"The mexica didn't sacrifice people that was a lie the Spanish invented"
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I HATE THE DECOLONIZER MOVEMENT SO MUCH
WE FUCKING KNOW IT HAPPENED! WE CAN SEE IT IN THE GLYPHS IN THE RUINS AND IN THE SURVIVING CODEX AND EVEN IN THE STORIES TOLD ACROSS MULTIPLE TRIBES!!!
The historical argument whether it was a sacrifice or an offering - whether they killed captive people or people offered themselves for the sacrifice is an ongoing debate, but for crying out loud, WE KNOW IT IS TRUE
Fucking decolonizer movement. Fucking idiots.
GAH I'm still angry
This is why I have never liked the decolonizer movement, at least not how it's been presented in Mexico - it tries to blackwash the Spaniards more than they already were.
Mexico sits in a weird spot in the Spanish Invasion narrative becaue Hernan Cortes saw what Columbus did and said "ew, no?" and mostly succeeded at not wanting to kill people! Also, like, literally EVERYBODY HATED THE MEXICA because they were FUCKING HORRIBLE PEOPLE! It is known that Cortes would've failed had it not been for Malintzin successfully negotiating an alliance with the Tlaxcalteca. But we also know that had Cortes failed, then it would've been fucking Pedro de Alvarado and now that bastard was probably even more cruel than Columbus ever were.
And yes, there were different attitudes from the Spaniards based on who had the crown - particularly with the Bourbons there was a stronger introduction of the caste system, while before it was less strong as there was a lot of early mestizaje. And it's not like I am trying to absolve the Spaniards - indigenous people are still feeling the effects of the Conquest.
But not to bring someone down, you need to elevate someone else. People are complex, and nobody's a saint, for fuck's sake.
#when we say âyou donât become an empire by being nice that applies to the aztec empire too#two things can be true: Aztecs committed human sacrifice and thatâs bad#and that didnât justify what the Spanish did to them#and the Europeans did exaggerate human sacrifice and misapply it to tribes who didnât participate in it
Nobody ever seems to remember that the Aztecs ruled over a variety of ethnic groups that we know sadly little about today because of their colonialism.
They won a total cultural victory by getting the descendants of their subjects to identify with the empire after it ended and whitewash its behaviour.
I think you'll find that only capitalists can have empires actually. Other systems are just sparkling Negusa Nagast.
There's an old satirical story by Sapkowski, In a Bomb Crater, in which Poland is at an irregular war with Lithuania. A subplot involves the protagonist's friend with a last name Indyk (Turkey), whose family tries to naturalize as Lithuanian citizens.
The problem: their last name would be translated to Kalakutas. The friend's father tries to sidestep this somehow, but is rebuked by the immigration office, who point out that "kutas" is only a slur in Polish (being one of the many words for dick), and if he truly considered himself Lithuanian, he would have no problem with it.
I think of this every time some pagan or decolonizer tries to 'splain away human sacrifice, be it by Vikings, Aztecs, whatever. I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to repudiate the white, western, Christian morality? Why would you have a problem with human sacrifice then? The peoples you advocate for didn't consider every human life to be dignified and worth preserving.
And they continue to do so, even today.
