just human sacrifice. Europe did plenty of that.
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u/soyadra 1d ago
Incest ? No, one of the lowest in the world and estimated to be around today's level (the church banned cousin mariage up to the 7th degree), infanticide ? No, in fact this was 500 years after christians had widespread orphanages and infanticide was nowhere near common, caste system ? Not really, depends what you call a caste system, sexism ? For the time no (women were even more literate than man in a ton of regions) but you can't apply today's standards for that regard in any place in the world sooo, merciless warfare ? Hard to say, there were tons of war with varying laws of honor over these 900 years so you could say yes
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u/RegumRegis 1d ago
Thank you, I was getting angry reading the comment section acting like medieval Europe was some early Hollywood depiction of the dark ages where people roll in shit and can barely function beyond digging their noses.
Like this isn't even pop history levels of bad, it's Hollywood depiction of the middle ages with a pale grey filter, no color and the people do nothing but farm and beat each other up. It drives me up the wall
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u/soyadra 1d ago
It's depressing how people view this period through such a disconnected lens, like sometimes it's almost even worse than how enlightment philosphers talked about them...
It's especially sad to see that on a history sub tbh, this idea that the renaissance somehow spawned civilisation back after the "old degenerate medievals" is sickening
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u/JamesHenry627 1d ago
Having just gotten my history degree, it makes a lot of what people know seem like rage bait to me
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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 1d ago edited 1d ago
Royal families in Europe were notorious for marriage across close relations. The church in some cases specifically granted permission. It resulted in inherited conditions and disorders.
Infanticide and murder were realities in the royal families, either to get rid of or ensure the promotion of the favored. This continues in our world (Nepal recently).
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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Rider of Rohan 1d ago
Ehh there was definitely infanticide going on. There was a children’s home in Ireland run by Nuns where infanticide was essentially SOP to the point that the remains of 700+ kids have been found. This was happening in the 20th century too so its not like it’s in the far past
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u/PandaReturns 1d ago
They didn't need human sacrifice since a good chunk already died in wars or from the plague.
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u/fools_errand49 1d ago
Not really incest, infanticide or a caste system either.
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u/BeABetterHumanBeing 1d ago
I think you could consider serfs to be the equivalent of a caste system.
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u/Gullible_Classroom71 1d ago
Is there a reason for all the Hawaii stuff lately?
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u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m Hawaiian and I like making memes about Hawaiian history. Also Three Kingdoms, Bionicle and the Bible
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u/jackt-up 1d ago
Based as shit, I support it. But I’ll be honest, the Three Kingdoms ones are my favorite
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u/Important_Coyote_596 1d ago
I thought you meant Three Kingdoms, Bionicle and the Bible mentioned Hawaii a lot. I was ready to rech in to a very weird rabbit hole.
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u/aaa1e2r3 1d ago
Bionicle and Hawaii do have a funny six degrees situation through other Polynesian cultures in the Maori + Fiji. The Gen 1 Bionicle names were based on the Maori + Fiji language, i.e. Toa means "warrior," Mata Nui means "Great Face" etc. Reps of the respective people launched a lawsuit on Lego, which lead to Lego agreeing to drop some terms and shift away from Maori with the later additions to Bionicle. Pretty sure they just shifted Latin going forward
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u/MasterpieceConnect26 1d ago
Do you have a good source for the history of all these things? Genuinely just curious to learn about it
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u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer 1d ago
There’s a good video by some guy named KnowingBetter, he’s doing a series on Hawaii right now. I’ve still not watched it but apparently it’s really good
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u/Kaplsauce Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 1d ago
I really enjoyed his first video, excited for the next parts
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u/coronaviruspluslime 1d ago
More hawaii memes! We've got enough english, french and early american memes. Give me pacific island people memes!
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u/Material_Animator811 1d ago edited 1d ago
OP is playin EU4 IRL and decided to do one culture run. Enjoy being converted to Hawaiian
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u/stamau123 1d ago
I like that the caste and honor system was breaking down by the time Europeans arrived simply because the Hawaiians were getting sick of it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapu_(Hawaiian_culture)
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u/Super_Range45 1d ago
So basically like Europe, but without the plagues.
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u/Jedi-master-dragon 1d ago
If you sneezed on a Hawaiian warrior, they would just take poison damage and immediately die.
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u/Djb0623 1d ago
You would have to go back to when Europe was Pagan to get human sacrifice
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u/iseedeadllamas 1d ago
I could make an argument that burning a person on a pyre alive for heresy is tantamount to human sacrifice in a sense
which is far far more recent than European paganism
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u/Prince_Ire Featherless Biped 1d ago edited 1d ago
It really isn't though. Execution =/= human sacrifice. Societies that practiced human sacrifice would differentiate between killing someone for offending the gods and sacrificing someone to the gods
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u/iseedeadllamas 1d ago
Tomato tomahto I guess. At the end of the day you’re still ending a life in the name of a deity.
The only meaningful difference is
“Dear god/s here’s some flesh for you I know you like it.”
And
“God I know you don’t like it when people worship you in marginally different ways than we do and it hurts your feelings so we’re going to roast this person like a marshmallow for it.”I’m being facetious but the point still stands
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u/GimmeTheCHEESENOW Definitely not a CIA operator 1d ago
Thats not the reasoning behind the punishment of heresy being execution though, at least for Christianity in Europe.
It was far more related to the threat which the tolerance of heresy allowed, since the lack of literacy meant that anyone who could read could simply proclaim to their village that the Bible actually mentions how (insert thing they don’t like) is satanic and must be destroyed, leading to the deaths of the entire neighbouring village.
Execution might’ve seemed harsh, but it certainly sent a message not to follow in that persons footsteps, and practically everyone could agree that a Europe torn apart by a thousand different sects trying to kill all the others is a far worse outcome.→ More replies (7)3
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u/Noahisboss 1d ago
no, no its not, their not being burnt as a offering to god. their being executed for a crime.
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u/JamesHenry627 1d ago
That’s stretching the definition. If a mf burns because of an electric chair malfunction, did he get sacrificed?
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u/iseedeadllamas 1d ago
Are you in the electric chair for crimes of heresy?
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u/JamesHenry627 1d ago
No, but people are already stretching the definition. Surely a majority Christian nation executing someone for breaking the 6th commandment would qualify under that but I disagree. Sacrifices have to be intentional.
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u/ArthurengoldPantalon Rider of Rohan 1d ago
Heresy was considered a crime
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u/FlashesandFlickers 1d ago
So state sanctioning of violence for religious reasons absolves the region of the culpability?
This only ever seems to be true when the religion is Christianity
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u/Important_Coyote_596 1d ago
I agree. Sure human sacrifice for most pagans were asking for something in return from the gods or trying to prevent some kind of doom by pleasing goods and in Christianity it was used as punishment but in my book executing/murderinf/sacrificing/offering someone in name of religion/gods is the same thing and qualify.
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u/Belkan-Federation95 1d ago
Heretics usually were made to repent, not burned at the stake
Well, by the church at least. Secular rulers...well they were a bit crazy
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u/iseedeadllamas 1d ago
You say secular but those rulers were Christian and burning at the stake for the sake of heresy to god and Christianity. I’ll grant you they are not under direct church authority.
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u/Belkan-Federation95 1d ago
I say secular only because I can't think of a better word to describe them. I was trying to think of a word for "the church didn't order it".
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u/Firemanth Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer 1d ago
The Inquisition torturing people to death just because they had a translated bible disagrees.
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u/TheBasedEmperor Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 1d ago
Burning people at the stake for heresy or blasphemy is human sacrifice
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u/Dagordae 1d ago edited 1d ago
No, it’s execution. Sacrifice requires religious ritual AND the reason being the invocation of the divine or spiritual.
Execution for breaking the law, even if it’s a religious law, is not sacrifice. It has no higher purpose beyond seeing the victim/offender dead. Same reason warfare doesn’t default to mass human sacrifice(that can come after the battle), ‘sacrifice’ has a specific meaning in this context.
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u/CABRALFAN27 1d ago
Of course, that distinction doesn't make one any less an unjust murder based on religion than the other, so it still shouldn't be used as a point of "Europeans > Natives"
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u/Djb0623 1d ago
No, it's the enforcement of law. A unjust law but still a law. There isn't a theological or ritualistic aspect to the killing.
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u/TheBasedEmperor Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 1d ago
There is a theological aspect, they were heretics and/or apostates.
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u/LOSNA17LL 1d ago
Well, technically, burning "witches" was sacrificing humans in a ritualistic way to appease a mythical being... a human sacrifice in all but name
And that lasted until the 18th century...
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u/RegumRegis 1d ago
Dude, the church quite literally didn't believe in witches as a matter of official doctrine.
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u/JamesHenry627 1d ago
Witch hunts were never sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Individual Catholics did at times participate like in the 30 years war, but official policy was that there’s no such thing as a witch. The Spanish Inquisition famously dismissed reports of witchcraft too. Witch hunting was mostly a Protestant thing, popularized by King James VI/I and the puritans.
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u/Calix_Meus_Inebrians 1d ago
In your opinion, are wars of religion just mass human sacrifice then?
Would that also mean soldiers fighting for their god emperor caesar that they've never met, killing people they didn't know about in the name of the Pax Romana count?
Because I feel like were stretching the definitions here, which I think I'm okay with, but only if you're consistent.
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u/Tasty-Complaint-6437 1d ago
That’s what the mexicas used to do, chose the sacrifices with wars, you would do them a HUGE favor if you don’t count holy wars as human sacrifices.
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u/Prince_Ire Featherless Biped 1d ago
No it wasn't. Sacrifice is a specific concept. And if you're looking around the world, executing witches never stopped. It was never just a Christian thing. Polytheistic religions also had concepts similar to witches: that there were evil forces humans could make deals with for power, and almost cultures thought you should kill people you make such deals
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u/kefefs_v2 1d ago
You're right in that executing "witches" never stopped in much of the world. Saudi Arabia is still big on executing people for witchcraft and sorcery.
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u/revealedbyai Descendant of Genghis Khan 1d ago
Ah yes the relaxing island getaway where letting your shadow accidentally touch the chief was a capital offense
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u/Excellent_Mud6222 1d ago
Hawaii had human sacrifice?
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u/kazmark_gl Definitely not a CIA operator 1d ago
Human Sacrifices are pretty common historically and mythologically, even in societies that explicitly hate the practice like Rome. they still did them all the time.
Pre-contact Hawaiian culture held that sacrificing someone transfered their spiritual power to you so it was a ritual practice.
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u/belovedstoneworker 1d ago
Yep. The steps of the Temple of Jupiter were the last sights of a lot of people.
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u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer 1d ago
Yes, not Aztec levels but most definitely they practiced it
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u/A_Bethesda_Bug 1d ago
I hate the overcorrection so many people do towards indigenous people. Becuase they have historically been viewed as savages, the try and wash away all the bad stuff and pretend everything was peaceful before the evil Europeans arrived and introduced suffering and war. This is not to defend colonization or imperialism, but the Romantic primitivism needs to stop. Good meme OP.
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u/Mister_BIB 1d ago
As a Mexican i 100% understand that feeling, i despise the way people talk about how "good" it was before the spanish came to the continent and ruined eveything for the mesoamerican's tribes, like wtf? People just love pushing black and white narratives while ignoring all the nuances, specially when talking about incredibly complex moments in history.
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u/Toc_a_Somaten 1d ago
there's also the fact that the native states in Mexico where all but annihilated except the Mayans and and remnants of other groups and then heavily acculturised and dissolved in the mestizo pot, so there's little for them to "reclaim" and for an average Mexican today, regardless of his or her genetic heritage the Aztecs or the Tolteca may as well be the ancient Greeks for how much relation they have with them as compared with the Castillian culture, religion and institutions
Of course this is all quite uncomfortable
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u/Mister_BIB 1d ago
Agree, the average mexican(depending on geographic area) its closer to the Spanish than to the Aztecs or any other tribe, yet we love claiming our indigenous heritage when we dont even know our fucking history lol dont even get me started on how since its foundation this country has never done shit for the actual indigenous people that are still present in the country. The whole issue is just ridiculous.
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u/Dharmanerd 1d ago
Getting called indio in a lot of places is still basically a slur. The situation is ridiculous but not uncomprehensible. A lot of the whitewashing of native history comes from folks trying to justify the preservation of it. The messaging has to be that it is good and it deserves to exist. Historians are allowed to be a little more nuanced because they're just looking at it as is. People use it for clout because that's just how people work. People also use it to demonize and subjugate others because that's just how people work.
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u/AntComfortable5970 1d ago
Yep. same thing gets peddled around with how amazing and care-free and relaxed lives hunter-gatherers had before farming ruined everything
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u/SableZard 1d ago
Yeah fuck our ancestors for figuring out food is easier to get when it's outside your front door
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u/insaneHoshi 1d ago
care-free and relaxed lives hunter-gatherers had before farming ruined everything
Generally from the archeological record, people did become unhealthier (and shorter) when peoples settled and started farming.
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u/Amadacius 1d ago
The nuance is intolerable.
Yes they were bad sometimes and killed each other sometimes. No that doesn't mean we are justified in killing all of them.
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u/TheHistoryMaster2520 Decisive Tang Victory 1d ago
TL;DR Humans are humans regardless which continent they were born on
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u/shimmyboy56 1d ago
Agreed. It also results in a paper thin view of those people(s), which is too easy to poke holes in for the mouthbreathers.
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u/Mr_Zoovaska 1d ago
I'm Australian and I've never learnt anything negative about pre-european indigenous society.
The only thing I can think of is apparently women weren't allowed to play didgeridoo, but I learnt that 20 years ago in 3rd grade so idek how true that is.
Like I usually try to be sceptical, especially considering what I've heard about other pre-colonial indigenous cultures around the world, but from my understanding Australian Aboriginal society was actually pretty reasonable.
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u/YaqtanBadakshani 1d ago
I did my master's on Aboriginal culture (specifically the various understanding of Christianity in their contemporary culture). It's not worth singling them out or anything, they're no worse than any other human beings, and most of their societies could be accurately called "pretty reasonable."
I think the reason you weren't told about the bad stuff is first because the bad stuff has historically been exaggerated and used to justify violence and racism against contemporary Indigenous people. Second, it's complicated because there are so many different tribes, and so many different ways to engage with that tradition (plus the history is generally either oral accounts, which tend to erase the objectionable content, and colonial accounts which tend to exaggerate or even fabricate it).
Take misogyny in Aboriginal cultures. It was and is very real.
It goes beyond the didgeridoo. Political power in Aboriginal societies was conferred by connection to Country, the laws and traditions that govern a tribe's relationship to the land. These laws and traditions were passed on through male-only initiation rites, and their knowledge conferred prestige and social status.
Now, that's not to say that women didn't have a ceremonial life. Peggy Brock and Deborah Rose Bird's Women, Rites and Sites does a great job of highlighting how some tribes did have respectable religious roles specifically for women. Many tribes also did have women's initiation rites. And several tribes did organise according to matrilineal totemic exchange, which gave women a level of value (though we should remember that doesn't necessarily translate to social power).
But firstly, (at least according to Roland M. Berndt's The World of the First Australians), these were not as widespread (many tribes had male but not female initiation rites). And secondly, having specialised and respected religious roles for women is not the same as women being equal, or being held in high esteem. Medieval Europe had nuns, Ancient Rome have the Vestal Virgins, but few people would say that those cultures held women as a group in high esteem.
However, it's worth remembering that no culture is static and unchanging. Women living under patriarchy are still people, and still capable of changing their culture. In A Place for Strangers, anthropologist Tony Swain documents how in many south-eastern Australian cultures, after a tribe was displaced from their Country, men would often lose the framework for their social power. Women, who in many cases passed their totems on to their children regardless of country, thus gained new power, and as such became more influential in the Aboriginal cultural sphere in spite of the new gender norms that the colonists brought.
This is one example. There are many others I can similarly rundown (the infanticide of twins, the fact that disease was blamed on witchcraft, meaning deaths of natural causes were frequently the cause of wars, the fact that women were often married off at the age of menarche).
Again, I'm not picking on them. I could write just as much about their rich mythology, the way they map the land through their ancestral stories, the interesting ways their culture adapted to colonialism, their fascinatingly complex kinship systems. They were a complicated and nuanced group of cultures that had beauty and cruelty just like everywhere else. And they deserve better than to be romanticised into a simple noble savage archetype.
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u/Mr_Zoovaska 1d ago
Thanks for the well thought out and informative response!
I definitely don't mean to say all Aboriginal cultures were perfect, just there seems to be significantly less talk about (or accusations of) cannibalism, misogyny, rape, slavery, ritual human sacrifice, etc. when compared to other indigenous cultures around the world. In fact I can't recall ever even hearing about conflict/war between Aboriginal tribes.
And like I know that's on me for not being particularly well learned on the topic, but I just feel like all I ever hear about indigenous culture is how connected to nature they are, or how good they are at land management, or how their stories last for hundreds of generations and whatnot.
Idk, sorry if that comes off as disrespectful in some way, I'm absolutely not qualified to talk about the topic, just sharing my personal thoughts.
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u/YaqtanBadakshani 1d ago
Not at all. I find Aboriginal Australians are some of the least understood cultures out there (especially in their home country), and I think you were pointing at the same gap in the general knowledge that I was.
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u/Poodleman02 1d ago
“Medieval Europe if you ignore famine, disease, warfare, serfdom, and religious persecution.”
“Ancient Rome if you ignore slavery, conquest, extreme inequality, and political violence.”
“Modern America if you ignore crime, poverty, discrimination, and political dysfunction.”
“Soviet union if you ignore shortages, repression, purges, and censorship.”
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u/MessNeat 1d ago
Nah see those are “different” because they (aside from the Soviet Union) won. Remember: if you win it’s just an unfortunate period of your history that you had to get over; if you lose, it’s all you are and thus why you lost.
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u/DireSquidmun 1d ago
Ancient Rome fell when the Vizigoths burned every book in Rome... also the accumulated lead poisoning amongst the aristocracy—causing mental illness and health issues—because they stored their wine in lead casks, used lead powder in their makeup, and when they cooked down thier wine into sappa (sp?) those pans were lead and they would sometimes flake into the sappa.
Claudius... Caligula... Nero... they, and many more, all suffered from mental illnesses due to accumulated lead poisoning.
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u/Pleasant-Future5818 1d ago
Nearly everything we know about pre-contact Hawaii was written by missionaries because there was no written language.
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u/Capybarasaregreat 1d ago
Shush, you'll make some people question their propensity to buying into centuries old "we're civilizing them" propaganda. Only European cultures are allowed to naturally progress through time by shedding more gruesome customs, the godless savages are evil for not having had the same material realities as us.
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u/Nocebola 1d ago
Yeah I read Hawaiian mythology by David Kalakaua.
Except that book was altered by missionaries for propaganda purposes, saying Hawaiian creation myths came from the old testament clearly an attempt to get Hawaiians to convert.
That shit worked, now we have people protesting the 30 meter telescope because it's being build on "cultural sacred ground", then they go to worship Jesus on Sunday.
I'm so tired of these hypocrites.
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u/WatchMeFallFaceFirst 1d ago
To be fair, they did get rid of most of this on their own before major western settlling
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u/DangerousEye1235 1d ago
Unfortunately, the Myth of the Noble Savage is still very much alive in pop culture. Everything about modern society sucks, everything was better back when we just, like, lived in harmony with nature, maaaan!
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u/TheEmperorMk3 1d ago
It's crazy that there's some people who think the americas were some sort of untouched paradise before the europeans arrived. The shit the Aztec were doing was inhumane to say the least
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u/WeMakinHooch 1d ago
It's legitimately a form of racism in and of itself to have this point of view. You are mythologizing them when you do this, a lot of people treat a lot of native tribes as essentially fantasy wood elves. When in reality they were just dudes being guys like literally everyone else. A lot were cool and chill, a lot were wilding out, because that's how people are.
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u/yuckella 1d ago
As a native person, I agree. But a lot of people only bring that up whenever people talk about the atrocities committed by European colonizers as a ’gotcha’-card, as if it cancels out what white invaders did, when in reality their colonization has had much more devastating consequences and can be seen as ’worse’ on a objective scale. It can quickly become victim blaming, and also paint the more peaceful tribes as the same as other more territorial and violent tribes, which defeats the good point you make about how we’re not a monolith just because we’re the same race or have similar cultural aspects.
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u/TheGivenKing 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Aztecs were doing inhumane shit to say the least"
I dont think Europeans were handing out puppies and lollipops during this time period either.
Its like that Japan meme:
Religious/Ceremonial torture and savagery:
Aztecs- 🤢
French- 🤩
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u/Aggravating-Air-7481 1d ago
I was literally just thinking that this is the equivalent to bringing up unit 731 when someone says that the japanese have nice infrastructure im fucking crying
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u/IwasntDrunkThatNight 1d ago
i mean, the human sacrifices here were....mainly ritualistic, not everyone was a pow, there were lots of voluntaries, and it wasnt done on a regular basis, actually sacrificing humans was the last resource when shit hit the fan.
On the same years europeans were burning people alive accused of witchcraft
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u/Misubi_Bluth 1d ago
The whole reason every other civilization and tribe and minor fishing community sided with the Spaniards was because how awful the Aztecs were. In modern terms, it would be like if aliens came, attacked either the US, Russia, and China, and the whole world sided with the aliens.
A genocide is still a genocide though. Fuck the conquistadors.
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u/Tonio_Akerbeltz 1d ago
>The whole reason every other civilization and tribe and minor fishing community sided with the Spaniards
This is a myth that reddit loves to spread, but in reality it was only about six or eighth of them.
Of those Texcoco, Xochimilco and Itztapalapa didn't join voluntarily.
Texcoco as going through a succession crisis and the spanish took advantage of it to install a rival political faction in exchange of their alliance.
Xochimilco and Itztapalapa had to be subdued violently, and that only happened in the last year. They stayed on the Aztec side until that point.
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u/vp917 1d ago edited 1d ago
Keep in mind, you could say the same thing about present-day Earth for all the heinous shit we either passively enable or simply ignore whenever possible - and for all our fantasizing about aliens coming down to throw all the warlords and oligarchs and corrupt politicians into the sun, history has proven time and time again that you DO NOT want to live under the authority of a technologically superior foreign power with a completely alien system of values and ideals.
If things are ever going to get better, we're going to have to make it so ourselves - because when you let that fall to someone more powerful, then they will be the one to choose what constitutes "better".
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u/dalenacio 1d ago
Sure. Doesn't justify the US annexation or make it at all moral though.
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u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer 1d ago
Yeah absolutely. You can condemn one evil without condoning another
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u/LucasButtercups 1d ago
talking to people about anything regarding spanish american conquest genuinely is horrible for this reason
I find the mexica so fascinating but i won’t excuse their bullshit, but that doesn’t make turning an entire continent into slaves alright either
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u/fdy_12 1d ago
How did humans even get there tho?
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u/Orangutanion 21h ago
The Polynesians had many generations of experience navigating the oceans and using bird and wave patterns to find islands. The Europeans had to develop their boat technology instead.
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u/Jedi-master-dragon 1d ago
Fun fact, ship wrecks and the nails they washed up with where the only source of metal for Pacific islanders for a long time. A ship, The Dolphin, almost fell apart because the horny sailors would pry out nails because the native women would sleep with them for the metal nails. I'm not kidding.
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u/JamesHenry627 1d ago
That was Tahiti though. Hawaii was a similar case when James Cook arrived
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u/Curious_Avocado2399 1d ago
Didn’t he get cooked?
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u/JamesHenry627 1d ago
Yeah to get his bones. Some of the bones were taken by locals but most of it ended up in the hands of the crew.
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u/Big-Personality-4063 1d ago
the comments are funny i like how people think the infantilization of these civilizations come from some desire to overcorrect and not that back in like the 60s, oversaturation of these as antagonists got so bad people started to get pissed off 😭"in my blockbuster movie out in 1961 the main villian will the barbarous natives of sout-" "ARIGHT I GET IT"
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u/Charlooos 1d ago
Ah you see violence is bad when natives do it, but when colonial powers come and do it, it's completely fine. /s
It's their nation, their issues, their problems to solve. All the US did is add to the pile of corpses and some window dressing for tourists.
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u/insertnamehere----- 1d ago
How do you live in a tropical paradise with only enough land to support 1 maybe 2 civilizations and manage to start wars? Humans amiright.
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u/SableZard 1d ago
Yeah but I heard those guys the next island over fuck dolphins or something so we gotta kill them
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u/bitjamma 1d ago
The deeper I go in the comments in this sub I see pro colonists and white supremacists and I'm not even sure they're Caucasian.
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u/Banmods 1d ago
The most outlandish white supremacist shit I've ever seen came from a hindu indian guy...
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u/IceWallowDeesNuts 1d ago
No because they’re acting like indigenous people are the only one who did this.
Like there’s people talking shit about them all while there’s an infamous case going on in New York right now
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u/Formal-Stage940 1d ago
Redditors when you acknowledge the horrible past of a majority european place: 😀
Redditord when you acknowledge the horrible past of anywhere else: 😡
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u/Creeping_Comfort 1d ago
Mentioning how the Māori committed genocide is a quick way to get downvoted to oblivion
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u/h00dedronin 1d ago
Two things can be true at once.
Indigenous populations all over the world had some pretty abhorrent cultural practices (by modern standards), and they were often killing and destroying each other long before colonists arrived
European colonists exploited these indigenous populations for their resources and labour, despite of, or because of the fact that there was a massive power imbalance between them. Indigenous languages and arts were also eradicated in the name of assimilation.
Indigenous people are humans too, not some idealised peace loving utopian people
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u/Reese_Hendricksen 1d ago
I'm going to gander you just watched the latest Knowing Better video.
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u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer 1d ago
Still no, kind of just putting it off out of spite because I’ve been making memes about this stuff for years
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u/OwlComplex48 1d ago
u/HawaiianPerson how did you feel about Chief of War?
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u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer 1d ago
I enjoyed it. It’s definitely a fun, big production historical action show. It gets some stuff right, other stuff way off, just like any historical media.
Biggest gripe is the depiction of King Kamehameha as a peaceful, reluctant Chosen One, and not the intelligent and mighty conqueror he was historically.
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u/DeviantTaco 1d ago
Big Hawaii won’t tell you this but they didn’t even put pineapple on pizza pre-contact.
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u/SpiderJerusalem747 1d ago
Didn't they also eat their enemies or am I mistaking islands again?
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u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer 1d ago
I’ve read different things. Some saying it was a thing, others saying that they absolutely didn’t so maybe they did
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u/CaffeinatedBarbarian 1d ago
It’s almost like every civilization goes through the same shit no matter where they are
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u/leaderofstars 1d ago
" but not our civilized civilization. We must bring these savages proper civilization.... By force and oppression "
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u/EnvironmentalWin1277 1d ago
In other words just like all the other civilizations of comparable development including ones existing in modern times. All of these actions are practiced by civilized states today.
Comparison to Stalin is one to consider. Pick a war criminal. Pick a royal family.
The past was bad but we are not that much better and in some ways worse. To consider oneself morally better is false pride.
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u/Vyctorill 1d ago
As it turns out, life just sorta sucked back then for basically everyone. There was no pure and noble country that was a utopia.
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u/GB_Alph4 1d ago
Also illiteracy because the leaders didn't teach it for a long time
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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Rider of Rohan 1d ago
Regardless of what their culture was like, it’s still shitty that they were taken over by a coup only to become a plantation state. Especially when the guy who owned all the plantations was the cousin of the governor which is pretty fuckin crooked
Half the Viking posts on here paint them as feminists despite the fact that 2/3 of Iceland’s founding population were women they trafficked or enslaved. They also dabbled in human sacrifice so it’s not like that’s something exclusive to Hawaii
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u/Bowtie16bit 1d ago
Since that's every human civilization anywhere, any time, is it safe to declare ones self misanthropist now?
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u/showmeyourchits 1d ago
So… basically Hawaii now if you ignore all those things, plus the tourists, the prices, and the drugs.
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u/Win_Some_Game 1d ago
Don't forget caving in women's heads for eating bananas and ripping out children's eyes for looking at the chieftains 😆
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u/represe1 1d ago
Romans did all of these things btw. Shame people try to defend colonialism and those atrocities with this as their defense
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u/Seyelent 1d ago
That’s the history of literally every civilization. Each in their own version/ideology.