Why are Mesoamerican civilization are constantly called "savage" and "deserving of their fate"?
Is it because of human sacrifice? Cultures in Europe practiced such things. You see such sacrifices in the Homeric epics.
If you just focus on the violent aspect of a culture but ignore their works and other aspects it seems pretty inane.
Lets, for example, look at a civilization that is considered the cornerstone of Western civilzation, the Ancient Greeks. We know them for their philosophy and government but what's also not very know about them is how bloodthristy they were and of their bloodlust. In fact the Ancient Greeks actually took joy in butchering each other.
>For, you know, when states defeat their foes in a battle, words fail one to describe the joy they feel in the rout of the enemy, in the pursuit, in the slaughter of the enemy. What transports of triumphant pride! What a halo of glory about them! What comfort to think that they have exalted their city! Everyone is crying: `I had a share in the plan, I killed most'; and it's hard to find where they don't revel in falsehood, claiming to have killed more than all that were really slain. So glorious it seems to them to have won a great victory! Xen. Hiero 2.15-16
There's also a lot that can be said about their treatment of non-combatants and people who surrendered. Would it be fair to describe the Ancient Greeks as savages? Would it be fair to say they should've been wiped out by the Persians?
>You see such sacrifices in the Homeric epics. that's actually not a good argument the europeans in the colonial era did not in fact sacrificed with the homeric greeks, nor did the classical greeks for that matter
comparatively the natives of mesoamerica has a much better heritage preserved than say north america natives
Jose Hughes
>inca >meso-american
Nolan Stewart
Mesoamerican civilizations are studied by archeologists using the same tools and methods they use to study bronze age civilizations, by all records and evidence mesoamerican civilizations were that, bronze age civilizations with teocratic governments, early lingustic development, centralized militaristic governments with short durations and exchange based tributary systems.
Jonathan Wood
While there was human sacrifice in many european cultures at some point, it was a rarity and usually looked down upon even by contemporaries. For example plenty of roman writers wrote is disgust about the 1 (one) man ritually sacrificed during the Gallic Wars to bring the favour of the manes.
In south american cultures mass human sacrifice was the very basis of religious practice ffs.
Joseph Bennett
> Is it because of human sacrifice? Cultures in Europe practiced such things. You see such sacrifices in the Homeric epics.
No, its because they are not whites, sorry pablo
Owen Clark
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Wyatt Cooper
>Pic unrelated That's inca empire. Also in that times in Europe they has horrible things too. If I said "Jesuschrist is a faggot" they will cut my balls.
It's because the Spanish started it those mitic shit and the same as the world "Indio" the Aztecs cuted heads but in Europe they do shits too.
Josiah Martin
>86481113 >Aztecs cuted heads lol no, they cut your heart out and open your bowels without cutting your head
Joshua Hall
People have so close minded view on human sacrifice, you need to be more open minded. And the distinction between culture and religion is artificial, it's a recent European construct that's not a universal truth at all. They usually are one and the same, and if you just look at primitive human killings as a whole you can see that it was very common in Europe too with death penalties. But even besides that it's still close minded to see a culture with human sacrifice as inferior, your cultures may value human lives differently and that's okay.
Isaac Clark
Pic related a man that almost could die in the inquisition o my because was too smart
Jaxson Harris
>mesoamerican >posts machu picchu american education
Brody Stewart
you should mix inquisition with sacrifice the religious people of europe used religion is a justification for law which had always been a secular idea since the roman times whereas in mesoamerica religion is the law, or rather there is no law without religious significance
galileo would have just been hanged
sacrifices is not a judicial punishment, it is an offering to the gods and treated as such, they are washed, scented, prepared and ceremony in front of many people meticulous killed in a very excruciating manner to show the metaphor between the body and the earth, all of this would have already been super unnecessary in europe
Michael Martinez
>should shouldn't
Carter Rivera
I made a grab for the first pic I saw. I'm sorry lads
What does it matter what the Europeans in the colonial era did? The thing about sacrifices it's that it is deprived of its context. They didn't just sacrifice anyone, they went thought great lengths to ensure everything went right since it was vital in their culture. Looking at it from the outside it may appear "barbaric" but you're also ignoring the context.
On the other hand the culture I just listed did, in fact, take pleasure in butchering their enemies.
around 700 skulls of men, women and children in a single pillar and if ancient Spanish records are accurate there should be dozens more of these pillars nearby. They were literally using thousands of skulls as decoration around their city.
Alexander Myers
to show what you cannot compare greeks or colonials to mesoamericans
Adrian Carter
The comparison here is that you can find "savage" acts anywhere in history. If, as I stated in the OP, I say the Ancient Greeks were savages for conducting warfare in an almost genocidal manner such as chasing their enemies in a long and bloody chase, taking joy in slaughtering their enemies, dedicating trophies to the bloodshed they caused, killing the adult men in captured cities and selling women and children into slavery, the praising of deceive and treachery and other "savage" things while ignoring the rest of their contributions I would sound ignorant.
Likewise the Mesoamericans had a developed civilization with their own unique culture and works, which sadly a lot had been lost, but they also had "savage" elements. But to focus on this only is inane.
Jackson Barnes
>Cultures in Europe practiced such things. Did they? So far as I know, they didn't (unless you mean some outlier culture literally 3000+ years ago. They practiced animal sacrifice only, and Chirstcucks weren't happy about it, outlawing it. They destroyed the natural religions, forever dooming the world to nihilism and consumerism.
Kayden Lopez
The brutality of any given civilization is literally irrelevant to how 'advanced' it was unless you want to claim that some peaceful forest tribe was more advanced than the Assyrian Empire or the Romans.
Ian Bailey
Of course I'm not saying that. However I often come across people who brand the Mesoamerican empire as savages and people who deserved the be enslaved by the Spanish.
I'm just providing a counter-example of another area I find interesting, the Ancient Greeks. While scholars in the past presented them as fighting limited warfare, fighting by unwritten rules and fighting in ritualized warfare and them being rational people modern scholarship has been done to shatter this fantasy. Instead we find brutal, violent, superstitious and greedy people who ignored the teaching of Aristotle just as a teenage does today.
Thomas Jackson
Because Spaniards and other whi*oids can't justify their crime when they decided to kill all of them
