Human Sacrifice In The Aztec Culture

The Aztecs were a complex people who surrounded themselves in religion and controversial culture for several years. They were a polytheistic society, worshipping many gods in almost everything that they did from day to day, especially considering that their religion was heavily tied to the natural world, as many of their deities showcase. Most of the gods that they worshipped were rulers over different forces of nature, such as Coatlicue, the earth goddess; Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun and war; Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility; and Huehueteotl, the god of fire. Their ruling god was named Ometecuhtli, who was truthfully two gods: a male side named Ometeotl and a female side named Omecihuatl. These two sides of the primal god gave

Human sacrifice was used by the Aztecs in order to “feed” the gods and continue to keep them in good spirits with the people. The people believed that many of their gods fed off of a precious substance that was only found in human blood, so these sacrifices were a way that the Aztec people served their gods. One sacred event of the Aztec culture that involved this sacrifice was the changing of the Calendar Round. The Calendar Round was a 52-year cycle that was formed by the meshing together of the Aztecs’ two calendar cycles: one with 365 days and another with 260 days. At the end of each Calendar Round, the Aztecs would put out all of their fires to symbolize the end of a Round. In order to initiate a new Calendar Round, the priests would hold a sacred ceremony in order to light new fires, which could only be lit from flames in the chest of a sacrifice

The Aztecs believed that these two gods resided in the 13th heaven, resting at the top of the world, and that these gods created the many other gods that were worshipped in Aztec culture. The Aztecs also believed that their world was the “fifth sun,” and that four other worlds preceded their own. These worlds were known as the “Four Suns,” and they consisted of the following: Nahui-Ocelotl (Four-Jaguar), which was ruled by Tezcatlipoca, the god of the night sky; Nahui-Ehecatl (Four-Wind), which was ruled by Quetzalcoatl, the god of twins and learning; Nahuiquiahuitl (Four-Rain), which was ruled by Tlaloc, the god of rain and fertility; and Nahui-Atl (Four-Water), which was ruled by Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of water. The Aztecs called their world the “Nahui-Ollin” (Four-Movement), or the “fifth