The Highest Altar: The Story of Human Sacrifice (1989)

by Patrick Tierney

This exploration of human sacrifice meanders a bit but maintains interest throughout.

 I think it should have been organized into three parts. Parts 1 and 2 are very anecdotal as author Patrick Tierney gives a first-person account of his adventures in the Andes as he investigated his subject. Part 1 is as much about mountain climbing as human sacrifice. He scaled various peaks to investigate mountain burial sites of Incan child sacrifices. In Part 2, he spends time in the company of modern-day shamans to uncover the truth behind present-day sacrifices, culminating in a lengthy interview with Maximo Coa, a man who was famed for committing many human sacrifices. Part 3 shifts gears completely. Referring to the patterns and motifs of human sacrifice and the mythology surrounding it, Tierney makes a provocative and fascinating case that sacrifices were an integral part of early, developing Christianity and that sublimation of and guilt over this fact has resulted in hundreds of years of anti-Semitism.