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The antecedents of human sacrifice in the Aztec culture
| For millennia, the practice of human sacrifice was widespread in Mesoamerican and South American cultures (during the Inca Empire). It was a theme in the Olmec religion, which thrived between 1200 BC and 400 BC. Later the Maya also made human sacrifices, but the Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale, sacrificing human victims on each of their 18 festivities, one festivity for each of their 20-day months. It is not known if the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice before they reached the Anahuac valley and started absorbing other cultures. The first human sacrifice reported by them was dedicated to Xipe Totec, a deity from the north of Mesoamerica. Aztec chronicles reported that human sacrifice began as an institution in the year "five knives", or 1484, under Tizoc. Under Tlacaelel's guidance, human sacrifice became important part of the Aztec culture, not only for religious reasons, but for political reasons as well. As Laurette Séjourné commented, human sacrifice would also put a strain in the Aztec culture. They admired the Toltec culture, and claimed to be followers of Quetzalcoatl, but the cult of Quetzalcoatl forbids human sacrifice. Also, as Séjourné points out, there were harsh penalties for those who dared to scream or faint during a human sacrifice. | |
The role of sacrifice in Mesoamerican religionSacrifice was a common theme in Mesoamerican cultures. In the legend of the "fifth sun", all the gods sacrificed themselves so humanity could live. Not all Mesoamerican sacrifices involved human sacrifice. Most cultures of Mesoamerica gave some kind of offerings to the gods. The sacrifice of animals was common, a practice for which the Aztecs bred special dogs. Objects also were sacrificed, broken and offered to their gods. The cult of Quetzalcoatl required the sacrifice of butterflies and hummingbirds. Self-sacrifice was also quite common; people would offer maguey thorns, tainted with their own blood, and Maya kings would offer blood from their tongue or their penis. Blood held a central place in Mesoamerican cultures; in one of the creation myths, Quetzalcoatl would offer blood extracted from a wound in his own penis to give life to humanity. There are several other myths in which Nahua gods offer their blood to help humanity.Common people would offer maguey thorns with their blood. They also practiced bloodletting from cuts made with obsidian knives or bone needles, on fleshy parts of the body, like earlobes, lips, tongue, chest, calves, etcetera. This was considered private and a personal act of communication with the gods. The thorns were put in a ball of straw called Zacatapayoli and put in the adoratorium. More extreme and public forms were used by the Maya. In times of problems, the Maya kings would make a wound on their tongue or on their penis, and pass a piece of rope through it. If this supreme sacrifice failed, the entire dynasty could fall. This kind of auto sacrifice, exclusive to the upper classes, was not practiced by the Aztec. The 52 year cycleThe cycle of 52 years was central to most Mesoamerican cultures. The Nahua' religious beliefs were based on a great fear that the universe would cease functioning after each cycle of 52 years if the gods were not strong enough. Every 52 years a special "new fire ceremony" was performed. All fires were extinguished, and in the middle of the night, a sacrifice was made. They then waited for dawn. If the Sun appeared, it meant that the sacrifices for this cycle had been enough. A fire was ignited on the body of the victim, and this new fire was taken to all the houses and cities. Rejoicing was general, because a new cycle of 52 years was beginning, and the end of the world had been postponed at least another 52 years. This ceremony is still practiced, but of course without human sacrifice. Ironically, the Spaniards arrived just at the end of one of these cycles, the year Ce Acatl (one reed) of their calendar, the calendaric name of the Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl. This Mesoamerican ceremony was centuries older than the Aztecs. While originally it was believed it was a matter of luck to survive, the Aztecs who thought that constant sacrifice through the 52 year cycle could postpone the end. According to Miguel León-Portilla, Tlacaelel took the original Aztec and Nahua religion, and changed it so the Aztecs took a primary role in providing of victims for sacrifice. This was in order to give the Aztecs a new sense of themselves, turning a "people without face", as they were called by others, into the people in charge of the existence of the universe, and according to this they began to call themselves, "The people of the sun".The sacrifice ritualMost of the sacrifice rituals took more than one person to perform. In the usual procedure of sacrifice, the victim would be painted with blue chalk (the color of sacrifice) and taken to the top of the great pyramid. Then the victim would be laid on a stone slab by four priests, his abdomen sliced open with a ceremonial knife (contrary to popular accounts, an obsidian knife could hardly cut through a ribcage) and his heart taken out and raised to the sun. The heart would be put in a bowl held by a statue, and the body thrown on the stairs, where it would be dragged away. Usually, the sacrifice was supposed to be voluntary—even captives were supposed to offer their life without struggle, but if faith was not enough, drugs could be used.Afterwards, the body parts would be disposed of in various ways: the viscera were used to feed the animals in the zoo, the head was cleaned and placed on display in the tzompantli, and the rest of the body was either cremated or cut into very small pieces and offered by he warrior as a gift to important people, in exchange of presents. This has been confirmed by archaeology, since the body of some of the victims indicate removal of muscles and skinning (José Luis Salinas Uribe, INAH, 2005). Not necesarilly all the skulls in the zompamtli were victims of sacrifice. During the siege of Tlatelolco. The Tlatelolcas built three more tzompamtli. Two for their own dead, and one for the Spanish (which included two horse skulls) (source: La relación anónima de Tlatelolco). Other kinds of human sacrifice, which paid tribute to various other Aztec deities, approached the victims differently. In these, the victim could be shot with arrows (in which the draining blood represented the cool rains of spring), died fighting (gladiatorial sacrifice), burned (to honor the fire god), flayed after being sacrified (to honor Xipe Totec, the flayed god), or drowned. |
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