Sontag might have considered this evidence for Europeans as first settlers of the Americas

Others might merely proclaim that the Indians (I decline to use the racist term "Native Americans") were attuned to their environment, using renewable resources at sustainable levels.

(Aztec's) Victims had their hearts cut out or were decapitated, shot full of arrows, clawed, sliced to death, stoned, crushed, skinned, buried alive or tossed from the tops of temples.

Children were said to be frequent victims, in part because they were considered pure and unspoiled...

Pure and unspoiled? Isn't that the child molesters' shtick?Does it turn out the Aztecs were ruled by some of the sickest child molesters around? It does look like they were equal opportunity types tho: they'd do it to anyone.

``It's now a question of quantity,'' said Lopez Lujan, who thinks the Spaniards -- and Indian picture-book scribes working under their control -- exaggerated the number of sacrifice victims, claiming in one case that 80,400 people were sacrificed at a temple inauguration in 1487.

``We're not finding anywhere near that ... even if we added some zeros,'' Lopez Lujan said.

Well, at least they weren't as bad as contemporay critics claimed. Still, it sounds a bit like a theocratic government by sadistic versions of Jeff Dahmer bent on the Three Cs: Cut 'em, Cook 'em, and Consume 'em.

The above is from today's NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Human-Sacrifice.html