http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060823/sc_nm/life_mexico_aztecs_dc Boiled bones show Aztecs butchered, ate invaders By Catherine Bremer CALPULALPAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people traveling with invading Spanish forces in 1520. Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say. The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children traveling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king of the Aztec empire's No. 2 city of Texcoco. Experts say the discovery proves some Aztecs did resist the conquistadors led by explorer Hernan Cortes, even though history books say most welcomed the white-skinned horsemen in the belief they were returning Aztec gods. "This is the first place that has so much evidence there was resistance to the conquest," said archeologist Enrique Martinez, director of the dig at Calpulalpan in Tlaxcala state, near Texcoco. "It shows it wasn't all submission. There was a fight." The caravan was apparently captured because it was made up mostly of the mulatto, mestizo, Maya Indian and Caribbean men and women given to the Spanish as carriers and cooks when they landed in Mexico in 1519, and so was moving slowly. The prisoners were kept in cages for months while Aztec priests from what is now Mexico City selected a few each day at dawn, held them down on a sacrificial slab, cut out their hearts and offered them up to various Aztec gods. Some may have been given hallucinogenic mushrooms or pulque -- an alcoholic milky drink made from fermented cactus juice -- to numb them to what was about to happen. TEETH MARKS "It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected," Martinez said, standing in his lab amid boxes of bones, some of young children. "You can only imagine what it was like for the last ones, who were left six months before being chosen, their anguish." The priests and town elders, who performed the rituals on the steps of temples cut off by a perimeter wall, sometimes ate their victims' raw and bloody hearts or cooked flesh from their arms and legs once it dropped off the boiling bones. Knife cuts and even teeth marks on the bones show which ones had meat stripped off to be eaten, Martinez said. Some pregnant women in the group had their unborn babies stabbed inside their bellies as part of the ritual. In Aztec times the site was called Zultepec, a town of white-stucco temples and homes where some 5,000 people grew maize and beans and produced pulque to sell to traders. Priests had to be brought in for the ritual killings because human sacrifices had never before taken place there, Martinez said. On hearing of the months-long massacre, Cortes renamed the town Tecuaque -- meaning "where people were eaten" in the indigenous Nahuatl language -- and sent an army to wipe out its people. When they heard the Spanish were coming, the Zultepec Aztecs threw their victims' possessions down wells, unwittingly preserving buttons and jewelry for the archeologists. The team, which began work here in 1990, also found remains of domestic animals brought from Spain, like goats and pigs. "They hid all the evidence," said Martinez. "Thanks to that act, we have been allowed to discover a chapter we were unaware of in the conquest of Mexico."
Crazy Mexicans...But seriously, a lot of groups had different rituals, its just you don't see it advertised as it is here...
i dont really see this as any groundbreaking discoveries regarding aztec culture. they sacrificed an estimated 250,000 people a year by tearing their hearts out while they were still alive. during one festival shortly before cortes arrived they sacrificed about 25,000 people at their main temple in present day mexico-city. they werent the first group in mexico to do this (most major ones did, maya included), but they certianly took it to new levels, in terms of the victims. they didnt do it just to be dicks. their belief was that the sun required human hearts to move through the sky. but it was the fact that they were indeed dicks that allowed cortes to move in and align himself w/ the aztec enemies. if the aztecs had been nicer to their neighbors cortes and his 500 or so conquistadors would have never won. the priests would sometimes actually "wear" the skin of their victims a'la silence of the lambs and dance around. as most of their victims came from prisoners of war, the warriors would sometimes have the "honor" of eating the flesh. as the spanish were laying seige to tenochtitlan (present day mexico-city) they could actually watch and hear their captured comrades being sacrificed by the aztecs atop their main temple.
ive thought that for awhile. the true story is really unbelieveable. the aztec god quetalcoatl was exiled from mexico by evil gods who introduced human sacrifice. quetzalcoatl was white, long white hair and beard and flowing robes. before he sailed east on a raft of serpants quetzalcoatl vowed that he would return in the year reed 1 (aztec calendar) and reclaim his kingdom. well, by amazing coincidence the year reed 1 was 1519, when cortes shows up from the east on "floating towers" - ships. he was white, came from the east and had a beard. the aztec preists and monteczuma were extremely freaked out. most of the tribes were subjects of the aztecs and were ordered to attack him. cortes fought battles with the locals all the way to tenochtitlan and won every time. monteczuma at the same time as he was sending out his armies to attack, was giving him loads of gold and other treasures and telling him to go back. but all the gold only made the spanish want to go there even more. when they got to tenochtitlan monteczuma recieved cortes, beliving that he was the quetalcoatl. very fatalist view in that monteczuma realized that he was going to take his city back and just let him right in. even put cortes up in his dead fathers palace, right next to the main temple.
Man, I would love to travel back in time and go into their village with some machine guns and start spraying them. Damn heathens. Would love to see their reaction to my 'fire stick'.
Why am I not suprised that you would make a trollish comment? Good thing I don't give a **** what you think about anything.
hmm...i figured you would take your hero scott stapp with you and he could "sing" the aztecs into submission.
