Massive deforestation was also a factor in their decline.  The forests were cut and burned to get lime to paint their buildings with.   

We had the same problem.2,000 oak trees for one 1st Rate ship. But then we sailed off and took someone else's forest.

Neatly put.

Maybe they were just stupid.    Cutting the hearts out of 60000 other people to worship their allah is sick.

 

 

sunny

Your #25, right

Sunny will be the first to admit the Dahomy, Ashanti, and Whydah tribes were the first to snack on  excess slaves. And when he moved to the USA.......

The blood sacrifices were to preserve the status quo and to insure that the sun came up every day. 

Oh, great.

 

There's somebody sawing away at me with a dirty great piece of blunt obsidian, and someone's whipering cheerily in my ear; "who's a lucky boy then? Emporer's kids been looking a bit pasty lately. Little sun tan'll do them the world of good........"

 

Sorry. Hate to be a spoilsport and all that, but..........

The nadir of of Mezo-American human sacrifice were the "Flower Wars" between the Aztecs and some of their neighbors.  There was a period of time when the Aztecs were not expanding (at the moment) and trade was ongoing so there were no enemy prisoners to sacrifice.  So the Flower Wars were held for the sole purpose of giving each side enough bodies to make all the appropriate sacrifices.   Gotta love those Priests, they are always looking out for you.

I haven't seen the Mel Gibson film, but I bet you it will come out as anti European.

What I like about being European is we can say "been there, conquered that, flattened them, converted those, looted this. Got the T-shirt." Gives me that lovely warm glow. 

Lew

Didn't you have something similar with the great Potlach ceremonies of your North Western Indian tribes, round Oregon and Washington, where thanks to the abundance of Salmon and the mildness of the weather no-one starved and the raison d'etre was to give huge parties? Rumour has it this was where PBA was heading for but a small map reading error........

Flashman,  NO!!!   Gibson's film does not blame the Europeans at all.  In fact they are only seen in the movie for about 2 min.  I do not want to spoil the ending of that movie but it was so heart wrenching to me to see the serpent find its way to Paradise. BTW, go see that movie, I would like your impression.

 

As to the potlatches, they were great 'give aways' held by individuals for any number of reasons.  The host could (and often did) begger himself  through feeding the entire tribe, as well as guests,  and destroying what was left as the climax to the ceremony.   This was done to show that the material world held no power over him and that he was sure that God would provide.  The potlatch is still a viable ceremony for some of the tribes today.   

I believe the favourite currency of potlaches was bundles of blankets.

No wonder PBA was on his way there. In his army days he wore his issue threadbare in a week.

Originator of the drill command "stack blankets!"

Flash, yes bundles of blankets were the currency of the potlatch.  The value of everything there was decided by how many blankets it was worth.