Cannibalistic Cultural Beliefs

For the majority of our lives we are aware of the social constraints that bound us to what we can do. These bounds have been set up to protect us from the major taboos that exist in human nature. However there are people that are raised in a culture in which for example, cannibalism is so embedded within the culture they don’t hesitate at the thought of practicing it. Particularly there are those who do it with the thought of power being transferred to them as they consume the flesh of their victims. These cannibalistic cultural practices can be found throughout history, and even in more recent occurrences have continued to reappear with the same intentions of gaining power.
Small islands with isolated tribes from the outside world are often …show more content…
Relative to the sacrificial proportions of the Caribs the Aztecs numbers where astronomical. The Aztecs were considered one of the biggest sacrificial empires in human history reaching a peak of twenty thousand a year. These sacrifices were made to the many gods they worshipped. Their culture revolved around sacrifice, prisoners of wars who were brave and handsome were often dressed as gods and treated as such for a year and then sacrificed. This was done to stimulate the gods in which the gods had originally sacrificed themselves in the first sacrifice to move the sun. The cannibalism that followed the sacrifice was done with the purpose as explained by Reay Tannahill as done because it was thought that they, “...absorbed strength and life force that would enable them to maintain the successes that were necessary if the gods requirements were to continue to be met.”(p.86). The Aztecs main purpose of sacrificial cannibalism was to continue to sacrifice. It was an endless cycle and it may have been one of the causes of their downfall. As explained by Tannahill even when in combat with the Spaniards they continued to try to capture their enemies for sacrificial purposes (p.