Although many civilizations have traditions that sacrifice people, these practices were a very important part of their belief systems for the Aztecs, whose names are always mentioned with brutal scenes that you can hardly imagine.
Let’s take a closer look at the traditions of this civilization, which does not hesitate to throw themselves and sometimes even their children into the fire, so to speak, for the sake of performing its rituals.
According to a tradition quite common in society, the firstborn child or a slave in its stead had to be offered as a sacrifice.
The Aztecs would repeat this ritual every 20 days, and the child or slave to be sacrificed was taken to specially designated temples at the top of the great pyramids, such as Texcoco and Tlacopan, before being killed.
During rituals, often sacrifice; he was stretched on a special stone, his chest was split open, his heart was removed using an obsidian or flint blade. This heart was then placed in a stone vessel and the sacrifice was offered to the god and burned.
This tradition represented the communal eating of the body of the god Huitzilopochtli or Vitzilipastli as a kind of bread. For this purpose, the dismembered body and blood of the victim were added to the dough, kneaded and eaten.
In addition to the heart, various limbs or the head of the victim could also be cut off.
Some scholars state that this method was reserved for female sacrifices, typically imitating deities such as the Chalchiuhtlicue, but various codices also state that decapitated corpses were thrown down the steps of the pyramids, as described by the Spaniards.
Another ritual has to do with the victim’s skin.
In this tradition, which was performed by flaying the victim, a person wearing the flayed skin would walk among the people and it was believed that the blood spilled from the skin would bring abundance. In fact, dismembering and eating the corpse was also part of this sacrificial ritual.
This tradition of sacrificing human beings found in the Aztecs was seen as a symbol of god’s meat and carried the belief that human meat dedicated to the god should be shared and eaten.
In addition to these, a kind of game was played to the votives and the losing team paid the price of the defeat with their lives.
Especially in these ceremonies held on the sacred mountains to honor the rain god Tlaloc, children as well as adults could be sacrificed because the tears of child offerings were believed to calm the rain.
Victims could also be sacrificed in a process such as having a single victim fight in a gladiator tournament against a team of warriors.
With this struggle, it was not possible for the victim to get rid of the warrior team and inflict any damage to their opponents, because the victim was not just tied to a stone platform. At the same time, his weapon consisted of a feathered club, and his opponents wielded very sharp obsidian swords.
In another ritual, victims were tied to a wooden frame and showered with darts or arrows. Again, throwing the victims into the fire was undoubtedly one of the most terrifying practices.
After the rituals, the heads of the victims could be displayed for decoration, and the meat of the victims was eaten by the ruling elite, the warriors who captured the victims, or the priests who performed the ritual.
Studies have determined that in 1486 Aztec priests sacrificed 7000 human beings to bless a temple they had built, and during these rituals the priests often sacrificed themselves by smashing their breasts in ecstasy.
Europeans who surveyed the area counted 136,000 human heads lined up to the ceiling in a timber-framed building in the capital, Teocalli. Researchers state that these skulls belong entirely to the victims, and they are still working on the subject.
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