Cannibal Kings of the Americas

A History of Mankind (286)

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As monotheism and the god-less Buddhist religion swept Eurasia and northern Africa, gods kept multiplying in Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia and Oceania and, especially, the Americas. There, blood-thirsty deities, often in competition with each other, who requested regular human sacrifices and their equally blood-thirsty priesthoods remained dominant as Mesoamerican societies entered their so-called Classic Period¹.

Heart removal ceremonies were a common feature of these sacrifices, and may have been at the center of big religious events. Cannibalism certainly was much more common than anywhere else in the world: reports of human meat consumption elsewhere are scarce, specific of particular events and often controversial, tainted by propagandistic attempts at portraying enemies as inhuman beyond redemption; and yet in much of the Americas cannibalism was rather more openly committed and described.

Several peoples of the American continent are widely believed to have consumed the flesh of enemies to absorb their virtues. The Zapotecs had a word meaning “a captive when they ate him”: “xoyaaquij.” In some communities, they also killed, and later ate, adulterous women². The theory that this merely was an animistic practice fails to explain why slaves, in the Americas as elsewhere at the bottom of social hierarchies, were eaten: among the 2^nd millennium Aztec/Mexicas, if slaves misbehaved they might be collared and sold – and, if this happened four times, they could be sacrificed and eaten. Spanish chroniclers in the 16^th century noted that slave flesh was eaten during celebrations among the southern Zapotecs³.

Whether this was an exclusively religious concept related to religious calendars, or rather a priest-approved social custom with roots on specific dietary customs that used human flesh – however sparingly – as a complementary source of protein for meat-deprived societies is unclear, and the ways in which human flesh was consumed, and the reasons why it was, vary significantly across the Americas.

The 16th century Aztec Codex Tudela, one of the most straightforward depictions of widespread cannibalism ever made. Credit: Dreamstime.

Remarkably, of all the Americas only in the lands of the modern United States and Canada, as well as the southern tip of South America, large mammals survived first contact with humans in significant enough numbers so that they could be regularly hunted or domesticated to provide protein and fat. The Hopewell Tradition cultures⁴ across the eastern continental US, a network of tribes connected by trade routes often starting from or crossing the Ohio River basin, had a degree of social stratification but no mass sacrifices or evidence of consumption of human flesh⁵.

Regardless, it’s clear that American religions had a strong relationship with human sacrifice, and this relationship held longer than anywhere else. That helped shape religious worship and theology in ways that would have seen as either alien or antique by Eurasian societies, many of which had at early stages terrible, violent and bloodthirsty gods that demanded atrocities to be committed on their stead, but had largely left such notions behind by the 3^rd century AD. Such was not the case in the Americas, and societies up and down the continent remained attached to these gods, while distant from any monotheistic concepts, until 1492.

The killing of war captives or otherwise selected sacrificial victims was routine among the inhabitants of the important Texcoco Lake basin in central Mexico, to the point that it may be said to be the defining, central feature of religion in Teotihuacan, the largest city in the area around the turn of the millennium.

Teotihuacan, on the lake’s northeastern shore, was still just a series of small villages as late as 200 BC, when Monte Albán 400 kilometers to the southeast was already a thriving city. The city’s population quickly exploded as it became a religious center focused on the worship of two influential deities: the so-called Great Goddess of Teotihuacan, a fertility deity that appears to have been specific of the city; and an import from the Olmec south that Teotihuacan monopolized with great success, centralizing the cult on the imposing Temple of the Feathered Serpent, a six-step pyramid specialized on human sacrifice.

The modern city of Mexico fills practically the entirety of the lake depicted here, now practically disappeared. Credit: Wikipedia.

This building, and other Mesoamerican pyramids, strongly resemble Egyptian pyramids, built much earlier, but they had key differences: Egypt’s were funerary monuments, not temples with tombs, and often had temples attached nearby on the ground, but not on top of the structure as was normally the case with Mesoamerican pyramids; Egyptian pyramids were also more complex in terms or architecture, as they always have halls and rooms inside, many of which survived collapse for millennia, while only a few Mesoamerican pyramids⁶ may have had internal corridors and holes dug underneath the structure; Egyptian pyramids were smooth, not stepped (except for the one-off Step Pyramid) and were covered by an outer casing of limestone, robbed in antiquity to be used as construction material.

Teotihuacan was big on ritual death. Sacrificial victims were decapitated or were killed by having their hearts removed or their skulls crushed; sometimes they weren’t killed at all but buried alive. The fate of all these victims was recreated in religious artwork including murals. To add to the macabre air, the two-kilometer avenue crisscrossing the city downtown was flanked by tombs.

In fact, death in great scales may have had a great effect in the rise of Teotihuacan. A destructive eruption at the nearby Mount Xitle volcano at some point either in the 1^st century BC or the 1^st century AD led to the destruction of Teotihuacan’s rival city Cuicuilco, which peaked at some 20,000 inhabitants, as well as the flight of survivors towards Teotihuacan, giving the city a decisive demographic edge over rivals around the Texcoco Lake.

By around 100 AD, Teotihuacan likely had over 60,000 inhabitants while, by around 300 AD, the figure rose to its peak of over 100,000 and perhaps as much as 200,000 – making it a city comparable with the greatest urban centers of Eurasia. As in Eurasia, the poor lived in crowded slums, with particularly dreadful rates of malnutrition and stunted growth⁷, while the rich had grand, walled residences: their interior walls were plastered and painted with religious, mythical or political imagery.

Like the later Aztec, Teotihuacanos generally cremated their dead. In fact, there are so many congruences between Teotihuacan practices and those of the later Toltec and Aztec that it’s possible that they spoke the Nahuatl language or at least a language of the Uto-Aztecan family⁸ and were precursors of those people, perhaps much like Asia’s Xiongnus can be said to be precursors of the later Mongols, probably originating from regions north of central Mexico.

Teotihuacan’s Sun Pyramid. The Avenue of the Dead can be seen to the left, leading to the main monument. Credit: El Periodico del Turismo.

Some experts, however, believe that the Teotihuacanos spoke a Totonac language, similar to what was spoken by the inhabitants of central Veracruz, a region then also sprouting an important ceremonial culture that rose to prominence over the second half of the 1^st millennium AD. There was no Teotihuacano script, an indication that any complex trading or taxation may been left in the hands of foreign vassals or employees, much like Achaemenid Persians hired Greeks and others⁹.

Teotihuacan’s largest monuments were set around the so-called Ciudadela complex, a Roman forum-like walled arrangement with a courtyard dominated by the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, close to an even larger temple, the so-called Pyramid of the Sun, the world’s third-largest¹⁰, and the smaller Pyramid of the Moon. Such grandeur was financed by the city‘s neighbors, as Teotihuacan – particularly after it took control of the rich obsidian mines above present-day Pachuca in Hidalgo –served as center for regular raiding, prisoner-taking and tribute-raising campaigns conducted by troops well supplied with sharp obsidian blades far and wide¹¹.

The Zapotecs in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, had a similar approach to religion, politics, economics and the use of obsidian blades for swords, spear- and arrow-points. Like the Teotihuacanos and all other Mesoamerican peoples, they relied on maize tortillas and boiled beans as basic food staples, and drank cocoa drinks and pulque, the fermented sap of the maguey tree, when available. From their well-defended capital at Monte Albán, they extended their domain in all directions and, by 200 AD, their state was the most powerful in Mexico, although it exerted little influence in the Texcoco region.

A building in central Monte Albán, now called Building J, may have contained hieroglyphs depicting every Zapotec province: each glyph group depicts a head with an elaborate head dress, believed to represent the rulers of conquered territories, possibly including all those in the fertile Oaxaca Valley – 700 square kilometers of flat land of moderate altitude, on average at 1,500 meters above sea-level, like nothing seen elsewhere in Mesoamerica¹².

Heads turned upside down in the glyphs may represent those killed, while the upright ones may represent those became Zapotec vassals. To a great degree, Monte Albán and Teotihuacan would have been easily recognizable to a 3^rd or 2^nd millennium BC Mesopotamian observer: a core territory centered on a fortified, temple-filled city where the gods and their powerful ruling/priestly class were assuaged by a steady supply of enemy blood, surrounded by tributary lands which rulers were spared if they didn’t resist; Assyrian kings would have approved of these Americans’ approach.

The “Forum” at Monte Alban. Credit: Wikipedia.

Zapotec individuals were named after calendrical signs and appear to have traced their lineages – much like, for example, Roman patricians – back to specific deities or deified ancestors; important personages were buried with large retinues of servants or slaves who were sacrificed after their master’s passing. The most important Zapotec god was, as is to be expected in an overwhelmingly agricultural society, Cocijo, god of lightning and rain¹³; Pitao Cozobi, a god of corn and food¹⁴, reigned over subsidiary gods related to harvests and nutrition; and the Feathered Serpent was also popular, and most likely also imported from the Olmecs.

Like ancient Mesopotamian societies, the most developed cities in Mesoamerica presented complex social arrangements: acrobats, jugglers, ball players, merchants, priests, warriors, musicians, soothsayers, farmers and porters are all depicted in Monte Albán’s art. Costumes, nose ornaments, ear plugs, medallions and jewelry, hair styles and headdresses are realistically portrayed.

Ball players may have had a prominent social position among the Zapotecs, just like they probably did among the Olmecs. Their games were played in courts set in between temples, using a hard rubber ball that the helmeted players passed to one another by bouncing it with their hips. A ball player represented in a Zapotec ceramic sculpture wears a yoke around his waist, perhaps to give the ball momentum, and protective kneepads. Apparently, a team scored by passing the ball into the opposite team’s end zone¹⁵.

Monte Albán never grew to match the size of Teotihuacán. At its largest, the city covered almost eight square kilometers, just under half the largest extent of the northern city, and had at most 75,000 inhabitants, which would make it a decently-sized provincial center in much of contemporary Eurasia.

Having grown much slower than Teotihuacán, Monte Albán’s grid was also much more chaotic, lacking main avenues or any sign of central planning, and included two separate administrative districts relatively isolated from the rest of the city, where elite residents presumably lived. These were buried in shallow but elaborate tombs, sometimes designed as miniature replicas of the larger temples on the surface, adorned with fine wall paintings.

1. Roughly spanning, by scholarly consensus, between 200 AD and 900 AD.

2. See “The Zapotecs: Princes, Priests, and Peasants,” by Joseph W. Whitecotton, University of Oklahoma Press (1977).

3. Cit. “Relación de Miahuatlán.”

4. The cultures, spanning the period between 100 BC and 500 AD, are named after the Hopewell Mound Group in Ross County, Ohio. These are remains of earthworks and enclosures, often with funerary purposes, not unlike Eurasian steppe kurgans.

5. Dogs, turkey, cats and guinea pigs, commonly raised in American societies, may not have been enough to feed the masses in large cities like Monte Albán and later metropolis. By the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, wild game like fowl, hares, rabbits and deer were common tribute given by subject cities to their lords – again, regular but likely small-scale provisions of animal protein. Scholarly discussion continues on whether native American chickens were widespread and nutritious enough to make a difference. Marvin Harris must be credited as the author or at least popularizer of the idea that American societies often resorted to cannibalism as a dietary complement, in his 1977 book “Cannibals and kings.” Regardless, only Australia may have come close to embracing cannibalism in anything close to American degrees, although it’s all but impossible to tell when this happened or why.

6. For example, the Temple of the Feathered Serpent itself.

7. Cit. "The Central Mexican Highlands from the Rise of Teotihuacan to the Decline of Tula," by George L. Cowgill, in "The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas," Vol II: Mesoamerica, Part I. Ed. By Richard E. W. Adams and Murdo J. MacLeod (Cambridge UP, 2008), p. 255. From about 300 onward, a high proportion of the city's population lived in architecturally substantial compounds composed of multiple apartments.

8. Uto-Aztecan is a primary language family, unrelated to any other, so the assumption must be made that all native speakers descended from a closely related tribe or group of tribes that made it to the Americas from Asia. It covers a multitude of ancient Native American languages, from Utah’s Ute to isolated tongues in Central America and most famously includes the Aztecs’ Nahuatl as well as Comanche, briefly used by the US army to frustrate Japanese espionage in WWII, and now almost vanished. It is indeed the only language family that was present in both Mesoamerica and the lands north of the Rio Grande before the Spanish conquest.

9. For the opposite view, that is, that Teotihuacanos did use a script, see “The Writing System of Ancient Teotihuacán,” by Karl A. Taube (Center for Ancient American Studies, 2000). Taube argues that the city possessed a complex, hard-to-translate hieroglyphic writing system, essentially a very complex form of Chinese-like characters that now appear to be decorative glyphs or icons with an “emblematic quality, which is well suited for the vibrant mural tradition.”

10. The largest pyramid of the world was also built in central Mexico during this era, some 100 kilometers southeast of Teotihuacan: the pyramid of Cholula, just 25 meters tall but much wider than Egypt’s Grand Pyramid of Giza, and the centerpiece of the monumental area of that city. Cholula’s pyramid was built over 1,000 years, being completed only during the 9th century AD; by then, the city, which had peaked at around 100,000 inhabitants, likely as a vassal/rival of Teotihuacan, had been largely abandoned, and the pyramid was revered as a religious site of pilgrimage.

11. It’s clear that these campaigns led to massive population transfers and disruptions, and may be behind anthropological oddities in Mexico such as the strange survival of the Tarascan/Purépecha language, an isolated tongue with no relation with any of those spoken in the Texcoco basin or anywhere else in Mesoamerica: Tarascan speakers, descendants of very early colonizer of Mexico who likely spread all the way to the great lake, may have holed up in mountainous Michoacán, west of Texcoco, hiding from Teotihuacan’s hunger for captives and wealth.

12. The higher valleys to the north of the Valley of Oaxaca, such as Tamazulalan, Yanhuitlán, and Nochixtlán in the Mixteca Alta, have been subject to and have suffered from extensive soil erosion. In these higher valleys, generally 2,000 meters in elevation or higher, the vegetative cover was oak-pine forest, and its clearing has damaged the soil. In the Valley of Oaxaca, with its gentle slopes and scrub vegetation, land clearing has never appreciably increased erosion. The oak-pine forest zone surrounding the Valley has been rarely cleared for agriculture. The Valley floor is well suited to the year-round growing of primitive maize, as the mean annual temperature is at about 20 degrees. Frost-resistant strains of maize were developed in later periods of pre-Spanish history, but their absence in earliest times helps to explain the choice of the Valley as a key area for intensive cultivation. Whitecotton, Op. Cit.

13. Interestingly, Tlaloc, the competing Teotihuacan rain god, was also represented among Zapotec deities.

14. Same as the ancient and even modern Chinese came to identify the very idea of “food” with their main staple, rice, Mesoamericans identified corn with the idea of sustenance.

15. In Aztec times the spectators placed bets on the outcome of the event, but there’s no evidence that the Zapotecs ever did. See Whitecotton, Op. Cit.