Rise of Nations/Nations/Aztecs

Aztecs-The Power of Sacrifice

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Aztecs; a short history:

Aztec culture is generally grouped with the cultural complex known as the nahuas, because of the common language they shared. According to legend, the various groups who were to become the Aztecs arrived from the north into the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco. The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear – it is the heart of modern Mexico City – but little can be known with certainty about the origin of the Aztec.

In the legend, the ancestors of the Aztec came from a place in the north called Aztlán, the last of seven nahuatlacas (Nahuatl-speaking tribes, from tlaca=man) to make the journey southward. The Aztec were said to be guided by their god Huitzilopochtli, meaning "Left-handed Hummingbird". When they arrived at an island in the lake, they saw an eagle eating a snake while perched on a nopal cactus, a vision that fulfilled a prophecy telling them that they should found their new home on that spot. The Aztec built their city of Tenochtitlan on that site, building a great artificial island, which today is in the center of Mexico City. This legendary vision is pictured on the Mexican flag.

According to legend, when the Aztec arrived in the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco, they were considered by the other groups as the least civilized of all, but the Aztec 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 Aztec, the Toltecs were the originators of all culture; "Toltecayotl" was a synonym for culture. Aztec legends identify the Toltecs and the cult of Quetzalcoatl with the mythical city of Tollan, which they also seem to have identified with the more ancient Teotihuacan.

Because the Aztec adopted and combined several traditions with their own earlier traditions, they had several creation myths; one of these describes four great ages preceding the present world, each of which ended in a catastrophe. Our age – Nahui-Ollin, the fifth age, or fifth creation – escaped destruction due to the sacrifice of a god (Nanahuatl, "full of sores", the smallest and humblest of the gods) who was transformed into the Sun. This myth is associated with the ancient city of Teotihuacan, which was already abandoned and destroyed when the Aztec arrived. Another myth describes the earth as a creation of the twin gods Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl. Tezcatlipoca lost his foot in the process of creating the world and all representations of these gods show him without a foot and with a bone exposed. Quetzalcoatl is also called "White Tezcatlipoca".

Rise of the Aztecs

An Aztec Sun Calendar

Aztec calendar stone There were twelve rulers or tlatoani of Tenochtitlan:

Legendary Founder: Tenoch 1375: Acamapichtli 1395: Huitzilihuitl 1417: Chimalpopoca 1427: Itzcoatl 1440: Moctezuma I (or Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina) 1469: Axayacatl 1481: Tizoc 1486: Auitzotl 1502: Moctezuma II (or Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, the famous "Montezuma", a.k.a. Motecuhzoma II) 1520: Cuitlahuac 1521: Cuauhtemoc After the fall of Tula, in the 12th century, in the valley of Mexico and surroundings, there were several city states of Nahua-speaking people: Cholula, Huexotzingo, Tlaxcala, Atzcapotzalco, Chalco, Culhuacan, Xochimilco, Tlacopan, etc. No single one of them was powerful enough to dominate other cities, and they were somewhat united by a common Toltec background. Aztec chronicles describe this time as a golden age, when music was established, people learned arts and crafts from surviving Toltecs, and rulers held poetry contests in place of wars.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, around the Lake Texcoco in the Anahuac Valley, the most powerful of these city states were Culhuacan to the south, and Azcapotzalco to the west. Between them, they controlled the whole Lake Texcoco area.

As a result, when the Mexica arrived to the Anahuac valley as a semi-nomadic tribe, they had nowhere to go. They settled temporarily in Chapultepec, but this was under the rule of Azcapotzalco, the city of the "Tepaneca", and they were soon expelled. They then went to the area dominated by Culhuacan and, in 1299, the ruler Cocoxtli gave them permission to settle in the empty barrens of Tizapan. They assimilated to Culhuacan culture: they took and married Culhuacan women, so that those women could teach their children. In 1323, they asked the new ruler of Culhuacan, Achicometl, for his daughter, in order to make her the goddess Yaocihuatl. The Mexica sacrificed her. The people of Culhuacan were horrified and expelled the Mexica. Forced to flee, in 1325 they went to a small islet in the center of the lake where they began to build their city "Mexico - Tenochtitlan", eventually creating a large artificial island. After a time, they elected their first tlatoani, Acamapichtli, following customs learned from the Culhuacan. Another Mexica group settled on the north shore: this would become the city of Tlatelolco. Originally, this was an independent Mexica kingdom, but eventually it merged with the islet.

During this period, the islet was under the jurisdiction of Azcapotzalco, and the Mexica had to pay heavy tributes to stay there.

Initially, the Mexica hired themselves out as mercenaries in wars between Nahuas, breaking the balance of power between city states. Eventually they gained enough glory to receive royal marriages. Mexica rulers Acamapichtli, Huitzilihuitl and Chimalpopoca were, in 1372–1427, vassals of Tezozomoc, a lord of the Tepanec nahua.

When Tezozomoc died, his son Maxtla assassinated Chimalpopoca, whose uncle Itzcoatl allied with the ex-ruler of Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl, and besieged Maxtla's capital Azcapotzalco. Maxtla surrendered after 100 days and went into exile. Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan formed a "Triple Alliance" that came to dominate the Valley of Mexico, and then extended its power beyond. Tenochtitlan gradually became the dominant power in the alliance.

Itzcoatl's nephew Motecuhzoma I inherited the throne in 1449 and expanded the realm. His son Axayacatl (1469) surrounding kingdom of Tlatelolco. His sister was married to the tlatoani of Tlatelolco, but, as a pretext for war, he declared that she was mistreated. He went on to conquer Matlazinca and the cities of Tollocan, Ocuillan, and Mallinalco. He was defeated by the Tarascans in Tzintzuntzan (the first great defeat the Aztecs had ever suffered), but recovered and took control of the Huasteca region, conquering the Mixtecs and Zapotecs.

In 1481 Axayacatl's son Tizoc ruled briefly, but he was considered weak, so he was replaced (possibly through assassination by poisoning) by his younger brother Ahuitzol who had reorganized the army. The empire was at its largest during his reign. His successor was Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (better known as Moctezuma II), who was tlatoani when the Spaniards arrived in 1519.

The Empire

Map of Aztec expansion.

The Aztec Empire is not completely analogous to the empires of European history. Like most European empires, it was ethnically very diverse, but unlike most European empires, it was more a system of tribute than a single system of government. Arnold Toynbee in War and Civilization analogizes it to the Assyrian Empire in this respect.

Although cities under Aztec rule seem to have paid heavy tributes, excavations in the Aztec-ruled provinces show a steady increase in the welfare of common people after they were conquered. This probably was due to an increase of trade, thanks to better roads and communications, and the tributes were extracted from a broad base. Only the upper classes seem to have suffered economically, and only at first. There appears to have been trade even in things that could be produced locally: love of novelty may have been a factor. There was even trade with cities considered enemies. The Purepechas, the only people who defeated the Aztecs, were the main source of copper axes. The main contribution of the Aztec rule was a system of communications between the conquered cities. In Mesoamerica, they had no animals for transport, nor wheeled vehicles, so the roads were designed for travel on foot. Usually these roads were part of the tributes, and travelers had places to rest, eat, and even latrines at regular intervals, every 10 or 15 km. They were constantly watched, so even women could travel alone. Also, couriers (Paynani) were constantly traveling along those ways, keeping the Aztecs informed of events.

The Aztec empire produced the biggest demographic explosion in Mesoamerica: the population grew from an estimated 10 million to 15 million.

The most important official of Tenochtitlan government was often called The Aztec Emperor. The Nahuatl title, Huey Tlatoani (plural huey tlatoque), translates roughly as "Great Speaker"; the tlatoque ("speakers") were an upper class. This office gradually took on more power with the rise of Tenochtitlan. By the time of Auitzotl "Emperor" is an appropriate analogy, although as in the Holy Roman Empire, the title was not hereditary.

Most of the Aztec empire was forged by one man, Tlacaelel (Nahuatl for "manly heart"), who lived from 1397 to 1487. Although he was offered the opportunity to be tlatoani, he preferred to stay behind the throne. Nephew of Tlatoani Itzcoatl, and brother of Chimalpopoca and Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, his title was "Cihuacoatl" (in honor of the goddess, roughly equivalent to "counselor"), but as reported in the Ramírez Codex, "what Tlacaellel ordered, was as soon done". He gave the Aztec government a new structure, he ordered the burning of most Aztec books (his explanation being that they were full of lies) and he rewrote their history. In addition, Tlacaelel reformed Aztec religion, by putting the tribal god Huitzilopochtli at the same level as the old Nahua gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca, and Quetzalcoatl. Tlacaelel thus created a common awareness of history for the Aztecs. He also created the institution of ritual war (the flowery wars) as a way to have trained warriors, and created the necessity of constant sacrifices to keep the Sun moving. Some writers believe upper classes were aware of this forgery, which would explain the later actions of Moctezuma when he met Hernán Cortés (a.k.a. Cortez). But eventually this institution helped to cause the fall of the Aztec empire. The people of Tlaxcala were spared conquest, at the price of participating in the flower wars. When Cortés came to know this, he approached them and they became his allies. The Tlaxcaltecas provided thousands of men to support the few hundred Spaniards. The Aztec strategy of war was based on the capture of prisoners by individual warriors, not on working as a group to kill the enemy in battle. By the time the Aztecs came to recognize what warfare meant in European terms, it was too late.

The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521, when after long battle and a long siege where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox, Cuauhtémoc surrendered to Hernán Cortés (a.k.a. "Cortez"). Cortés, with his up to 500 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala, and eventually from Texcoco, who were resisting Aztec rule. He defeated Tenochtitlan's forces on August 13, 1521.

Aztec society

Class structure The society traditionally was divided into two social classes; the macehualli (people) or peasantry and the pilli or nobility. Nobility was not originally hereditary, although the sons of pillis had access to better resources and education, so it was easier for them to become pillis. Eventually, this class system took on the aspects of a hereditary system. The Aztec military had an equivalent to military service with a core of professional warriors. An Aztec became a pilli through his abilities in war. Only those that had taken prisoners could become full-time warriors, and eventually the honors and spoils of war would make them pillis. Once an Aztec warrior had captured 4 or 5 captives, he would be called tequiua and could attain a rank of Eagle or Jaguar knight, sometimes translated as "captain", eventually he could reach the rank of tlacateccatl or tlachochcalli. To be elected as tlatoani, one was required to have taken about 17 captives in war. When Aztec boys attained adult age, they stopped cutting their hair until they took their first captive; sometimes two or three youths united to get their first captive; then they would be called iyac. If after certain time, usually three combats, they could not gain a captive, they became macehualli; it was shameful to be a warrior with long hair, indicating lack of captives; one would prefer to be a macehualli.

The abundance of tributes led to the emergence and rise of a third class that was not part of the traditional Aztec society: pochtecas or traders. Their activities were not only commercial: they also were an effective intelligence gathering force. They were scorned by the warriors, who nonetheless sent to them their spoils of war in exchange for blankets, feathers, slaves, and other presents.

In the later days of the empire, the concept of macehualli also had changed. Eduardo Noguera (Annals of Anthropology, UNAM, Vol. xi, 1974, p. 56) estimates only 20% of the population was dedicated to agriculture and food production. The chinampa system of food production was very efficient; it could provide food for about 190,000 people. Also, a significant amount of food was obtained by trade and tribute. The Aztec were not only conquering warriors, but also skilled artisans and aggresive traders. Eventually, most of the macehuallis were dedicated to arts and crafts and their works were an important source of income for the city (Sanders, William T., Settlement Patterns in Central Mexico. Handbook of Middle American Indians, 1971, vol. 3, p. 3-44).

Excavations of some cities under Aztec rule show that a sizeable number of luxury items were produced in Tenochtitlan. More excavations are needed to show if this was true in other Aztec provinces, but if trade was as important as it seems, this could explain the rise of the Pochteca as a powerful class.

Slavery

Slaves or tlacotin (distinct from war captives) also constituted an important class. This slavery was very different from what Europeans of the same period were to establish in their colonies, although it had much in common with the slaves of classical antiquity. (Sahagún doubts the appropriateness even of the term "slavery" for this Aztec institution.) First, slavery was personal, not hereditary: a slave's children were free. A slave could have possessions and even own other slaves. Slaves could buy their liberty, and slaves could be set free if they were able to show they had been mistreated or if they had children with or were married to their masters.

Typically, upon the death of the master, slaves who had performed outstanding services were freed. The rest of the slaves were passed on as part of an inheritance.

Another rather remarkable method for a slave to recover liberty was described by Manuel Orozco y Berra in La civilización azteca (1860): if, at the tianquiztli (marketplace; the word has survived into modern-day Spanish as "tianguis"), a slave could escape the vigilance of his or her master, run outside the walls of the market and step on a piece of human excrement, he could then present his case to the judges, who would free him. He or she would then be washed, provided with new clothes (so that he or she would not be wearing clothes belonging to the master), and declared free. Because, in stark contrast to the European colonies, a person could be declared a slave if he or she attempted to prevent the escape of a slave (unless that person were a relative of the master), others would not typically help the master in preventing the slave's escape.

Wooden collar.Orozco y Berra also reports that a master could not sell a slave without the slave's consent, unless the slave had been classified as incorrigible by an authority. (Incorrigibility could be determined on the basis of repeated laziness, attempts to run away, or general bad conduct.) Incorrigible slaves were made to wear a wooden collar, affixed by rings at the back. The collar was not merely a symbol of bad conduct: it was designed to make it harder to run away through a crowd or through narrow spaces.

When buying a collared slave, one was informed of how many times that slave had been sold. A slave who was sold four times as incorrigible could be sold to be sacrificed; those slaves commanded a premium in price.

However, if a collared slave managed to present him- or herself in the royal palace or in a temple, he or she would regain liberty.

An Aztec could become a slave as a punishment. A murderer sentenced to death could instead, upon the request of the wife of his victim, be given to her as a slave. A father could sell his son into slavery if the son was declared incorrigible by an authority. Those who did not pay their debts could also be sold as slaves.

People could sell themselves as slaves. They could stay free long enough to enjoy the price of their liberty, about twenty blankets, usually enough for a year; after that time they went to their new master. Usually this was the destiny of gamblers and of old ahuini (courtesans or prostitutes).

Motolinía reports that some captives, future victims of sacrifice, were treated as slaves with all the rights of an Aztec slave until the time of their sacrifice, but it is not clear how they were kept from running away.

Recreation

Although one could drink pulque, a fermented beverage with an alcoholic content equivalent to beer, getting drunk before the age of 60 was forbidden under penalty of death.

Like in modern Mexico, the Aztecs had strong passions over a ball game, but this in their case it was tlachtli, the Aztec variant of the ulama game, the ancient ball game of Mesoamerica. The game was played with a ball of solid rubber, about the size of a human head. The ball was called "olli", whence derives the Spanish word for rubber, "hule". The city had two special buildings for the ball games. The players hit the ball with their hips. They had to pass the ball through a stone ring. The fortunate player that could do this had the right to take the blankets of the public, so his victory was followed by general running of the public, with screams and laughter. People used to bet on the results of the game. Poor people could bet their food, pillis could bet their fortunes, tecutlis (lords) could bet their concubines or even their cities, and those who had nothing could bet their freedom and risk becoming slaves.

Tenochtitlan

Model of Tenochtilan.

Tenochtitlan covered an area of 8 square kilometers. There is no agreement on the estimated population of the city. Most authorities prefer a conservative 60,000 to 130,000 inhabitants, still bigger than most European cities of the time, surpassed only by Constantinople with about 200,000 inhabitants, Paris with about 285,000, and Venice with about 130,000. [1]. Eduardo Noguera estimated 50,000 houses and 300,000 inhabitants. Soustelle gives an estimate of 700,000 people, if the populations of Tlatelolco and the small satellite cities and islets around Tenochtitlan are included. Tlatelolco was originally an independent city, but it became a suburb of Tenochtitlan.

The city was divided into four zones or campan, each campan was divided on 20 districts (calpullis), and each calpulli was crossed by streets or tlaxilcalli. There were three main streets that crossed the city and extended to firm land; Bernal Díaz del Castillo reported it was wide enough for ten horses. The calpullis were divided by channels used for transportation, with wood bridges that were removed at night. It was in trying to cross these channels that the Spaniards lost most of the gold they had acquired from Moctezuma.

Each calpulli had some specialty in arts and craft. When each calpulli offered some celebration, they tried to outdo the other calpullis. Even today, in the south part of Mexico City, the community organizations in charge of church festivities are called "calpullis".

Each calpulli had its own tianquiztli (marketplace), but there was also a main marketplace in Tlatelolco. Cortés estimated it was twice the size of the city of Seville with about 60,000 people, trading daily, Sahagún give us a more conservative 20,000 daily and 40,000 on feast days. Aztecs had no coins, so most trade was made in goods, but cacao was so appreciated, it was used as an equivalent of coins. Gold had no intrinsic value: it was considered as a raw material for crafts. Gold jewelry had value, but raw gold had little. For the Aztecs, the destruction of objects to get a few pieces of gold was incomprehensible.

There were also specialized tianquiztli in the small towns around Tenochtitlan. In Chollolan, there were jewels, fine stones, and feathers, in Texcoco there were clothes, in Aculma was the dog market. The Aztecs had three special breeds of dogs with no hair, of which only one survives. They were the tepezcuintli, the itzcuitepotzontli and the xoloizcuintli. These hairless dogs were mainly for eating and also were offerings for sacrifice. The Aztecs also had normal dogs for company.

In the center of the city were the public buildings, temples and schools. Inside a walled square, 300 meters to a side, was the ceremonial center, there were about 45 public buildings, the main temple, the temple of Quetzalcoatl, the ball game, the tzompantli or rack of skulls, the temple of the sun, the platforms for the gladiatorial sacrifice, and some minor temples. Outside was the palace of Moctezuma, with 100 rooms, each one with its own bath, for the lords and ambassadors of allies and conquered people. Near, also was the cuicalli or house of the songs, and the calmecac. The city had a great symmetry. All constructions had to be approved by the calmimilocatl, a functionary in charge of the city planning. No one could invade the streets and channels.

The palace of Moctezuma also had two houses or zoos, one for birds of prey and other for other birds, reptiles and mammals. About three hundred people were dedicated to the care of the animals. There was also a botanical garden and an aquarium. The aquarium had ten ponds of salt water and ten ponds of clear water, containing fishes and aquatic birds. Places like this also existed in Texcoco, Chapultepec, Huastepec (now called Oaxtepec) and Tezcutzingo.

Bernal was amazed to find latrines in private houses and a public latrine in the tianquiztli and main streets. Small boats went through the city collecting garbage, and excrement was collected to be sold as fertilizer. About 1,000 men were dedicated to cleaning the city's streets.

For public purposes, and to be able to set the pace of official business, trumpets were sounded from the tops of the temples six times a day: at sunrise, later on in the morning, at midday, again in the mid-afternoon, after sunset, and at midnight.

Although the lake was salty, dams built by the Aztecs kept the city surrounded by clear water from the rivers that fed the lake. Two double aqueducts provided the city with fresh water; this was intended mainly for cleaning and washing. For drinking, water from mountain springs was preferred. Most of the population liked to bathe twice a day; Moctezuma was reported to take four baths a day. As soap they used the root of a plant called copalxocotl (saponaria americana); to clean their clothes they used the root of metl. Also, the upper classes and pregnant women enjoyed the temazcalli, which was similar to a sauna bath and is still used in the south of Mexico; this was also popular in other Mesoamerican cultures.

Sahagún reports that the city also had beggars (only crippled people were allowed to beg), thieves and prostitutes. At night, in the dark alleys one could find scantily clad ladies with heavy makeup (they also painted their teeth), chewing tzicli (chicle, the original chewing gum) noisily to attract clients. There seem to have been another kind of women, ahuianis, who had sexual relations with warriors. The Spaniards were surprised because they did not charge for their work, so perhaps they had other means of support.

Education

Representation of Aztec education.Until the age of fourteen, the education of children was in the hands of their parents. There was a collection of sayings, called huehuetlatolli ("The sayings of the old"), that represented the Aztecs' ideals. It included speeches and sayings for every occasion, the words to salute the birth of children, and to say farewell at death. Fathers admonished their daughters to be very clean, but not to use makeup, because they would look like ahuianis. Mothers admonished their daughters to support their husbands, even if they turn out to be humble peasants. Boys were admonished to be humble, obedient and hard workers.

Male children went to school at age 15. There were two types of educational institutions. The telpochcalli taught history, religion, military fighting arts, and a trade or craft (such as agriculture or handicrafts). The calmecac, attended mostly by the sons of pillis, was focused on turning out leaders (tlatoques), priests, scholars/teachers (tlatimini), and codex painters (tlacuilos). They studied rituals, literacy, calendrics, songs (poetry), and, as at the telpochcalli, military fighting arts.

Aztec teachers propounded a spartan regime of education – cold baths in the morning, hard work, physical punishment, bleeding with maguey thorns and endurance tests – with the purpose of forming a stoical people.

There is contradictory information about whether calmecac was reserved for the sons and daughters of the pillis; some accounts said they could choose where to study. It is possible that the common people preferred the tepochcalli, because a warrior could advance more readily by his military abilities; becoming a priest or a tlacuilo was not a way to rise rapidly from a low station.

Girls were educated in the crafts of home and child raising. They were not taught to read or write.

There were also two other opportunities for those few who had talent. Some were chosen for the house of song and dance, and others were chosen for the ball game. Both occupations had high status.

Diet

The Aztec created artificial islands or chinampas on Lake Texcoco, on which they cultivated crops. The Aztec staple foods included maize, beans and squash. Chinampas were a very efficient system and could provide up to seven crops a year, on the basis of current chinampa yields, it has been estimated that 1 hectare of chinampa would feed 20 individuals, with about 9,000 hectares of chinampa, there was food for 180,000 peoples.

Much has been said about a lack of proteins in the Aztec diet, to support the arguments on the existence of cannibalism (M. Harner, Am. Ethnol. 4, 117 (1977)), but there is little evidence to support it: a combination of maize and beans provides the full quota of essential amino acids, so there is no need for animal proteins. The Aztecs had a great diversity of maize strains, with a wide range of amino acid content; also, they cultivated amaranth for its seeds, which have a high protein content. More important is that they had a wider variety of foods. They harvested accoils, a small and abundant shrimp of Lake Texcoco, also spirulina algae, which was made into a sort of cake that was rich in flavonoids, and they ate insects, such as crickets (chapulines), maguey worms, ants, larvae, etc. Insects have a higher protein content than meat, and even now they are considered a delicacy in some parts of Mexico. Aztec also have domestic animals, like turkey and some breed of dogs, that provide meat, although usually this was reserved for special occasions. Hunting was also another source of meat - deer, wild hogs, ducks etc.

A study by Montellano (Medicina, nutrición y salud aztecas, 1997) shows a mean life of 37 (+/- 3) years for the population of Mesoamerica.

Aztec also used maguey extensively; from it they obtained food, sugar (aguamiel), drink (pulque), and fibers for ropes and clothing. Use of cotton and jewelry was restricted to the elite. Cocoa grains were used as money. Subjugated cities paid annual tribute in form of luxury goods like feathers and adorned suits.

After the Spanish conquest some foods were outlawed, like amaranth, and there was less diversity of food. This led to a chronic malnutrition in the general population.

Sacrifices

Aztec sacrifice.For the Europeans, human sacrifice was the most striking feature of Aztec civilization. The necesity of sacrifice was widespread at this time in Mesoamerica and South America (during the Inca Empire), but the Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale, sacrificing human victims on each of their 18 festivities.

But not all sacrifices involved human sacrifice. Most cultures of Mesoamerica gave some kind of offerings to the gods and the sacrifice of animals was common, a practice which the Aztecs bred special dogs for. Objects also were sacrified, they were 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. 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 and there are further several myths, where Nahua gods offer their blood to help humanity. In the myth of the fith sun, all the gods sacrifice themselves so humanity could live.

All this prepared people to the supreme sacrifice: Human sacrifice. 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, his abdomen ripped open with a ceremonial knife (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. The sacrifice was supposed to be voluntary, but if faith was not enough, drugs could be used. Afterwards, the body parts would be disposed of 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 as a gift to important people. Recent evidence also points to removal of muscles and skinning (José Luis Salinas Uribe, INAH, 2005) Other kinds of human sacrifice existed, some of them involving torture. In these, the victim could be shot with arrows, burned or drowned. For the construction of the main temple, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 84,400 prisoners in four days. How a city of 120,000 people could take, accommodate and dispose of that many prisoners is not clear, especially since they reported that Ahuitzotl sacrificed them personally. This translates into about 17 sacrifices per minute over the course of four days. Some scholars believe that it is more probable that only 3,000 sacrifices took place and the death toll was drastically inflated by war propaganda.

Another figure used is from Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Spanish soldier who wrote his account of the conquest 50 years after the fact. In the description of the tzompantli, a rack of skulls of the victims in the main temple, he reports to have counted about 100,000 skulls. However, to accommodate that many skulls, the Tzompantli would have had a length of several kilometers, instead of the 30 meters reported. Modern reconstructions account for about 600 to 1,200 skulls. Similarly, Díaz claimed there were 60,000 skulls in the tzompantli of Tlatelolco, which was as important as that of Tenochtitlan. According to William Arens in The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy (1979, ISBN 0195027930), excavations by archeologists found 300 skulls.

Bernardino de Sahagún, Juan Bautista de Pomar and Motolinía report that the Aztecs had 18 festivities each year. Motolinía and Pomar clearly state that only in those festivities sacrifices were made. Each god required a different kind of victim, young women were drowned for Xilonen, sick male children were sacrificed to Tlaloc (Juan Carlos Román: 2004 Museo del templo mayor), Nahuatl speaking prisoners to Huitzilopochtli, and an Aztec (or simply nahua, acording to some accounts) volunteer for Tezcatlipoca.

Not all these sacrifices were made at the main temple, a few were made at "Cerro del Peñón", an islet of the Texcoco lake . According to an aztec source, in the month of Tlacaxipehualiztli, 34 captives were sacrifice in the gladiatorial sacrifice, to Xipe Totec. A bigger figure would be dedicated to Huitzilopochtli in the month of Panquetzaliztli. This could put a figure as low as 300 to 600 victims a year, but Marvin Harris multiplies it by 20, assuming that the same sacrifices were made in every one of the sections or calpullis of the city. There is little agreement on the actual figure.

Aztecs waged "flower wars" to capture prisoners for sacrifices they called nextlaualli, "debt payment to the gods" so that the sun could survive each cycle of 52 years.

It is not known if the Aztecs engaged in human sacrifice before they reached the Anahuac valley and acquired and absorbed other cultures. The first human sacrifice reported by them was dedicated to Xipe Totec a deity from the north of Mesoamerica. Aztec chronicles reported 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 because of religious reasons, but also for political reasons.

As Laurette Séjourné comments, the 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, and as Sejourne points, there were harsh penalties for those who dare to scream or faint during a human sacrifice.

When Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan, he forbade human sacrifice, so the Spaniards did not witness human sacrifice in the city.

It is interesting to note that there are no pre-Cortesian representations of human sacrifice, of Aztec origin – all known were depicted several years after the conquest, although the destruction of Aztec codices could explain that. Also, of the two possible witnesses who wrote on human sacrifice, Cortés and Bernal, Cortés wrote on the subject: "it could be that I am mistaken on this relation, since a lot of this had not been seen, except by information of the natives" (Letter to Charles V, 10 July 1519).

There is a great gap between what has been written on this subject, and what is really known.

Cannibalism

While there is universal agreement that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, there is a lack of scholarly consensus as to whether they also practiced cannibalism and, if so, to what extent. At one extreme, Materialist anthropologist Marvin Harris, who wrote about cannibalism in Our Kind and Cannibals and Kings has suggested that the flesh of the victims was a part of an aristocratic diet as a reward, since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins. According to him, the Aztec economy would have been unable to support feeding them as slaves, so the columns of prisoners were "marching meat". At the other extreme, William Arens doubts whether there was ever any systematic cannibalism.

While most historians of Mesoamerica believe that there was ritual cannibalism related to human sacrifices, they do not support Harris's thesis that human flesh was ever a significant portion of the Aztec diet.

There is little documentation of Aztec cannibalism. There are only five accounts of cannibalism from the date of the conquest, none of them particularly suggestive of widespread ritual cannibalism, and only one – the Ramírez codex – (equivocally) tying cannibalism to ritual sacrifice. The four specific accounts of cannibalism are:

Cortés wrote in one of his letters that his soldiers had captured an Aztec who had a roasted baby ready for breakfast. Gomarra, reported that during the siege of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards had asked the Aztecs to surrender since they had no food. The Aztecs answered, asking the Spaniards to try to attack, so they could be taken as prisoners, and then served with "molli" sauce. In the books of Bernardino de Sahagún, there is an illustration of an Aztec being cooked by an unknown tribe. This was reported as one of the dangers that Aztec traders faced. The Ramírez codex, written by an Aztec after the conquest using the Latin alphabet, reports that after the sacrifices the flesh from the hands of the victim were given as gift to the warrior who made the capture. According to the codex, this was supposedly eaten, but was in fact discarded and replaced with turkey. In his book "Relación de Juan Bautista Pomar", Juan Bautista de Pomar states that after the sacrifice, the body of the victim was given to the warrior resposible of the capture, he would boil the body to be able to cut small pieces of meat, to be offered as gifts to important people in exchange for presents and slaves, but it was rarely eaten, since they considered it had no value; instead it was replaced by turkey, or just thrown away. It is at least interesting that the one account by an Aztec and the account by a "meztizo" of supposed cannibalism following ritual sacrifice claims that the apparent cannibalism was a sham. This is congruent with the Laurette Séjourné and Miguel León-Portilla's theory that the upper classes were aware that the religion created by Tlacaelel was something of a forgery.

Recent archeological evidence (INAH 2005) in some of the bodies found under the "Catedral Metropolitana", from the basement of aztec temples, show some cuttings indicating the remotion of muscular masses. Not all the bodies show this treatment.

Despite this paucity of contemporary sources, accounts of the Aztec Empire as a "Cannibal Kingdom" (Marvin Harris's expression) have been commonplace, from Bernal Díaz to Marvin Harris, William H. Prescott, and Michael Harner. Harner has accused his colleagues – especially those in Mexico – of diminishing or hiding evidence of Aztec cannibalism. The question, of course, is whether such evidence exists to be hidden. Even Díaz (who participated as a soldier in the conquest of Mexico) does not claim to have been an eyewitness to cannibalism. It is possible that Aztec cannibalism was simply a blood libel by the victorious Spanish.

Dominican priest Diego Durán's Historia de las Indias de Nueva España y islas de tierra firme, while clearly a useful source of information (he had access to the survivors of Tenochtitlan), must be doubted on the subject of human sacrifice. Apparently combining a blood libel against the Aztecs with that against the Jews, he argued that the Aztecs were one of the lost tribes of Israel, and adduced human sacrifice and cannibalism as part of his evidence.

Poetry

Poetry was the only occupation worthy of an Aztec warrior in times of peace. A remarkable amount of this poetry survives, having been collected during the era of the conquest. In some cases, we know names of individual authors, such as Netzahualcoyotl, Tolatonai of Texcoco, and Cuacuatzin, Lord of Tepechpan. Miguel León-Portilla, the most renowned translator of Nahuatl, comments that it is in this poetry where we can find the real thought of the Aztecs, independent of "official" Aztec ideology.

In the basement of the Great Temple there was the "house of the eagles", where in peacetime Aztec captains could drink a foaming chocolate, smoke good cigars, and have poetry contests. The poetry was accompanied by percussion instruments (teponaztli). Recurring themes in this poetry are whether life is real or a dream, whether there is an afterlife, and whether we can approach the giver of life.

Zan te te yenelli aca zan tlahuaco in ipal nemoani In cuix nelli ciox amo nelli? Quen in conitohua in ma oc on nentlamati in toyollo.... zan no monenequi in ipal nemoani Ma oc on nentlamati in toyollo Is it you?, are you real? Some had talked nonsense oh, you, by whom everything lives, Is it real?, Is it not real? This is how they say it Do not have anguish in our hearths! I will make disdainful oh, you, by whom everything lives, Do not have anguish in our hearths!

– Netzahualcoyotl, lord of Texcoco

The most important collection of these poems is Romances de los señores de la Nueva España, collected (Tezcoco 1582), probably by Juan Bautista de Pomar. This volume was later translated into Spanish by Ángel María Garibay K., teacher of León-Portilla. Bautista de Pomar was the great grandson of Netzahualcoyotl. He spoke Nahuatl, but was raised as Christian and wrote in Latin characters.

The Aztec people also enjoyed a type of dramatic presentation, although it could not be called theatre. Some were comical with music and acrobats, others were staged dramas of their gods. After the conquest, the first Christian churches had open chapels reserved for these kinds of representations. Plays in Nahuatl, written by converted Indians, were an important instrument for the conversion to Christianity, and are still found today in the form of traditional pastorelas, which are played during Christmas to show the Adoration of Baby Jesus, and other Biblical passages.