We live in the modern age, where if the crops fail or our President dies, we don't have
to worry about being brutally sacrificed to appease angry gods or to ensure our departed
ruler has a smooth transition into the after life.
Yet for thousands of years humans have been sacrificing each other for a variety of reasons,
if you can think of it, odds are someone somewhere murdered somebody else over it.
Many of these sacrifices were done relatively humanely, with most cultures not seeing a
need to prolong the suffering of the poor sod getting killed, but others believed that
violence and pain were part of the ritual.
Let’s start with, Shang Dynasty, China
Before China was unified around 221 BC by Qin Shi Huang, who thought that sacrificing
people was a pretty not cool thing to do, it was all the rage to sacrifice people to
appease the spirits, and at no time in Chinese history was it more in vogue than during the
Shang Dynasty of 1600-1040 BC.
A popular form of sacrifice was to behead males from other tribes in order to worship
male ancestors, the more important the ancestor the more heads that would roll.
To think, when you die you'll probably just get a lousy bouquet of flowers on your grave.
But the spirits must have gotten pretty bored of chopped off heads, so eventually the Chinese
moved on to splitting people in half in order to appease their ancestors, historical records
are unclear but we're assuming that would be horizontally and likely with teams of horses,
although if they had very large blades and a lot of time on their hands they could probably
manage a vertical split.
But again, the spirits are restless, so the Chinese moved on to dismembering people with
axes, often hundreds at a time to appease their ancestors.
A victim would have their stomach slashed open and their guts would fall to the floor,
which surprisingly is not a quick way to die and can take quite a while, though we suppose
that was probably the point.
Lastly, victims were sometimes simply beaten to death, although at this point that barely
even seems like they were trying anymore.
Hawaii
When you think of Hawaii you probably think about beautiful beaches and a warm, tropical
sun.
With so much beauty around them, surely native Hawaiians were a peaceful people who celebrated
life- I mean they lived in freaking Hawaii.
But you'd be wrong, because humans are terrible, and ritual human sacrifice was common in paradise.
Typically reserved for captives taken from war, ritual sacrifices took place during the
dedication of a war temple to the tiki war god Ku, but could happen during other significant
events.
Others who broke a kapu- or taboo- were also sacrificed, and could be tied up and have
their bones broken with sticks, have their intestines removed, or simply be beheaded.
You might think that surely Hawaii left its human sacrificing days way in the past, but
as recently as 1804 a human sacrifice of three men was recorded.
Ancient Israelites
There are many mentions in the Bible of ancient Israelites that worshiped other gods, and
of Yaweh's- or the God of the Bible- angry disapproval of them.
Learning about Israelites who worshipped Moloch, a god of nature, it's a little hard to disagree
with God on the matter.
Ancient Israelites regularly sacrificed infants to their various gods, often by binding the
child and then burning it alive.
And this wasn't just captives taken in war either, but sometimes their own.
Thankfully for children everywhere the Israelites who would eventually become the first Christians
and Jews came along and told everyone to knock it off, because burning children to appease
nature is pretty nuts.
Inca
Nowadays if you're hoping for wealth you might take a business class or two, perhaps invest
in the stock market.
But if you were an ancient Incan, the most logical thing to do would be to raise a child
from a baby, shower it its whole life with luxury, love, and affection, feed it well
and ensure it has a happy life, and then strangle it to death as an offering to the gods.
The Inca believed that a healthy, happy child (well, happy up until you know, being strangled
to death) was the greatest gift that any god could receive, and so thousands of children
were sacrificed for the sake of increasing wealth and good fortune.
Because the gods are picky though, only strong, healthy, and attractive children were suitable,
so if you were ugly we guess you lucked out.
While some children were strangled to death, others had their heads caved in, and yet others
were buried alive.
Mesopotamians
If there's one thing that binds all ancient humans together it's the belief that for some
weird reason if a king dies, they are helpless in the after life unless literally everyone
who served him immediately joins him.
And yet people still vied for these positions of power- but imagine showing up for your
first day of work as a fancy new chancellor only to have the king immediately croak.
Congratulations on your early and very immediate retirement!
The ancient Mesopotamians were no exception to this rule, and they too would send their
kings off into the after life with a mass funeral.
But while the ancient Egyptians famously had close advisors and pets buried with them,
the Mesopotamians killed literally everybody that had anything to do with the dead king-
soldiers, members of the royal court, handmaidens, and servants.
If you once made eye contact with the king there was a good chance you were getting sacrificed.
At least the Mesopotamians didn't mess around when it came to human sacrifices.
While for years experts believed that victims were peacefully poisoned before burial, new
evidence has proved that this was hilariously wrong- instead, the dead-to-be were simply
stabbed in the head.
No mess, no fuss, just a spike in the brain.
Of course these types of injuries can often not be immediately fatal, and could result
in an excruciating death.
The Aztecs
Naturally no conversation on human sacrifice can be complete without bringing up the mighty
Aztecs, who were absolutely nuts about murdering people for their gods.
Believing that they owed everything, even life itself, to the very precocious gods,
the Aztecs would routinely sacrifice thousands of victims a year.
Many civilizations engaged in human sacrifice, but the Aztecs made it a downright hobby,
and were incredibly creative about it.
Various gods required various types of sacrifices, and victims were chosen depending on their
physical characteristics and how they related to the gods.
Children for instance were required sacrifices for Tlaloc, the rain god, and they believed
that the tears of the newborn or infants would ensure the rain, so their particular sacrifices
were often protracted affairs.
The more tears a child shed, the more rain that would come.
Most victims would be marched up to the top of a pyramid and forced to lay upon an altar,
where a priest would then stab the victim in the stomach at about the navel and rip
the knife up to just below the throat.
Then the priest would reach into the victim's chest and pull out the often still-beating
heart, before kicking the body down the pyramid stairs for it to be dismembered.
Sometimes though sacrifices would take the form of a mock battle between a priest and
a captive, with the priest armed with real weapons and the captive- often tied to a stone
or wooden frame- fought with wooden or feathered weapons.
Needless to say, the odds were firmly against the victim and their feathery weapons.
Yet other victims would have their skin flayed off and worn as costumes in various rituals.
Those rituals typically awarded body parts as trophies, and the warriors who captured
the victims could be awarded a femur to proudly display at home.
That we think is the real problem with today's society- too many participation trophies,
not enough human femurs.
Let's all be grateful that science and reason has moved humanity well past the 'kill people
to appease angry gods' stage of evolution.
Yet with so much science-denial in our society today on issues such as climate change, sometimes
we wonder just how far away we really are from our bloodthirsty roots...
What's the most brutal sacrifice technique you've ever heard of?
Would you be interested in being ritually sacrificed by the staff of The Infographics
Show as we ask the gods for continued success?
Just kidding!
Make sure you check out our other video, Worst punishments in the history of mankind!
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