In Mesoamerican cultures, faith was an important part of their life and death.
Mythology
- Main article: Aztec mythology.
The main deity in the Mexica religion was their sun god and war god, Huitzilopochtli. He directed the Mexicas to found a city on the site where they would see an eagle, devouring (Not all cronicles agree on what was devouring, one mention it was a precious bird, and while Father Duran indicate it was a snake, this is not mentioned in any prehispanic source) perched on a fruit bearing nopal cactus. According to legend, Huitzilpochtli had to kill his nephew, Cópil and threw his heart on the lake. But, since Cópil was his relative, Huitzilpochtli decided to honour him, and caused cactus to grow over Cópil´s heart which became a sacred place.
Legend has it that this is the site on which the Mexicas built their capital city of Tenochtitlan. Tenochtitlan was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco where modern-day Mexico City is located. This legendary vision is pictured on the Coat of Arms of Mexico.
According to their own history, when the Mexicas arrived in the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco, they were considered by the other groups as the least civilized of all. The Mexicas decided to learn, and they took all they could from other peoples, especially from the ancient Toltec (whom they seem to have partially confused with the more ancient civilization of Teotihuacan). To the Mexicas, the Toltecs were the originators of all culture; "Toltecayotl" was a synonym for culture. Mexica legends identify the Toltecs and the cult of Quetzalcoatl with the mythical city of Tollan, which they also identified with the more ancient Teotihuacan.
In the process, they adopted most of the Toltec/Nahua (chode) pantheon, but they also made significant changes in their religion. As the Mexica rose in power, they adopted the Nahua gods at equal status to their own. For instance, Tlaloc was the rain god of all the Nahuatl-speaking peoples. They put their local god Huitzilopochtli at the same level of the ancient nahual god, and also replacing the Nahua Sun god with their own. Thus duality Tlaloc/Huitzilopochtli represents the duality of water and fire, as evidenced by the twin pyramids uncovered near the Zocalo in Mexico City in the late 1970s, and it reminds us of the warrior ideals of the Aztec: the aztec glyph of war is "burning water".
Another significant Mexica deity was the earth mother goddess Tonantzin. It was her shrine in the northern section of today's Mexico City which was later transformed into the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a central icon in Mexican Catholic belief, and dances of pre-Hispanic origins are still performed there to this day. This was an incarnation of Coatlicoe, the goddess of the snake skirt and mother of Huitzilopochtli.
The Nahua concept of god is somehow different from the European concept. It would be better to call them spirits, so most scholars prefer to translate the word "teotl" as "lord" instead of "god". Those entities, mixed their attributes with others. Since they had no dogmas, their religion was constantly evolving.
Human sacrifice
- Main article: Human sacrifice in Aztec culture
Sacrifice happened all over the Aztec world. One important place where evidence of human sacrifices has been found is at Tenochititlan, an Aztec city near today’s Mexico City.
There is a story that around 1490, 20,000 prisoners were sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli, the sun god, in four days. Some articles say that this is a myth because this could never happen because it would be close to 4 people per second being sacrificed. Cortes and his men reported some gruesome stories of these sacrifices. One of these stories was of the sacrifices at the temple at Tezcatlipoca in which Cortes and his men witnessed one of these brutal sacrifices. There were even drawings of this event. Some of the gods that would have sacrifices given to them are Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, Huehueteotl, and Tlaloc.
For the reconsecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 84,400 prisoners over the course of four days. This report is hardly credible not only because it would mean almost 15 sacrifices per minute for 24 hours a day but also because the city of Tenochtitlan itself had an estimated population of only 80,000 to 120,000 in that time. The rate of 15 sacrifices a minute might have been possible if there had been a team of priests sacrificing the 84,400 but it's even less credible if we credit the report that Ahuitzotl performed the sacrifices himself.
Since the Aztecs reported the number of sacrifices themselves, it's possible they could have inflated the number as a propaganda tool to instil fear in the other Mesoamerican cultures.
The sacrifice ritual
Most of the sacrifice rituals took more than one person to perform. It took one person to do the cutting and the others to hold the victim down. Usually it would be done in front of a crowd and so people would help out in holding because they were trying to please their god. Some of the tools used in these rituals are obsidian blades that have very detailed handles.
Bloodletting
Another form of giving blood to the gods is called bloodletting. Bloodletting is done by the shaman or ruler piercing their bodies with stingray spines or obsidian blades and then collecting it on paper then burning it to get the blood to the gods. This is a spiritual ritual in which the blood letter would actually see their ancestors. This was actually a rush of endorphins because of all the blood that is lost in this ritual.
The antecedents of human sacrifice in the Aztec culture
For millennia, the practice of human sacrifice was widespread in Mesoamerican and South American cultures. 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.
The mythological basis of human sacrifice
The Aztecs' 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 to support another 52 year cycle. They believed that offering human sacrifice they could give strength to their gods (specially Huitzilopochtli, the sun god) to survive another cycle of 52 years. They are reported to have sacrificed thousands of people on special occasions. This belief is thought to have been common throughout Nahuatl people.
In Aztec mythology, the gods made humans out of maize and water. In exchange for the gods creating the Aztecs, the Aztecs give sacrifice to the gods in exchange for their sacrifice. Sacrifices also are done to appease gods that are angry with the Aztecs. The Aztecs believed that blood contains the soul of the blood donor. So when a human was sacrificed to a certain god, the god feasted on the soul of the sacrifice victim.
There were many reasons to sacrifice and there were also many gods to appease. It took a lot of bodies in order to please all of the gods which is why sometime there would have to be war in order to capture more prisoners to sacrifice. These wars were called flower wars.
Human sacrifices were so popular in the Aztec world that it was even included in the Popul Vuh which is like the Aztec bible. In the Popul Vuh, the hero twins die after losing a ball game to the lords of the death. After the hero twins die they return as entertainers who can also sacrifice people and bring them back to life and because the twins got this power after being sacrificed the lords of the death beg to be sacrificed too. After the twins sacrificed them, they left the lords dead and that is how the lords of death are defeated by the hero twins.
Huitzilopochtli
Huitzilopochtli was the sun god and the main deity in the Aztec religion. Most of the sacrifices went to him because the Aztecs believed that the sacrifices returned energy to Huitzilopochtli so he may continue the battle against the god of night. The Aztecs believed that if Huitzilopochtli didn’t get his daily sacrifice that the sun wouldn’t raise and the world would end. When the Aztecs sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli, the victim would be placed on a stone slab, then the shaman would ceremonials cut through the ribcage with an obsidian dagger. Then the heart would be then be held to the sky in honor of the sun god. Then the body would be carried away and either cremated or in some circumstances there would be a ritual of cannibalism.
Tezcatlipoca
Tezcatlipoca was the most powerful god and is the god of night, sorcery, and destiny. The Aztecs believed that he is the reason for war. One reason the Aztecs gave sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca is so that there would be peace. Another reason that they gave him sacrifice is so that their destiny would be an honorable one. Sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca were done by taking a handsome, young war prisoner would let him live a luxurious life for a year. The prisoner would also get four beautiful women as his companions until the day he was to die came. One day the Aztecs have a feast in Tezcatlipoca’s honor and then the prisoner is sacrificed on top of a pyramid.
Huehueteotl
Huehueteotl was the senior deity and also the fire god. To appease him the Aztecs would hold large feast and at the end they would burn people with their hearts taken out. If they didn’t please Huehueteotl, the Aztecs believed that a fire would strike their village. Huehueteotl prefers to have the bodies of newlyweds thrown into the altar and just before the couple died the bodies were pulled out and the hearts were cut out as a second offering to him.
Tlaloc
Tlaloc was the goddess of rain. The Aztecs believed that, if sacrifices weren’t given to Tlaloc, then the rain wouldn’t come and their crops wouldn’t grow. Another thing that was believed to happen if sacrifices weren’t given to tlaloc was that the leprosy and rheumatism, diseases believed to be caused by Tlaloc, would infest the village.
Sources of victims for human sacrifice
Not all inhabitants of Mesoamerica were candidates for human sacrifice.
The Aztec empire was created by the formation of the "Triple Alliance" which was created by Itzcoatl of Tenochtitlán, Tlacaelel and his brother Moctezuma of Tlacopán, and Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco. The Aztec eventually took over Texcoco, and Tlacopan so that they became Aztec cities. As a founding member of the alliance, Texcoco had a lot of privileges and provided the Aztec with their most cultivated citizens.
As the Aztec absorbed all the other Nahua cities, only Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo as a source for victims for sacrifice. Subsequently, the Aztec absorbed almost all the territory of Huexotzingo, leaving only Tlaxcala as a source of victims for human sacrifice.
The main victims for human sacrice had to be captive warriors of Nahuatl language. Tlaxcala was never "conquered" by the Aztecs because the Tlaxcalteca spoke the Nahuatl language. As a condition of remaining independent, the Tlaxcalteca agreed to provide victims for human sacrifice by means of the "flower wars". The high price of their freedom, paid perenially in human lives, is a major reason why the Tlaxcalteca became allies of the Spaniards.
Because the objective of Aztec warfare was to capture victims for human sacrifice, Aztec battle tactics were designed primarily to injure the enemy rather than kill him. This way, the prisoner could be killed later in a ritual sacrifice. After towns were conquered, their inhabitants were no longer were candidates for human sacrifice (unless they were offered voluntarily).
In order to acquire captives in time of peace, the Aztec resorted to a form of "ritual warfare", or flowery war. The "flowery wars" was originally a treaty made between the cities of Texcoco, Tenochtitlan, Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo. The treaty was motivated by a famine in Mesoamerica in 1450. The Aztecs believed that sacred wars were needed to end the famine. By 1455, there was again prosperity in the region, so the sacred wars (xochiyáoyotl) were continued.
Assessment of the practice of human sacrifice
In the book of the "anonymous informants" of Sahagun, an Aztec defends the practice of human sacrifice, asserting that it was not much different from the European way of waging warfare : Europeans killed the warriors in battle, Aztecs killed the warriors after the battle.
While this practice may seem barbaric by modern standards, accounts by the Tlaxcalteca, the main enemy of the Aztecs, show that at least some of them considered it an honour to be sacrificed. In one legend, the warrior Tlahuicole was freed by the Aztecs but eventually returned of his own volition to die in ritual sacrifice.
This penchant for human sacrifice proved to be the undoing of the Aztecs. Their need for a contiual supply of victims drove many neighboring cities to the side of the Spaniards.