European Influence on Indigenous Forms of Ritualised Violence and Sacrifice

Five factors decisively shaped Amerindian warfare in general and ritual violence in particular after Europeans reached the Americas in the late fifteenth century. First is the degree to which the colonisers were able to influence or effectively control the Amerindian populations and to disseminate their norms, religion and ritual practices.

Second, the introduction of European plants and animals produced entirely new ways of life, such as the mounted warrior cultures of the North American Plains, the South American Pampas and the Chaco. Thanks to the horse, the Araucanians, for example, gained military superiority over their neigbours and were able to seize more captives than before. A third factor was the massive population decline caused by epidemics of formerly unknown diseases. The common belief that almost all death was not natural but the result of human malice by enemy groups (see above) must have led to an immense increase in revenge raids. Fourth, economic motives for warfare were strengthened by the colonisers' demand for Amerindian products, such as precious metals or furs, and the spread of European goods such as metal tools and guns, which became essential to the natives very early. And fifth, colonisers' demands for Amerindian slaves resulted in many groups changing their war strategies. Male enemies were now often spared and sold. Amerindian groups who lacked products that could be exchanged with the Europeans ‘turned into slavers and made an industry of warfare'.^{^[170]}

Iroquois history aptly illustrates most of the aforementioned developments. Conflicts among neighbouring groups dramatically increased due to competition in the fur trade, pressure from the growing number of European settlers and the high mortality caused by epidemics in the course of the seventeenth century. The established pattern of engagements between large warrior groups became too risky as flint was replaced by iron or brass arrowheads, or firearms able to pierce the traditional wooden armour.

It was thus supplanted by ambushes and small-scale raiding. A series of conflicts developed with their western and northern Amerindian neighbours, which have become known as ‘beaver wars' for hunting grounds. Against this background the importance of the ritual torture and sacrifice of captives grew for the Iroquois and Huron. Thomas Abler and Michael Logan explain this as an attempt to strengthen group cohesion and gain control over their uncertain environment by increasing the number of sacrifices to honour deities.^{^[171]}

Violence among the natives increased particularly in those regions and time periods where Amerindians, just as the Iroquois, felt the Europeans' influence - by the pressure of displaced groups on their resources, by the development of a market for slaves or furs and the dependency on imported goods - but still preserved political autonomy. However, Europeans also curtailed fighting and warfare between Amerindians when this threatened their political suzerainty or economic interests, such as trade relations and the exploitation of the native workforce. In Canada, for example, the Hudson Bay Company's policy was to discourage fighting between the Cree and the Inuit. While the Spanish in Mesoamerica and the Central Andes fostered, exploited and emphasised internal rivalries, especially in the early conquest period, they suppressed internal wars and feuding among their subjects after their rule had consolidated.

The contact between Amerindians and Europeans not only led to the adoption of alien plants, goods and techniques but also involved the transfer of patterns and procedures of (ritual) violence. While Nathanial Knowles suggests that the burning of captives at the stake was probably adopted from Europeans, others doubt it. Abler, for example, argues that the techniques employed were quite different. While fire was ‘the instrument of death' among Europeans, Amerindians used it as a means of torture. The actual killing was caused by knife or hatchet.

However, the use of red-hot iron objects, such as gun barrels or axe heads, to burn the victim was clearly a post-contact invention.^{^[172]} The crucifixion of victims, reported of the Araucanians for example, was probably a post-contact phenomenon (if not merely part of Spanish propaganda). Europeans had widely adopted scalping from the Amerindians in the eighteenth-century frontier regions. However, they stripped it from its ritual context, converting it into a ‘business' to encourage raids by their native allies against common enemies. The taking of scalps and other body parts increased due to European influence because of the prizes they paid for these trophies. Amerindians sometimes solved the dilemma between commercial and ritual uses ‘by dividing a scalp in two, retaining half for home use while selling the other portion to White authorities'.^{^[173]}

Europeans often employed torture, mutilation and burning at the stake for instrumental reasons such as gaining information or punishing resistance. These extreme forms of violence were particularly prominent during the conquest and in frontier areas. In fact, the spread of the torture of captives may have been the result of European influence among indigenous groups to some extent. A Jesuit reported from the Tupi, for example: ‘They are naturally inclined to kill but they are not cruel; because ordinarily they do not torment [i.e. torture] their enemies... If they are at times cruel, it is because of the example of the Portuguese and French.'^{^[174]}

While ritual violence, including human sacrifice, survived in the open among the Amerindians, who were able to maintain their political autonomy, such practices were persecuted in the areas firmly under European control as part of the attempt to eradicate indigenous ‘superstitions' and to spread Christianity. However, native religious practices, including ritual violence, which lingered on in secrecy, often merged with Christian elements to create syncretic forms.

This resulted in nothing less than a fully fledged scandal in Yucatan in the late 1550s and early 1560s when the Spanish discovered that ‘pagan' rituals were still taking place in sacred caves, in the bush, in the houses of members of the native nobility or even in the churches. What enraged the Franciscan friars particularly was that a substantial part of the Maya nobility as well as indigenous church assistants, the most important intermediaries in the colonial relationship with its Amerindian communities, had played a key role in the execution of the rites. Idol worship included not only offerings of copal incense and maize but also the blood of human sacrifices. Christian elements had been incorporated. Children had allegedly been crucified, for example. Others had allegedly been killed inside the church by opening their chest and extracting their heart or being thrown alive into the holy cenote (natural sinkhole).^{^[175]}

In the Andean region, the Inca summer solstice celebrations of Inti Raymi were merged with the feast days of Catholic saints. The Inca ritual involved the sacrifice of animals and ritual fighting between the upper (hanan) and lower (hurin) halves of native communities, resulting in the shedding ofblood of injured or even killed participants. The ritual, probably aimed at securing a good harvest for the upcoming year, has persisted in syncretic form to the present day.

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Source: Antony Robert, Carroll Stuart, Pennock Caroline D. (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Volume 3: AD 1500-AD 1800. Cambridge University Press,2020. — 710 p.. 2020

European Influence on Indigenous Forms of Ritualised Violence and Sacrifice

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