People who say, "I'm not Aztec, why should I participate in human sacrifice" - classic or Grand Commissar of the Collective Cockfarm?

I also think it didn't stay the same throughout all of Mayan history... sometimes the losers were murdered horribly afterwards, sometimes they weren't. The game itself was incredibly violent, I gather.

apparently the Mayan ballgame had a great rule whereby the winners were allowed loot whatever they liked from the people in the audience. So people used get killed in the stampedes when the match was nearly over.

why don't they resurrect this excellent sport? It would make a great 2000AD story.

"when Bernal Diaz arrived in Mexico with the army of Hernan Cortes, he and his fellow Spaniards were not shocked to witness slavery, the subjection of women, or brutal treatment of war captives; these were familiar enough practices among the conquistadors. But they were appalled at the magnitude of cannibalism and human sacrifice. As Diaz describes it, in an account generally corroborated by modern scholars:

They strike open the wretched Indian's chest with flint knives and hastily tear out the palpitating heart which, with the blood, they present to the idols in whose name they have performed the sacrifice. Then they cut off the arms, thighs, and head, eating the arms and thighs at their ceremonial banquets. The head they hang up on a beam, and the body of the sacrificed man is not eaten but given to the beasts of prey.

When Cortes captured the Aztec emperor Montezuma and his attendants, he would only permit them temporary release on the promise that they stop their traditional practices of cannibalism and human sacrifice, but he found that "as soon as we turned our heads they would resume their old cruelties." Aztec cannibalism, writes anthropologist Marvin Harris, "was not a perfunctory tasting of ceremonial tidbits." Indeed the Aztecs on a regular basis consumed human flesh in a stew with peppers and tomatoes, and children were regarded as a particular delicacy. Cannibalism was prevalent among the Aztecs, Guarani, Iroquois, Caribs, and several other tribes.

Moreover, the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of South America performed elaborate rites of human sacrifice, in which thousands of captive Indians were ritually murdered, until their altars were drenched in blood, bones were strewn everywhere, and priests collapsed with exhaustion from stabbing their victims. The law of the Incas provided for punishment of parents and others who displayed grief during human sacrifices. When men of noble birth died, wives and concubines were often strangled and buried with them."

The law of the Incas provided for punishment of parents and others who displayed grief during human sacrifices.
Thats terrible, but all the parents would still acquiesce - why? another example of conforming to society = not necess. right thing to do

Oh sh*t, my Nuggets fantasy!

And they called that civilisation...RADIOHEAD.

Anyway, I think the Aztecs had the right idea, except I wouldn't eat people. I don't like to eat too much meat. Sports where the loser is eaten! It's fantastic! I think the Super Bowl should be played that way. And the Stanley Cup, hockey players are savage. Except they have no teeth so how would they eat their opponent? That's a quandry.

Baseball players are not so savage though. I mean could you even imagine Jeter eating a person? Maybe Roger Clemens, he's insane.

I'm NOT a liberal, i'm a ..oh wha are those people called again? a reactionary. we have to go back to the caves, man

God to post three posts for THAT. How sad is that? I should do something really extrodinary to make up for it. Trust you me, I am stripping for everyone right now.

i knew this would happen =)

Ally, what are you wearing right now? anythin' sexXxee?

I'll be wearing something seXXXy if i ever put on PJs tonite and don't just go straight to work.

You're working at 1:00 am on x-mas eve? i wonder what u make