Talk:Child sacrifice

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Contents 1 Miscellaneous 2002-2006 discussions 2 subsection added 3 Holocaust denial 4 Blood libel or being on denial?

[edit] Miscellaneous 2002-2006 discussions

"Child sacrifice is the foundation of all great religions"

I don't think so.

(And I doubt it played any part in Buddhism and Confucianism)

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I agree with the above remark. Child sacrifice is something that most certainly has happened, and there should be a good article on why. But it is absurd to use this article merely to trash "great religions." At the very least it oversimplifies an important question: was it the religions of these societies that led to child sacrifice, or did the societies already have child-murder, or have it for other reasons, and the religions of these societies reflects that fact or created new reasons? In any event, child sacrifice is not the foundation of Judaism (indeed, one of the foundational texts is a rebuke against child sacrifice; moreover, God's initial order to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac had nothing to do with Abraham's "sins"), nor is it the foundation of Islam. Christianity is arguably more complicated. God is not requiring the sacrifice of His son for His (the Father's) sins, but for the sins of all humanity. Moreover, I think it is perhaps more Jesus' sacrifice than God's. SR

You can't separate child sacrifice from religion and ask which caused the other. That's just not possible. Anyways, I concede the point since it's not possible to support it without going into psychology, which I'm sure is way too controversial for people who can't even agree on such trivial things as incest exists. -- ark

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What's wrong with it is that it's still not supported: what great religions is, or was, child sacrifice central to? Not Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism. Not, as far as I know, Taoism or Shinto. Vicki Rosenzweig

The Aztec's religion comes to mind. Judaism has child sacrifice in a number of places. And Christianity! In Christianity, the Virgin Mary is commonly worshipped. Who was she? She was the woman who gave birth to a boy who sacrificed himself. Jesus sacrifice is itself more evidence of the murderous dynamic. The Eucharist is ritual cannibalism. Geez, what more do you want?

I'm not a Christian, but as far as I can tell, Mary is not "commonly worshipped": even aside from the distinction between "venerate" and "worship", many Christian groups do *not* venerate/worship Mary.

Counting Jesus under "child sacrifice" makes this equivalent to "human sacrifice"--all humans, of any age, were once children. Nonetheless, I think you'd agree that there's a difference between selecting children to sacrifice, and sacrificing prisoners regardless of age, and again between that and sacrificing only adults. Vicki Rosenzweig, Saturday, June 15, 2002

all humans, of any age, were once children

That's an important insight you should keep in mind, though probably not relevant here.

Jesus counts as child sacrifice because his child-like characteristics (innocence, purity, et cetera) are emphasized. As well, he's sacrificed by his father. These are hardly insignificant details.

Huh? He is sacrificed, with his own consent, *to* his father by other humans. That is hardly an insignificant distinction.

Actually, he's sent by his father to be sacrificed by humans. He's effectively sacrificed by his father. And I've never heard anyone say that Jesus was sacrificed to his father. Consent or non-consent is irrelevant; children aren't capable of informed consent. Pedophiles make a big deal of children being "consenting" when being molested or raped. The same thing's happening with Jesus. Jesus didn't consent, he submitted.

The distinction between venerate and worship is irrelevant in this discussion. And I believe you're wrong, the Virgin Mary is commonly worshipped in many Christian sects, just not American ones. Latin America, Italy, Spain, and Eastern Europe are just some of the places with Virgin Mary worship; in Mexico she's called the Virgin of Guadeloupe, in Poland the Black Madonna.

Those are all names within the Roman Catholic church, though. You're not going to find statues of Mary in Baptist churches, whether in New York, Texas, or Russia.

Is that important? I mean, we're talking about whether there's child sacrifice in Christianity. The RC Church has a fairly unbroken history lasting two millenia with millions of adherents in dozens of countries. How do Baptist churches compare?

These places all have something in common. They're all psycho-socially backwards. I can confirm at least some of it from personal experience. And if you have doubts about psychoanalysis, just listen to this. In Poland, depictions of Jesus are shown with a bloody heart over the chest. Not a heart shape but a depiction of an actual human heart. This is completely bizarre yet nobody bats an eyelash at it. They just worship this bloody human heart and they don't think there's anything wrong with it. There's really no possible way to explain it except psychoanalytically. And the fact that even outsiders rarely recognize how ludicrous such behaviours are only goes to show how powerful a hold psychoanalytic symbols have over everyone. Anyways, the point of this is that religious rituals can be pretty fucked outside of the nice sanitary American versions. And you'll need to accept some outrageous ideas in order to make sense of them. -- Ark

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Something interesting I just read. The babylonians' religion was based on a reverse child sacrifice. The son, Marduk, killed his mother Tiamat. That little bit of reverse sacrifice also occurs in Aztec rituals.

And if you're still bitching about it then remove the qualifier "great" from the sentence. How hard could that have been?? -- ark

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No problem:

"Child sacrifice is the foundation of all those religions of which child sacrifice is the foundation."

Sorry we questioned you on this.

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Egad, this article needs help. it especially needs a citation or two. For instance, the line about drug-dealers has nothing to do with the rest of the allegations. There are allegations of modern child sacrifices, as per witchcraft uses in Africa; why not separate that out? A few uses of the word "alledged" would go a long way toward making this more NPOV. I'll make a start, but much more help will be needed. -- April

What the heck were female goddesses originally singled out for in this article? Child sacrifice has been dedicated to both male and female gods in plenty. I'd really like to see references for many of these, for example, to sacrifices to Hathor the fertility goddess. -- April

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Could we discuss evidence for/against these examples? We want to include the best-proven examples, I'd think. My comments in italics:

• Decapitated skeletons of early hominid children have been found, with evidence of cannibalism.
  • Is cannibalism necessarily child sacrifice?
• Young children were buried with their skulls split by an ax at Woodhenge/Stonehenge.
  • I hadn't heard of this; I'd heard that adult war-captives were used. Anyone?
• Decapitated infant sacrifices to the Great Goddess were found at Jericho.
  • Never heard of this, and how would they know it was to the "Great Goddess" when the existence of such a figure is arguable?
• Early Arabians sacrificed their daughters to "the mothers".
  • Never heard of this. Anyone?
• The serpent goddess of the Aztecs demanded skull and heart sacrifice of children, including the eating of the children's bodies and covering themselves with their blood.
  • I thought the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl, was male, and again, the sacrifices were primarily war prisoners. Counter-arguments?
• The mummies of Incan children are still being discovered in the South American mountains. These are thought to be child sacrifices, probably from royal households, to mountain spirits.
  • This one I've read about recently and seems well confirmed; I re-worded it a bit.
• Through medieval times, when people built new buildings, walls or bridges, little children were sealed in them alive as "foundation sacrifices" to ward off the angry, avenging spirits.
  • In what cultures? What evidence has been found?

On the whole, we might do better to put this in the style of, "Bodies have been found here, and are thought to be child sacrifices because..." and "reports of child sacrifices are found in the myths of..." -- April

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• I had attempted to modify this article before realizing it was being changed... Much of what was written was from a rather suspect looking web page. Given that the phrase "Child sacrifice was the foundation of all great religions" was lifted directly from the site, along with other highly suspect phrases, I'd say that most of what you call into question above should be discarded unless it comes up on a Google search. The Incan stuff has lots of references at least, but I doubt the rest does. I'll check, if I can't find at least two seemingly independent references for the others, I'll remove them.

http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln08_childrearing.html

I'm going to attempt to integrate what I had with the new version. I also included alleged activities by Palestinians in this regard, I'd appreciate if anyone who knows corroborating evidence or disputing evidence to check for NPOV. Rgamble

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Child soldiers, and the use of children by guerillas, are a large subject, but a different one from child sacrifice, I think. 162.83.145.181

• I brought it up because it seems to appear fairly often on a search of child sacrifice, therefore it might be entering into public usage that way. At least with the alleged usage of children as martyrs by Palestinians, it still has the religious overtones. Fine line yes, and I'd be perfectly happy to have it be removed if others agree that it should be. rgamble

• • I'd opt for the traditional Wikipedia compromise - break it off to a separate page, and put a link on this one. :) -- April

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As an anthropology student, I thought I could add my two cents in this topic:

"The serpent goddess of the Aztecs demanded skull and heart sacrifice of children, including the eating of the children's bodies and covering themselves with their blood."

I thought the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl, was male, and again, the sacrifices were primarily war prisoners. Counter-arguments?

This might be useful. Aztec religion was quite complex, though certain main streams of thought can be discerned from it. In fact, overly simplified, it was a religion based on war and agriculture.

The part dealing with war is the best known part of Aztec religion: the sacrifices to the Sun to make it strong, the eternal debt of blood and hearts the Aztecs had towards the Sun for the privilege of being the rulers of their known world... but there is another, equally important part of Aztec religion, and that was the part dealing with agriculture. In fact, agriculture was so important to the Aztec, that the most representative of all agricultural gods - Tlaloc, god of rain and water - shared the most prominent temple in the city of Tenochtitlan - the so-called "Templo Mayor".

To this god is to whom child sacrifices were performed. It had an easy explanation. Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, one of the first friars to come to Mexico after the conquest, as well as Fr. Diego Duran, Fr. Toribio de Benavente and others, wrote several traditions dealing with this. To not overload this thread with data - I might create a separate page instead - I'll translate Sahagún's account: children were sacrificed because they were associated to Tlaloc (or, more precisely, to Tlaloc's assistants) and were thought to become aides to the God.

Child sacrifices were made in very much the same way as adult sacrifices, although there seem to be regional variants. So, Sahagún says that they were sacrificed by taking off their hearts, while Duran and others say they were sacrificed by slashing their throats or by drowning. Either way, the importance children had for Aztec religion was through magical association: when they were taken to their sacrifice, if they cried, it was considered to be a good omen, because their tears were considered as indicators of the upcoming rains. The more the children cried, the more abundant the rains would be that year; likewise, if the children didn't cry, that meant the rains would not come that year.

Just another comment. It is not fair to judge an ancient religion like this using modern day parameters and prejudices. Remember that what they did (including child sacrifice) was not considered "evil" in those days; the idea that child sacrifice is wrong is something that developed fairly recently. There are many in-dept studies on this topic, that show how the way children were considered has evolved during time.

- Miguel Chavez

A little comment on the sacrifice to Tlaloc. The recent excavation of the "templo Mayor" in Mexico, has shown that almost all the children sacrificed to Tlaloc wer sick male children about 6 years. Problably it was a way to ensure they were crying. http://www.conaculta.gob.mx/saladeprensa/2002/25mar/tlaloc.htm :( Nanahuatzin 08:42, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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I'm sure this is not intended to be serious? Where's the connection to the topic? Isn't this like calling human sacrifice to be related to drafting men and women into the milatery?

In modern times, child sacrifice is a term that has also been applied to the military use of children. It has also be applied to embryonic stem cell research, where the embryo, thought by many to be a living human child, is destroyed in order to obtain promised health benefits and scientific progress. Further similarities have been be drawn with abortion.

195.188.241.124 11:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I've removed this paragraph; if nothing else it is off topic, since the opening definition is about placating/pleasing supernatural entities, and none of these are. Trishm 07:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] subsection added

I removed some phrases of the Aztec section that I relocated in the “physical evidence” section since they already appear in the linked article Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures. Repetition is unnecessary. —Cesar Tort 08:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Holocaust denial

The opposite seems to be the truth regarding this sentence in opening paragraph. Consensus seems to be just the opposite:

In many cases, archaeologists have found evidence that suggests that the prevalence of child sacrifice in a culture (Carthaginian for instance) was probably far less than commonly believed, perhaps only as part of myths from some cultures. In other cases, archaeological evidence has confirmed the written sources, and even added new information that keeps the debate open.

The above claim should be removed unless it can be demonstrated (sources!, sources!) that it's indeed the majority view among scholars (which I very much doubt

—see the references provided at the bottom of the article). If fact, the erroneus claim strikes me as Holocaust denial. —Cesar Tort 18:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it is hyperbole to claim that this is akin to Holocaust denial. In many cases, the evidence of child sacrifice is thin and could be blood libel instead of truth. (e.g. Carthage)

This is why I was concerned when I first read about child sacrifice being central to Aztec religion. It wasn't given much attention in any of the Aztec-related articles and so I was concerned that it was scurrilous nonsense or blood libel. Since then, I have been convinced that it is true and that the problem is the failure of the Aztec articles to discuss this topic.

This is a controversial issue and we might weaken the statement (e.g. what is meant by "in many cases"?) but the assertion has some validity.

If you look on Talk:Aztec, User:Nanahuatzin (a Mexican Wikipedian) argues that the physical evidence of human and child sacrifice supports a number that is far less than is generally reported. I have worked with and trust User:Nanahuatzin as well as User:Maunus and User:Madman2001. I suggest that you ask them what their opinions are.

Similarly, the truth is that there is no direct documentary or unambiguous physical evidence that proves that Carthaginians practiced child sacrifice. Read Religion in Carthage for some evidence of this. The debate about this issue on Talk:Carthage was far more heated and, while it does seem that the consensus opinion among historians and scholars seems to be that child sacrifice was practiced in Carthage, it's not clear that this is more than speculation. I personally am willing to believe that child sacrifice was practiced. However, I have worked with and respect User:Vedexent and he believes that the evidence for child sacrifice is thin. --Richard 19:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Re this opening sentence —:

Similar in concept but different in meaning is the blood libel, in which groups (such as the Jews or Roma) are untruly accused of killing children and drinking their blood. The blood libel was then used as an excuse to attack these groups (pogrom being one term for this kind of attack).

—it isn't really germane to the article. It confuses a horrendous libel against the Jews with actual, historical child sacrifice. The reader might be confused since the beginning of the article. —Cesar Tort 18:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I would move the sentence into a section at the end titled "Blood libel". If the charge is that Jews and Roma sacrificed their children, then the claim belongs here but not in the intro and we must make sure to properly characterize it as blood libel. --Richard 19:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If no objections I'll remove both sentences.

—Cesar Tort 18:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blood libel or being on denial?

OK, please do the moving. But if child sacrifice was performed in Carthage —and there are thousands of charred bones of children— it's no hyperbole to compare it with the Holocaust deniers. I'll take a look at the articles you called my attention to, and compare them with my sources.

Re User:Nanahuatzin, it's true that both the Aztecs (for propagandistic purposes: they wanted to scare their neighbors) and the Spanish (due to the shock and gross miscounting of the heads and skulls at the tzompantlis), exaggerated the numbers. For instance, during the consecration of the Great Pyramid at Tenochtitlan the Aztecs claimed 20,000 victims. But when the friars arrived and interviewed the old Mexicas, the Aztecs stated that “only” 4,000 were sacrificed in the consecration. —Cesar Tort 22:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Somewhere on one of the Talk Pages, Nanahuatzin does a calculation that shows that there is no way the Aztec priests could have sacrificed the high number of victims that they claimed to have. Drop him a message on his talk page and ask him for the details. --Richard 22:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Nanahuatzin is right. But the 4,000 figure of adult victims in the consecration rite seems accurate. —Cesar Tort 23:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The actual number will be unknown... All we can say is that the figure of 4,000 is posible and is more acepted by schollars. Although still a bit high if the acounts are to be taken literray. Since it still represents about one sacrifice by minute... and the archeological evidence is still several zeroes lower than those accounts. Not that i tried to deny the aztec sacrify a lot of people... is just i am a bit skeptical of those high numbers, even a few hundred of sacrifices were a too much and a very bloddy thing. Just rememberd that most of the spaniards and most of the meshica were illiterate... For an illiterate people even one thousand IS a very big number.

Now just an excercise.. fast, how many skull are here?: http://pekingduck.org/archives/skulls.jpg

and how many can fit here?: http://www.delange.org/TemMayor3/Dsc00028a.jpg

The first fotograph seem to be an osuary from China, and there is about 900 skulls, the second is the "great tzompantli" of Tenochtitlan (it had wood poles, adn the skull were separated about 80 -110 cms from each other)... where it was claimed there were 100,000 skulls... Think about it.. Nanahuatzin 04:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes: I had already seen that photo in a book by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma (but it's not a real tzompantli, only a stone representation of it). Many scholars know that the numbers were highly inflated. I have to check out how many days the consecration of the temple lasted and if they have made reliable calculations. —Cesar Tort 04:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is actually the basement of the tzompamtli, the antropologist W Arens calculated that to have so many skulls the tzompantli would have measure about 100 Km long...

If you have the "Codex Mendoza", please comment it, i think it is the original source for the hight numbers of the sacrifice at the main temple. By the way. You may find interesting this article: http://www.eiu.edu/~historia/2005/AztecChildren.pdf Nanahuatzin 09:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I’ll read the article. Wasn’t Arens the guy who believed that tzompantlis were lineal and hence his erroneous “100 Km” calculation? Presently, the actual numbers of rotten heads and skulls in tzompantlis have been fairly calculated. Take a look at Chapter V of López-Moctezuma’s Muerte al filo de obsidiana (FCE, 1975 and still in print). He is one of the main Mexican archeologists that has discovered, unearthed and studied many monuments and pre-Hispanic sites. —Cesar Tort 09:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

exactly  !!! (LOL) I re - did his calculation based on the modern recontruction.. but still it was too large. But do not be too harsh on Arens.. His book make a lot of antropologist rethink the differecne on what was told versus what was knonw... Nanahuatzin 10:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)