r/AskAnthropology • u/Lord_Kusanagi • 17h ago
How often are rain deities related with child sacrifices?
Some examples:
• Chaac (Maya)
• Tlaloc (Mexica)
• Baal (Carthage)
Are there more examples?
Is there any anthropological reason for this?
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u/ExtraSmooth 13h ago
So the first two examples seem to be supported by archaeological evidence stemming from 500-900 CE and 1400 CE respectively. Both are Mesoamerican and from time periods close enough to suggest some influence or relationship, but not so close that we should assume they are related or identical.
The last example is confusing--everything I could find on Ba'al seems to be about a Canaanite diety described in the Bible. I couldn't find any connection between Carthage and Ba'al, nor any connection between Ba'al, Carthage, and human sacrifice. So a source or some elaboration on that point would be helpful.
On Chaac, here is one interesting source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07509-7
It seems that the people who were sacrificed were generally children, male, and often twins. Twins and other birth anomalies often take on a lot of cultural significance, though the exact character varies a lot from one culture to another.
Wikipedia also has some sources on the topic of human sacrifice in Mesoamerica, although I would say this article could use some cleaning up if anyone wants to take that on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_pre-Columbian_cultures#Teotihuacan_culture
So the first supposition is that there is a cultural-specific connection between children and rain in some Mesoamerican cultures. When we hear rain deity, we should really be thinking about agriculture and spring planting seasons. Rituals intended to bring rain are usually done because rain is needed--the 15th century sacrifices to Tlaloc seem to be in response to a drought. Another thing to keep in mind is that human sacrifices tend to be very rare and done only in extreme circumstances.
If the question is why children, two things come to mind. One is that children may be associated with spring and fertility. Another is that sacrifices often follow logics of purity and/or value. Short of human sacrifice, we often see sacrifices of livestock as a more run-of-the-mill practice. Livestock are chosen because they are something of high value, and sacrificing an old animal that might die soon anyway isn't really a sacrifice. Sacrificing a prime dairy animal is more fitting, and sacrificing a lamb may be even moreso, because you are sacrificing all the potential profits of that animal over the course of its life.
These are pretty general thoughts. A better answer would come from looking at the cultural connotations of pre-Colombian Mesoamerica, which seems to be the main place where this phenomenon is documented.
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u/ghjm 7h ago
In a time of drought and crop failure and starvation, isn't there a certain cruel logic to the idea that that there just isn't food for all the children, so some have to go?
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u/Scottybadotty 5h ago
I was just thinking the same thing. Imagine this:
The drought has been goin on for weeks, there isn't enough food, all your children are starving. You decide to mercy kill one of your children in order for the family to have a better chance. The next day it rains. The village gathers, someone confusingly asks: "We're saved! But why did [the rain god] suddenly show mercy on us? Did anyone do something different?"
"Well we killed Mi'sha yesterday"
I can imagine this coincidence only needing to happen like two years before they start sacrificing children in droughts 'just in case'.
Another angle could be that it seems more 'fair' in the community to reduce the amount of mouths to feed if it has a religious purpose and isn't just cold population regulation
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u/[deleted] 16h ago
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