In almost every corner of the world human
sacrifices, mostly based on religion, did happen at some point in history. The
most treasured thing a human can give up is his life and, therefore, in the eyes
of many throughout history human sacrifice is the most valuable sacrifice someone can
offer to a god or gods. However, despite the fact that human sacrifices did happen at some
point throughout history all across the world, no culture brought the act of human sacrifices
to such a large extent as the Aztecs did. The Aztecs were a pre-Columbian civilization
living in today's central Mexico. The word Aztec is misleading as it can refer to multiplicities of
peoples and polities but when people use it today they mostly just mean the Mexica people whose
capital was the city of Tenochtitlan. The Mexica, by the time of the early 16th century, when Cortes
arrived to Mexico, where the hegemon of a triple alliance that ruled over a large polity we today
call the Aztec Empire. Therefore, we often use the words Aztec and Mexica as interchangeable
even though they’re really not. The word Aztec can refer to many different people groups like,
for example, everyone within the Aztec empire, or everyone who spoke the Nahuatl language, or
everyone pertaining to the tribes that migrated from the north to central Mexico of whom the
Mexica people were just one tribe. Due to this ambiguous definition of the word Aztec, it
is important to more specifically define the words that I will use in this video. I will
use the word Mexica to refer to the people from Tenochtitlan who ruled over what we call the Aztec
Empire. I will use the word Aztec as a catch all word for the religion, because that’s what we
call it today, the “Aztec Religion”, and also, I will use the word to refer to the polity of the
Aztec Empire as a whole and the people within it, even though keep in mind some of these people
were not always happy to be in the empire and they often saw themselves as different from the
ruling Mexica. Lastly I’ll use the word Nahua to refer to all the speakers of the Nahuatl language,
of whom the Mexica were just one peoples. Also to confuse things even more the Aztec empire didn’t
only have Nahuatl speakers within it and not all Nahuatl speakers were within the Aztec Empire.
Therefore, if I want to talk about everyone who lived in pre-columbian Central Mexico, I’ll just
say people in Central Mexico. I know it all sounds very confusing right now but pre-columbian
Central Mexico was anything but simple. So, to understand how a civilized society could
create an institution so prevalent with human sacrifices, we must first understand the
religion that often drove the Mexica’s, and other central Mexican people’s,
need for human sacrifices. Due to the often dubious nature of sources
we have about the Aztec Empire, its people, and their religion, there are multiple
versions of various religious myths including the creation myth. It is also probable
that the people living in Central Mexico, who largely shared their religious beliefs with
the Mexica, had all slightly different versions of gods, myths, and rituals. Such a thing
is not unusual for polythiestic religions and we see a similar thing in ancient Greece for
example. With that said, there are two main Aztec creation myths. I will present one of them here
and you can watch the other in this Ted-ed video. The people of central Mexico believed they lived
in the time of the fifth iteration of the sun; every previous iteration of the sun ended
by the destruction of the sun and the human race. The humans that are alive now, in the fifth
iteration, were created by the god Quetzalcoatl. He used the bones of the humans who lived
during the fourth iteration of the sun and his own blood to create the current humans.
The fifth sun itself was created by the god Huitzilopochtli who sacrificed himself to become
the sun so he could nourish the world. However, Huitzilopochtli’s sister Coyolxauhqui, the
goddess of the moon, hated Huitzilopochtli, and wanted to destroy him. As such every night
when the moon rises, trying to destroy the sun, Huitzilopochtli fights off his sister, ultimately
winning and creating the next day. With that said, Huitzilopochtli needs the help of humans, through
the means of human sacrifices, auto-sacrifice, and religious rituals, to keep successfully
fighting off his sister every night. Whether you choose to go with this creation
myth or the other one I already mentioned or with the myriad of other variations on these
two creation myths, it doesn’t really matter, as all of them have certain
central themes that don't change. Same goes for the Aztec religion as a whole.
There might be sources with different variations on myths and gods but the main themes largely
remain the same. These main themes being; The gods used their own blood to create
humans in one way or another and, therefore, the humans are indebted by blood to the gods.
The sun needs human sacrifices so that there is a next day. (this does not, however, mean
there has to be a sacrifice for each new day, it’s not like a daily payment or something)
Human sacrifice is the most venerated way to show proper honor to the gods and, therefore, if
you want something very important from them, like for example rain for the crops from Tlaloc the god
of water, you have to give him a human sacrifice. If there are no human sacrifices and no proper
honor is shown to the gods not only will the sun lose to the moon but also the humans
will be destroyed. This, for example, happened in the second iteration of the sun when
Tezcatlipoca, the god of rulers, priests and war, was disgusted by the impiety of the
humans and turned them all into monkeys. These main factors of the Aztec religion
created the bases upon which the Central Mexican societies built their institution
that normalized the killing of humans. Majority of people today, when someone talks
about the quote-unquote “Aztec sacrifices”, picture the most common type of sacrifice,
and that is the cutting out of the heart and presenting it to the gods. However, in reality,
there were many different sacrificial rituals. Some involved drowning, others burning or
forced starvation and some even involved elaborate ritualistic enacting of a predetermined
battle where the unarmed sacrificial victim was killed by several heavily armed soldiers. Plus,
different gods and festivals along with different circumstances like a drought or flooding required
different rituals. The victims of these rituals also varied, most numerous were enemies captured
in a war, but slaves, regular citizens and even sometimes noblemen were also sacrificed in
certain circumstances. The age and gender of the victims also mattered as, for example,
Tlaloc, the god of rain and water, required child sacrifices for the rains to come, while Toci,
the mother goddess, required a female sacrifice. Before I mention any details about the
quote-unquote “Aztec human sacrifices”, what must be said is that, unless directly specified,
I am not only talking about the Mexica here. Yes, many of the sources that talk about sacrifices in
detail are about the Mexica but my presentation of an “Aztec human sacrifice” is a general overview
of the type of sacrifice that was conducted, as far as we know, in most of late pre-Columbian
central Mexico. We know from some sources that the various Nahuas and other peoples of Central Mexico
did share very similar religious beliefs, customs, and did conduct similar human sacrifices, as
one Nahua put it, “Before them (the gods), we kiss the ground, we bleed.
We pay our debts to the gods, offer incense, make human sacrifices ... We
live by the grace of the gods.” Therefore, it would be reasonable to think that the details
we have about the Mexica human sacrifices are similar to that of the sacrifices conducted
by other Nahuas and Central Mexican peoples. Especially when it comes to the most common
type of sacrifice, the extraction of the heart. (fade out and in) So, imagine you’re a warrior captured in
a battle by the enemy who promptly brought you to their city temple to sacrifice
you. This is not unusual. In fact, the society you live in has created a system
of ritualistic wars, called the flower wars, one of the purposes of which was to capture enemy
soldiers for sacrifices. The battles of these flower wars occurred on predetermined plains with
predetermined army sizes. The point of the battle wasn’t to kill the enemy but to capture as many
enemies as you can so that you can sacrifice them in your city temple. People would still die during
these battles but not as many as in an actual war. By the way, a bit of a side note, the
Mexica, and other central Mexican peoples, could also wage normal war. There’s a common
misconception that when the Spanish arrived the Mexica lost so easily to them because they
tried to fight them in the style of the flower war and tried to capture them rather than killing
them, but that’s not true. The Mexica were fully capable of waging a quote-unquote “ordinary
war of conquest”. Of course, when possible, they would capture some enemies for sacrifices
but that wasn’t their goal. Their goal was to win, and as Ross Hassig states in his book Aztec
Warfare, “As demonstrated by the use of ambushes, circumvention of battling armies, and
firing of enemy temples [and cities], the Aztec (Mexica) leadership was not overly concerned
with how victories were won in wars of conquest”. If needed for victory, the Mexica were not
against employing the tactics of a total war. Anyways, back to sacrificing you. You go
through a series of rituals and cleansing to prepare you to be sacrificed, after which
you’re taken to the foot of the temple. As you’re waiting at the foot of the pyramid,
you’re not there alone. Depending what deity you’re being sacrificed for or during which
type of ceremony you’re being sacrificed, there could be any number of people waiting
there with you. These could be other fellow warriors captured in the battle, or some slaves
bought from the market, or some local citizens that were chosen to be sacrificed along
with you. For now let's say there are some local citizens there ready to be sacrificed along
with you and a bunch of other captured warriors. Some local people walk up to their fellow
citizens waiting to be sacrificed and tell them their personal stories and problems and
politely ask them to bring these issues up to the gods once they’re sacrificed. The citizens
ready to be sacrificed listen carefully to their fellow citizens' problems and in return are being
given great praise and admiration by their peers. Being sacrificed for your city is given
great honor in your society and the family you leave behind could even be able to move
up social ranks thanks to your sacrifice. With that said, you, in your current situation,
are given little honor. Sure there is honor in being sacrificed but there is little honor in
being sacrificed by the enemy to the enemy's gods. However, being sacrificed is the nature of
life for you. It is how it is and it has always been this; and even though there’s
no honor in being sacrificed by the enemy, there is still huge dishonor in not being
sacrificed when you have already been chosen and prepared to be sacrificed. Not being sacrificed at
this point is worse than being sacrificed by your enemy to their gods. This is why when Cortes’
expedition freed some sacrificial victims they “indignantly rejected [the] offer of
release and demanded to be sacrificed". As one 16th century Nahua put it “it
was never found out, whether anyone of those that were chosen [to be sacrificed]
had fled, for to flee seemed a thing unworthy of men that represented such great majesty as this
idol, so as not to be held as cowardly and fearful with perpetual infamy, not only in this land,
but also in his own, and so they wished first to die to earn eternal fame, because they
held [this] to be glory and a happy end.” However, with that said, it is also clear
that not all people viewed it this way. Dying is still dying and some people did
not want to die even if it brought honor to them and their family. That is why “when
some captive lost his strength, fainted, only went continually throwing himself on the
ground, they (the priests) just dragged him [to the altar] ... But when one made an effort. .
.he went strong of heart, he went shouting. He did not go downcast, he did not go spiritless;
he went extolling, he went exalting his city.” Whether you choose to go to your sacrifice at
the top of the pyramid with a strong conviction and head held high, or by throwing yourself
on the ground and shouting, is up to you but, it does go to show that there were people
in pre-columbian central Mexican society that did not want to be sacrificed and had
to be dragged to the altar unwillingly. Nevertheless, climbing the very steep steps of the
pyramid which were bloodied by the corpses of the people sacrificed before you and whose lifeless
bodies were thrown down the steps next to you must have been a very daunting task
even for the most devot of people. Looking down from the pyramid you see a great
gathering of people singing ritualistic songs specific to that particular sacrificial event.
Many of the people in the crowd also participate in auto-sacrifice which involves the letting
of blood for the gods. It must have been truly a fervent spectacle. We also know that the
central mexican peoples used hallucinogenic drugs like shrooms and others and we’re pretty
sure they were somehow used in ceremonies mostly by the nobility and the priests, but the
exact extent of the use of drugs in sacrificial ceremonies is unknown. As one historian said
“Despite claims that coercive chemicals were extensively used in Aztec culture, they are
very rarely mentioned in accounts of sacrificial ceremonies” therefore, we don’t really know the
extent of the use of these drugs in ceremonies. With that said, keep in mind as you’re trying to
climb the steep bloodied steps of the pyramid, with the bodies of the sacrificial
victims before you falling down the steps, and the citizens behind you
singing while bloodletting, you and the priest sacrificing
you could also be hallucinating. Once you make it to the top of the pyramid,
one of Cortes’ conquistadors tells us the “men and women who were to be sacrificed to their gods
were thrown on their backs and of their own accord remained perfectly still”. Again this probably
goes back to the fact that some people went to the sacrifice with their heads held high, with
no fear, with the belief that they are doing the right thing. However, there most certainly were
others who had to be held down on the sacrificial stone as attested to by one source which stated
that “The five priests of sacrifice followed them. They were to hold down the feet, hands and
heads of the victims … Each prisoner they took to the [sacrificial] place … when they had
forced him to stand upon the stone which was the figure and likeness of the sun, they threw him
upon his back. One took him by the right arm, another by the left, one by his left foot,
another by his right, while the fifth priest tied his neck with a cord and held him down so
that he could not move.” It is clear, again, that some people had to be held down for the sacrifice
as they presumably did not want to be sacrificed. Once the heart was extracted by a priest with an
extremely sharp obsidian knife it was presented to the specific idol of the god the ceremony was
for and, afterwards, the heart was often burned with the ashes being kept as an important relic.
The now lifeless body was then tossed down the steep steps of the pyramid and preparations were
made for the next person in line to be sacrificed. The bodies that piled up at the bottom of
the pyramid where ceremoniously butchered and the various parts of the body were used
in multiple ways, the skull was put on a skull rack called Tzompantli, other parts of the
body were given to the zoo animals to eat, and some parts of the body, on occasion
when the victim was captured in battle, were given to the warrior that captured the victim
and he would ceremoniously eat it with his family. This heart extraction sacrifice I talked about is
the quote “most common type of sacrifice” and it was practiced by all the major Central Mexican
peoples during the period of the Aztec Empire. The second sacrifice I am going to be
talking about is, as far as we know, specific to Tenochtitlan and the Mexica people. The preparation for this sacrificial
ceremony started a year before the actual ceremony in the month of Tōxcatl, which
is roughly the month of May. During this month a young male was chosen to be the impersonator
of Tezcatlipoca, the god of rulers, priests, war and a bunch of other things. This chosen
young man was either a slave or a war captive. Once chosen to be the impersonator, the man was
taught various skills like how to play the flute, sing, and speak in the manner befitting of god. He
was also painted completely black barring his eyes and adorned with precious jewellery and cotton
embroidered clothes. Then, for a year, the young man would walk around the city of Tenochtitlan,
playing the flute, smoking tobacco and interacting with the people as the earthly manifestation of
the god Tezcatlipoca. It is said that no one could refuse the request of the impersonator and several
times he would even meet with the Mexica ruler. The young man was also ritually wed to four
maidens with whom he spent a lot of time. When the year passed, on the same day
in May that he was chosen to be the impersonator of Tezcatlipoca, the young
man walked up the steps of the pyramid, broke his flute in half, and made preparations to
be sacrificed. As always a great crowd of people would gather in front of the temple, sing songs
and participate in auto-sacrifice. The priests could only sacrifice the impersonator once he gave
them the approval, this way the impersonator of Tezcatlipoca chose his own time when to die. Once
dead, the body of the impersonator was flayed and the flesh was distributed among the nobles of the
city and eaten; his skull, as always, was put on a Tzompantli. Also during the ceremony other people
and other gods’ impersonators were sacrificed, and the next year’s impersonator of Tezcatlipoca
was chosen; and so the cycle continued. As stated before, there were many
other types of sacrificial ceremonies than just the two I talked about,
but hopefully this closer look at these two sacrifices gave you an idea
of how these ceremonies looked like. Now that we have discussed why the sacrifices
happened, and how the sacrifices happened, let's talk about why the sacrifices happened …
Yes you heard right, so far we only mentioned that the “Aztec religion created the bases upon
which the Central Mexican societies built their institution that normalized the killing of
humans” but religion wasn’t the only factor for why it happened, it was undoubtedly a major
aspect that created the tools, the means, and the bases for sacrifices to occur but according
to some historians it wasn’t the only reason. Historians have come up with 3
ideas for why sacrifices were so prevalent in Central Mexico.
One of which we already discussed, religion, but there could have also been
a political and ecological aspect to it. First, the Ecological argument. This
argument focuses on the cannibalism aspect of human sacrifices and was
proposed by historian Michael Harner and later revised by Marvin Harris. The main
core of the argument claims that cannibalism was a dietary necessity in Central Mexico since
the area lacked any kind of domesticable large herbivores. This meant that pre-columbian
Central Mexican society was deficient in essential amino acids and the only way to
get them was through cannibalism. This is why many of the sacrificial rituals we talked
about involve some kind of cannibalism and why the religious institution that normalized the
killing of humans was retained in the society. This theory came under a lot of attack by
other historians who argued that there were plenty of huntable animals in central Mexico
like salamanders, fowls, armadillos, weasels, etc. and there are also accounts of the central
Mexican people raising large numbers of dogs to sell and eat. Plus nutrients needed from
meat could also be found in local plants like the leaves and seeds of amaranth. There
is also a case to be made that the cannibalism aspect of Central Mexican sacrifices we
find in the sources could be overblown due to the nature of the sources but more on
the nature of the sources later in the video. Second we’ll look at the Political
argument. The political argument was championed by historians Godfrey Conrad
and Arthur Demarest. This argument, rather than trying to explain the practice of
human sacrifices in central Mexico as a whole, focuses more on the rulers of the Aztec
Empire, the Mexica. This is because even though, as discussed, human sacrifices were
prevalent in all central Mexican societies, it can be argued that the Mexica brought the scale
of human sacrifice to an extent previously unseen in central Mexico. From the sources we have,
it seems like the Mexica sacrificed way more people than any other central Mexican society
did and they may have even used these extensive sacrifices as a scare tactic against their
enemies and to keep their vassals in check. The political explanation argues that the
Mexica, when they became the hegemon of the triple alliance that formed the Aztec Empire,
created an imperial cult around their patron god, Huitzilopochtli, that imposed on the Mexica
the religious duty of warfare, conquest, and sacrifices. In essence, the religion of the
Mexica was manipulated for political reasons to create the basis upon which the policy of
imperialism could be conducted more freely and efficiently. The religion that
already practiced human sacrifices, but not to such an extent, was altered to fit
the political agenda of expansion and conquest. Through the religious demand for more sacrifices
the Mexica could easily conduct and justify their frequent wars and subjugations which on top of
expending their economic and political power also gave them a steady supply of
the much needed sacrificial victims. The political argument has also come under
attack from some historians who believe it overshadows the pure religious importance of
human sacrifices in the Mexica society. Herbert Burhenn states that “We are asked to accept the
intensification of human sacrifice and cannibalism as rational because it led to Mexica prosperity
and hegemony. The Mexica leaders were not blinded by superstition into ordering vicious and brutal
acts but were rather pursuing eminently rational, if somewhat short-sighted, dictates of Realpolitik
… We may be able to recognize the rational shape of the actions of Mexica leaders, but we do not
know whether they considered their actions in terms of the reasons we infer.” They may just have
been acting the way they did because of increasing religious fanaticism which was correlated with the
expansion of the Empire but did not dictate it. I am not convinced by the Ecological argument.
I also believe religion had a very strong role to play in why, essentially, the killing of humans
in a ritualistic manner was so normalized in the societies of central Mexico. However, the Aztec
Empire and Central Mexico as a whole was quite a diverse place and the reasons for human
sacrifices by one peoples could have been different from other peoples. All of them
definitely had a religious reason but when it comes to the powerful states such as that of
the Mexica I don’t think religion was the only factor that drove the sacrificial rituals. There
must have been some kind of political involvement. Lastly, I also don’t think the sacrificing
of humans was as normalized in central Mexican society as much as we may think
it was. On top of the sources mentioning that being sacrificed was an honor,
something a person would want to do, there are also snipits showing that some
people did not want to be sacrificed as I have demonstrated when talking about the
specific rituals. There are also hints in the mythology that not everyone in the Central
Mexican society were happy with the sacrifices, for example, the god Quetzalcoatl is mentioned in
multiple myths as being against human sacrifices, to quote “it is told and related that many times
during the life of Quetzalcoatl, sorceres tried to ridicule him into making the human payment,
into taking human lifes [as payment/tribute]. But he always refused. He did not consent,
because he greatly loved his subjects.” There were also many people in the society
who probably never thought much of the human sacrifices and or, even though against it, went
with it because that was the nature of life for them. As historian Camilla Townsend put it “Surely
there were many more of the Mexica who simply never thought much about it—like people in so many
times and places who choose not to see the pain inflicted on other people when it is more
convenient not to.” It would, therefore, be inappropriate to talk about all the Central
Mexican peoples or even all the Mexica as being completely fine with human sacrifices but, at the
same time, it is definitive that human sacrifices were normalized to a large extent and seen as a
fact of life for the majority of the population. Lastly, now we come to the problem with everything
I just talked about. Basically all we know about the people in the Aztec Empire and the surrounding
area comes from mostly colonial era sources. These sources include accounts of
conquistadors, general colonizers, Nahua songs, and books written primarily by
Nahuas or Nahuatl-speaking peoples, but not only them, which are called codices. The Nahuas
“wrote” codices before the Spanish arrival but the majority of them did not survive as they were
extensively burned by the Spanish and the Catholic church. Today there are only three complete
pre-colonial Mexica codices (Codex Borbonicus, the Matrícula de Tributos and the Codex
Boturini), and even these three codices are being questioned by historians whether they
truly were made in the pre-colonial era as they do have some similarities to colonial codices.
Nevertheless, since we have only three surviving possibly pre-colonial Mexica codices, today’s
historians have to rely a lot on colonial sources. You probably know that relying on
colonial sources isn’t the best, as accounts of conquistadors and colonizers were
often biased against the natives to justify their conquest. For example, Cortes’ first letter
to the Spanish king Charles the Fifth was found to be heavily edited by a royal committee
before it got to the king. The committee wanted to present Cortes’ actions in Mexico the most
favourably for the Spanish Crown and, therefore, they altered parts of it before showing it
to the king. This existent bias is why I mentioned the cannibalism in our sources could be
overplayed. It is also due to this Spanish bias why a lot of the numbers about how many
people were being sacrificed by the Mexica, or central Mexican peoples in general, are
sometimes laughably over exaggerated. To give you an example. When the main pyramid of Tenochtitlan,
known today as Templo Mayor, was refurbished and reworked in 1487, a giant 4 day dedication
ceremony was held at the top of the temple with 4 separate sacrificial altars. Some of the Spanish
colonial sources state that during this ceremony 80,400 people were sacrificed. Which is roughly
14 people a minute or 3.5 people per minute per alter for 96 hours straight. This is obviously
logistically impossible and such a high number is certainly a Spanish fabrication. Most
historians today put the number of sacrifices for the dedication of the temple somewhere
between 4 to 20 thousand, which must be stated, even at its lower end, is still a very sizable
number for just a single event. According to one source the smell of blood was so strong in the
city that it became “unendurable to the people”. Over all you can clearly see the problematic
nature of using colonial sources. However, as always, there’s much more nuance to this
statement. For example, as already mentioned there are colonial codices that were written by Nahuas.
This would in theory be great as we get their own opinion but there’s more caveats to that. For
example, as mentioned at the start of the video, not all Nahuas were the Mexica or were within the
Aztec Empire. Also not all Nahuas liked the Mexica or other Nahuas, and it is sometimes hard in the
colonial period to separate the various Nahuas from each other, as the Spanish, and sometimes
even the various Nahuas themselves, just called everyone Nahuas or, even more broadly, Indians
or Amerindians. It is also due to this Spanish treatment of grouping all the Amerindians together
that the societal and cultural differences that existed in the pre-colonial period, among various
Nahuas and also other Central Mexican peoples, got muddied and often coalesced in the colonial
era. As historian Ramos Gabriela put it, “An important change that marked the colonial
period was that indigenous intellectuals had to negotiate the Spanish idea of the colonial
Indian”. Because the Spanish just put them all together. All of this makes the interpretation
of the colonial sources even harder as they can represent a collage of traditions
from various pre-Columbian peoples. Yes, there were codices that did talk about the history
of other peoples or tribes than just the Mexica. For example, Codex Xolotl that, even though,
talked about the history of the entire valley of Mexico, focused more on the people of
Texcoco rather than the Mexica. However, just a few generations after the conquest
the tradition of separate peoples or tribes living in central Mexico mostly died out with
larger cultural and ethnic groupings forming, like that of the Nahuas or again, even
more broadly, the Indians/Amerindians, and the colonial written histories, even though
some more than others, reflected this change. On top of dealing with this cultural and ethnic
nuance of the sources, we also have to deal with the fact that many codices like The Florentine
Codex (probably the most important ethnographic research study on the Mexica written in the 16th
century) were written by native Nahuatl speakers but under the supervision of Spanish friars. In
the case of the Florentine Codex it was Bernardino de Sahagún. Therefore, whether the Florentine
codex represents the genuent information of a native Nahua population or a heavily edited
version of it by a Spanish friar is unknown, and many other codices like Codex Mendoza were
written in a similar context. This colonial context should, however, not always be considered
bad. For example, a Dominican friar, Diego Durán, who grew up in Mexico as his family moved
to the colony very early after the conquest, knew Nahuatl as he grew up there. He was
also friends with many local Nahuas and interviewed many elder Nahuatl speakers for his
book The History of the Indies of New Spain. During his time he was even criticized
for being too favorable to the natives. So as always there’s a lot of problems with
the sources but there’s also some good in them. Which makes the whole thing of relying
on them that much harder because we cannot simply disregard them but also have to be
very careful with what we take from them. This is for example the reason why I did
not talk about any specific numbers of how many sacrifices were conducted per year by the
Mexica or the whole Valley of Mexico in general because with the nature of the sources it is
really hard to tell. There definitely were human sacrifices and cannibalism happening
in pre-columbian central Mexico, the sheer amount of written and archaeological
evidence for that is unquestionable, but extrapolating numbers of victims being
sacrificed every year from that is really hard. Lastly, it is prudent to mention that the
Spanish weren’t the only ones that altered sources we rely on today, the Mexica did the
same thing. King Itzcoatl who ruled over the Mexica from 1427–1440 destroyed most of the
early historical codices of the Mexica people, and of their conquered subjects, because he
said it is “not wise that all the people should know the histories.” Itzcoatl did this right
after he came to the throne of Tenochtitlan and secured the independence of the
Mexica people from their enemies, therefore, his action of burning books can be
interpreted as a way of solidifying a single national historical narrative which might
not have been completely true. It is also this event that proponents of the Political
argument point to when they talk about the creation of an imperial cult that drove the large
number of sacrifices conducted by the Mexica. So to summarize. The history of the Mexica people,
or the Aztec Empire in general, that we know today, and that is presented in books and channels
like mine or Invicta, is a history that was altered by King Itzcoatl who was trying to build a
national narrative, whose history largely survives in colonial Spanish sources that were written with
their own biases but all of that does not mean that all the sources are unusable. There are many
facts and themes shared among all the sources, there are also genuent Nahua statements in many
colonial codices, and by cross referencing all this and using the historical method we can reach
a very well informed understanding of not just the Mexica, or Nahua societies but of all the
pre-columbian Central Mexican societies. Through this we can gain a much better picture of how
these societies functioned and how they came to normalize, even though not fully, and ritualize,
the act of killing humans in a religious context. Before I say anything, go check out Stefan Milo’s
video, he is also talking about pre-Columbian sacrifices but from a more archaeological
standpoint. I have been working on this video in the background ever since I read the paper "Mass
Murder or Religious Homicide? Rethinking Human Sacrifice and Interpersonal Violence in Aztec
Society." which was over a year ago now. However, the paper made me so interested in the topic that
I decided I had to make a video on it no matter how long it will take me to make and here we are,
one year later, with an almost 40 min video. I would highly recommend reading the pinned comment
for this video as there are still many things I didn’t have time to talk about, like the ball game
for example, or the fact that pre-Colonial Central Mexican codices weren’t really “written”, or the
whole mess of a topic that is the pre-Columbian central Mexican “Ethnic Groups”, etc. all of that
is in the pinned comment. My entire bibliography as always is in my script which you can download
for free on my Patreon. Lastly, I am pretty sure this video is not monetized as YouTube is not
happy with me talking about uncomfortable history in an educated, well researched, and ultimately
nuanced manner because they do not promote proper educational content if it's uncomfortable.
Which ironically is most of history. Anyways if you enjoyed this video please do
consider supporting me on Patreon, or getting my channel's YouTube
membership for some extra stickers, or just buying me some coffee. Any help is
appreciated because I just spent a year on a video that isn't even monetized. Anyways, as always my
name is M. Laser and stick around for History.
Amazingly barbaric. It's incredible a whole empire was ok with this.
Great title