Aztec Mesoamerican Sacrifice

“Motecuhzoma and Cihuacoatl began to sacrifice them, slicing open their chest and extracting their hearts. First, they raised the hearts to the sun.” The beginning of a typical Aztec Mesoamerican sacrifice was executed. In Aztec Mesoamerican culture sacrifice was performed approximately nine times a year. Each sacrifice took under 20 seconds and each ceremony took about 2,300 lives an estimated total of over 20,000 lives a year. Historians should punctuate the importance of human sacrifice because it was a major part of all aspects of Aztec society and life.

Sacrifice wasn't shined under that same light we shine it under today. Document E shows an excerpt, from a young 17 year old Aztec male whom experienced a ceremony. The people were quite

Document D agitates how the ceremony always took place on a sacred temple, and after they avulsed the heart and rose the heart to the sun they threw the hearts into a shrine before the Gods. Then the rolled the bodies down the the temple stairway.

An Additional reason as to why Historians should dramatize Human sacrifice over agriculture is because it had to do with the expansion of territory. Document A shows a map and how the expansion led to more sacrifice because the more territory the had the more people the more people the more people they have to sacrifice and give to the Gods, so it benefited the circumstance. Some people may say that we should emphasize agriculture when looking at Aztec society because they made chinampas, and used slash and burn farming to fertile the land and they had may food they they ate. But in reality Human sacrifice is more important because they did it for agriculture so they conducted each other. They assumed that without sacrifice the crops wouldn't be okay. So this all revolved around human sacrifice, human sacrifice for