Moroni quotes Mormon as making a gruesome statement in Moroni 9. Mormon says that after the Nephites had raped and tortured the young Lamanite girls they had taken as prisoners, "they did murder them in a most cruel manner, torturing their bodies even unto death; and after they had done this, they devour their flesh like unto wild beasts" (Moroni 9:9-10). According to John Sorenson, among the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish conquest, "ceremonial cannibalism was sometimes practiced in the belief that the eater could absorb the virtues of the eaten." For late Teotihuacan times (around A.D. 600), excavation has revealed clear evidence of human sacrifice, with a meal made of the victims. Sanders has reported earlier data on the same practice from a site near Teotihuacan dating between A.D. 450 and 550. If Teotihuacan culture elements were as deeply involved in the life of the Guatemalan Lamanites as it appears, these despicable rites are not surprising among the Lamanites. [John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, p. 346]
Moroni 9:9-10 They devour their flesh like unto wild beasts (Cannibalism) [[Illustration]]: The Aztecs carried the earlier, occasional rituals of human sacrifice and cannibalism to levels of depravity never equaled. [John L. Sorenson, Images of Ancient America, p. 212]