Human Sacrifice or Blood Libel: Accusations of the Ritual Killing of Maya Children in 1562 Yucatán

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation examines the 1562 confessions of Maya ritual murder (“Procesos contra los indios idólatras de Sotuta, . . .” “Processes against the idolatrous Indians of Sotuta, . . .”) obtained during the Idolatry Trials led by Friar Diego de Landa in colonial Yucatán. Through an analysis of their context of production, their constitutive elements, and their comparison to other European, Christian anti-Semitic tales, I argue that the confessions of Maya blasphemous crucifixion and human sacrifice are better understood as Franciscan blood libel and ritual murder propaganda against the Maya elites. As someone trained in medieval and early modern literature and cultural studies, I am interested in engaging in cross-disciplinary conversations about the evidence of Maya human sacrifice after the conquest and suggest how interdisciplinarity can be mutually enriching, particularly when dealing with the serious suggestion that the Maya sacrificed their most vulnerable (orphaned or kidnapped youth) to offend the absent friar and the church he represented.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37897.0