What is Truth? Some Thoughts on the Inca Child Sacrifices
A few days ago I noticed an article about Inca child sacrifices. The lengths people go to interact with forces beyond their comprehension always fascinate me. Compared to these Pre-Columbian peoples’ practices, our society’s contacts with the supernatural appear feeble, confused and insincere. This is perhaps because a lot of natural phenomena isn’t beyond our comprehension at all—we have science. Science explains these things to us, and then we put that knowledge into practice controlling our environment with technology. Science and technology have combined to strip us of our pathways to wonder about the mysteries of the world. Add materialism to the mix, that obsession with wealth and possessions, and we see why we have lost our mystical direction. Instead, we drift into neo-paganism, become born-again Celts, and sects set up meeting houses in strip malls.
The article reported that researchers used samples of the sacrificed children’s hair to show they had been ritually “fattened up” for one year before the final Capacocha ceremony. Evidence from archaeology and Spanish chronicles tell us these children were part of the Inca worship of their powerful mountain gods, usually after some disastrous event like an earthquake, drought or epidemic. The chosen child was considered a deity and was forever immortalized. After meeting with the Inca emperor, a procession of priests, chiefs and family members would accompany the holy child on a trek up a sacred mountain, as close to the heavens as the Inca could get. At a shrine on the summit the final rituals would take place, including wrapping the child in ceremonial clothing, placing offerings of gold and silver, and feeding the child
chicha to ease their death by strangulation or extreme exposure to the elements. This was sacred activity, done with deep homage, intense faith, and utmost reverence. It was the most sacred of all Inca rituals.
Of course we are repulsed by such sacrifices. Infanticide is not a practice in America, but at least once a week we hear about a child dying because of some mentally ill lunatic, violent criminal, or a deviant child predator. Indeed infanticide is a form of population control or economic necessity in places like China and India.
Our confused thinking about this story comes from cultural relativism, that is, our tendency to view the practices of others in terms of our OWN culture, not theirs. It is a remnant of ethnocentrism, the belief that our culture is superior to anybody else’s. This cocktail of narrow-minded cultural relativism, ethnocentrism, and materialism is a brew that’s bound to distort. Proof can be found in the Physorg.com site’s article. After the article’s title,
Inca Sacrifices Were “Fattened Up” First, come the sponsored links of ads from Google. The Google bots grabbed some key words on the web page and offered viewers
Low GI Diet Information
I Lost 41 lbs in 60 Days
10 Rules of Fat Loss
For a small amount I can “lose 9 lbs. every 11 Days” if I “learn these 10 Rules.” Materialism at its best. I can pay money to lose the weight I gained by spending money on junk food that I was enticed to eat by watching commercials on late-night TV.
The Pre-Columbian people struggled to make sense of their world, and deal with the harsh vicissitudes of life. To appease powerful forces they could not control, they offered to those forces the most precious things they had—their beautiful children.
The final proof that cultural relativism is solidly entrenched in our discourse comes at the end of the article where readers could leave a comment. This one was posted by “Truth.”
Mayan and Inca priests of those days were simply child predators and serial killers who were given a predators dream come true, namely power, authority and an endless supply of victims by a people who didn’t know any better. Thank God the Spanish wiped them out. Think about your child being given to the predator next door for a “religious sacrifice.”
Sounds like “Truth” learned his/her Pre-Columbian history by going to the movie
Apocalypto, that Hollywood mishmash filled with enough gratuitous violence to appeal to today’s American culture. We might as well substitute the Inca for the Maya as mere thugs living a brutish existence. But what really got me was Truth’s comment, “Thank God the Spanish wiped them out.”
Thatta’ way, Truth, send in the Spanish, those most prolific serial killers who had an almost endless supply of victims. Through murder and disease, they indiscriminately killed an estimated 54 million people, or 80% of the Pre-Columbian population. And that’s the truth, Truth.
