(urth) Human sacrifice

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/3/2011 2:02 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> Jerry Friedman: But I don't think we can say Lake Diuturna /is/
>> Lake Titicaca, or say, "At this point Severian is near a place where children were
>> ritually exposed, which tells us something about what he encountered here."
>
> Hm. I'm not so quick to dismiss. The Inca rulers of the area were, like most other
> southern Native American groups, pretty damn brutal (we see the precursor to it with
> Apu Punchau's tribe). Pia's slavery and Baldanders' human sacrifices might be
> intended as a reflection of the pre-Christian culture of the area (which continues on
> to this day? http://www.religionnewsblog.com/5970/peru-police-probe-possible-human-sacrifice
>
> (Did anyone see Apocalypto? I see it as Mel Gibson's answer to the anti-Christopher Columbus
> movement and the Sun Series may have similar intent. The hours of Mayan barbarity and cruelty
> we are drenched in is enough to make the sight of Christian conquistador ships at the end
> cause a sigh of relief in the most steadfast atheist, progressive/liberal)


I'm rereading Long Lake, and in Exodus Remora informs Mint that child 
sacrifice used to be practiced in manteions in the Whorl. So this is 
plainly a concern of Wolfe's, just as it is to Christians in general 
(Abraham). (I would guess the slang term "abram"=crazy comes from this 
practice.)