Tuesday, August 18, 2009

At Least We're Not Sacrificing Virgins (Yet)

Illinois’ contributions to cultural and political violence go back
a long way
. From the article on Cahokia, an ancient Native-American metropolis that, among other things, possessed the third largest pyramid in the New World : “[The city] was probably governed by an elite class who commanded both political allegiance and spiritual authority.”

Kinda like Washington, with climate-change enthusiasts filling in for the “spiritual authority.”

6 comments:

TimT said...

I don't know why, but stories about ancient practices of human sacrifice always seem fascinating. Freud or Jung would probably have something to say about that - it seems to have quite a deep significance and resonance in the minds of people around the world.

It makes you wonder how easily people could slip back into these sort of practices.

Considering current debates about euthanasia, perhaps it wouldn't be so hard at all for human sacrifice to become common again.

missred said...

history is written by the victorious. initially the american indians were protrayed as ignorant savages because according to the settlers and their culture, they were. remember the original settlers in jamestown were'nt fleeing anything , they were just looking for new lands and a way to make money in the new land. and then in the 60s the indians became the enlightened ones. they lived off the land and never had trash.. they used every bit of the animal, we were told. i threw out that myth when i read long ago, it was long ago, where some tribe. i dont remember the "tribe", were cannibals and stuffed the bums of their victims with animal fat so that when they slow roasted them alive the meat would be tender. for human meat is tough and gristly. and they did that to many of the new settlers of their land.
so i am not surprised by this news. the ancient "american" societies south of the united states were brutal, and there is no reason to deny that their cousins to the north were less so.

richard mcenroe said...

"At Least We're Not Sacrificing Virgins (Yet)"

Asked Sebelius about that?

TW: lastryts: The priest couldn't make it in time so he texted it in...

mojo said...

They were here for thirty or forty thousand years before the Europeans stumbled over the continent on their way to the riches of India.

They must've done something in all that time; probably small empires rose and fell repeatedly, but left no record of their existence save a few mounds or whatnot. Never rose above their late stone age society, mostly no written language at all, never became toolmakers in the larger sense.

Stunted, I'd call it.

SB: boreac
Ok, ok. Sheesh.

Anonymous said...

We're not sacrificing virgins because none can be found in DC.

Retread

Isophorone said...

It's funny how this mysticism leads to some sort of exaltification of a more primitive society. And yes, there is at least talk of "sacrifice," if not on virgins. However, the ones who feel the brunt of impact are those in whose name all the "good" is supposedly being done.