Matt Walsh

In some cases, violence was small-scale, but even if most battles may have had a small number of casualties, almost every male was participating.

In one small-scale Eskimo community in Northern Canada,

Every single male had killed someone at some point.

Among prehistoric Illinois villagers, archaeological evidence suggests that the homicide rate would have been 70 times that of the US in 1980.

So it turns out that bloodshed in Chicago is, in fact, an ancient phenomenon.

So just how savage were the Indians?

We'll get into specific details of some of these raids, but for now we can focus on perhaps the most gruesome detail of all, evidence of cannibalism among American Indian tribes.

According to Keeley's book, War Before Civilization, at 25 sites in the American Southwest, anthropologists have discovered cannibalized human remains dated from roughly the year 900 to 1300, hundreds of years before Columbus arrived.

We know they were consumed because the assemblages of disarticulated bones share a number of features.

Butchering cut marks, skulls broken, long bones smashed for marrow extraction, bones burned or otherwise cooked, and disposal with other kitchen refuse.

One Colombian chief, quote, consumed the bodies of 100 enemies in a single day following a victory.

In another chiefdom, war captives were kept in special enclosures and fattened before consumption.

Many of these groups smoked or otherwise preserved human meat to be eaten later.

The Ansermo tribe in Colombia used human body fat as lamp fuel in their gold mines.

Many groups in the Americas ate the hearts of slain enemies to absorb the latter's courage or to achieve an extended form of revenge.

As recently as the 1800s, American soldiers and Texas Rangers were witnesses to cannibalism.

The Takawa tribe in Texas, which allied with the US Army in its mission to take on the brutal Comanche tribe, often ate their victims.

One white captive named Herman Lehman, who lived with the Comanches and eventually became a Comanche warrior, wrote about his experiences in a book titled Nine Years Among Indians.

The Comanche had been locked in a genocidal war with the Tonkawas for decades.

And by the time Lehman encountered them, they were, in his words, nearly exterminated.