Human Sacrifice Part 2

 

The Bringers of Christianity to Aztec country. - a display in Guadalajara

(Note: Most of you will know this, but when a word or words are underlined or appear in colour, it’s because the author has put in a hyperlink, or link, a quick way to get to a source or supporting material. For instance, clicking on this phrase takes you to a webpage on hyperlinks. Try it. Sometimes, you’ll be asked to activate your Control Key (Ctrl) plus a tap to complete the link. In many cases, hyperlinks take the place of footnotes or endnotes.)

My last post was probably more off-putting than up-lifting, having to do with human sacrifice and, more importantly, with reference to a core Christian understanding that Jesus’ crucifixion was the sacrifice of a human life, an offering that would reconcile people to a sin-hating God. We could argue that Jesus’ being the Son of God took the crucifixion out of the realm of human sacrifice, but his agony in Gethsemane and his “Why have you forsaken me?” on the cross argue human pain, not immortal immunity.

                These differences may, in the end, be mere quibbles, distinctions without differences, but to me there is a deep, historical lesson in events involving human sacrifice. The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs was, among other things, a clash of two religions, the pantheistic faith of the Aztecs vs. the monotheistic religion of the Spanish colonialists. Under the cross, Cortez murdered his way from the coast toward Tenochtitlan (Where Mexico City now lies). His capture of this stronghold city would establish his credentials before the King of Spain and the church. The wooden spears and bows and arrows of the indigenous people were no match for the horses, muskets, swords and steel armours of the invaders. History tells us that in all the Americas, conquest and conversion to Christianity were bedfellows during the colonizing madness of the 15^th, 16^th and 17^th centuries.

                But, of course wealth (gold and silver—furs in Canada) to be shipped back to Europe was arguably a more important objective for the conquerors than was the conversion of the indigenous population via the priests. Some would say that the pillaging of the Americas’ wealth was the goal, and that priests swept the pathway to that objective by taming the population. However we see that, it can logically be argued that millions of human lives were sacrificed by “Christians” on the road to the subjugation of the people of the Americas.

                Best evidence of Christian collaboration with conquest is in the Doctrine of Discovery, supported by successive popes in Rome and monarchs in Spain and Portugal in the late 15^th to 16^th Centuries. It authorized the seizure—in the name of the sending monarchs and the national flag—of any “discovered” lands whose inhabitants were not ruled by a Christian king. It also sanctioned the enslavement of the people conquered under this mandate. (The spirit of the doctrine plays—at least subconsciously—into indigenous land claims in Canada today. Do disputed lands not covered by treaty belong to the crown or to the traditional inhabitants?)

                But the foundations for a Doctrine of Discovery can be found in a document of cobbled-together, traditional Mosaic mythology called Deuteronomy, or New Law. In Chapter 7, the writers attribute to God’s command the brutal destruction of peoples who are not Hebrew and the confiscation of their territories. Beginning in Deuteronomy 7:2, “… when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. ³ Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, ⁴ for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. ⁵ This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. ⁶ For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”

                Tenochtitlan was subdued quickly; in a matter of months the invading Spaniards had transmitted several zoonotic diseases—for which the Aztecs had no immunity—to the population, had rebuffed Moctezuma’s attempts at a peaceful treaty with the invaders and before the conquerors were done, one of the most beautiful cities ever known lay in disease-ridden ruins. After the 1521 fall of Tenochtitlan, the inland march continued and only 20 years later, the first Catholic cathedral went up in Guadalajara (1541) and the settlements around Lake Chapala had handed over governance of their area to Spain. Today, the local population is mainly Mestizo (indigenous/Spanish), the language spoken is primarily Spanish and the names of towns along the lake are combinations of Aztec (Nahautl), bastardized Nahuatl and Spanish: Ajijic, Jocotepec, Ixlaquatan de los Membrillos, etc. The adoption of indigenous place names even as colonization of a territory is complete, is typical (Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Kinistino, Assiniboia, etc.)

                The argument is often made that although ceding of land by indigenous people was a debit for them, their advancement as a result of the practices and inventions of European settlers is a credit that more than makes up for the loss of land. So if a foreign power were to come to Canada, conquer it militarily and establish government that was a puppet of a foreign realm, and if the extinguishing of Christian, Jewish and Muslim religion were being enforced by destroying all churches, synagogues, mosques, would we feel our loss would be worth it if our conquerors gave each of us a bucket of beads and a bottle of Aspirin? I think (hope, actually) not.

                There’ve been many ways in which colonial powers have enriched themselves on conquered land. All of them, though, have required human sacrifice that always fell—and continues to fall—on the defeated, whether in Mexico, Guatemala, Australia or Canada. Canadians—and particularly Christian Canadians—must learn their history well enough to know what a debt is owed to the indigenous nations on whose homelands our fortune has been made. Seems it would be through the good works and graces of Christians who abhor the Discovery Doctrine and colonialism that the face of Christ would shine through at its best.

                There’s a saying that great advances often require great sacrifice; hopefully a time will come where the sacrifices don’t include human lives. No advances benefit the fallen, the murdered, those dying of preventable illness.