I'm Weird.

I'm taking this class on New World literature.  Like Columbus talking about finding the "Indies," Hernan Cortes talking about how he defeated the Aztec, the Indians thinking the Spaniards were white, two-headed beasts (men on horseback), the Spaniards freaking out about human sacrifice, all of that.

When I was little, we had this condensed, illustrated encyclopedia, and if my mom made me look something up (as she was wont to do), I dreaded accidentally flipping to the "Aztec" entry.  It had a drawing taken from some codex or painting of a man with a little indention in his chest and a priest holding up a heart.  What really freaked me out was a picture right next to that of a bejeweled skull.

Now, I'm on the Indians' side.  Folks got their whole world turned upside down.  Reading all this stuff, I sympathize with the Aztec so much that I'm starting to think of human sacrifice as something awesome instead of something brutal. Not awesome, as in, this is cool, but awesome in the original sense, like, awe-inspiring.

The men who were sacrificed considered it an honor to be sacrificed.  Their bodies were being offered to the gods.  The Spanish criticized them because it seemed a disregard for human life (funny coming from them).  But in fact, they placed a very high value on human life.  So high, that human life was the only thing acceptable to sacrifice to the gods because they were offering their most valuable, their best.

Still glad my God doesn't require human blood for the world to continue, though.  Well . . . I guess He did, in a way.  He offered up Himself.