Is J.D. Vance correct? Human Sacrifice: fact or fiction?
Daniel JusticeShare
Did the explorers and settlers really arrive to the New World and find a bunch of cruel cultures who would sacrifice children?
The short answer is, Yes.
The Aztec sources themselves (Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Durán’s informants) claim 80,400 victims were sacrificed over four days.
Spanish chroniclers who interviewed Aztec nobles shortly after the conquest give lower but still enormous numbers:
The Templo Mayor excavations uncovered huge skull racks (tzompantli) with tens of thousands of skulls. Offering 104 in the 1980s alone contained remains of hundreds of sacrificed individuals deposited at one time. Mass graves of war captives with cut marks on cervical vertebrae and rib cages removed (classic Aztec heart-extraction technique) have been found.
What happened: Beautiful, physically perfect children (often aged 4–15) were selected from across the empire as part of the capacocha ritual. They were taken (often on very long foot journeys) to Cuzco, feasted and married symbolically to the emperor or to the gods, then marched hundreds of kilometers to sacred mountains. On the summit (or in nearby shrines), they were killed usually by strangulation, a blow to the head, or left to die of exposure/hypothermia after being given chicha (maize beer) to sedate them. Some were buried alive.
Key archaeological evidence (all discovered since the 1980s–1990s):Llullaillaco mummies (1999) – three perfectly preserved Inca children (a 15-year-old “Maiden,” a 6–7-year-old girl, and a 4–5-year-old boy) found at 6,730 m (22,080 ft) on Volcán Llullaillaco (Argentina–Chile border). Hair analysis showed they were heavily drugged with coca and alcohol in their final weeks.
More than 25 other high-altitude capacocha sites have been found in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina (Ampato, Pichu Pichu, Misti, Chachani, Sara Sara, Quehuar, etc.). Many contain children with rich grave goods (gold/silver figurines, textiles, ceramics).
Estimates suggest the Incas sacrificed dozens to perhaps a few hundred children per year empire-wide, with larger events during coronations, major droughts, or the death of an emperor.
The single largest known child-sacrifice event in the world history was discovered in 2018–2019 at Huanchaquito-Las Llamas (near Chan Chan):
269 children (mostly aged 5–14) and 466 llamas sacrificed in a single event ~1450 AD. All children had their chests cut open (hearts removed); many llamas were killed the same day.
Likely a desperate response to catastrophic El Niño flooding.
While Child sacrifice was not common in the American plains, the savage cruelty was well documented;
17-year-old Rachel was pregnant when Comanches killed most of her family. Her 1½-year-old son James was repeatedly smashed against trees until she stopped reacting, then killed. She wrote (published 1838):
“They tied me to a post with my arms stretched high above my head… for three days and nights they beat me with rawhide until the blood ran down my back in streams. Every time I fainted they threw water on me and continued.”
She was forced to run gauntlets, had hot coals placed on her bare skin, and watched her aunt’s infant bashed to death. She survived 13 months before being ransomed.
Dot and his 9-year-old sister Bianca were taken in a raid that killed their parents. Dot later wrote:
“They tied my brother-in-law to a tree and shot burning arrows into his body, then cut strips of skin from his arms and legs while he was still alive… They made us children watch so we would remember.”
Bianca was kept nine months and repeatedly raped; Dot escaped after two years.
Lehmann was adopted by the Comanches and eventually became a warrior, but he witnessed many tortures. He described the burning of a captured Mexican teamster in 1874:
“They staked him out spread-eagle, built small fires on his chest and stomach, and sliced off his eyelids so he could not close his eyes while he burned. It took him most of the night to die.”
Their mother and little sister were killed in the raid. The boys were taken to a large camp on the Staked Plains. Clinton wrote in 1927:
“They tied Jeff naked to a horse’s tail and dragged him through cactus until there was hardly any skin left on his back. Then they tied him between two posts and whipped him with yucca stalks until he passed out. They did this every few days for sport.”
Both boys were eventually ransomed after more than two years.
When she was brought in for ransom negotiations at the Council House in San Antonio, Texas officials were horrified: her nose had been burned off, her body covered in burn scars from head to foot. She told them the Comanches had “put fire to her nose and almost burned it off” and that she had been gang-raped daily for nearly two years. Her testimony helped ignite the Council House Fight.
Pregnant when captured; Comanches forced her to give birth alone on the prairie, then immediately made her walk 20 miles the next day. She wrote:
“They tied a rope around my neck and dragged me when I fell. My baby died on the third day; they threw the body to the wolves in front of me.”
He saw Comanches stake a captured Tonkawa scout spread-eagle, cut small pieces from his arms and legs, forcing him to eat his own flesh while still alive, then slowly roast him over a fire for six hours.
1 comment
Thank you