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The earth, the most holy earth, santisima tierra, talticpac wan talocan, is the source of life for the people of San Miguel. As they themselves say: We live HERE on the earth (stamping on the mud floor) we are all fruits of the earth the earth sustains us we grow here, on the earth and lower and when we die we wither in the earth we are ALL FRUITS of the earth (stamping on the mud floor). We eat of the earth then the earth eat us. (Broda, 1987) |
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AZTECS
When most
imagine the Aztec Empire, many will think of pyramids of gold or worse a
picture of a blood thirsty priest holding a heart up over sacrificial
victim. These images are ethnocentric
because the Aztec Empire was much more than gold or sacrifice. They had a complex economic, religious, and
political system that started with a people, a cultural group the Mexica.
The story
of the Mexica starts out in most stories from the land called “Aztlan (Place of
Herons)” (Berdan, 2005). The journey
that the Mexica would travel would make enemies and allies but in the end
following their god’s prophesy they would find their destination, but only when
they got a specific sign. The sign the
Mexica were looking for was that of “an eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus”
(Berdan, 2005) and in A.D. 1325 after many years of travel was found on a
island in Lake Texcoco.
The Mexica
would name that place Tenochtitlan, to honor their leader Tenoch and because
the name Tenochtitlan in Nahuatl means “place of the Fruits of the Prickly Pear
Cactus” (Berdan, 2005). Was this the
first tribute to their leader or to their god?
The very symbol of their destination coincidently also has dual meaning,
“the eagle symbolized the sun, as also did their patron deity. In addition, the fruit of the prickly pear
cactus (nochtli) represented the human hearts, which were the sustenance
of Huitzilopochtli” (Berdan, 2005). So
it could be implied that the eagle and cactus was a sign to give tribute to the
sun god, Huitzilopochtli.
Over the
course of the almost two hundred years of occupation of Tenochtitlan the Mexica
would take the idea of tribute to a complexity that would incorporate their
religious, political and everyday life of every citizen in their empire. And the most exacting tribute would be of
blood and life sacrifice.
Gods of Sacrifice
The Aztec
Empire had a variety of gods and “the basic tenet of their religion was that
the gods had sacrificed themselves at the beginning of the world to create and
benefit humankind. Thus, to repay that
debt and ensure that the cycles of life and death were maintained, these gods
had to be constantly served through ritual offerings of human blood and life”
(Hofstadter, 2005).
Sacrifice
followed the solar calendar of the Aztec called the xiuitl it included
365 days with eighteen months of twenty days each (Berdan, 2005). The majority of sacrifices it seems was for
the benefit of the god of war- Huitzilopochtli and “on behalf of Tlaltecuhtli”
(Graulich, 1988), the god of earth.
Huitzilopochtli
would receive the heart and then the body thrown down was to honor the earth
god. This a theory in part due to the
“Coyolxauhqui monument has been
discovered exactly at the bottom of the pyramid…on which the bodies of
the victims offered to the earth fell and were dismembered, exactly like the
goddess figured on the stone” (Graulich, 1988). It’s also said due to the size of “340 centimeters” (Graulich,
1988), that victims thrown from the main pyramid would have to somehow always
fall on the stone. So with sacrifices
being offered to the sun and earth, one would think that these to would have
the most ceremonies offered to them, however this it seems is not the case.
In most of the solar year ceremonies revolved around rain
and fertility, honoring the rain gods, the highest being Tlaloc. This is probably due to the timing of
sacrificial ceremonies at “planting, growing, and harvesting season” (Berdan,
2005).
The rain
and fertility gods that were honored were numerous in number but the best known
is Tlaloc the god of rain and fertility.
The best sacrificial victim of the Aztec were children, “because they
had a circling double crown of hair, symbolizing whirlpools, were costumed as
the rain gods, carried in a litter weeping to the sacrifice” (Booth,
1966). Because rain is associated with
tears and children tend to cry, not being stoic as adults, children were
ideal. And it was thought the more
tears they shed the more rain would come, so several times a year children
would be sacrificed, to ensure rainfall.
However,
not just any child would do, “the children were purchased from their mothers,
and at least one source says that they came from noble families” (Sahagún,
1956). The reasoning behind this was
due in part to how their religion was set up, “fire symbolized war and
consumption, whereas water represented agriculture and craft production. “
(Ingham, 1984), and on the top of the city of Tenochtitlan its central pyramid
were two temples, one is for Huitzilopochtli and the other for Tlaloc. “The juxtaposition of the two elements thus
alluded to social hierarchy” (Ingham, 1984).
So the sacrifice of noble children with their tribute of blood and tears
was appropriate due to their social status.
Another god
that is of importance is Xipe Totec,
“Our Lord the Flayed One…was god of spring, of jewelers, and of sickness,
represented the death of winter and the rejuvenation of spring” (Booth,
1966). Xipe Totec along with Toci
(Mother of the Gods) had a special meaning for flayed skin, that “human skins may
have symbolized the mantle of the maize plant, the covering that turns gold
with maturity” (Ingham, 1984).
These are
the six gods that were of main importance to the Aztec however Empire there
were more gods and goddesses that provided a venue for sacrifices. Many Aztecs also performed sacrifices to
their own patron gods.
Types and Persons Sacrificed
One type of
tribute to the gods was auto sacrifice via blood letting; this was used to show
religious devotion amongst the Aztecs.
They would have “the maguey spines used to draw blood in penitential
self-mutilation were liked to fire drills” (Sahagún, 1950). Priest would take these maguey spines to be
used on tongues or other parts of the body to draw blood, and this the priests
would do often (Berdan, 2005).
And since
blood is easy to offer, anyone could and would offer blood at ceremonies. Even children would offer blood, “in the
fourth month of the solar calendar-the last of four successive months of child
sacrifice to the rain gods-little children were taken to the temple of Huitzilopochtli
for blood-letting” (Durán, 1967). In
cases where the children were too young to offer sacrifice, the parents would
pierce the child for the blood letting.
The extreme
form of self-sacrifice would occur when “ritualistic suicide was
practiced. The Aztec would rip open his
own breast or cut his own throat” (Booth, 1966). This would have to be a great tribute to the gods, since every
man had to do war service, it may have been easier to go to war for sacrifices.
However, there is the chance of dying in combat or being captured and offered
to another city-state for sacrifice, whatever the reason for self-sacrifice,
Booth doesn‘t go into detail.
With the
Aztec tribute to the gods, sacrifice could take several different routes, it
all depended on the solar calendar and which god needed a tribute. The standard sacrifice was the offering of
the victim’s heart via a cut through the chest to the sun god
Huitzilopochtli. But within the Aztec
Empire victims could be sacrificed in different ways- some were decapitated,
drowned or burned alive. While others
were tied up, shot with arrows and stabbed with spears, and some were even
given a chance to fight the Aztec in sort of a mock type of combat.
One type of
offering for sacrifice occurred when “young girls representing the young maize
goddess” (Booth, 1966), were decapitated.
When the
fire god need tribute, one of two ceremonies could occur, first a victim could
simply be burned alive. Second, the
person could be merely scorched, and then removed from the fire to be
sacrificed in the standard way with the heart removed (Booth, 1966).
Another way
that was unusual was to have the “victim tied to a scaffold and pierced with
spears and arrows, allowing the blood to spill upon the ground” (Booth, 1966),
and then the sacrificial victim would have their skin flayed and worn by those
dedicated to the god Xipe Totec for a short time period.
The last
kind of sacrifice the mock battle is likened to the gladiator style minus the
weapons. It pitted the victim with
dummy weapons versus Aztec warriors in full armament, this would continue
“until they were slain or exhausted; then they were sacrificed” (Booth,
1966).
It would
seem with the different ways to inflict death on the victim was somehow
impersonal or cruel but in some cases special captives were chosen to
impersonate a god or goddess and were given some inducements to agree to be the
victim. During the fifth month a
captive was chosen to be “Tezcatlipoca, god of night, evil and misery. He was a patron of sorcerers and warriors,
whose fetish was the flint knife” (Booth, 1966). He would be treated as a god, given wives to live with and a
flute to learn, all of course was to be lost on the end of the year. Then he
would lose all treatment of a god, but would go willingly to his death.
Ritually breaking his flute as he ascends the steps, and then in the last part
of the drama his fine clothes is taken, leaving the willing sacrifice “naked,
his heart is torn out” (Booth, 1966).
Women are
also chosen to impersonate goddesses but with one case, she doesn’t go
willingly, “the impersonator of the fertility goddess was deceived into
believing she had been chosen for the evening by an important noble to be his
sexual partner” (Sahagún, 1950).
So it seems
some of the sacrificial victims were voluntary due the honor given but in most
cases one would suspect some would be carried to their fate. Overall one could say that sacrifice was a
form of tribute from the Aztec warrior to a specific god or in some cases
sacrificial impersonators gave sustenance to the gods willingly as their own
tribute. In the end the sacrifice of a
victim was seen as a necessary good because they fed the gods and the Aztec
“believed that the victims were an incarnation of the gods. By eating their flesh, they absorbed the
virtues of the gods” (Booth, 1966).
Tools Used to Sacrifice
For
sacrificial ceremonies in which the victim was offered to the sun the most
logical weapon of choice is flint. If
“it was a sacrifice to heavenly fire and to carry it out only a flint knife
could be used, for flint was or contained a spark descended from heaven”
(Graulich, 1988). So what then of the
view of obsidian to slice open the victim and removal of the heart? Well, Graulich assumes that they are
probably used to decapitate and dismember the victims for cannibalism.
Graulich assumes that the heart was taken for the sun while
the second sacrifice of the decapitation was an offering to the earth. And “in opposition to flint, black, cold and
nocturnal obsidian was considered as coming from the inside of the earth and
therefore, perfectly fitted for the rituals on behalf of Tlaltecuhtli“
(Graulich, 1988).
Graulich
sees the elevation to the sun of the victim’s heart as being similar to the
throwing of the head to the earth appeasing both gods, so his interpretation of
the weapons of sacrifice is of interest and may have merit.
Once tool
of importance is the container for the heart, this is called the “eagle vessels
or cuauh-xicalli” (Graulich, 1988), usually made of stone they had
pictures on the sides, “to signify that the sacrifice was destined to both
Earth and Sun…with motifs such as ‘precious water,’ that is human blood,
surmounted by a row of eagle feathers…the bottom is decorated with the image of
the sun and on the underside there is a representation of the earth monster”
(Graulich, 1988). Another vessel is
called “eagle-jaguar vessel or ocelo-cuauhxicalli” (Graulich,
1988). In this vessel the jaguar is
prominent and represents the earth.
Skull Racks
The
offering of heads to the earth god is of interest because the Aztec tzompantli
or skull rack is seen to represent trees (Graulich, 1988). Some believe that some one skull rack “the
possible model of the heuy tzompantli (great skull rack) at Tenochtitlan…that
there were 136,000 skulls” (Harner, 1977),
and that this is proof of cannibalism on a grand scale to provide
food. But others discount that theory,
due to availability of space, and how tall the skull rack could actually be the
number of around “60,000 or less” (Ortiz De Montellano, 1983).
Whatever the case one must assume that other cities within the empire also had skull racks, but it could be a reason to keep an offering to the earth god and also as an deterrent against rebellion.
Cannibalism
Cannibalism
will put fear into any person. But one must ask how can an Empire such
as the Aztec’s consume the sacrifices given as tribute to their gods?
Wasn’t it the goal to feed the gods so that the world would continue?
What about asking the gods for rain and fertility, didn’t the Aztec’s
want to ensure a good harvest? The answer is yes, to all these
questions, and the answer is how the Aztec perceived their sacrificial
victim. They sometimes made great lengths to impersonate their gods or
goddesses in chosen victims, but in the end they still became dinner.
To the Aztecs the human body is seen to be of equal value of corn, and
in some cases would eat the flesh of man with corn (Furst, 2003). They
have a unique perspective, “they philosophically note that they eat the
earth (and its products), and then the earth eats them” (Furst, 2003).
So because corn is a staple diet, is it reasonable to assume that the
Aztecs bodies to be “edible maize” (Furst, 2003).
As we look to Aztec myth, “a pair of aged gods, who lived in the
heavens, took a fire drill, and twirled the upright stick in the chest
of an unborn child. Thus was the vital heat ignited” (Furst, 2003).
This heat the Aztecs called tonalli and it is said that any person or
object that had heat had this tonalli or “life force…and at the
beginning of all things, the gods gave their own life force to the sun,
so that eating a human being was tantamount to consuming the tonalli of
the gods, which sustained the sun that gave heat to the corn” (Furst,
2003).
So the idea is that flesh of a sacrifice is an equivalent to corn. But
others also have a different perspective, “they believed that the
victims were an incarnation of the gods. By eating their flesh, they
absorbed the virtues of the gods” (Booth, 1966). So was it their myth
and religion that allow for the eating of sacrifices intended to bring
tribute to the gods? Most probably, in one account “Panquetzaliztli in
the Codex Tudela (fol. 19v) it is noted that those who are sacrificed
are eaten. There are two ceremonial meals, the cannibal meal (cooked
with water and maize we taste like pork) and the ‘communion,’ the
ingestion of which restores health to the sick” (Haly, 1992). If the
Aztec saw it as their divine right to eat sacrifices, that in turn they
are eating the very essence of the gods. Who are we to say that they
are wrong? But some have another reason that cannibalism occurred.
This reason is based on eyewitness accounts of the size of skull racks
at Tenochtitlan and probability that food shortage would occur as the
need for an expanding population grows. When Cortes had his men count
the number of skulls on the tzompantli it was “found that there were
136,000 skulls, not counting the ones on the towers” (Tapia, 1963).
With this number Harner speculates with addition to the frequency of
possible drought, that cannibalism was a necessity (Harner, 1977).
Unfortunately, he has since had critics lower the number of skull
possible due to size of structure to be around “60,000” (Ortiz De
Montellano, 1983). Was it smaller or bigger? One can only go on
accounts from the past and compare the available space, but one must
also consider that these eyewitness accounts may have been exaggerated
to some extent to provide a reason for the conquest of the Aztec.
The
fact is that cannibalism did occur with the Aztecs is a fact. It only
remains to be seen if there were used as a divine right or an economic
staple in the Aztec diet.
Conclusion
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