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The Aztecs despite their many accomplishments are surely best known today for human sacrifice. Other Native Americans practiced human sacrifice, but none on the scale of the Aztecs. When Hernan Cortez and his force of Conquistadores first saw
the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán they were amazed (1519). The Aztec capital rivaled and many ways surpassed the great cities of Europe at the time. It was set in a great lake and seemed to shimmer with the gleaming white walls of imposing buildings. Easily defended causeways linked the city to the shore. The Spanish after they arrived in Tenochtitlán were horrified by the human sacrifical rituals practived by the Aztecs, although they were at first unaware of the dimensions of the practice. Some historians estimate that the Aztecs annually sacrified about 20,000 people to their gods. Aztec priests drawn from royal families took captives to the top of the great pyramids where they splayed the victims on a flat stone stone altar and cut the chests of individuals open with obsedian knives and ripped out the hearts from their living victims. The quivering bodies of the victims were then thrown down the steps of the pyramids. The still beating heart was added to the hearts on a stone altar. The Aztecs believed in the concept of 'tonalli'--animating spirit. The Aztecs believed that tonalli in humans was located in the blood and it concentrates in the heart when an individual becomes frightened. This is why the gods' hungered for human hearts. The Aztecs believed that unless the gods were placated, the world wome come to a hlt. All motion would cease, including the sun and other celestial bodies. Thus in the Aztec mind, their sacrifices were keeping the world functioning, especially the all important sun. Many historians now question the scale of the human sacrifice attribjuted to the Aztec. The historians ho report large numbers are basically relying on the Spanish accounts. And the Soanish of course had a vested in exzgerating the brutal aspects of Aztec life. There certainly bis archeologicl evidence to substabtite this practice, but not on the huge scale commonly reported. [Majora Z] It is interesting that the Spanish who were tarnished with the Black Legend spun a dark legend of their own.
The Aztecs despite their many accomplishments are surely best known today for human sacrifice. Other Meso-American civilizations includiung the Maya also practiced human sacrifice. There is archerological evidence of this. But many historians have accepted Spnish accounts that the Aztec were particularly notable for this practice. They have generlly reported that no other civilizatiom practuced human sacrifice on the scale of the Aztecs. This appaars to be accepted by arcgeoloists nd historians working ion the Aztecs. The numbers reported by the Spanisg are not a minor differences, they involved a huge diffeence between the Aztecs and other Meso-Ameruican people. The huge numbers reported by the Spaniush are increasingly being rejected by most modern reseerachers. .
When Hernan Cortez and his force of Conquistadores first saw the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán they were amazed (1519). The Aztec capital rivaled and many ways surpassed the great cities of Europe at the time. It was set in a great lake and seemed to shimmer with the gleaming white walls of imposing buildings. Easily defended causeways linked the city to the shore. The city sanutation ystem was especially impressive.
The Spanish after they arrived in Tenochtitlán were horrified by the human sacrifical rituals practived by the Aztecs, although they were at first unaware of the dimensions of the practice. Some historians estimate that the Aztecs annually sacrified about 20,000 people to their gods.
Aztec priests drawn from royal families took captives to the top of the great pyramids where they splayed the victims on a flat stone stone altar and cut the chests of individuals open with obsedian knives and ripped out the hearts from their living victims. The quivering bodies of the victims were then thrown down the steps of the pyramids. The still beating heart was added to the hearts on a stone altar. Pne author provides more detail. "The priest quickly sliced into the captive's torso and removed his still-beating heart. That sacrifice, one among thousands performed in the sacred city of Tenochtitlan, would feed the gods and ensure the continued existence of the world. Death, however, was just the start of the victim's role in the sacrificial ritual, key to the spiritual world of the Mexica people in the 14th to the 16th centuries. Priests carried the body to another ritual space, where they laid it face-up. Armed with years of practice, detailed anatomical knowledge, and obsidian blades sharper than today's surgical steel, they made an incision in the thin space between two vertebrae in the neck, expertly decapitating the body. Using their sharp blades, the priests deftly cut away the skin and muscles of the face, reducing it to a skull. Then, they carved large holes in both sides of the skull and slipped it onto a thick wooden post that held other skulls prepared in precisely the same way. The skulls were bound for Tenochtitlan's tzompantli, an enormous rack of skulls built in front of the Templo Mayor—a pyramid with two temples on top. One was dedicated to the war god, Huitzilopochtli, and the other to the rain god, Tlaloc." [Wade]
The victims of Aztec and other Meso-American human sacrifice victims were usually reoorted as warriors captured by the Aztecs in battles or tributes from vassal states in the form of humans offered up for sacrifice. This may be the reason why the Aztecs never fully the surrounding states. They needed a steady supply of ritual sacrifice victims. We are not sure thazt is the case as most of the neigboring stares were part of the Aztec Conederacy. Of course using any number of their own people for sacruifice could cause discontent or even an uprising. It was generally believes that the Aztec primarily sacrifice men, especially captured warriors. This appears to be the case, but tere were sdubstanisl numbers of wimen and even a few children sacrificed. It was known that the Aztecs has a Huey Tzompantli (tower of skulls) near the Templo Mayor. It was described Andres de Tapia, pne of Cortez's soldiers (1521). He suggested in contained as many as 0.1 million skulls, although his was largely discounted. For centuries this was basically a rumor. Arceologists working at the Templo Mayor discovered the remains of women and children are among those found at a main trophy rack of human skulls, the tzompantli that Tapia had described. They only found 650 skulls, less than 1 percent of the numbedrs described by Tapia. [Neuman] While men were the primary, there were also substantial numbers of women abd children. "Gomóz Valdás found that about 75 percent of the skulls examined so far belonged to men, most between the ages of 20 and 35—prime warrior age. But 20 percent were women, and 5 percent belonged to children. Most victims seemed to be in relatively good health before they were sacrificed. 'If they are war captives, they aren't randomly grabbing the stragglers,' Gómez Valdés says. The mix of ages and sexes also supports another Spanish claim, that many victims were slaves sold in the city's markets expressly to be sacrificed." [Wade] There is another explantion for the chilkdren, some as young as 4 years old. One archeologisy believes that they were 'ixiptlas', children who represented deities. They were treated with care and reverence in Tenochtitlan and their sacrifice would have been part of relgious festivals. [Barrera] Also interesting is that by studing iotopes in the skulls nd teeth, the INAH reserchers can tell where the victims cane from and where they were kliving before being sacrifiued. Chávez Balderas involved in this work tells us, "The results confirmed that the victims were born in various parts of Mesoamerica but had often spent significant time in Tenochtitlan before they were sacrificed. They aren't foreigners who were brought into the city and directly to the ritual. They were assimilated into the society of Tenochtitlan in some way." [Wade] Barrera Rodríguez, another resercher, there are historical accounts recording cases of captive warriors living with the families of their captors for months or years before being sacrificed. [Wade]
The Aztecs believed in the concept of 'tonalli'--animating spirit. They felt that tonalli in humans was located in the blood and it concentrates in the heart when an individual becomes frightened. This is why the gods' hungered for human hearts.
The Aztecs believed that unless the gods were placated, the world wome come to a halt. All motion would cease, including the sun and other celestial bodies. Thus in the Aztec mind, their sacrifices were keeping the world functioning, especially the all important sun. Particularly thirsty for blood was the war god, Huitzilopochtli. On the other hand, Quetzalcoatl was a kinder, gentler god. Quetzalcoatl only demanded the sacrifice of animals such as snakes and butterflies. One observer puts it into context. "Sacrifice as a practice also ties into broader cultural/religious/ethical concepts of life and death being interwined and two sides of the same coin/in a cyclical relationship. A big theme in Aztec poetry and wordview is life's inherent transience, and the Aztec creation myth likewise involves people/the world being cycilically created and remade, with the gods having to give up blood or sacrificing themselves to do so. Human sacrifice tied into those broader themes of life coming out of death. In fairness, it's not as if Sacrifice was never leveraged for political gain by them: in fact the reason the Mexica did it more then other Mesoamerican groups is thought to be because Tlacaelel, a key Mexica political figure, raised the importance/need of sacrifices of enemy soldiers to Huitzliooptchli, the patron Mexica war god, as a way to justify military expansion. But again, you see religion and religious violence leveraged for political gain in Eurasia too." [Majora Z]
Many historians now question the scale of the human sacrifice attribjuted to the Aztec. The historians who report large numbers are basically relying on the Spanish accounts. And the Soanish of course had a vested in exzgerating the brutal aspects of Aztec life. There certainly is archeologicl evidence to substabtite this practice, but not on the huge scale commonly reported. One observer addresses the question of the number of acrifucial victims. "The vast majority of sacrificial burials we've found at sites have body deposits numbering in the single, double, to triple digits at most, and most of those burials had bodies deposited in them over long periods of time, not just all at once. The one exception we've found so far that actually fits the notion that the Mexica of the Aztec captial in Tenochtitlan actually preformed mass-scale sacrifices is recent excavations of the the Tzompantli (skull rack) and the underlying towers by the city's Great Temple (the Templo Mayor). Those exacavations have found that the rack probably held around 11,700 skulls, but even THAT is talking about it's maximum extent, over what is likely many years if not decades of deposits. Exacavations have also found that for one of the two towers tied to the rack, only arpound 500-600 skulls were deposited over a 16 year time span (that time span covers 1486 to 1502, which also basically disproves the alleged incident in 1407 where it is said 80,000 people got sacrificed in 4 days: we already knew that was bogus because not even Naxi germany killed that many people that fast, but this is just further evidence of it being wrong). That being said, that's not to say the mexica were only sacrificing 500 people every 16 years: that's just one of two towers and doesn't indicate the deposition rate of the main rack itself. The rack was also probably cleared at times, skulls were moved from the rack to the towers at points, it's probable not every single skull from sacrifices made it onto either the rack or the towers, etc. But Unless you think that the entire rack was filled up every single year, which I think is insanely implasable, then you're looking at annual sacrifice totals in the hundreds to maybe the low to mid thousands a year. That's not a small amount, but it's also far less then a lot of the alleged totals you see thrown around. And from these same findings, 75 percent of the skulls were from men, most of whom were between the ages of 20 and 35, IE the age of soldiers, consistent with the idea that most victims were captured enemy combatants." [Majora Z] Various authors are insisting rhgat the numbers were nuxh lower than reported by the Spanish. [Wade] The archeological evidence certainly support that large numbers of peopole were executed, but not the huge nimbers in Sosnisg ccoiunts. One Mexucanb archeologist reports about the skull racks by the Templo Mayor, "It is known that the Great Tzompantli, the largest of the seven that were located in the sacred city of Tenochtitlan, was composed of 11 rows of posts and 30 columns and it is estimated that 11,704 skulls were exhibited there, although only 484 have been counted." These are skulls accumulated over an extended period. [Barrera]
Human sacrifice was seem at the time as as barbarbaraous. It certainly was. But it is almost always viewed in isdolation. Was it really nore baevarous than what was going on in Europoe at the time where heritics were being burned at the stake. Traitors were hung drawn and quartered. The most humane method of execution was behading, Not to mention the commonn use of refined methids of torture used not only in the Soamish Inquisition as well as by secular European rulers. At about the same time that Cortez entered Tb=nochititlán, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation leading to religious wars (16th and 17th centuries). These were bloody, destructive wars. One observer writes, The real rates 'rates of Mexica sacrifices ... aren't incomparable to deaths from religious conflicts you see in Eurasia, I don't think they're uniquely violent.' [Majora Z] This observer adds, "... the Spanish and Colonials Mexicans certainly exaggerated the amount of sacrifices the Mexica did, as well as the brutality of the cermonies (while there are some exceptions, like sacrifices to Tlaloc; generally speaking victims were well cared for, ceremonies were pretty formal and 'respectful' as much as one can be, with victims even mourned in their death, and had their remains treated well: Having people just randomly have their guts torn open and remains strewn about as people cheered on is certainly NOT how it went), but there's evidence the Mexica did it themselves: Playing up the amount of sacrifices was a way to make themselves seem more powerful, both in the sense of religious piety, and having the military power to gather so many captured soldiers." [Majora Z]
There are reports there was another reason for vthese sacrifices -- cannibalism. And after the hearts were torn from the bodies of the victims. The remains, esoprcially the limbs were cooked. There was little meat and animal fat in the Aztec diet. Thus sime soeculte that human flesh would have been consiudered a delicacy. The Aztec were an agriucultural people, but there were no livestock. And there would hve been limited gane in the hevily settled Valley of Mexico. Apparently only high dttus people were alloweed to eat the humsn remasins. Hands and thighs were reportedly especially prized. Moctezuma is said to have been especially fond of thigh served with a tomatoe and chili pepper sauce. It is not clear if this was true or all part of the effort by yjhe Spaniish to jusdtify the conquest abd the destruction of Aztec culture.
It is interesting that the Spanish who were tarnished with the Black Legend spun a dark legend of their own. The Black Legend (La leyenda negra) is the highly critical view of Spanish history (15th-17th century). It often focuses on the Cinqyest of the America and the brutal treatment of the Amer-Indian people. It also includes Spanish conduct in Europe, both domestically and in countries in tried to conquer. Much is made of the Spanish inquisition. It generally does not include the expusion of the Jews because other Europeans except the Dutch and Poles were slso highly anti-Semetic. Spain was the super-power of the age (16th-17th centuty). Wealth from the Americas helped Soain to be the major player in the Counter Reformation. They were especially active in France and the Netherlands, at the time a Spanish province. They attempted to invade Ebgkabd as well, but were turned back by the destruction of the Armada (1588). There is no dount that vthe Spanish were guilty of great brutality, allthough we find that many Spanish people deny this. The issue is if the Spanish were uniquely brutal. The English, Dutch, and French could also be brutal. A major difference id that ot was the Spanish who first found the Americas and carved out a huge empire. And it was Spain who deployed military forces to srtampo out the Refiormation. This invoilved invading France abnd the Netherlands and trying to invade England. Invading armies of course are most likely to commit atricities, especially when religion is involved. It is certinly true that the Protestants pursued anti-Spanish propandanda as a political and psychological weapon to demonize Spain and the Spanish Empire as part of the effort to combat Spain and the Counter Refornation. Spanish soures are convinced that this propaganda has influenced mainstream history, giving it an anti-Hispanic bias concerning both Spain and Latin America. The contemprry depictions can be quite lurid. How if this is true or exagerated is diffucult to tell. What is certainly true is the Protestants could also be brutal, but then again the Protestants were not invading Spain. Also true and I find Spanish authors do not like hearing is how Hispanic Amnerica has to a large extenbt failed compared to English North America.
Barera, Raúl."Gran Tzompantli de Tenochtitlan: Una lección ideológica." El Economista (November 15, 2018).
Majora Z, personal communications (July 3, 2021).
Neuman, Scott. "Aztec 'Tower Of Skulls' reveals women, children were sacrificed." NPR (July 5, 2017).
Wade, Lizzie. "Feeding the gods: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital." Science (June 21, 2018).
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