Re: Anthropophagy
Carlos May (froggy@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com)
26 Dec 1994 03:32:35 GMT
Kevyn Loren Winkless (umwinkl0@cc.umanitoba.ca) wrote:
[snip]
: As for hunted meat sources in Mesoamerica, the fact is that it would have
: worked for a while for the Aztecs to hunt for their meat (in fact this is
: probably what occured in any outlying villages) but the population
: density was such around the cities that the population of game animals
: would quickly be depleted. No domestic animals, no game animals - where
: does one get unsynthesizeable amino acids? OK, plants are a source, but
: not all of them. It would not be suprising to discover that one of the
: reasons for Aztec sacrifice was for "anthropophagy"
In the cities such as Tenochtitlan where such common Mesoamerican game
animals as deer might be imported luxury, there was still meat. Turkeys
and edible dogs were rasied by households, and fish were harvested from
the lake. While most Aztecs probably didn't have large chunks of meat
with every meal, they certainly got enough meat suplimenting their mainly
grain and vegestable diet to prevent nutritional problems.
froggy@neosoft.com
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