Re: Anthropophagy
SuperNet Guest (guest@tibalt.supernet.ab.ca)
3 Jan 1995 20:34:40 -0700
Carlos May (froggy@new-orleans.NeoSoft.com) wrote:
> 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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