Throwback: Human Sacrifice!

It was the season of Tonalco, the time for sacred warfare.

The Mexica warriors had marched far from their capital city of Mexico Tenochtitlan, driven by a cause that they considered sacred.

Deep in unfamiliar lands, they eventually arrived upon a fortified Purépecha city.

Surrender, the Mexica war captain called out.

But the Purépecha are a proud people, and surrender simply wasn't on the table.

The siege dragged on for weeks.

The defenders resisted fiercely, but they had become weakened and exhausted.

And finally, after much deliberation, they yielded under the promise that their lives would be spared.

But when the victorious Mexica forces entered the city, all hell broke loose.

The streets erupted with violence.

The city's inhabitants, men, women, and children, were cut down in great numbers, literally butchered where they stood, killed in the name of the Mexica god.

The city, expected to be rich in food and tribute, offered little, and hunger set in quickly among the exhausted victors.

And that's when things got even worse for the Purépecha.

In a calculated act of humiliation and psychological terror, the Mexica warriors began to consume the bodies of their dead enemies.

Flesh was ritualistically stripped away, cooked, and even put on public display, an act meant to strike terror into the hearts of the surviving Purépecha.

And it worked.

The wholesale slaughter and cannibalism sent shockwaves beyond the city's walls.

Nearby communities, hearing of what had happened, soon feared these warriors as something more than human.

They were merciless and capable of horrors beyond imagination.

Eventually, the Mexica's holy military campaign continued, but the memory of that siege lingered across much of Anahuac.

Oh, wait, hold on.

I'm sorry.

That actually wasn't a story about the Mexica or the Purépecha.

No, dear listeners, the historical event I just told you about is actually the true story of the siege of Ma'ara, where European Christian crusaders besieged a Syrian city and, according to multiple contemporary accounts, carried out acts of mass slaughter and cannibalism against their Muslim enemies.

Sanctified Christian slaughter.