|
|
|
|
|
|
|
His chest was cut open with a flint knife, and his heart was taken out.
47 During the Tecuantepec campaign, after the conquest of Miahuatlan, prisoners were immediately sacrificed before the army marched on.48 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The cost in dead and wounded in premodern warfare depended on their armor and weapons and the way the two were wielded. Shields are normally carried on the left side in a right-handed population, and one might expect that side to be better protected as a consequence, but such is not the case. Sword wounds are predominantly on the left sideespecially the left side of the head and neck and the upper left extremity49because a right-handed slashing motion strikes the opponent's left where a right-handed defender is less able to parry blows. Staff weapons could slash equally well from either direction, but right-handed parrying also skewed these wounds to the left. And the crushing effect of swords, clubs, and staff weapons can break bones even when a blow is taken on the shield. Projectile wounds are randomly distributed over the unshielded portions of the body. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
How bad wounds are is not simply a function of their severity but also of their type. Abdominal wounds are the worst (fatal over 90 percent of the time), followed by penetrating chest wounds.50 Serious head wounds are frequently fatal, even more so in the case of projectiles than in the case of cutting weapons.51 Puncture wounds are more serious than cutting or slashing wounds and cannot be treated so effectively, since they are likelier to involve internal bleeding.52 And by Spanish accounts, thrusting swords caused most of the Indian deaths (by punctures).53 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Among the military elite, body armorshields, helmets, and ichcahuipilliprotected the most vulnerable areas, but this was not true of the unarmored commoners, which points to a heavy skewing of combat wounds and fatalities toward the lower classes and novice warriors. Moreover, their roles in combat placed the commoners at greater risk. Commoners were more likely to be wounded by projectiles, while the elites closed with the enemy to engage in hand-to-hand combat, in which projectiles played a less significant role. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Based on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century combat statistics, the ratio of dead to wounded is 1 to 4, with the killed, wounded, and |
|
|
|
|
|