{"id":356,"date":"2008-12-21T11:14:55","date_gmt":"2008-12-21T15:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therowboat.com\/?p=356"},"modified":"2008-12-21T11:14:55","modified_gmt":"2008-12-21T15:14:55","slug":"list-of-human-sacrifices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/2008\/12\/list-of-human-sacrifices\/","title":{"rendered":"List of Human Sacrifices"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Palenque\"Yesterday I had the great privilege of visiting for the first time the Mayan ruins at Palenque, in Chiapas, Mexico. Astonishing. Part of the conversation among my family as we walked through these stone shells of palaces, temples, and dwellings only recently unveiled from the rainforest was about whether the people who lived there were happy. My uncle, who has a penetrating intuition for buildings and their builders, decided yes. Such things could not be made without happiness. I want to agree but still have a hard time picturing it. After all, so much of what we hear about the Maya involves rather depressing things like war, power, blood, and, of course, human sacrifice. Except the latter, all these things are obviously present in our societies today as well, and they don’t keep us from our moments of joy, such as they are. But there is that sticking point: human sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Or is it? Perhaps there are instances of such acts among us as well, though perhaps disguised, not arousing our taboos in the same way. And perhaps, by recognizing them where they hide, we might find it easier to envision Mayan happiness amidst their particular sacrifices.<\/p>\n

In his 1566 Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan<\/em>, the conquistador priest Diego de Landa writes to a bishop with his concern that their own Christian faith doesn’t live up to the zeal of the Mayans’ bloody sacrifices. The same sense of uncomfortable admiration has long been directed by Christians at Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac: Kierkegaard, for instance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wherefore do you, priest of God, tell me if you have taken note of the office of these unhappy priests of the demon, and of all those who, as we read in the divine writings, there have been in times past, how much more burdensome were their fasts than yours, and how long and many; how much longer were their vigils and their miserable prayers than you give, how much more serious and careful they were of the affairs of their office than you are of yours; with how much more zeal than you they understood how to teach their pestiferous doctrines. If thereby you find yourself in any fault, correct it, and see that you are a priest of the Lord above, who solely by your office obliges you to seek to live in cleanness and prudently, the cleanness of an angel rather than of a man. (See context<\/a>.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the same de Landa who oversaw the burning of every Mayan relic and text he could find, nearly destroying the memory of a civilization with a single stroke. Still, in this passage he does raise the question of some eerie proximity between the human-sacrificing other and ourselves. How different are we, really? Could it be that their faith is just as strong as ours? Even stronger and more admirable, even if we are sure its foundations are incorrect?<\/p>\n

To find out, I’ve started a list of possible instances of human sacrifices in modern societies, particularly the United States. I’ve tried to keep to familiar things, official things, often secular things, rather than the taboo peripheries, as important as they are. I’m quite certain about none, which is the reason for all the (parenthetical) qualifications.<\/p>\n