"Native" Americans fatten kids before sacrifing to volcano

Times:

Grim evidence of how the Incas “fattened up” children before sacrificing them to their gods has emerged from a new analysis of hair from two 500-year-old mummies preserved near the summit of a volcano.

The remains of the 15-year-old girl known as the “Llullaillaco Maiden” and the seven-year-old “Llullaillaco Boy” revealed that their diets changed markedly in the 12 months up to their deaths, shedding new light on the rituals of the ancient Andean civilisation.

The research, by a British-led team, suggests that the children were fed a ceremonial diet before being marched to a shrine 82ft (25 metres) from the top of the 22,110ft (6,739 metres) volcano Llullaillaco, where they were suffocated or left to die from exposure.

Before being chosen as sacrificial victims, the boy and girl had followed a typical peasant diet. This raises the possibility that they were chosen from among the Incas’ conquered subjects and killed not only to pacify the mountain gods, but also to instil terror and respect for an imperial power. “It looks to us as though the children were led up to the summit shrine in the culmination of a year-long rite, drugged and then left to succumb to exposure,” said Timothy Taylor of the University of Bradford, one of the lead researchers.

“Although some may wish to view these grim deaths within the context of indigenous belief systems, we should not forget that the Inca were imperialists too and the treatment of such peasant children may have served to instil fear and facilitate social control over remote mountain areas.”

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“By examining hair samples from these unfortunate children, a chilling story has started to emerge of how the children were ‘fattened up’ for sacrifice,” Dr Wilson said.

“Given the surprising change in their diets and the symbolic cutting of their hair, it appears that various events were staged in which the status of the children was raised. In effect, their countdown to sacrifice had begun some considerable time prior to death.”

The hair isotopes show a further change in the children’s lifestyle about three to four months before they died, which suggests that is when they began their pilgrimage to the volcano, probably from the Inca capital, Cuzco.

It is thought that the children were given maize beer or chicha and coca leaves, both to alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness and to drug them into compliance with their fates. Byproducts of coca metabolism have been found in the hair of the children, with particularly high concentrations in the Maiden’s. As the oldest, she may have had more idea about what was about to happen to her.

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The noble savages were benign creatures before being spoiled by European invaders and led into a debauched lifestyle--not. The Aztecs were just as bad if not worse. They were big on human sacrifice and pulling out a still beating heart. Then there were the Carib Indians who occupied the islands Columbus first discovered. The celebrated their conquest by eating the defeated tribes that had been the islands previous occupants. How we got from this to treating them like sainted ancestors is a tale of political correctness devoid of history.