Wikiwand - Human sacrifice in Aztec culture

Flower wars

According to Diego Durán's History of the Indies of New Spain (and a few other sources that are believed to be based on the Crónica X), the flower wars were a ritual among the cities of Aztec Triple Alliance and Tlaxcala, Huexotzingo and Cholula.^[14] This form of ritual was introduced probably after the mid-1450s following droughts, as famine caused many deaths in the Mexican highlands.^[14] The droughts and damage to crops were believed to be punishment by gods who felt unappreciated and improperly honored. Therefore, the flower wars provided victims for human sacrificial offerings in a highly structured and ceremonial manner.^[14]

This type of warfare differed from regular political warfare, as the flower wars were also an opportunity for combat training and as first exposure to combat for new soldiers.^[15] In addition, regular warfare included the use of long range weapons such as atlatl darts, stones, and sling shots to damage the enemy from afar.^[15] During the flower wars, warriors were expected to fight up close and exhibit their combat abilities while aiming to injure the enemy, rather than kill them.^[15] The main objective of Aztec flower warfare was to capture victims alive for later ritual execution, and offerings to the gods. Being killed in the flower wars, which was considered much more noble than dying in a regular military battle,^[15] was religiously more prestigious, as these dead were given the privilege to live in heaven with the war god, Huitzilopochtli.^[16]

Sacrifice ritual

Human sacrifice rituals were performed at the appropriate times each month or festival with the appropriate number of living bodies and other goods. These individuals were previously chosen to be sacrificed, as was the case for people embodying the gods themselves, or members of an enemy party which had been captured and prepared to be sacrificed.^[15] Even enemies of the Aztecs understood their roles as sacrifices to the gods since many also practiced the same type of religion. For many rites, the victims were expected to bless children, greet and cheer passers-by, hear people's petitions to the gods, visit people in their homes, give discourses and lead sacred songs, processions and dances.^[17]

A great deal of cosmological thought seems to have underlain each of the Aztec sacrificial rites. Most of the sacrificial rituals took more than two people to perform. In the usual procedure of the ritual, the sacrifice would be taken to the top of the temple. The sacrifice would then be laid on a stone slab, a chacmool, by four priests, and their abdomen would be sliced open by a fifth priest with a ceremonial knife made of flint. The most common form of human sacrifice was heart-extraction. The Aztec believed that the heart (tona) was both the seat of the individual and a fragment of the Sun's heat (istli). The chacmool was a very important religious tool used during sacrifices. The cut was made in the abdomen and went through the diaphragm. The priest would rip out the heart and it would then be placed in a bowl held by a statue of the honored god, and the body would then be thrown down the temple's stairs. The body would land on a terrace at the base of the pyramid called an apetlatl.

Before and during the killing, priests and audience, gathered in the plaza below, stabbed, pierced and bled themselves as auto-sacrifice. Hymns, whistles, spectacular costumed dances and percussive music marked different phases of the rite.

The body parts would then be disposed of, the viscera fed to the animals in the zoo, and the bleeding head was placed on display in the tzompantli or the skull rack. When the consumption of individuals was involved, the warrior who captured the enemy was given the meaty limbs while the most important flesh, the stomach and chest, were offerings to the gods.^[18]

Other types of human sacrifice, which paid tribute to various deities, killed the victims differently. The victim could be shot with arrows, die in gladiatorial style fighting, be sacrificed as a result of the Mesoamerican ballgame, burned, flayed after being sacrificed, or drowned.

Those individuals who were unable to complete their ritual duties were disposed of in a much less honorary matter. This "insult to the gods"^[19] needed to be atoned, therefore the sacrifice was slain while being chastised instead of revered.^[20] The conquistadors Cortés and Alvarado found that some of the sacrificial victims they freed "indignantly rejected [the] offer of release and demanded to be sacrificed".^[21]

Scope of human sacrifice in Aztec culture

Some post-conquest sources report that at the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days. This number is considered by Ross Hassig, author of Aztec Warfare, to be an exaggeration. Hassig states "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.^[15] The higher estimate would average 15 sacrifices per minute during the four-day consecration. Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple.^[22] Additionally, some historians argue that these numbers were inaccurate as most written account of Aztec sacrifices were made by Spanish sources to justify Spain's conquest.^[23] Nonetheless, according to Codex Telleriano-Remensis, old Aztecs who talked with the missionaries told about a much lower figure for the reconsecration of the temple, approximately 4,000 victims in total.

Michael Harner, in his 1977 article The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice, cited an estimate by Borah of the number of persons sacrificed in central Mexico in the 15th century as high as 250,000 per year, which may have been one percent of the population.^[24] Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl, a Mexica descendant and the author of Codex Ixtlilxochitl, estimated that one in five children of the Mexica subjects was killed annually. Victor Davis Hanson argues that a claim by Don Carlos Zumárraga of 20,000 per annum is "more plausible".^[25] Other scholars believe that, since the Aztecs often tried to intimidate their enemies, it is more likely that they could have inflated the number as a propaganda tool.^[26] The same can be said for Bernal Díaz's inflated calculations when, in a state of visual shock, he grossly miscalculated the number of skulls at one of the seven Tenochtitlan tzompantlis. The counter argument is that both the Aztecs and Diaz were very precise in the recording of the many other details of Aztec life, and inflation or propaganda would be unlikely. According to the Florentine Codex, fifty years before the conquest the Aztecs burnt the skulls of the former tzompantli. Archeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma has unearthed and studied some tzompantlis.^[27] In 2003, archaeologist Elizabeth Graham noted that the largest number of skulls yet found at a single tzompantli was only about a dozen.^[12] In 2015, Raùl Barrera Rodríguez, archeologist and director of the Urban Archaeology Program at National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), discovered a skull rack and skull towers next to the Templo Mayor complex that could have held thousands of skulls.^[8] However, as of 2020, only 603 skulls have ever been found associated with human sacrifice.^[7][28]

Every Aztec warrior would have to provide at least one prisoner for sacrifice. All the male population was trained to be warriors, but only the few who succeeded in providing captives could become full-time members of the warrior elite. Accounts also state that several young warriors could unite to capture a single prisoner, which suggests that capturing prisoners for sacrifice was challenging.^[3]

There is still much debate as to what social groups constituted the usual victims of these sacrifices. It is often assumed that all victims were 'disposable' commoners or foreigners. However, slaves – a major source of victims – were not a permanent class but rather persons from any level of Aztec society who had fallen into debt or committed some crime.^[19] Likewise, most of the earliest accounts talk of prisoners of war of diverse social status, and concur that virtually all child sacrifices were locals of noble lineage, offered by their own parents.^[29][30][19] That women and children were not excluded from potential victims is attested by a tzompantli found in 2015 at Templo Mayor in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.^[31]

It is doubtful if many victims came from far afield. In 1454, the Aztec government forbade the slaying of captives from distant lands at the capital's temples. Duran's informants told him that sacrifices were consequently 'nearly always ... friends of the [Royal] House' – meaning warriors from allied states.^[18]

Huitzilopochtli

Huitzilopochtli was the tribal deity of the Mexica and, as such, he represented the character of the Mexican people and was often identified with the sun at the zenith, and with warfare, who burned down towns and carried a fire-breathing serpent, Xiuhcoatl. He was considered the primary god of the south and a manifestation of the sun, and a counterpart of the black Tezcatlipoca, the primary god of the north, "a domain associated with Mictlan, the underworld of the dead".^[9]

Huitzilopochtli was worshipped at the Templo Mayor, which was the primary religious structure of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. The Templo Mayor consisted of twin pyramids, one for Huitzilopochtli and one for the rain god Tlaloc (discussed below).^[32]

When the Aztecs sacrificed people to Huitzilopochtli (the god with warlike aspects) the victim would be placed on a sacrificial stone.^[33] The priest would then cut through the abdomen with an obsidian or flint blade.^[34] The heart would be torn out still beating and held towards the sky in honor to the Sun-God. The body would then be pushed down the pyramid where the Coyolxauhqui stone could be found. The Coyolxauhqui Stone recreates the story of Coyolxauhqui, Huitzilopochtli's sister who was dismembered at the base of a mountain, just as the sacrificial victims were.^[35] The body would be carried away and either cremated or given to the warrior responsible for the capture of the victim. He would either cut the body in pieces and send them to important people as an offering, or use the pieces for ritual cannibalism. The warrior would thus ascend one step in the hierarchy of the Aztec social classes, a system that rewarded successful warriors.^[36]

During the festival of Panquetzaliztli, of which Huitzilopochtli was the patron, sacrificial victims were adorned in the manner of Huitzilopochtli's costume and blue body paint, before their hearts would be sacrificially removed. Representations of Huitzilopochtli called teixiptla were also worshipped, the most significant being the one at the Templo Mayor which was made of dough mixed with sacrificial blood.^[37]

Tezcatlipoca

Tezcatlipoca was generally considered the most powerful god, the god of night, sorcery and destiny (the name tezcatlipoca means "smoking mirror", or "obsidian"), and the god of the north.^[38] The Aztecs believed that Tezcatlipoca created war to provide food and drink to the gods. Tezcatlipoca was known by several epithets including "the Enemy" and "the Enemy of Both Sides", which stress his affinity for discord. He was also deemed the enemy of Quetzalcoatl, but an ally of Huitzilopochtli.^[38] Tezcatlipoca had the power to forgive sins and to relieve disease, or to release a man from the fate assigned to him by his date of birth; however, nothing in Tezcatlipoca's nature compelled him to do so. He was capricious and often brought about reversals of fortune, such as bringing drought and famine. He turned himself into Mixcoatl, the god of the hunt, to make fire. To the Aztecs, he was an all-knowing, all-seeing nearly all-powerful god. One of his names can be translated as "He Whose Slaves We Are".^[38]

Some captives were sacrificed to Tezcatlipoca in ritual gladiatorial combat. The victim was tethered in place and given a mock weapon. He died fighting against up to four fully armed jaguar knights and eagle warriors.

During the 20-day month of Toxcatl, a young impersonator of Tezcatlipoca would be sacrificed. Throughout a year, this youth would be dressed as Tezcatlipoca and treated as a living incarnation of the god. The youth would represent Tezcatlipoca on earth; he would get four beautiful women as his companions until he was killed. In the meantime he walked through the streets of Tenochtitlan playing a flute. On the day of the sacrifice, a feast would be held in Tezcatlipoca's honor. The young man would climb the pyramid, break his flute and surrender his body to the priests. Sahagún compared it to the Christian Easter.^[39]

Huehueteotl/Xiuhtecuhtli

Xiuhtecuhtli is the god of fire and heat and in many cases is considered to be an aspect of Huehueteotl, the "Old God" and another fire deity.

Both Xiuhtecuhtli and Huehueteotl were worshipped during the festival of Izcalli. For ten days preceding the festival various animals would be captured by the Aztecs, to be thrown in the hearth on the night of celebration.^[40]

To appease Huehueteotl, the fire god and a senior deity, the Aztecs had a ceremony where they prepared a large feast, at the end of which they would burn captives; before they died they would be taken from the fire and their hearts would be cut out. Motolinía and Sahagún reported that the Aztecs believed that if they did not placate Huehueteotl, a plague of fire would strike their city. The sacrifice was considered an offering to the deity.^[41]

Xiuhtecuhtli was also worshipped during the New Fire Ceremony, which occurred every 52 years, and prevented the ending of the world. During the festival priests would march to the top of the volcano Huixachtlan and when the constellation "the fire drill" (Orion's belt) rose over the mountain, a man would be sacrificed. The victim's heart would be ripped from his body and a ceremonial hearth would be lit in the hole in his chest. This flame would then be used to light all of the ceremonial fires in various temples throughout the city of Tenochtitlan.^{[42][better source needed] [citation needed]}

Tlaloc

Tlaloc is the god of rain, water, and earthly fertility.^[43] The Aztecs believed that if sacrifices were not supplied for Tlaloc, rain would not come, their crops would not flourish, and leprosy and rheumatism, diseases caused by Tlaloc, would infest the village.^[44]

Archaeologists have found the remains of at least 42 children sacrificed to Tlaloc at the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. Many of the children suffered from serious injuries before their death, they would have to have been in significant pain as Tlaloc required the tears of the young as part of the sacrifice. The priests made the children cry during their way to immolation: a good omen that Tlaloc would wet the earth in the raining season.^[45]

In the Florentine Codex, also known as General History of the Things of New Spain, Sahagún wrote:

According to the accounts of some, they assembled the children whom they slew in the first month, buying them from their mothers. And they went on killing them in all the feasts which followed, until the rains really began. And thus they slew some on the first month, named Quauitleua; and some in the second, named Tlacaxipeualiztli; and some in the third, named Tocoztontli; and others in the fourth, named Ueitocoztli; so that until the rains began in abundance, in all the feasts they sacrificed children.^[46]

Xipe Totec

Xipe Totec, known as "Our Lord the Flayed One", is the god of rebirth, agriculture, the seasons, and craftsmen.^[47]

Xipe Totec was worshipped extensively during the festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli, in which captured warriors and slaves were sacrificed in the ceremonial center of the city of Tenochtitlan. For forty days prior to their sacrifice one victim would be chosen from each ward of the city to act as teixiptla, dress and live as Xipe Totec. The victims were then taken to the Xipe Totec's temple where their hearts would be removed, their bodies dismembered, and their body parts divided up to be later eaten. Prior to death and dismemberment the victim's skin would be removed and worn by individuals who traveled throughout the city fighting battles and collecting gifts from the citizens.^[48]

Juan de Grijalva and Juan Díaz

Juan de Grijalva was one of the first Spaniards to explore Mexico and traveled on his expedition in 1518 with Juan Díaz. Diaz wrote Itinerario de Grijalva before 1520, in which he describes the aftermath of a sacrifice on an island off the coast of Veracruz. He said,

When he reached said tower the Captain asked him why such deeds were committed there and the Indian answered that it was done as a kind of sacrifice and gave to understand that the victims were beheaded on the wide stone; that the blood was poured into the vase and that the heart was taken out of the breast and burnt and offered to the said idol. The fleshy parts of the arms and legs were cut off and eaten. This was done to the enemies with whom they were at war.^[56]

Bernal Díaz

Bernal Díaz corroborates Juan Díaz's history:

On these altars were idols with evil looking bodies, and that every night five Indians had been sacrificed before them; their chests had been cut open, and their arms and thighs had been cut off. The walls were covered with blood. We stood greatly amazed and gave the island the name isleta de Sacrificios [Islet of Sacrifices].^[57]

In The Conquest of New Spain Díaz recounted that, after landing on the coast, they came across a temple dedicated to Tezcatlipoca. "That day they had sacrificed two boys, cutting open their chests and offering their blood and hearts to that accursed idol". Díaz narrates several more sacrificial descriptions on the later Cortés expedition. Arriving at Cholula, they find "cages of stout wooden bars ... full of men and boys who were being fattened for the sacrifice at which their flesh would be eaten".^[58] When the conquistadors reached Tenochtitlan, Díaz described the sacrifices at the Great Pyramid:

They strike open the wretched Indian's chest with flint knives and hastily tear out the palpitating heart which, with the blood, they present to the idols ... They cut off the arms, thighs and head, eating the arms and thighs at ceremonial banquets. The head they hang up on a beam, and the body is ... given to the beasts of prey.^[59]

According to Bernal Díaz, the chiefs of the surrounding towns, for example Cempoala, would complain on numerous occasions to Cortés about the perennial need to supply the Aztecs with victims for human sacrifice. It is clear from his description of their fear and resentment toward the Mexicas that, in their opinion, it was no honor to surrender their kinsmen to be sacrificed by them.^[60]

At the town of Cingapacigna Cortez told the chiefs that for them to become friends and brothers of the Spaniards they must end the practice of making sacrifices. According to Bernal Díaz:

Every day we saw sacrificed before us three, four or five Indians whose hearts were offered to the idols and their blood plastered on the walls, and their feet, arms and legs of the victims were cut off and eaten, just as in our country we eat beef bought from the butchers. I even believe that they sell it by retain in the tianguez as they call their markets.^[61]

On meeting a group of inhabitants from Cempoala who gave Cortés and his men food and invited them to their village:

Cortes thanked them and made much of them, and we continued our march and slept in another small town, where also many sacrifices had been made, but as many readers will be tired of hearing of the great number of Indian men and women whom we found sacrificed in all the towns and roads we passed, I shall go on with my story without saying any more about them.^[62]

Hernán Cortés and the Anonymous Conquistador

Cortés was the Spanish conquistador whose expedition to Mexico in 1519 led to the fall of the Aztecs, and led to the conquering of vast sections of Mexico on behalf of the Crown of Castile.

Cortés wrote of Aztec sacrifice on numerous occasions, one of which in his Letters, he states:

They have a most horrid and abominable custom which truly ought to be punished and which until now we have seen in no other part, and this is that, whenever they wish to ask something of the idols, in order that their plea may find more acceptance, they take many girls and boys and even adults, and in the presence of these idols they open their chests while they are still alive and take out their hearts and entrails and burn them before the idols, offering the smoke as sacrifice. Some of us have seen this, and they say it is the most terrible and frightful thing they have ever witnessed.^[63]

The Anonymous Conquistador was an unknown travel companion of Cortés who wrote Narrative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan which details Aztec sacrifices.^[64] The Anonymous Conquistador wrote,

They lead him to the temple, where they dance and carry on joyously, and the man about to be sacrificed dances and carries on like the rest. At length the man who offers the sacrifice strips him naked, and leads him at once to the stairway of the tower where is the stone idol. Here they stretch him on his back, tying the hands to the sides and fastening the legs ... Soon comes the sacrificing priest—and this is no small office among them—armed with a stone knife, which cuts like steel, and is as big as one of our large knives. He plunges the knife into the breast, opens it, and tears out the heart hot and palpitating. And this as quickly as one might cross himself. At this point the chief priest of the temple takes it, and anoints the mouth of the principal idol with the blood; then filling his hand with it he flings it towards the sun, or towards some star, if it be night. Then he anoints the mouths of all the other idols of wood and stone, and sprinkles blood on the cornice of the chapel of the principal idol. Afterwards they burn the heart, preserving the ashes as a great relic, and likewise they burn the body of the sacrifice, but these ashes are kept apart from those of the heart in a different vase.^[65]

Ecological explanation

Different anthropological or other sources have attempted to provide a possible ecological explanation of the need for human sacrifices to supplement overall Aztec diet. Harner's main argument lies within his claim that cannibalism is needed to assist the diet of the Aztecs. He claimed that very high population pressure and an emphasis on maize agriculture, without domesticated herbivores, led to a deficiency of essential amino acids amongst the Aztecs.^[3] As population increased and the amount of available game decreased, the Aztecs had to compete with other carnivorous mammals, such as dogs, to find food. Harner believes that although intensified agricultural practices provided the Aztec society a surplus of carbohydrates, they did not provide sufficient nutritional balance;^[3] for this reason, the cannibalistic consumption of sacrificed humans was needed to supply an appropriate amount of protein per individual. Harris, author of Cannibals and Kings, has propagated the claim originally proposed by Harner, that the flesh of the victims was a part of an aristocratic diet as a reward, since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins.^[69]

However, Bernard Ortiz Montellano offers a counter argument and points out the faults of Harner's sources. First off, Ortiz challenges Harner's claim of the Aztecs needing to compete with other carnivorous mammals for protein packed food. Many other types of foods were available to the Aztecs, including meat from salamanders, fowls, armadillos, and weasels.^[55] These resources were also plenty available due to their need to subsist in Lake Texcoco, the place where the Aztecs had created their home. In addition, even if no herbivores were available to eat, the nutrients needed were found in the leaves and seeds of amaranth which also provided protein.^[55] Lastly, the Aztecs had a highly structured system in which chinampas and tribute provided a surplus of materials and therefore ensured the Aztec were able to meet their caloric needs.

Ortiz's argument helps to frame and evaluate the gaps within Harner's argument. Part of the issue with Harner's reasoning for Aztec use of cannibalism was the lack of reliability of his sources. Harner recognized the numbers he used may be contradicting or conflicting with other sources, yet he continued to use these sources and claimed them as reliable. Ortiz qualifies Harner's sources as Spanish propaganda, and states the need to critique primary sources of interactions with the Aztecs.^[55] By dehumanizing and villainizing Aztec culture, the Spaniards were able to justify their own actions for conquest. Therefore, encounters with sacrificial cannibalism were said to be grossly exaggerated and Harner used the sources to aid his argument. However, it is unlikely that the Spanish conquerors would need to invent additional cannibalism to justify their actions given that human sacrifice already existed, as attested by archeological evidence.^[31][66][67] Overall, ecological factors alone are not sufficient to account for human sacrifice and, more recently, it is posited that religious beliefs have a significant effect on motivation.^[70]

Religious explanation

Sacrifices were ritualistic and symbolic acts accompanying huge feasts and festivals, and were a way to properly honor the gods. Victims usually died in the "center stage" amid the splendor of dancing troupes, percussion orchestras, elaborate costumes and decorations, carpets of flowers, crowds of thousands of commoners, and all the assembled elite. Aztec texts frequently refer to human sacrifice as neteotoquiliztli, "the desire to be regarded as a god".^[71] These members of the society became an teixiptla—that is, a god's representative, image or idol.

For each festival, at least one of the victims took on the paraphernalia, habits, and attributes of the god or goddess whom they were dying to honor or appease. Through this performance, it was said that the divinity had been given 'human form'—that the god now had an ixitli (face).^[19] Duran says such victims were 'worshipped ... as the deity'^[19] or 'as though they had been gods'.^[53] Even whilst still alive, teixiptla victims were honored, hallowed and addressed very highly.^[19] Particularly the young man who was indoctrinated for a year to submit himself to Tezcatlipoca's temple was the Aztec equivalent of a celebrity, being greatly revered and adored to the point of people "kissing the ground" when he passed by.^[72]

Posthumously, their remains were treated as actual relics of the gods which explains why victims' skulls, bones and skin were often painted, bleached, stored and displayed, or else used as ritual masks and oracles. For example, Diego Duran's informants told him that whoever wore the skin of the victim who had portrayed god Xipe (Our Lord the Flayed One) felt he was wearing a holy relic. He considered himself 'divine'.^[19]

Political explanation

Politically, human sacrifice was important in Aztec culture as a way to represent a social hierarchy between their own culture and the enemies surrounding their city. Additionally, it was a way to structure the society of the Aztec culture itself.^[73] The hierarchy of cities like Tenochtitlan were tiered with the Tlatoani (emperor) on the top, the remaining nobles (pipiltin) next who managed the land owned by the emperor. Then the warriors, the pochteca (merchants), commoners and farmers. Then the lowest level of the hierarchy consisted of slaves and indentured servants.^[74] The only way of achieving social mobility was through successful performance as a warrior. This shows how important capturing enemies for sacrifice was as it was the singular way of achieving some type of "nobility".

Within the system of organization based on hierarchy, there was also a social expectation contributing to the status of an individual at the time of their sacrifice. An individual was punished if unable to confidently address their own sacrifice, i.e. the person acted cowardly beforehand instead of brave.^[19] Then, instead of being sacrificed honorably, their lowly death paralleled their new lowly status. Where one's body traveled in the afterlife also depended on the type of death awarded to the individual. Those who died while being sacrificed or while battling in war went to the second-highest heaven, while those who died of illness were the lowest in the hierarchy.^[19] Those going through the lowest hierarchy of death were required to undergo numerous torturous trials and journeys, only to culminate in a somber underworld. Additionally, death during Flower Wars was considered much more noble than death during regular military endeavors.