The Mayans believed that the giving of blood to the Gods, especially the rain god Chac, would make these deities look upon society with favor. As a result, the practice of ripping the hearts out of human beings for sacrifice to the gods was a common activity in Mayan Civilization. The Spanish conquistadors, no strangers to brutality themselves, looked upon this practice with horror, when they arrived in the New World in the early sixteenth century. My question is this: Was the Mayan practice of human sacrifice simply an acceptable cultural phenomenon that demands respect or was it an unjust taking of human lives that reflected the “uncivilized” nature of this society as the Spanish saw it?
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August 30, 2007 at 8:56 pm |
The case could be made that the Conquistadors, barbarians of one sort, should not have presumed to judge and attempt to modify the inhumane religious practices of the Mayans, barbarians of another sort. After all, they were all barbarians.
But, it worries me that an overwhelming majority of modern students feel that they would do nothing to prevent human sacrifice if they came upon a primitive society which practiced it. I can’t say I was surprised to see the many show of hands in yesterday’s class advocating the point of view that “It’s their culture, and we should let them do what they feel is right.” Haugaard, an instructor at Pasedena City College, wrote about a similar experience with her students in 1997.
In my opinion, killing of innocents is an abject evil. I think those with a morally superior, humane point of view have an ethical imperative to educate those whose primitive beliefs cause them to mistreat others.
This may be a minority view in this age of moral relativism, multiculturalism, and political correctness, but I’m putting it out here as grist for the mill.
August 31, 2007 at 3:11 pm |
For centurys the human species has thought of ways to torture and destroy lives through barbaric means of punishment whether it was through means of burning such as the Indian practise of Satee,the gassing of men women and children as we saw during Hitler’s riegn or the race of electricity through the human vein as we see ever so often today. However there is one clear and consise difference between the practises I have named above and that of that Mayan sacrifices and that is that the Mexica systeically killed human beings for love and worship of their gods. Hitler did not kill all that he out of reverence his gods,he killed them purely because he saw it to be a means to an end a way to irradicate the impure and different and a way to purify the country. The Mayan sacrfices were amean of appeasing the gods Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl and by keeping the Fifth sun,the final stage of everything from destroying them and although they killed 20,000 annually the sacrifice was “held truly to be concecrated and blessed.It was eaten with reverence,ritual,and fastidiousness-as if it were something from heaven” From the Mexicas perspecitve,it was not wrong to engage in human sacrifice it was wrong not too. Therefore,in my opinion unlike modern day practices of torture and death the Mayan practice of Human sacrifice is an acceptable cultural phenomenon rather than an unjust taking of lives due to the emotiions behind the actions
September 1, 2007 at 3:51 pm |
Rachel:
If I read your argument correctly, you feel that the Mayans were justified in practicing human sacrifice because it was part of a deeply held cultural belief (a religion if you will). The fact that the belief is erroneous is something you don’t even mention.
You juxtatpose Mayan human sacrifice with Hitler’s slaughter of millions because you think his motivations were different, i.e. his desire to create a ’super race’ by killing people who didn’t meet his definition of Aranian purity.
I believe the Nazis’ motivation to kill was as much an example of a deeply held cultural belief as the Mayan’s was. They had the motivation to produce a race of people without birth defects. They killed anyone with a birth defect. They had the motivation to produce a population with at least an average IQ so that they would be able to make a living. They killed anyone with a low IQ. And, of course, they believed certain groups of people and races were inferior, so they killed them too.
While if you look only at their goals, and not at their methods, and if you ignore the fact that they were mistaken about the inferiority of certain races and groups, then using your logic, it would be okay for the Nazis to do what they did. Their actions, afterall, reflected their deeply held beliefs.
In summary, I think killing people for ignorant reasons is a bad thing.
September 1, 2007 at 4:13 pm |
Linda,
“Its their culture and we should let them do what they feel is right”. In american culture do we not allow for the killing of humans on a regular basis based on an idealogy that we are giving a means to an end for families who have suffered at the hands of murder ? We are in effect sacrificing one human to appease the family of another and for those who are strongly agaisnt the practise of capital punishment there is little they can do to abolish it,so what exactly do you propose we do for primitive societies which pracitse barbaric means pf punishment when we ourselves partake in some of the most barbaric and cruel ways of killing on a regular basis.
You stated that “In my opinion, killing of innocents is an abject evil. I think those with a morally superior, humane point of view have an ethical imperative to educate those whose primitive beliefs cause them to mistreat others” Don’t get me wrong I compeltely agree with your opinion on the killing of innocence,there is nothing worse but generalising america as being morally superior and having an ethical imperitve to educate others is in my opinion slightly obscure. Who are we as a a society to say that we are more “morally superior” that any community ? We killed innocence during the Salem Witch trials based upon heresay,and we kill today based on a idea that a large majority of the population want to see someone die for a death.
I do not advocate death or the dismisal of it,in fact murder ritualistic or isolated is unacceptable. However the mexica did not kill for fun,gratification,or pleasure they killed for SURVIVAL or at least thats what they believed
September 1, 2007 at 5:35 pm |
First of all, let me clarify something. You say I am generalizing that America is morally superior, having an ethical imperative to educate those whose primitive beliefs cause them to mistreat others. I never said that. Reread my posting. I was intentionally vague as to who these ‘morally superior’ people might be, envisioning an organization, group of people or even a single person with a sense of moral outrage. It would be nice to think a nation could intervene selflessly with pure altruistic motives, but history serves up only a few examples of that.
Now, on to the argument at hand. You say that America has no right to judge other cultures due to its own barbaric practices. You give two examples: 1. The killing of innocent women at the Salem Witch trials in 1692-1693; and 2. Capital punishment.
First, let me say that the Salem Witch trials happened over 300 years ago. Plus, as a culture we have matured beyond the point where we burn women at the stake for ‘consorting with the devil’ and practicing witchcraft. I don’t think this is a useful argument to prove that present America has bloody hands.
Next, you speak about capital punishment as a barbaric practice. On a personal level, I agree. On a policy level, I disagree. Capital punishment is much more than acting out a vengeful state killing on behalf of a wronged family. It also serves as a deterrent to other potential murderers, as evidenced in this report:
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/5/2/344
And I would also note that capital punishment is hardly random. The accused are defended at a trial and can make multiple judicial appeals. This is much different than being a slave sent to the village priest to be that afternoon’s sacrifice.
September 1, 2007 at 6:16 pm |
Linda:
Firstly i would like to apologise, I have reread your previous comment and I had read it incorrectly. You did not clearly define who in your opinion was morally superior and I reacted as if you had. it woudl be nice to think a nation would intervne selflessly with pure altruisitc motives but unfortunaly like you stated there has been very few examples of that throughout time and i doubt there will be many more of any real significance as nations today fend only for themselves.
You bring up the timing of The salem witch trials,which only happened 300 hundred years ago yet the mayan sacrifices happened well before that. So how is it not a useful argument. However i will bring more examples to the table.In the history of our country we have had many such sacrifices of humans. There are the Africans who were sacrificed on the altar of a Southern gentry and the cotton economy. There are the Native Americans, the Indians, who were sacrificed in the name of Manifest Destiny. There were the new immigrants, fleeing drought, failing crops and economies, and political persecution in Europe who were sent to the western frontier as soldiers to give their lives to secure it against the Indians. There were the Chinese immigrants who were sacrificed to build the great western railroads. There were the Japanese-American citizens who were sacrificed to bolster public support for World War II.
Look at all the masacre sites such as Sand Creek,Wounded Knee, and the Trail of Tears why are all these worthy of mention because there were bounties placed on the scalps of native americans and as a reult endless burtality and slaughters insued. These are all barbaric incidents in american history to show how bloody their hands really are.
I am a criminal justice major and I have witnessed compelling arguments for each position on capital punishment and i have yet to come to the belief that it is in way shape or form acceptable. In my opinion it does not serve as as a deterent to potential murderers,as evidence in this report :
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/issues/pu-vscap.htm
Linda,I have really enjoyed debating our opinions back and forth i hope to do so in class also. Have a great weekend
September 1, 2007 at 8:03 pm |
Yes, great weekend to you too! I would just like to add a couple of thoughts.
Your mention of many atrocities from various time periods in history could have us trotting off in dozens of directions at the same time. I think we should go back to Dr. Fierro’s original question, which was this:
“Was the Mayan practice of human sacrifice simply an acceptable cultural phenomenon that demands respect or was it an unjust taking of human lives that reflected the “uncivilized” nature of this society as the Spanish saw it?”
I read this as a question of how we, as people living in 2007, feel about this ancient practice of human sacrifice. I acknowledge that America history is sullied by many events of the past and isn’t perfect, but I am suspending those events in answering his question. Like all nations of significant duration, the USA has had its bad moments, and continues to. But, I am a person, not a country, and I answer for myself, not my country.
Also, I don’t think Dr. Fierro is asking us to attempt to place ourselves back into the early 1500’s to answer the question. So, I will answer as my contemporary self. Please jump in, Dr. Fierro, if I have misinterpreted your question in any way.
All that said, my answer to the question is this: I see Mayan human sacrifice as an unjust taking of human lives that reflected the “uncivilized” nature of this society. To me, such murders are a prima facie wrong, whatever the motives. That they are systematic and premeditated makes it worse from my point of view. Plus there’s a basic truth which applies now as well as then: The people killed were deprived of their very lives–what more could be taken from them? I can’t imagine not wanting to defend then, or those who might suffer a similar fate in the future. I doesn’t even matter to me whether the victims consented to be killed, since they too were influenced by the erroneous beliefs of their culture.
If I came upon such a culture practicing human sacrifice to appease their gods in my travels in 2007, I would judge the practice as a primitive one in need of change, and I would do what I could to stop it. (The Muslim practice of burying women in a pit up to their necks and stoning them to death, with only a suspicion of adultery and no fair trial, comes to mind.)
And here’s my other thought. This afternoon, my husband and I were pondering a bit on this very discussion. Both he and I grew up in a time when expressing moral absolutes in terms of right or wrong was the norm. He came up to me and said, “I was thinking about where this whole idea of not interfering with other civilizations came from, and it brought me back to the 1960’s and the prime directive on Star Trek.” Here’s a link to the prime directive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive
I thought it was an interesting idea, but I think this is a matter of literature and film reflecting the world around it rather than the other way around. Maybe, it goes back to Piaget’s theories on child development. Piaget theorized that children develop in predictable stages which are immutable. Not much could be done to accelerate development, so Piaget argued that children should be left to blossom at their own rates within their own internal time-clocks.. Perhaps that thinking made a cross-disciplinary leap into ethnology, which strongly endeavored to do naturalistic observation, allowing the societies studied to mature at their own rates.
Still, I feel there is a difference between scientists studying cultures while threading lightly, and people trying to do the right thing when they see something wrong. As a parent, I have felt totally justified in helping my children become the best they can be. That guidance may be construed as ‘interference’ with the natural flow of their lives, but I think it helps them to avoid some pain of discovery.
September 3, 2007 at 11:44 am |
Dear Linda and Rachel, I have been following your conversation all weekend, and let me say first how happy I am to be in class with you! I am looking forward to a very interesting semester.
Going back to Linda’s first post, a question: how would you define a “morally superior” race? Would it be one which has abolished killing in all forms? Or would it be one with such tolerance and patience that all ethnic customs are welcomed? Or would it be a more militaristic state, where the government runs the show and dutifully enforces all laws and punishments?
The reason why I did not raise my hand in agreement with Dr. Fierro’s question is not because my morals are so lackadaisical I don’t really care about their actions. What makes me pause is the subject of the Mayans’ motivation. They did not make their sacrifices for political reasons, for tribal gains, or out of a sense of pleasure or war-impassioned fury. This was an integral aspect of their religion, which is felt more deeply in a culture than any laws or “customs”.
I practice a religion that worships a man who was sacrificed. During our mass we recreate his last meal, and ritualistically eat his body and drink his blood, so that his energy, goodness, and convictions can enter us physically and help us in our lives. Having said this, I wonder in a thousand years what civilization will think of Christianity? Is there a difference in the totality of belief between the Mexica and modern Catholics? If they legitimately believed their sacrifices had importance and direct impact on their lives–and keeping in mind that those sacrificed saw this as the highest honor–I cannot compare what they did to genocide ala Hitler, Salem, Darfur, or even Iraq.
September 4, 2007 at 1:54 am |
Like Linda said about taking the question as a view in how we feel about this practice in today’s society it is different compared to way back when. I believe that the Mayans did this practice as a result of their culture. They didn’t know what was right from what was wrong. It came as a way of how things were done. The Spanish Conquistadors saw this as an evil wrong doing only because this was NOT the way lives were to be taken in the Conquistador’s eyes.
In today’s society we would take that into consideration the same way the Spanish did. It’s an unawful scene to be thinking of, even watching. We accept it as a culture of the past but if someone did that today it would be seen as a crime or more. This practice is uncivilized to the point in today’s society where it would be totally unacceptable. Back then, cultures were different. Today, weaccpt it as their culture but obviously won’t continue this practice.
September 4, 2007 at 10:13 am |
I think Rachel’s point about the context of the Mayan religious beliefs is an important one. The Mayans equated religion with science, and did not seem to distinguish between the two. I believe we are far too removed in time and culture to apply our own criteria. These people lived in a radically different perception of reality, which when viewed within the context of their beliefs, makes them seem to me less barbaric and more misguided. I can neither condemn nor absolve them of their practices, but I confess I have sympathy for them perhaps to the point of condescension, almost as if they were children who didn’t know any better.
What I wish I knew, however, and would help flesh out my view on this, was how the victims felt about being, well, victims. Were they terrified and trying to escape, or did they see themselves as solemn, dutiful martyrs, much like suicide bombers? Mayan aristocracy themselves underwent ritual bloodletting and self-torture. The higher one’s position, the more blood was expected. It was considered a privilege and an honor to serve and “nourish” the gods this way. For all we know, victims were downright joyful about it.
Is anyone familiar with the Popol Vuh, a text of Mayan mythology and culture from the 16th century? I had to read a story from it for my Latin American Lit class, a creation myth entitled the Maiden’s Story. What is interesting to me is that the Popol Vuh describes sacrifices as punishment and not reward. As an example, in the Maiden’s Story, a girl is sentenced to be sacrificed because she became pregnant outside of marriage. It’s interesting to me because it is at odds with what I have learned about the Mayan approach of the ritual.
Regardless of how one may view the mesoamerican practice of human sacrifice, the Mayans apparently pale in comparison to the Aztecs, whom I read sacrificed at least 20,000 in a single day (some estimates say as high as 80,000!) at the dedication of a temple. Then they ate them. It made the Mayans seem pretty tame after reading that.
September 4, 2007 at 10:17 am |
Excellent discussion thus far. Let’s see if we can get others involved as well.
September 4, 2007 at 1:22 pm |
Yes, some interesting points of view here. I will be back later to reply more completely. In the meantime, I would like to make a comment on something that Mary Ellen said about how people in the distant future may view present mainstream religious practices.
Excuse this tangent of sorts, but as a vegan, the Christian idea of Eucharistic transubstantiation (turning bread into flesh; wine into blood) is a hard one to swallow. I mean that literally, by the way. Participating fully in a Christian service/mass is difficult for me.
Excellent point on how the future will judge us. Yes, as you, I do believe considering the context of the times is important in viewing/analyzing history, but I do believe in moral absolutes. I feel the conquistadors, despite their barbaric practices, genuinely felt outrage at the Mayan practice of human sacrifice. A matter of cognitive dissonance, perhaps, but don’t we all do that? Rationalize those things in our lives that don’t quite fit together?
September 4, 2007 at 2:17 pm |
Oh, and a question for anyone who wishes to answer it:
Do you need to be totally perfect and pure in every aspect of your lifestyle and expressed beliefs to make moral judgments about other people? For instance, is it possible to protest the war in Iraq, and yet feel capital punishment is justified?
Is it possible to be on the moral high ground on one issue, but in need of challenge on issues where you could use a good boot in the pants? Does this make you a hypocrite who should keep your mouth shut?
September 4, 2007 at 11:58 pm |
Okay. These are good opinions, but let me toss mine into the mix.
Lets think in the Mayans point of view. Did they think that some of the things that the conquistadors did were horrible? They certainly did. Did they sacrifice humans in a very violent way? Yes, they did. The conquistadors had a right to judge the Mayans just as much as the Mayans had a right to judge them.
Lets say that you are doctor. You save hundreds of people every day. But, you steal a chocolate bar from a store. Someone sees you. They are not a doctor, they don’t save people every day. But, they still have a right to judge you for stealing from a store! This may not be a good example, but thats the general point.
We have the right to be disgusted by the Mayans and their human sacrifice. Some people think that if that is their religion, that we should turn a blind eye to what they really are doing: Murder. This is what this human sacrifice is. They are not animals just becuase they believe that sacrificing humans will make their crops grow.
Imagine how the ones being sacrificed must feel. The Mayan people have hopes and dreams just like any other people, and they might even have children.
What about the women who were burned to death just because their husbands died? Does their culture make this right?
The Mayans were wrong to sacrifice humans, and the conquistadors were wrong to do their own brutal things.
But, there is still the ultimate excuse, the one thing that makes people think that they were justified to do it:
“It’s just my culture.”
September 5, 2007 at 11:30 am |
I don’t know if it makes me a hypocrite or just lazy, but the older I get, the less willing I am to share my opinions about how I feel things “should” be done. The Iraq war is a fiasco, based on lies (oops, there I go again!) I have been thinking about your “moral superiority” comment all week. How does one know that one’s opinion speaks to absolutes of rightness? Not to sound ancient, but I have so much more perspective now that I find it very difficult to be conclusively judgmental. I don’t think it’s a matter of to each his own, but rather, who am I to decide what is right and wrong?
And yet, there are things we all can agree are wrong: genocide, starvation, lack of adequate health services, to name a few. Why aren’t we leading charges into the third world to provide aid? Why do we instead track down individuals we have named “immoral” and hunt them out of their foxholes? Their deaths are “victories”, the morass of chaos we create is “liberation”, and the confusion and panic left behind are the “beginnings of democracy”. Yeah.
September 8, 2007 at 12:47 am |
This blog post inspired me to write a comic. I thought I’d post it here for all to see!
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n130/masternimbus/SleeplessinCentralAmerica.jpg
September 8, 2007 at 11:13 pm |
Jon-Marc
Just thought id let you know i took at your comic and its really good,like the way your posed your point LOL
September 30, 2007 at 12:19 am |
“Was the Mayan practice of human sacrifice simply an acceptable cultural phenomenon that demands respect or was it an unjust taking of human lives that reflected the “uncivilized” nature of this society as the Spanish saw it?”
Neither–it’s just ignorance on the part of the Mayans. And what makes that act ignorant is that the Mayans sacrificide to get a result which authentically wont come true. So that being said, the desire to attract good fortune is not an unrelatable desire but the methods to attract good fortune can defenitely be barbaric. So I think it is best to apply the scientific method to sift out what works and what doesn’t.
Finally, the Spaniards were in no position to draw such a dichonomy.
January 7, 2009 at 7:28 am |
Well, this is an old discussion, and im certainly not in anyone’s class but I would recommend watching the movie “Apocalypto” to anyone who thinks Mayan human sacrifice was not unjust and “uncivilized”. Not because I want to be petty over small time line inaccuracies, but to get a general overall compassion for the millions of humans…it was an estimated millions, or so scientists say, who suffered needlessly and pointlessly in the south American, central American Indian cultures.. Of course it would be easy to write this as Hollywood exaggerations but, unfortunately, this movie didn’t need to exaggerate about the Mayan cruelty or violence.
My definition of what makes a civilization “superior” can loosely be defined as a society who minimizes human suffering, holds human life in high respect, and strives for obtaining higher levels of reason or truth while upholding the former. Some cultures are more superior then others in the sense that they are more efficient at obtaining these. I would never argue who is more superior and who is less superior, because I do not know, and environment, as well as other unforeseen or incalculable factors can give the illusion of a superior society, but my point is that agreeing that it is possible for one civilization to be superior to another would be a start. The overwhelming majority believes what the Mayans did was deeply erroneous and wrong, however they are afraid of describing them as “uncivilized” for fear of automatically being classified as a modern conquistador, or as erroneous as the original conquistadors!
This next paragraph may make a lost of people not care to read further because it is stating the obvious, but I still feel I must state this because I am in disbelief at the comparisons to Christianity’s concept of sacrifice and the Mayan’s concept of sacrifice: Comparing a Mayan culture that forced or drugged most of their human victims/sacrifices to Christianity, who is built on 1guy willing to be a victim to a tyrannical government seems far fetched since as much as people may hate Christianity or Catholicism in general, it has never BLATANTLY preached forcing people to sacrifice their lives. (Even if practice has proven otherwise).
So for example who would be more correct?
someone who believes that painting with the color blue will result in an accurate image of a green tree, so they continue to paint in blue, or someone who knows painting in green will result in a accurate image of a typical tree, but paints with blue anyway? At least the last example held a more correct foundation, even if they did not act on it. A correct foundation is the seed of advancement, even if it never blossoms.
Finally, this whole notion of ’sacrifice’ being needed to make things better is erroneous in the first place, even in today’s culture. Isn’t the whole objective of advancing a society in order to minimize suffering and avoid sacrifice as much as possible? In today’s words, this includes mixing business with pleasure, killing two birds with one stone, however you want to put it: one word in mind here is EFFICIENCY!
If people must still cherish and overly relish the idea of sacrifices being needed, then please, at least distinguish the difference between someone choosing to do it, and someone being forced to do it for someone else! Personally choosing to make sacrifices of yourself for something can hardly compare to forcing someone else to make a sacrifice of you! (I am no longer comparing Christianity and Mayan culture) Because it is impossible to calculate who is affected by every single choice you make, it so happens that people may unintentionally hurt others or, to put it in the terms of this discussion,I will say “unintentionally force someone else to make sacrifices for oneself”. My point is, agreeing people should make their own sacrifices and not force others to do it would be a start in the right direction, which is what Mayan culture did not advocate, and Christianity (by definition, not practice) did!
Here is a crazy thought: Perhaps, in the respect of sacrifice, Christianity was superior to Mayan religion, just as some future way of life or science will prove to be superior to Christianity (or maybe already has)!?!?
Just throwing that out there! If you ask me, this notion of sacrifice is overly emphasized in most cultures, not to say that it isn’t needed. But it does seems to be used needlessly.
January 7, 2009 at 7:32 am |
wow, I worded some or that wrong : ( oh well, this discussion is probably dead)
CORRECTION: In last paragraph
Personally choosing to make sacrifices of yourself for something can hardly compare to forcing someone else to make a sacrifice of you!
I meant to say:
Personally choosing to make sacrifices of yourself for something can hardly compare to forcing someone else to make a sacrifice FOR you!