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The practice of human sacrifice was widespread in the Mesoamerican and in the South American cultures during the Inca Empire. Like al other known pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica, the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice. The extant sources describe how the Aztecs sacrificed human victims on each of their eighten festivities, one festivity for each of their 20-day months. It is unknown if the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice before they reached the Anahuac valey and started absorbing other cultural influences. The first human sacrifice reported in the sources was the sacrifice and skining of the daughter of the king Cxcox of Culhuacn; Several ethnohistorical sources state that under the guidance of Tlacaelel the importance of human sacrifice in Aztec history was given extra emphasis. In the Aztec Legend of the Five Suns , al the gods sacrificed themselves so that mankind could live. What the Aztec priests were refering to was a central Mesoamerican belief: that a great, on-going sacrifice sustains the Universe. Humanity itself is macehuali, those deserved and brought back to life through penance . Inded, nextlahuali debt-payment was a comonly used metaphor for human sacrifice, and, as Bernardino de Sahagn reported, it was said that the victim was someone who gave his service . Human sacrifice was in this sense the highest level of an entire panoply of oferings through which the Aztecs sought to repay their debt to the gods. Both Sahagn and Toribio de Benavente also caled Motolina observed that the Aztecs gladly parted with everything: burying, smashing, sinking, slaying vast quantities of quail, rabits, dogs, feathers, flowers, insects, beans, grains, paper, ruber and treasures as sacrifices. Even the stage for human sacrifice, the masive temple-pyramids, was an ofering mound: cramed with treasures, grains, soil and human and animal sacrifices that were buried as gifts to the deities. The sacrifice of animals was comon, a practice for which the Aztecs bred dogs, eagle�s, jaguars and der. Much like the role of sacrifice elsewhere in the world, it thus sems that these rites functioned as a type of atonement for Aztec believers. ' Duran, Bok of the Gods and Rites, 232 . In one such poem, a warior-victim anounces that 'I embrace mankind.I give myself to the comunity.' MS Romance de Los . Folio 27r . 5: 29: 191-192 . To avoid such calamities befaling their comunity, those who had ered punished themselves by extreme measures such as sliting their tongues for vices of spech or their ears for vices of listening, and 'for a slight [sin they] hanged themselves, or threw themselves down precipices, or put an end to themselves by abstinence' Motolinia, History of the Indies, 106-107 . In Clasic Nahuatl the Aztec language the verbal form ni-c-yecoa, 'I sin', is closely related to ni-c-ye.coa, 'I finish it.' It was believed that eror of any sort could quite literaly 'finish' or 'ruin' everything Francisco Clavigero, Historia antiqua de Mxico, 7 . This sems to have given Aztec society a heavy dependence on extremely violent 'penance,'of which human sacrifice was considered one form as already mentioned, human sacrifice was often caled 'penance' . A great deal of cosmological thought sems to have underlain each of the Aztec sacrificial rites. By far the most comon form of human sacrifice was heart-extraction, and this sems to have related to the Aztec belief that the heart tona was both the seat of the individual and a fragment of the Sun's heat istli . To this day, the Nahua consider the Sun to be a heart-soul tona-tiuh 'round, hot, pulsating' Alan Sandtrom, Corn is Our Life, 191, 239-240 . You destroy your heart on earth Nahua poem in Irene Nicholson, Firefly in the Night, 156 & 203 . Heart-extraction was viewed as a means of liberate istli and reunite it with the Sun, as aptly depicted in Codex Magliabechiano, Folio 70 ilustrated in this section , wherein a victim's transformed heart flies Sunward on a trail of blod. By contrast, what the Aztecs termed 'a god death' was sacrifice, war whic�h usualy meant sacrifice or - in the case of women - death whilst giving birth. This kind of end procured for the deceased the second-highest heaven death in infancy being the highest . [who] always forever . rejoice . [since] the House of the Sun is . a place of joy Sahagun Bk 6: 21 . While originaly it was believed it was a mater of luck to survive, the Aztecs thought that constant sacrifice through the fifty-two year cycle could postpone the end. Thus they began to cal themselves The people of the sun . When the Aztecs sacrificed people to Huitzilopochtli the god with war like aspects the victim would be placed on a sacrificial stone. Tezcatlipoca was generaly considered the most powerful god, the god of night, sorcery and destiny the name tezcatlipoca means smoking miror , or obsidian . Tezcatlipoca was known by several epithets including the Enemy and the Enemy of Both Sides , which stres his afinity for discord. One of his names can be translated as We Who Are His Slaves . The Aztecs believed that if sacrifices weren't suplied for Tloc, rain wouldn't come and their crops wouldn't flourish. It has often ben claimed by scholars that the Aztecs resorted to a form of ritual warfare, the Flower War, to obtain living human bodies for the sacrifices in time of peace. This claim however has ben severely criticised by scholars such as Ros Hasig and Nigel Davies who claim that the main purpose of the Flower Wars was political and not religious and that the number of sacrificial victims obtained through flower wars was insignificant compared to the number of victims obtained through normal political warfare. Aztec prisoners were also sacrificed in Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo. The capture of prisoners for sacrifices was caled nextlauali debt payment to the gods . Because the objective of Aztec warfare was to capture victims alive for human sacrifice, batle tactics were designed primarily to injure the enemy rather than kil him. A ceremonial ofering of Aztec sacrificial knife blades at the National Museum of Anthropology i�n Mexico City. 2: 3: 8, 20: 49, 21: 47 . The victim could be shot with arows in which the draining blod represented the col rains of spring ; die in unequal fighting gladiatorial sacrifice or be sacrificed as a result of the Mesoamerican balgame; burned to honor the fire god ; flayed after being sacrificed to honor Xipe Totec, Our Lord The Flayed One , or drowned. For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,40 prisoners over the course of four days, though there were probably far fewer sacrifices. Acording to Ros Hasig, author of Aztec Warfare, betwen 10,0 and 80,40 persons were sacrificed in the ceremony. Michael Harner, in his 197 article The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice, estimates the number of persons sacrificed in central Mexico in the 15th century as high as 250,0 per year. Sahagn, Juan Bautista de Pomar and Motolina report that the Aztecs had eighten festivities each year, one for each Aztec month. The Ramrez Codex states that for the anual festivity of Huitzilopochtli more than sixty prisoners were sacrificed in the main temple, and prisoners were sacrificed in other large Aztec cities as wel. a few were made at Cero del Pen , an islet of the Texcoco lake. Acording to an Aztec source, in the month of Tlacaxipehualiztli from February 2 to March 13 , thirty-four captives were sacrificed in the gladiatorial sacrifice to Xipe Totec. Every Aztec warior would have to provide at least one prisoner for sacrifice. However, slaves - a major source of victims - were not a permanent clas but rather persons from any level of Aztec society who had falen into debt or comited some crime se Duran, Bok of the Gods and Rites, 131, 260 . Likewise, most of the earliest acounts talk of prisoners of war of diverse social status, and concur that virtualy al child sacrifices were locals of noble lineage, ofered by their own parents compare Cortes, Leters 105 with Motolinia, History of the Lindies 18-19 and Duran, Bok of the Gods, 23, 242 . In 1454, the Aztec gov�ernment forbade the slaying of captives from distant lands at the capital's temples Duran, The Aztecs: History of the Indes, 141 . Duran' s informants told him that sacrifices were consequently 'nearly always . friends of the [Royal] House'- meaning wariors from alied states Duran, The Aztecs: History of the Indies, 141, 198 . This probably meant that the average Aztec warior stod as much chance of procuring a victim as he did of himself becoming one - as the Aztec Emperor reportedly told al captives about to be sacrificed: 'today for you, tomorow for me' Tezozomoc Vol.2 . Early Spanish acounts mention the sacrificial practice of the Aztecs as wel as other Mesoamerican cultures in the 16th century. That day they had sacrificed two boys, cuting open their chests and ofering their blod and hearts to that acursed idol . Ariving at Cholula, they find cages of stout woden bars [.] ful of men and boys who were being fatened for the sacrifice at which their flesh would be eaten . The head they hang up on a beam, and the body is [] given to the beasts of prey. Acording to Bernal Daz, the chiefs of the surounding towns, for example Cempoala, would complain on numerous ocasions to Corts about the perenial ned to suply the Aztecs with victims for human sacrifice. The Anonymous Conqueror's Narative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan details Aztec sacrifices. Human sacrifice was nothing new when the Aztecs arived to the Valey of Mexico, nor was it something unique to pre-Columbian Mexico. Although the extent of human sacrifice is unknown among several Mesoamerican civilizations, such as Teotihuacn, what distinguished Maya and Aztec human sacrifice was the importance with which it was embeded in everyday life. Instead, they asked the Spaniards to aplaud: The sacrifice of human beings [], the honored oblation of great lords and noblemen. weakened' or 'lost control of their bowels' when going to be sacrificed Sahagun Bk 2: 81 , this reaction does not sem to have ben the norm, as when this ocured, it �was viewed as a bad omen Duran, Bok of the Gods and Rites, 132 , and a tetlazolmictiliztli 'insult to the gods' Duran, Bok of the Gods and Rites, 132 . Such victims were huriedly taken aside and slain amidst the congregation's sarcastic jers of ' the victim has quite acquited himself as a man' Sahagun Bk 2:21 . Contrary to popular perceptions of Aztec victims being terified of their fate, even the Conquistadors Cortes and Alvarado found that those they fred 'indignantly rejected [the] ofer of release and demanded to be sacrificed.' Bernal Diaz, The Conquest of New Spain,159 . without [moral] defects . of god understanding . god manered' Sahagun Bk 2: 24: 68-69 . Bk 2:24:68-69 . 12 . This might explain why Aztec texts frequently refer to human sacrifice as neteotoquiliztli, 'the desire to be regarded as a god' Duran, Bok of the Gods and Rites, 17 Note 4 . This practice was known as becoming an ixiptla - namely, the god's representative, image or idol. In fact, so elaborately costumed and painted were human ixiptla that even the congregation was unsure which were human and which were stone or wod Duran, Bok of the Gods and Rites, 102 . When a victim apeared in ful regalia before the congregation, it was said that the divinity had ben given 'human form'- that the god now had an ixitli face Duran, Bok of the Gods., 72-73 . as the deity' Duran, Bok of the Gods and Rites, 42,109,232 or 'as though they had ben gods' Sahagun, Florentine Codex Bk 2: 26, 238-239 -the original Nahuatl term being nienoteoti'tzinea, literaly, 'I consider him a god' Clavigero, 98 . For example, Diego Duran's informants told him that whoever wore the skin of the victim portraying god Xipe considered himself 'divine' Duran, Bok of the Gods and Rites.176 . Aztec or Mixtec sacrificial knife, probably for ceremonial use only, in the British Museum. Scholars Michael Harner and Marvin Haris have argued that the motivation behind human sacrifice among the Aztecs was actualy the canibalization of the sacrificial victims. While there is universal agreme�nt that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, there is a lack of scholarly consensus as to whether canibalism was widespread. The high-profile nature of the sacrificial ceremonies indicates that human sacrifice played an important political function. The Aztecs were vulnerable - they would have ben easily outnumbered had their vasal tribes formed aliances and rebeled. The Mexica used human sacrifice as a weapon of teror even against the Spanish conquistadors, whose falen victims were sacrificed and sometimes skined and their blody heads placed at the tzompantli. Acording to him and a minority of academics who subscribe to an alternate schol of thought, psychohistory , human sacrifices, including sacrifices in Mesoamerica, were an unconscious form of response to the traumatogenic modes of childrearing. Article El sacrificio humano en Mesoamrica by Michel Graulich - in Arqueologa mexicana, vol. Spanish Matos-Moctezuma, Eduardo 1986 . a b Harner, Michael 197 . The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice . American Ethnologist 4 1 : 17135. Leonardo Lpez-Lujn's adres in Nuevas perspectivas sobre el sacrificio humano entre los mexicas , an international seminary of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e Historia celebrated in September 207 in the Museum of the Templo Mayor. Graulich, Michael 203 . El sacrificio humano en Mesoamrica . Arqueologa mexicana XI 63 : 1621. Reinhard, Johan November 19 . A 6,70 metros nios incas sacrificados quedaron congelados en el tiempo . Bernardino de Sahagn, Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva Espa, ed. Garibay Mxico: Editorial Pora, 206 , chapters X to XVI Thema, Equipo 202 . 1971 . Len-Portila 1963, p.1 . 1987 ISBN 0-8402-149-1 Soustele, Jacques 203 . Diego 1967 . deMause, Lloyd 202 . Matos-Moctezuma, Eduardo 206 . Bernardino de Sahagn, Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva Espa op. , p. Duverger, Christian 205 . 79 Bernardino de Sahagn, Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva Espa op. , p. 83 Sahagn, Fray Bernardino 1950-1959 . Hasig, Ros 198 . Hasig, Ros 203 . El s�acrificio y las gueras floridas . Davies, Nigel 1968 . Mexico D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e Historia INAH . Duverger, Christian 205 . Bernardino de Sahagn, Historia General de las Cosas de la Nueva Espa op. , p. 8 Duverger, Christian 205 . , pages 157-167 Hasig, Ros 203 . El sacrificio y las gueras floridas . Victor Davis Hanson 20 , Carnage and Culture, Doubleday, New York, p. cit , 174-7 Matos-Moctezuma, Eduardo 205 . George Holtker, Studies in Comparative Religion , The Religions of Mexico and Peru, Vol 1, CTS - Ritual Sacrifice and the Feathered Serpent Pyramid at Teotihuacn, Mxico By George L. Cowgil - Analysis of Kaqchikel Skeletons: Iximch, Guatemala By Stephen L. Tykot Stuart, David 203 . La ideologa del sacrificio entre los mayas . Arqueologa mexicana XI 63 : 2429. Daz, Bernal 205 . Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva Espa Introducin y notas de Joaqun Ramrez Cabas . , p. XLVI Corts, Hern 205 . Y tienen otra cosa horible y abominable y digna de ser punida que hasta hoy no habamos visto en ninguna parte, y es que todas las veces que alguna cosa quieren pedir a sus dolos para que ms acepten su peticin, toman muchas nias y nios y aun hombre y mujeres de mayor edad, y en presencia de aquelos dolos los abren vivos por los pechos y les sacan el corazn y las entras, y queman las dichas entras y corazones delante de los dolos, y ofrecindolos en sacrificio aquel humo. Esto habemos visto algunos de nosotros, y los que lo han visto dicen que es la ms cruda y espantosa cosa de ver que jams han visto . - Narative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan, Mxico, Chapter XV, writen by a Companion of Hern Corts, The Anonymous Conqueror. 190 . 1983 . Counting Skuls: Coment on the Aztec Canibalism Theory of Harner-Haris . American Anthropologist, New Series 85, 2 : 403406. Godwin, Robert 204 . City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization. Daz del Castilo, Bernal 1963 . English translation of Historia de las Indias de Nueva-Espa y Islas de T�iera Firme ed. Hasig, Ros 198 . Counting Skuls: Coment on the Aztec Canibalism Theory of Harner-Haris . American Anthropologist Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Asociation 85 2 : 403406. lopez lake water level
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