Category: Civilization, History, and Anthropology

RE: DENIAL OF AMERINDIAN CHILD SACRIFICE

–“Vance claimed that when settlers arrived in the New World, they found widespread child sacrifice, … Archaeologists, including those specializing in North American history, are calling this a flat-out lie”–

First, your claim, their claim, is false.
–“…there is credible archaeological and historical evidence that child sacrifices occurred among Indigenous groups in both Central/South America and, to a lesser extent, parts of North America. Below is a breakdown of key cases, caveats, and issues of interpretation.”–

Decidable (high confidence): Child sacrifice occurred among some American indigenous cultures, notably the Inca, Maya and the northern Peru cultures (Chimú).
Less decidable (lower confidence): That child sacrifice was widespread among northern Indigenous peoples of North America (i.e., U.S./Canada) in the same ritualised form as found in Meso/South America. Evidence is scarce and ambiguous.

ARGUMENT
North American tribes had not achieved the degree of development and in particular urbanization as did south american peoples. As such, we see a difference in child sacrifice and scale: more visible and institutionalized with evidence whereas in north america, less so, instead of organized termination of children, we see the professionalization of termination by Shamans.

Why? Sanction. When sanctioned by authority, the disposal of children in excess of those that can be adequately cared for, or who are dim or defective, the blame of the mother is implicitly forgiven. This mirrors the same sanction of capital punishment that protects people from the crime of murder.

EVIDENCE
Archaeologists have found a mass‐sacrifice site of more than 140 children and 200 young llamas (in northern Peru) believed to date to about 550 years ago, part of the Chimú culture.
More recently another site of 76 children and 2 adults (with chest‐cut marks) was reported. Live Science
There is clear evidence of large-scale child sacrifice in the pre-Hispanic Andes.

At Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán, DNA analysis of 64 children (buried in a cistern/chambers) found all were male, many closely related (including identical twins) — pointing strongly to a ritualised child sacrifice system.
The paper suggests that this may have been linked to mythology (the Hero Twins myth) and the broader belief system around fertility/maize/rain gods.
Also, in Central America, sites such as the “Sacred Cenote” at Chichén Itzá show clusters of children and adult sacrifices.
So here, the evidence is strong for child sacrifice (though not always with the detail of cause of death, ages, etc).

The ritual known as Capacocha (or qhapaq hucha) involved the sacrifice of children (and sometimes young adolescents), typically in very high–altitude mountain shrines, often with grave‐goods and elaborate offerings. MayaIncaAztec.com+3PMC+3PNAS+3
One well-known site: the “Children of Llullaillaco” discovered on the summit of Llullaillaco (on the Argentina–Chile border) — three well-preserved mummified children, clearly identified as ritual sacrifice.
Analysis of hair and fingernail chemistry shows that some of the children were given coca leaves and alcohol/hallucinogens in the period before death.
So in the Inca case: child sacrifice is very well documented, both archaeologically and by multiple methods of evidence.

Some older colonial/travel accounts claim child sacrifice among tribes (e.g., the early account of the Taensa: “mothers of infants handed their babes to the high priest; he strangled them and then threw them into a fire.”

CONTEXT
Exposure is the universal means of post birth termination of children that cannot be cared for.
As far as I know sacrifice was used more in south america than in the north american tribes.

Fact: the most prolific serial killers in history are women who made ‘babies disappear’. Women have killed more children than men have killed one another in war.
We talk about abortion as a tragedy, and maybe it is. But women have been killing babies since they had the ability to do so. Often by just leaving them out to die of exposure or consumption by predators. But it appears strangulation is the most common means of termination.