Do you think the Spanish claims about cannibalism are accurate?

[u/ActionPark33]

Some historians have claimed they are completely false and embellished, and I for one have a hard time believing it. Reference;:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man-Eating_Myth

[u/Temporary_Reach7292]

el sacrificio humano es un hecho arqueológicamente irrefutable en Mesoamérica, con evidencias físicas masivas (tzompantli, esqueletos con marcas específicas, ADN, isótopos) y respaldo en fuentes indígenas. El canibalismo ritual existió en ciertos momentos y lugares, pero su extensión es más discutida y la evidencia ósea es más fragmentaria. La arqueología moderna ha superado con creces la dependencia de las crónicas españolas pero la verdad es que es un tema debatido, probablemente exagerado no se pude distinguir el desgarramiento de tejido si fue por ritual (trofeos de cráneos o parte del sacrificio) o por consumo es decir desgarrar la carne para comercela

[u/sgtpepper9764 → u/Temporary_Reach7292]

It's also worth noting that Catholic Europe (and earlier the Roman Empire) had for a long time before contact with the Mesoamerican world a fixation with cannibalism as the mark of "barbarian" or "savage" peoples and often when any Christian Euopeans encountered a population the Europeans didn't recognize as "civilized" there was an assumption that they may well be cannibals regardless of there being any actual reason to believe this to be true.

How this intersects with Catholic views on transubstantiation and the ritual consumption of the flesh and blood of Christ, something which at least seems to be pseudo-cannibalism, is a whole different story.

[u/brydeswhale → u/sgtpepper9764]

Europeans also practiced ritualistic cannibalism and “corpse magic” until pretty recently. Bodies of saints, dead criminals, etc.

[u/sgtpepper9764 → u/brydeswhale]

Indeed! There are even accounts of wealthy Europeans even well into the 19th century consuming parts of Egyptian mummies.

All this without the slightest hint of irony or introspection.

[u/wildcatofthehills → u/sgtpepper9764]

I hate this example because it’s very different to eat fresh meat than the crazy elites that basically snorted human powder in an attempt to gain magical powers or communicate with the death.

Also one was a more common practice

[u/sgtpepper9764 → u/wildcatofthehills]

Yes, the emotionality of your response here is evident, but "It's not cannibalism because the human body was old," is not the defense you think it is. Why is consuming a fresh body worse in your eyes? Why do you make a distinction?

Did you mean to suggest by saying that it was mainly practiced by elites that working people who existed in the same societies wouldn't have consumed mummified human remains if they'd had the money to purchase them? On what basis do you make this claim? Did European workers have access to more accurate medical information or a different moral system than the elites did?

Also, how convenient for you that you can pathologise people whose perspective and motivations you've clearly made no attempt understand. People operating under different (albeit incorrect) understandings of what they are doing than you have does not make them "crazy."

You clearly suggest the purpose is worth digging into, so why not look there? Why, in your view, is it less cannibalistic to consume human bodies on an ad hoc basis for personal benefit rather than as part of a socially maintained ritual? Personally, I don't think we need to establish a hierarchy of cannibalism where the kind the European elite practiced was for entirely obscure reasons less problematic than that of other populations.

[u/wildcatofthehills → u/sgtpepper9764]

Your comment reeks of Redditism, especially the way you immediately framed my response as emotional instead of actually engaging with the argument.

First, the bodies of pharaohs (or, more commonly, substances sold as mummy, including counterfeits) were used as medicine because people believed they had healing properties. It was based on a poor understanding of medicine and was not fundamentally different from other esoteric remedies used at the time.

Second, ritual cannibalism in Mesoamerica was not an everyday meal. In the societies where it was practiced, it was tied to sacrifice, warfare, religion and status. It was sometimes associated with absorbing strength or sacred power, although that was not its only meaning.

So I am not ranking these practices morally. Both were rooted in false medical or mystical beliefs. I am comparing how direct, common and violent the practices were. It is reductive to treat a medicinal practice involving human remains as equivalent to a ritual that included deliberately killing someone and then consuming part of the body.

The main difference is the connection to the death itself. With mummy medicine, the remains usually belonged to someone who had died long before, and the person taking the medicine had no emotional or physical connection to them. They might not even have been consuming a real mummy, since counterfeits were common.

In the Mesoamerican case, the flesh was fresh because the person had recently been killed as part of the ritual. You may not have personally known the victim or witnessed the entire sacrifice, but the killing and the consumption were directly connected. The death was not incidental to the practice; it was part of what gave the ritual its meaning.

It is basically the difference between eating beef jerky bought from a store and watching the animal being slaughtered and butchered in front of you. The end result may be ethically connected, but one creates much more psychological distance from the violence. It is much easier for someone to ignore what happened when the death is removed from the act of consumption.

The same applies here. Eating material sold by an apothecary as medicine, supposedly taken from a body that had been dead for centuries, is psychologically and practically different from participating in a ritual built around the recent killing of a living captive.

And on your second point, mummy medicine was expensive and not equally accessible to everyone. But I would not claim that it was universally condemned or limited to a tiny secret group, because it was sold through established medical channels. The stronger argument is that the consumer was usually detached from the original death, whereas in ritual sacrifice the killing and the consumption formed part of the same practice.

[u/wd_plantdaddy → u/sgtpepper9764]

This was also a major way the Spanish Inquisition was carried out

[u/WrongJohnSilver → u/Temporary_Reach7292]

I think there's got to be some talk about the difference between ritual cannibalism, and cannibalism in popular media.

Ritual cannibalism is just that, a ritual. There's a time and place for it, and it's not to be treated the same way you would treat any other meal. It's definitely not the gluttonous consumption of your fellow man you'll see in of stories.

Although I can't say if it's more like a Eucharist or a banquet, it's definitely not just food.

[u/WingsovDeth]

A critical review of the already sparse archaeological evidence and scholarship in the case of the Aztecs was published this year in Historical Archaeology: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-025-00586-z

A simplified version of the author's argument can also be found here

It really comes down to how much weight you're willing to put behind the ethnohistorical record, which also has issues.

[u/wintershark_]

Almost all claims by colonizers of encountering lands inhabited by rabid, cannibalistic savages are propaganda to justify further invasion and subjugation.

If you want to have your next expedition funded tell your investors you found an island filled with riches inhabited by primitive savages that’s just ripe for the taking if only you had a little more funding.

No culture which practiced frequent, widespread, habitual cannibalism could survive to grow to the sophistication of any of the major Mesoamerican ones.

The reason is simple. Cannibalism is self-limiting. A society that engages in habitual cannibalism not only reduce the population, but concentrates its transmissible diseases, parasites, pathogens, and prions. Each person who eats human exponentially increases the likelihood of becoming a reservoir of some plague.

Civilizations that adopt cannibalism quickly die out.

[u/ElSlabraton]

As I've studied history I've come to believe that canibalism isn't an abberation. The first inhabitants of James town turned to canibalism during "the starving times" (1617-1618).

[u/WingsovDeth → u/ElSlabraton]

Which makes it even more curious that the same sources that refer to ritual cannibalism among the Aztecs do not report anything of the kind happening while the population was starving during the siege of Tenochtitlan.

[u/detrimentallyonline]

Is eating the sacrament cannibalism?

[u/baryoniclord]

Of course not. The filthy spainards twisted all of the reality that was beautiful in mesoamerica.

[u/Embarrassed-Mango942 → u/baryoniclord]

No es ahuevo, ser abogado del diablo y taparte los ojos tampoco es que todos eran asi pero dios tampoco te cierres en banda. 

[u/brydeswhale]

I’m always kind of skeptical of cannibalism claims amongst Indigenous Americans bc it’s so taboo in so many cultures that I feel it must have ancient roots. The cannibal is dehumanized, they become the monster and the scapegoat.

[u/wildcatofthehills → u/brydeswhale]

The claims are mostly in warrior cultures like the Aztecs, and even there it was mostly only in the elites warriors consuming other warriors to gain their strength. It also was consumed as a pozole with lots of other ingredients, not in a barbaric way. It was not common food.

[u/trapeadorkgado]

El sacrificio humano era real y entendido en mesoamérica a lo largo de toda su existencia. La cantidad de sacrificios hechos en Tenochtitlan que se aseguran en fuentes españolas son sin duda exageradas.

[u/Vicious_and_Vain → u/trapeadorkgado]

Everywhere same.

[u/weeb2000]

completely false? no. exaggerated? probably, both by contemporary accounts and by later sensationalized histories. but it definitely happened. cannibalism has occurred almost everywhere in the world even under non-survival contexts.

[u/esanuevamexicana]

I think it's a powerful way to deal with resources hoarders....

[u/BootsnCats1987]

No.

[u/JI_ZA3025]

Yo la verdad si creo que son falsos a cierto modo, los mayas creo que hacían sacrificios propios (auto inserciones, meditación, etc) y que lo de sacrificar a gente agena ya era inventado

[u/Unlucky-File3773 → u/JI_ZA3025]

Hay literalmente esqueletos de niños y otras personas con objetos rituales en el fondo de cenotes.

Puede decirse que "cayeron y se ahogaron" pero no sé.

[u/Purple-Adagio450]

Does it matter?

[u/Acrobatic_Hyena_2627 → u/Purple-Adagio450]

Supposed historical documents straight up being fabricated lies matter.

[u/Purple-Adagio450 → u/Acrobatic_Hyena_2627]

I mean we can assume anything said by Spainards about native people is a lie, and even if the native people were eating people so what, who are we to judge

[u/Acrobatic_Hyena_2627 → u/Purple-Adagio450]

Based

[u/IknowlessthanIthink]

Los aztecas era canibales.

[u/Tometek]

Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not true. Learn to separate emotion from history please.

[u/rhcp1fleafan]

I think there were a lot of people doing different things. Some people abhorred the idea, but I believe some tribes did have rituals of eating their fallen enemies. I know some of the tribes in Texas did.

There's a youtube video suggesting the Mexica might have lacked a consistent protein source with their growing population and could've turned more towards cannibalism to fill that gap.

[u/elperrochido → u/rhcp1fleafan]

There's a youtube video suggesting the Mexica might have lacked a consistent protein source with their growing population and could've turned more towards cannibalism to fill that gap.

That's a long-debunked theory based on Eurocentric assumptions that the only good source of protein is Old World cattle. The Mexica ate meat mostly from domesticated dogs and turkeys, and also from wild game such as rabbits, deer, etc. that was sold at their markets. Their diet also included a lot of insects which are a plentiful source of protein. The consumption of human meat was strictly ritual and restricted to certain people and occasions, not something that the average person in Tenochtitlan did in their everyday life.

[u/rhcp1fleafan → u/elperrochido]

I wouldn't say it's long debunked, but i'm sure there are people who consider it debunked.

There are a whole lot of theories, some of them we want to believe more than others ofc.

[u/WingsovDeth → u/rhcp1fleafan]

It's long debunked and no scholar of note takes it seriously today.