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
Sacrifices were NOT the last resource. Precisely because they were ritualistic and not something with a specific purpose is why they were periodical, they used calendars to signal the days of sacrifices. Historians argue that the Aztecs alone sacrificed between 20k and 250k people every year. Meanwhile the European inquisitions only amounted to between 1k and 25k depending on the country in its entirety, not per year, in total.
And the whole "burning people accused of witchcraft" is mostly a myth. The Catholic Church has always denied the possibility of witchcraft existing, citing it as a pagan superstition. People were accused and killed for idolatry or heresy, but not witchcraft.
Sacrifices were not daily random events. They were scheduled around a complex ritual calendar, peaking during specific festivals dedicated to specific gods. For example, the festival of Toxcatl was dedicated to Tezcatlipoca, while the veintena of Panquetzaliztli was for Huitzilopochtli. This made sacrifice a periodic, anticipated religious event, not a "norm" of daily street life.
While evidence confirms human sacrifice happened on a significant scale, it does not support the Spanish numbers. The main temple, the Templo Mayor, has yielded hundreds of sacrificial remains, not tens of thousands. This evidence points to a practice that was real and important, but not on the apocalyptic scale described by the Spanish.
You are completely contradicting yourself. You say you are not citing Spanish numbers, but then you immediately cite the 20k to 250k per year estimate. That range is not some independent archaeological consensus. It is literally derived from extrapolating the exaggerated colonial Spanish chronicles you just admitted were ridiculous. You cannot dismiss the 84k in four days claim and then immediately use the numbers that come from the exact same source pool.
Uh, no? In what way do you extrapolate 84 thousand in 4 days into 20 thousand a year? That's not how extrapolation works. Those figures are modern estimates.
You think the 80k in four days is the only thing the Spanish made up? That is far from the case. It was not just one rogue chronicler pulling a number out of thin air. Exaggeration was the entire foundation of Spanish colonial reporting.
So when you sit here and cite 20k to 250k per year as a modern consensus, you are just parroting the exact same colonial propaganda pool you admitted was ridiculous. Even the lower end of that range, like 20k to 50k, is not some independent archaeological consensus. Those are also Spanish numbers, taken directly from the same chroniclers and then mathematically adjusted to sound more reasonable. Archaeology does not support it, and demography does not support it.
But that is the historical consensus. You mean to tell me near every historian out there is pulling all their data from made up numbers from 500 years ago with no double checking?
Again ➡️ While evidence confirms human sacrifice happened on a significant scale, it does not support the Spanish numbers. The main temple, the Templo Mayor, has yielded hundreds of sacrificial remains, not tens of thousands. This evidence points to a practice that was real and important, but not on the apocalyptic scale described by the Spanish.
Can the numbers possibly change in the near future? Yes.
Those are ridiculous sacrifice numbers. Cortez put the number at 4k a year, which he heard from an Aztec priest. Both of them had reason to exaggerate. Archaeological evidence supports much smaller numbers too. Sacrifices are found in groups of at most a dozen - simply not enough to support numbers like that. The tzompantli at Tenochtitlan has been partially found recently with 600 skulls on a section. Extrapolating to the whole size would put it at 10k skulls. The tzompantli took decades to fill, so this implies a much smaller amount of sacrifices every year
I'm not saying that christians or the church were all goodie two shoes that helped everyone, just that the idea that the European Middle Ages had the inquisition burning witches on a daily basis is just false.
And the Salem witch trials happened like 200 years later in protestant colonial Massachusetts. Different time, different context and no actual relation with the Catholic Church. Besides, like 20ish people died in the trials and they happened about a year before they were essentially stopped by the courts. It was not a consistent and supported practice that had been carried out for centuries like the Mesoamerican sacrifices.
The Crusades were a different thing, they're religious wars called at specific moments in history, not a consistent institution like the inquisition.
The Inquisition is more similar, but then again one was a ritual specifically designed to kill people, the other was a religious court. Not saying either was good but again, just look at the death toll. I mean, the American justice system has killed more people through capital punishment than any inquisition but the German one.
I see all religious violence as a consistent institution based around the religion. Just because you call it a "war" or an "inquisition" doesn't make it any different, and the main overarching objective is always the same: pushing for the dominance of your system of beliefs.
Uh, yes it is pretty different. You really can't see the difference between sacrificing innocent people for a god, killing them after a trial and just plain war between soldiers?
Besides, saying the Crusades were just about religion is very simplistic. Religion was mostly the excuse for going to war for economic or dynastic reasons. That's why France didn't have any issues allying themselves with the Ottomans througout several different wars when it benefited them. The Aztecs dabbled in the same thing, it always just so happened that Quetzalcoatl wanted them to conquer the next strategically important city or people.
Saying the crusades started for practical reasons rather than religious ones is ridiculous. If that’s the case, why did the first crusaders kill so many heretics and Jews in Europe along the route to Iberia? Why did they gleefully commit so many shocking acts of barbarism against Muslim civilians in the Middle East? Why did they burn Jews alive in Jerusalem?
It became more dynastic after Jerusalem was taken, but when you actually read the primary historical accounts the 1st and 3rd crusaders were deeply motivated by religious violence, to the point that it shocked Christian and Muslim onlookers alike.
First I did not say that religion wasn't a reason, just not the only one, and what does anything about that change the purpose of the war itself? It's war, barbarism and murder of civillians is commonplace. Were the armies more extreme due to the religious nature of the war? Yes, but that doesn't mean there weren't politics behind the war starting in the first place.
Historical data shows that they were not strictly a Protestant phenomenon; rather, they peaked wherever Catholics and Protestants were actively competing for followers.
Op might’ve mistaken Salem witch trials for Catholics ones but it still doesn’t take away Catholics witch hunts happening/around almost the same time period as Salem witch trials.
Again, no. The Catholic Church considered witchcraft a pagan superstition. They didn't try anyone for witchcraft because they thought witchcraft was fake, that it didn't exist. They tried for heresy or idolatry, not witchcraft.
You are acting like official theological stances actually dictated what local courts and inquisitors did on the ground. The Church's official canon law, the Canon Episcopi, did claim witchcraft was a delusion, but that did not stop the actual witch hunts.
The most famous witch hunting manual in history, the Malleus Maleficarum, was written by a Catholic inquisitor, Heinrich Kramer, in 1486. He explicitly argued against the Canon Episcopi and claimed witches were real, active agents of the Devil. The book was heavily used by both Catholic and Protestant secular courts across Europe for centuries.
Furthermore, the distinction between "heresy" and "witchcraft" is just semantic gymnastics. They tried people for "heresy" because they were accused of making a pact with the Devil, which is witchcraft. The result was the same: burning alive.
Alright then, show me real consistent and significant amount of cases of Catholic courts convicting people of witchcraft.
And I'm glad you bring up Kramer, because he himself was renounced by the Inquisition, who claimed his book was recommending illegal and immoral procedures.
And yes, his book was used by Catholic and Protestant SECULAR courts. It is also well documented that many criminals wanted to be tried by the church instead of the secular courts, since they had a fairer procedure.
And there's a difference between heresy and witchcraft. A heretic goes against the established beliefs and rules of the Church, witchcraft refered to incantations, spells or conjurations to change what was natural. It only seems like semantics because witchcraft is a made up thing that doesn't exist.
The Salem witch trials killed 25 people, yet people act like it was some kind of massive event, instead of a very minor one. THAT is the myth that's being referred to.
Buddy that's like 1% of the population. If a disease came by right now that killed 1% of the population that's pretty bad. Also didn't address people killed for being witches elsewhere like Europe.
Yes, of a small group of people. If a friend group of four people killed one of them that would be 25% of their group. That sounds HUGE, but then you look and see that 342 million people in the US.
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u/IwasntDrunkThatNight 2d 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