I've been to Chichen Itza, where they have those big stepped pyramids. Our tour guide gleefully explained the purpose of this pyramid: They had a tradition of selecting the most beautiful young virgin girls to sacrifice to their gods. This girl would be chosen, probably raped by the "holy man", and is then dressed in white. She is walked to the top of the pyramid, where she is laid upon a slab. The "holy man" then cuts her open just below the ribs, **and proceeds to cut and tear her still beating heart from her body.** The crowd surrounding the temple cheers as the life leaves this poor girl... and then, the purpose of the steps is revealed. **They throw the now-heartless corpse of the girl down the stairs, spattering blood all the way down.** And then they throw her body into this gigantic hole in the ground. We also got to see a sort of Aztec "basketball court", with stone bleachers on either side of the field. On the wall at each end of the playing field is a stone hope, affixed like a basketball hoop rotated 90 degrees. They would play with this really heavy/hard ball, the rules: you can manipulate the ball with anything except for your hands. The goal- your team drives the ball to the other team's hoop and gets the ball through the hoop. We played a little- it is as retarded as it sounds. But here's the best part of this "sport": the winning team gets a reward. What kind of reward? **THEY GET TO BE SACRIFICED TO THEIR BARBARIAN GODS.** Makes one wonder, how hard would you be trying to win? I imagine that if a man was obviously trying not to win, they'd probably just have dismembered him on the spot. What a wonderful culture, the Aztecs and Mayans. They were engaging in all of this shit still by the time Europeans had explored most of the fucking planet. They had excellent climates to live in, plentiful food and clean water... but their culture never advanced passed the stone age until Europeans came along... check me on that- they might have been using bronze tools, but this would've been for rich people; for weapons, they would typically use a club with chips of obsidian in it, because they wanted to *capture and sacrifice* enemy warriors rather than outright kill them. Point remains- these savages were murdering virgins while Europeans were making stunning advancements in every field.