Mormon candidly records “exceedingly great slaughter.” Already vastly outnumbered, the Nephites are losing men they can’t replace. Attrition is on the side of the invaders.
And again, the enemy sacrificed Nephite women and children to idols, probably using the temples of the conquered towns. The repetition of the outrage against the sacrifice of women and children communicates that the practice is part of the invaders’ religion. They had not committed an atrocity earlier simply to frighten or infuriate the Nephites. Nor do the Lamanite/Gadiantons seem concerned about another enraged reaction. Their noncombatant prisoners are simply destined for sacrifice. These sacrifices were an integral part of their religious cosmovision, as historian Lynne Foster points out:
Despite the pain, the Maya elite carried out bloodletting rituals for a variety of purposes. They believed they could traverse cosmic boundaries in bloodletting rituals, and Maya rulers could contact deities and ancestors. The importance of these communications encouraged participation in autosacrifice and justified the capture and sacrifice of others.
Images depicting bloodletting as a critical ritual act appear with frequency in Maya sculptures, murals, and vessels; hieroglyphic texts both corroborate the importance of the ritual act and provide supplementary details about its significance. During the Classic Period, Maya of elite status performed bloodletting rituals that involved the sacrifice of high-ranking war captives as well as autosacrifice. These bloody acts fulfilled the ancient charter with the gods that obliged humans to nourish the deities with blood drawn from the human body. This obligation had been incurred because the deities, during creation, had willingly spilled their own blood atop maize in order to form human flesh.