If you could go back in time to the days of the Aztecs for one day, and could only ask them one question, what would it be? asked The Raleigh School. Read what Professor Davíd Carrasco had to say.

“There is no such thing as ‘Human Sacrifice’”

This thought-provoking article has kindly been specially written for us by Dr. Elizabeth Graham, Senior Lecturer in the Archaeology of Latin America, Institute of Archaeology, University College London. We welcome feedback and further contributions on this most controversial of topics...

‘Human sacrifice’, Codex Laud folio 8 (Click on image to enlarge)

People take it for granted that the Aztecs practiced something called human sacrifice. But what, exactly, is ‘human sacrifice’? What people mean by using this term is that humans are killed to satisfy the needs of a god or gods. We assume that this was true about the Aztecs, but a closer look reveals more about us than about the Aztecs.

Two Aztec conquest scenes, each including captor with captive and a toppled/burning pyramid temple, Codex Mendoza folio 2r (detail) (Click on image to enlarge)

War

First of all, the people who were killed were men who fought in various battles. Aztec warriors tried to capture other warriors, not kill them. In our warfare, we encourage soliders to kill other soldiers on the battlefield itself, but in some cultures, such as that of the Aztecs or Maya, this was dishonourable. The rule was to engage in hand-to-hand combat with another warrior and defeat him by capturing him. Some, and only some, of these men captured in battle were later killed in the setting of a temple. But the rationale for the killing – and by this I mean the ‘excuse’ for the killing in the Aztecs’ minds, was war. This is no different from modern wars or medieval wars in which men killed other men, and sometimes women and children, with the excuse that it was part of WAR.



The Aztecs vanquish the mighty city of Tlatelolco - its twin temple is in flames, and the dead leader Moquihuix tumbles from the temple, wearing the full regalia of his position - Codex Mendoza folio 10r (Click on image to enlarge)

How to kill people and get away with it

In all civilizations, the best-accepted excuse for killing people - for defense, economics, oil, power, resources - is WAR. What makes this different from murder? There are some kinds of killing that societies allow without punishing the killer or killers. These kinds of killing (archaeologists call this socially sanctioned killing) are legalized in a number of countries, and examples would be capital punishment, euthanasia, or even abortion. But the most common excuse for killing people (without being arrested for murder) is WAR.

What I am saying is that Aztec society justified having captured warriors killed in temples as WAR and not as ‘human sacrifice’. I doubt that they even had a concept of ‘human sacrifice’ before the arrival of the Spaniards. It seems to have been the Spanish friars who interpreted such killing as ‘human sacrifice’ but the term ‘sacrifice’ or ‘human sacrifice’ does not exist in the Nahuatl language at all.



A symbolic skull rack beside the city emblem of Tenochtitlan, Codex Mendoza folio 2r (detail) - one of the very few images in this Codex that acknowledges the Aztecs’ practice of ‘human sacrifice’ (Click on image to enlarge)

And as for killing in temples, all societies explain wars in ways that call on God or some abstract concept such as truth or justice even if the war involves economic gain, which it almost always does. The Iraq war was said by the Americans to be a fight against the Axis of Evil. English colonial wars were fought for God and the queen. But what was to be gained by these wars? Resources such as oil Wealth? Power?

4 conquered towns under the rule of the emperor Tizoc, Codex Mendoza folio 12r (detail) (Click on image to enlarge)

The bloodthirsty Aztecs

Why have the Aztecs come to be portrayed as so bloodthirsty then? This is a good question. The answer is complicated. But here are some points.

• If you compared Aztec wars with European wars even in medieval times, a far fewer proportion of people (men or women or children) wound up dead in Aztec battles than in European battles.

• Why, then, do we see the Aztecs as so bloody? The ‘horribleness’ seems to come from the fact that the Aztecs delayed killing their enemies. Even though they wound up killing very few of their enemies compared to all the people who actually fought in the war, we think of them as more bloodthirsty than we are.

A youth capturing a warrior was given a flower-style ‘manta’ (cloak) as a sign of his bravery; he would don this emblem of honour on ritual occasions (Codex Mendoza folio 64r, detail) (Click on image to enlarge)

• Scholars say that Aztec warriors fought specifically to capture other warriors to offer them to the gods and that this gave them prestige. But this interpretation has come down to us largely from Spanish friars and the Aztecs they educated. In real life, no civilization has ever endorsed killing on such a massive scale, and repeatedly, only to please gods! The gods, however, always provide a nice handy excuse for killing that is motivated by other things.

• What other things?

• Same as in our wars: resources, wealth, power.

• Think about it. Why would a young man repeatedly go into battle and risk his life just to drag his opponent off to a priest? Warriors’ wives alone would start a revolution. This scenario is about as likely as telling young men in Britain to fight in Iraq without paying them a salary or benefits. No one would fight!

• Far more likely is that warriors sought to capture other warriors not to have them killed for their hearts but to put them in a position in which the captor, by right of capturing his opponent, could take away some of his opponent’s tribute rights (resources, money, power). This makes a lot more sense, and puts the Aztecs well within the range of all civilizations. In fact, if you count all the so-called ‘sacrifice’ victims as war victims, it makes the Aztecs look downright peaceful compared to us...

Picture sources:-

• ‘Human sacrifice’, Codex Laud folio 8 (scanned from our copy of the facsimile edition by ADEVA, Austria, 1966)

• Images from the Codex Mendoza scanned from our copy of the James Cooper Clark facsimile edition, London, 1938

This article was uploaded to the Mexicolore website on May 10th 2009

Here's what others have said:

34 At 3.27pm on Sunday August 9 2020, dof wrote: ‘human sacrifice’ was all made up to ‘justify’ the genocide, land theft, terrorism & slavery of the americas ...read ‘dum diversas’ 1452 et al ...peace

33 At 2.04am on Friday July 24 2020, Marlon wrote: *disclaimer that when I say justice, I dont mean true justice. I use it as an explanation for the intentions of the acts mentioned*



The difference between killing in war and human sacrifice is that one is done to take or defend something out of justice while the other is done as an act of religion/justice towards a “god”.



We can compare this between the killing done by the Nazis in war vs in genocide. This is why the killing of the jews and other target groups was called the holocaust (a Jewish sacrificial offering that is burned completely on an altar). The Nazi’s god was Hitler and Fatherland (as one of the other commentors have mentioned).



Now, the Nazis would be doing human sacrifice. They were killing people as an act of justice toward the Fatherland and Hitler. The same would apply to the Aztecs (the mayans too), even if you put it in the context of war.



We must also recognize that the intention is important for these distinctions. For example, the death penalty would not be a human sacrifice. The reason for that is that it would simply be an act to reach justice. These are done out of a desire all humans have for justice, however human sacrifice would be to kill as a means to give. Imprisonment would not be sacrificing that person’s time as a gift, its purpose is justice.The state realizes that the person does not deserve to live any longer due to their crimes and may even harm others. Although some may disagree on whether the death penalty is ethical, I am creating distinctions.



All these kinds of killing would be considered “just” by those doing those acts. The distinction between human sacrifice and other kinds of killing can be seen in intention. One is an act of religion toward a deity (supernatural or not) while the other one is an act of justice in the broader sense of the word.

32 At 10.27am on Tuesday June 30 2020, rak@libraryofsocialscience.com wrote: https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/ideologies/resources/koenigsberg-aztec-warriors/



Please click the link to read my online publication, AZTEC WARRIORS/WESTERN SOLDIERS.



Here are a few passages to whet your appetite:



”According to historian Alfredo Lopez Austin (1988), as long as men could offer the blood and hearts of captives taken in combat, the “power of the sun god would not decline”—the sun would “continue on his course above the earth.” To keep the sun moving in its course so that “darkness should not overwhelm the world forever,”

”Anthropologist Jacques Soustelle explains (2002), it was necessary to “feed it every day with its food”—the “precious water,” that is, with human blood.”

”Unlike the Aztecs, we in the West imagine that wars are fought for “real” reasons or purposes.”

”We understand the death or maiming of soldiers in battle as the by-product— occurring as societies seek to attain practical or political objectives. We do not believe that warfare’s purpose is to produce sacrificial victims, although the result of every war is a multitude of dead soldiers.”

31 At 10.22am on Tuesday June 30 2020, rak@libraryofsocialscience.com wrote: The most significant misunderstanding in this article is revealed in the following statement: “Scholars say that Aztec warriors fought specifically to capture other warriors to offer them to the gods... In real life, no civilization has ever endorsed killing on such a massive scale, and repeatedly, only to please gods!”

In reality, nearly EVERY WAR revolves around PLEASING SOME GOD. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily “make sense.”

Nearly all Ancient wars occurred in the name of pleasing a god. One might also think of the Crusades.



I write about the FIRST WORLD WAR. This war achieved NOTHING PRACTICAL. The mass slaughter occurred in the name of pleasing gods giving names like Great Britain, France, Germany, etc.

The First World War achieved no practical gain. Nor did the Nazi war against the Jews. WARS ARE A MASSIVE DRAIN ON A SOCIETY’S RESOURCES.

The notion that wars are fought for practicial, empirical reasons has no foundation in empirical reality. It’s a cliche.

Most historians would agree with my assessment. Slaughter is undertaken for deeply psychological and cultural reasons, usually detrimental to economic gain.

No one would say that the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust was undertaken for economic reasons. This was a MASSIVE DRAIN OF RESOURCES.The war against the Jews (and the Second World War) were undertaken in the name of Germany’s god, HITLER.

30 At 10.04am on Tuesday June 30 2020, rak@libraryofsocialscience.com wrote: Rome’s post of October 2017 is on target: “The Mexica culture was based on shedding blood in order to fuel the movement of the sun. You say that the killings were a side effect of war; rather, the wars were elaborately staged and ritualized in order to facilitate the killings.”



Yes, the purpose of warfare and killing, fundamentally, was to OBTAIN THE HEARTS OF VICTIMS in order to keep the sun moving in its course.

An entirely bizarre idea: that the sun needed the hearts and b blood of victims to continue to move on its course.

They could have done an experiment: stop their practice of heart extraction for a few weeks, and see if the sun kept revolving.

But there must have been very powerful psychological forces to sustain such a ritual.

29 At 9.56am on Tuesday June 30 2020, rak@libraryofsocialscience.com wrote: Well, you don’t have to call it “sacrifice.” But pulling the heart out of a victim and holding it up--to feed the sun god--is not a rational act, nor is it an act of “war.”

This was a very grotesque FANTASY: that he sun would keep revolving around the earth only if fed with the heart and blood of captured victims.

28 At 9.53pm on Saturday June 6 2020, JC wrote: Mexicolore,

Just a follow-up. The stereo-type of “Indians” in the USA is that they were uncivilized savages. A few pockets of them showed signs of advancement and employed farming, but the majority were hunters and gatherers. To put into perspective, the “Indians” were in the stage of development reminiscent of cavemen when Europeans encountered them. So when it is argued that the “Indians” did nothing with the land, it is promoting the idea that the “Indians” did not develop cities or sophisticated civilizations like Europeans did. This belief is partly negative propaganda and partly ignorance. Ignorance because most are not interested enough to learn the truth. So they just repeat the negative propaganda. And it is negative propaganda because it is used to portray the “Indians” as worthless uncivilized savages.



The truth is that there were advanced civilizations in what is now the USA before Europeans arrived. I have read articles that propose that these civilizations in the North had contact with those in Mexico. And I recall reading that a civilization in the Mississippi valley collapsed shortly before Europeans reached that area. A pyramid mound still exists in the State of Illinois. I believe that there is more evidence of this civilization further along the Mississippi River in the Southern States. But relatively very few people have knowledge of these sites.



Unfortunately, it is estimated that something like 90%-95% of the archeological sites were destroyed by the Europeans. As a result, knowledge of the existence of these civilizations was lost and/or hidden. There must have been many motives to destroy the sites. Maybe in some cases it was to hide the fact that the “Indians” developed advanced and sophisticated societies. And maybe in some cases it was due to less benign motives such as making room for farmland. But what ever the case, these archeological sites were deemed unimportant and not worth preserving. And yet, the descendants of those that destroyed the sites now use the absence of these sites to sting the “Indians” with claims that they accomplished nothing.



But wait, there is a problem. Evidence still exists in Mexico that the “Indians” did develop advanced and sophisticated cities and civilizations. This doesn’t fit the American narrative that the “Indians” accomplished nothing. So the portrayal of the Aztecs and Maya as blood-thirty savages that committed human sacrifice helps the Americans diminish the accomplishments of these civilizations.



Maybe things have changed since I was in school. But No history of the native peoples was taught in school from grades 1-12 (grammar and high school) outside of their encounters with Europeans. And of course, their portrayals were negative. For instance, the only time we were taught about the Aztecs was in grade 9 (1st year of high school). And they were covered in just about three sentences. I’m paraphrasing the lesson in how it was internalized by myself and others that received this lesson (such as classmates and relatives when they reached grade 9). The lesson was that the Aztecs had a large empire and built large cities with pyramids but did not have a written language and were blood-thirsty monsters that committed large scale human sacrifices including children. But they were so pathetic, it only took 500 Spanish to defeat them very quickly. And the Aztecs were the “best” the “Indians” had to offer. Meaning, the Aztecs were the pinnacle of achievements by “Indian” peoples, and they were nothing to brag about. The strategy of almost totally excluding the “Indians” from history lessons further helps cement the perception that they did not accomplish anything.