Chillis do come from the americas tho?
>>51933742>>51933796>>51934001Religious violence is hardly exclusive to Mesoamerica: Europe and the Islamic world obviously had plenty of holy wars, religious purges and massacres, etc.
I don't get why people think sacrifice is different, esp as victims were captured enemy soldiers, similar to victims in holy wars, and the theological rationale behind sacrifice was that it was necessary to the cosmic order and victims were actually being honored and venerated and becoming divine as part of their death, whereas nothing in Jeudo-crhsitian religious doctrine requires religious conflict.
I assume the issue is most people just aren't aware of any of the cool artistic, philsophsical, and scientific innovations Mesoamerican civilizations did, wheras people are obviously familar with that for Eurasia.
>>51934361No, sacrifice was a pan-mesoamerican practice, every civilization in the region did it. The Mexica of the Aztec capital did it the most, but we're talking them doing hundreds to a few thousand a year, vs other towns and cities probably doing a few dozen to a a few hundred. There are Aztec poems you can read which talk about how Mexica soldiers's ideal death was to get captured in wars and sacrificed in other cities, for example, because again, to be sacrificed was seen as fuffilling a cosmic duty and got you into a good afterlife.
The idea that the Mexica were hated and that's why Cortes got allies is a misconception. In reality the Aztec Empire's political system was hands off and it is because of that that it was common for subject states (which still had their own political ambitions and identitiy) to try to opportunistically seced or pledge themselves to some other state (since subject states in Mesoamerica generally got left alone, again, hands off political systems) with other states to take out their political rivals or capitals to advance politically, that's why Cortes got allies
See:
pastebin.com/VqW97h93 