The Aztecs

A captured king was sacrificed only for a holy ceremonial festival. Another aspect of Maya blood sacrifice involved ritual bloodletting. In the Popol Vuh, the first Maya king offer blood to the gods Hacavitz, Avilix and Tohil. Maya, kings and lords would pierce their flesh – generally, lips, ears or tongues – with sharp objects such as stingray spines. These offerings were made for the gods, temple consecration, the rise of a new leader and during natural disturbances such as drought and disease.

They did this because they believed that good gods could prevent bad gods from doing evil things and they also believed that good gods got their strength from human blood and hearts so they had sacrifices in order to keep their gods strong. For major rituals warriors were sacrificed, for the warrior this was one of the greatest hon... ... middle of paper ... ...eternity. The earth was thus created through fire and death; the earth mother had fallen, the moon goddess was dead, and her brothers slaughtered. And so is the story of the Aztec creation. They based their lifestyle on the examples set by the gods and goddesses in the story, thus they led violent lives.

Bloodletting is intentionally harming and drawing blood from the body. Those who were higher in status within the Aztec religion were expected to give the most blood during these Aztec rituals. The Aztec gods and goddesses, not only wanted blood, they wanted living human hearts. The living hearts were considered to nourish the gods and goddesses. All hearts were good, but the bravest captives were to be best nourishing to the gods as a result, widespread warring took place.

In their belief system, the gods would bring the rain, heal the sick, bring plentiful harvests, and ensure the health and safety of the people if they were honoured. If the gods were angry, they would send drought, famine and disaster to the people. In order to keep the gods happy, they believed that a daily sacrifice of blood was necessary. They would open a wound and let the blood drip onto a paper. The paper would then be burned in an offering to the gods.

Even ancient writers felt no pity, they were aware that gladiators had originated from these holocausts in honor of the dead. What was offered to appease the dead was counted as a funeral rite. It is called munus (a service) from being a service due. The ancients thought that by this sort of spectacle they rendered a service to the dead, after they had made it a more cultured form of cruelty. The belief was that the souls of the dead are appeased with human blood, they use to sacrifice captives or slaves of poor quality at funerals.

Slowly one by one the survivors start to die for no apparent reason. Starving, you start to eat their bodies by building a fire and roasting them as if you would roast a pig. Of course, you feel guilty, but after all, you are starving. Cannibalism can be a survival technique in extreme cases such as these. Even though cannibalism is most commonly believed to be the epitome of savage behavior (Bell), cannibalism is not always for pleasure, it can also be a way to survive because cultures all over the world practice this act as part of religion and there is no real charge for eating another human being.

The system was based on their religion and corresponded to their agricultural cycle, and feasts were celebrated with human sacrifice as an indispensable ritual. The ritual death of a human being was regarded as the culmination of any ceremony, but the extraction of the heart was the main ritual that preceded the slaying. The blood of victims was considered to be filled with the power to communicate with the supernatural world (Gonzalez Torres 1992:116). The priests in charge of these rituals sprinkled the collected blood on a sacrificial stone and the stairs of the temple pyramid. It is thought that they threw the bodies of victims from the top of the temple pyramid to sanctify the stairs with their blood.

A flood signified Apu Illapu’s anger and meant a pilgrimage with human sacrifice was necessary to appease him. Human sacrifice was not widely practices in the Incan religion as opposed to the Aztec religion where human sacrifices were the norm. Both the Incan and the Aztec believed that human sacrifice was a necessity to appease the gods. They felt there was no greater gift than giving your life to a god. Therefore, the sacrificial person as well as the god was honored.

The god Nanauatl, was volunteered to become the sun, but the gods realized soon after that one sacrifice was not enough. They came to the conclusion that it was necessary for them all to sacrifice themselves so that humans could live. The god Ehecatl lived to sacrifice the others, even which would not be enough, the Aztecs had to continue human sacrificed in order to keep the sun moving.2 Human Sacrifices appeared ironically at the same time their population gr... ... middle of paper ... ...Spaniards and sacrificed them to the gods.9 This was the only group of Europeans to witness the Aztec’s ritual of human sacrificing. Because by the sixteenth century Spain invaded the Aztecs territory for the second time and succeeded.10 The Aztec’s rituals were horrific but they were doing what they thought was necessary to survive. Many people died in honor of their religion but a valid argument is that many more could have died from starvation.

The Aztecs focused on sacrifice, and evil gods. There were only a few gods that were worshipped for their kindness, and bravery such as Quetzalcoatl. Other gods such as Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli were very different. They were worshipped for sacrifice and death, because they wanted to offer their hearts up to their gods. The Aztecs found people that they wanted to sacrifice and it started out that they sacrifice their own people, but once they found out that their own people would become extinct then they started finding other people and captured them.