Cannibalism
The Aztecs practiced ritualistic cannibalism. Victims, usually prisoners of war, were sacrificed in public on top of temples and pyramids by cutting out their hearts. The bodies were then thrown down to the ground where they were dismembered. The pieces were then distributed to the elite, which were mostly warriors and priests. The meat was consumed in the form of stews flavored only with salt and eaten with corn tortillas, but without the otherwise ubiquitous chili. In the late 1970s the anthropologist Michael Harner suggested that the Aztecs had resorted to large-scale, organized cannibalism to make up for a supposed protein deficiency in the diet. This idea gained limited support from some scholars, but has been shown to be based on unfounded assumptions about eating habits, agriculture and demographics, making it a highly unlikely scenario.
Read more about this topic: Aztec Cuisine
Famous quotes containing the word cannibalism:
“There is a cannibalism that’s loose in our society in which public figures such as the Clintons could try to come into this town and do something good for this country and then they get hammered away even though they’re trying to do the right thing.”
—David R. Gergen (b. 1942)