By Andrew L. Jaffee

I don’t know how many of you are fans of archeology, let alone that of Meso-America, but there are certainly those of you interested in the politically-correct whitewashing of terrorism. How are the two subjects related? Let me explain. The justification of current-day terrorism is advocated by the same ilk, those who would rewrite the modern-day cause of terrorist atrocities (e.g., “Palestinians are driven by desperation”), as well as those who would edit, for example, the pre-Columbian history of Mexico. Recent archeological evidence shows that the Aztecs were indeed as despicable as reported by Spanish Conquistadors, defying politically-correct rationalizations for the tribe’s thirst for human sacrifice.

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The Aztec and Mayan calendars.

I recently watched a History Channel “documentary” which either 1) rationalized the Aztec tribe’s insatiable appetite for human sacrifice on the grounds that they were “deeply religious” people, afraid that, if not enough ritual blood was spilled, the sun wouldn’t rise the next day; or 2) the Spanish Conquistadors, led by Hernando Cortez, made up their accounts of mass Aztec human sacrifice rituals as a form of propaganda.

First, one can only marvel at the sophistication of the Aztec — or Mayan — calendars. These wonders were the product of hundreds, if not thousands, of years of careful observation of the heavens. The ancient astronomers and their theocratic sponsors knew that the sun would rise the next day, human sacrifice or not. The politically-correct double-think that Aztec dictators were “deeply religious” carries an implicit cultural superiority, though the “liberal” thinkers would deny it. Such thinking casts the Aztecs as too simple-minded — too “deeply religious” or “indigenous” — to know the astronomical truth. Somehow “indigenous” has taken on the meaning that not all peoples are capable of human foibles, like the ability to use fear to dominate others.

Second, I agree with FrontPageMagazine’s Lowell Ponte:

Was Cortez a brutal exploiter and enslaver? Yes. Were the Aztecs brutal exploiters and enslavers? Yes.

So both the Aztec leadership and Cortez were terrorists. Is this an excuse to rewrite history? No. Unfortunately, there are those (like the Aztlan crowd), who want to elevate one murderer above the other, because the Aztecs were an “indigenous” people.

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The Aztec leadership may have been megalomaniac dictators, but were clever nonetheless. Their use of human sacrifice was not founded in deep religious convictions, but rather a tactic to maintain power by terrorizing their own people and by terrorizing the numerous neighboring tribes they conquered.

Third, a recent archeological discovery dispels the myth that Spanish accounts of Aztec ritual sacrifice were propaganda. From the very politically-correct 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. …

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. …

“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. …

When they heard the Spanish were coming, the Zultepec Aztecs threw their victims’ possessions down wells, unwittingly preserving buttons and jewelry for the archeologists. …

“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.”

One expert quoted in the Reuters piece infers:

“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.”

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But the Conquistadors admitted in their own accounts that the Aztecs fought and fought hard in, for example, the battles of La Noche Triste and Otumba. Martinez seems to want to put the best face on his gruesome discovery.

Again, Ponte:

But the Aztecs, like the Romans, were also warlike imperialists who brutally conquered, taxed, exploited and enslaved the peoples around them. They sent raiding parties with razor-sharp obsidian-edged swords as far north as the Southwest United States to bring back captives for human sacrifices to their bloodthirsty gods - if we take the Spanish propaganda and not that of today’s revisionist whitewashers (or should we say white-dirtiers?) of the Aztecs to be the true story.

One reason Conquistador Hernando Cortez with a mere handful of Spanish soldiers could overthrow this mighty empire is that other Native American tribes rallied to him as a liberator who would free them from the evil Aztecs.

I myself have traveled to Mexico, and witnessed first-hand the ancient wonders of the Toltec, Aztec, Olmec, and Mayan peoples. But I could not help noticing the frescos depicting Aztec (and Mayan, Toltec, etc.) scenes of ultra-violence, belying a deep decadence and intoxication with power. This was ancient propaganda, meant to terrorize. Of course the ancient Mexican civilizations rose to great heights culturally, architecturally, mathematically, and in astronomy, agriculture, etc. But there is no excuse whatsoever for the depth of depravity these cultures descended into.

Terrorism is nothing new. Its purpose is to terrorize the victims and especially the survivors into submission. We could learn a little from history — that is, only if it remains unedited.

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Related: Archeology, Latin America, Political Correctness

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