Human Sacrifice in Aztec Culture - Assessment of The Practice of Human Sacrifice

Assessment of The Practice of Human Sacrifice

Human sacrifice and other forms of torture - self-inflicted or otherwise - were common to many parts of the New World. Thus the rite was nothing new to the Aztecs when they arrived to the Valley of Mexico, nor was it something unique to pre-Columbian Mexico. Other Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Tarascans and Toltecs, performed human sacrifices as well and from archaeological evidence, it probably existed since the time of the Olmecs (1200 - 400 BC.), and perhaps even throughout the early farming cultures of the region. Although the extent of human sacrifice is unknown among several Mesoamerican civilizations, such as Teotihuacán, what distinguished Maya and Aztec human sacrifice was the importance with which it was embedded in everyday life.

Diego Durán states that Aztecs made "indifferent or sarcastic remarks" when the Spaniards severely criticized the rite. In his Book of the Gods and Rites some of the Nahuas even ridiculed the Christian sensibilities. Instead, they asked the Spaniards to applaud:

The sacrifice of human beings, the honored oblation of great lords and noblemen. They remember these things and tell of them as if they had been great deeds.

Although Aztec accounts mention some victims who wept, “faltered... weakened” or “lost control of their bowels” when going to be sacrificed, this reaction does not seem to have been the norm, as when this occurred, it was viewed as a bad omen — a tetlazolmictiliztli (insult to the gods) that had to be atoned. Such victims were hurriedly taken aside and slain amidst the congregation's sarcastic jeers of “he (the victim has) quite acquitted himself as a man”. The Conquistadors Cortes and Alvarado found that some of the sacrificial victims they freed “indignantly rejected offer of release and demanded to be sacrificed”. Likewise, their slayers — the native priests — were expected to be “kind... never harms anyone” according to Sahagun's informants.

What we can glean from all this is that the sacrificial role entailed a great deal of social expectation and a certain degree of acquiescence. Sahagun's informants told him that key roles were reserved for persons who were considered “charming … quick … dances with feeling … without defects … of good understanding … good mannered”. For many rites, the victim had such a quantity of prescribed duties that it is difficult to imagine how the accompanying festival would have progressed without some degree of compliance on the part of the victim. For instance, 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. The works of Clendinnen and Brundage imply that only a few select victims had this kind of role, but the Florentine Codex and Duran both make no such distinctions, stating that “those who had to die performed many ceremonies … these rites were performed in the case of all the prisoners, each in turn”.

Sacrifices were ritualistic and symbolic acts accompanying huge feasts and festivals. Victims usually died in the "center stage" amidst 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”. For each festival, at least one or more victims took on the paraphernalia, habits and attributes of the god or goddess whom they were dying to honor or appease. 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.