Cannibalism in pre-Columbian America
The Mexica of the Aztec period are perhaps the most widely studied of the ancient Mesoamerican peoples. While most pre-Columbian historians believe that ritual cannibalism took place in the context of human sacrifices, they do not support Harris' thesis that human flesh was ever a significant portion of the Aztec diet. Michael D. Coe states that while "it is incontrovertible that some of these victims ended up by being eaten ritually […], the practice was more like a form of communion than a cannibal feast". Documentation of Aztec cannibalism mainly dates from the period after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519-1521):
In "The Man-Eating Myth", Arens writes, "The gradual transformation of what little evidence is available for Aztec cannibalism is also an indication of the continual need to legitimize the Conquest". The following claims could have been exaggerated. Bernal Díaz's "The Conquest of New Spain" (written by 1568, published 1632) contains several accounts of cannibalism among the people the conquistadors encountered during their warring expedition to Tenochtitlan. Díaz's testimony is corroborated by other Spanish historians who wrote about the conquest. In "History of Tlaxcala" (written by 1585), Diego Muñoz Camargo (c. 1529 – 1599) states that: Accounts of the Aztec Empire as a "Cannibal Kingdom", Marvin Harris's expression, have been commonplace from Bernal Díaz to Harris, William H. Prescott and Michael Harner. Harner has accused his colleagues, especially those in Mexico, of downplaying the evidence of Aztec cannibalism. Ortiz de Montellano presents evidence that the Aztec diet was balanced and that the dietary contribution of cannibalism would not have been very effective as a reward. As recently as 2008, Mexico's National Institute of Archaeology and History (INAH) derided as a "myth" historical accounts by Jesuit missionaries reporting ritual cannibalism among the Xiximes people of northern Mexico. But in 2011, archaeologist José Luis Punzo, director of INAH, reported evidence confirming that the Xiximes did indeed practice cannibalism.
Aztec cannibalism
There is universal agreement that some Mesoamerican people practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism, but there is no scholarly consensus as to its extent.