Aztec Mesoamerican Sacrifice

“Motecuhzoma and Cihuacoatl began to sacrifice them, slicing open their chest and extracting their hearts. First, they raised the hearts to the sun.” The beginning of a typical Aztec Mesoamerican sacrifice was executed. In Aztec Mesoamerican culture sacrifice was performed approximately nine times a year. Each sacrifice took under 20 seconds and each ceremony took about 2,300 lives an estimated total of over 20,000 lives a year. Historians should punctuate the importance of human sacrifice because it was a major part of all aspects of Aztec society and life.

Sacrifice wasn't shined under that same light we shine it under today. Document E shows an excerpt, from a young 17 year old Aztec male whom experienced a ceremony. The people were quite

grateful for the sacrifice, and somewhat praised it because they knew the end result would make the Gods happy. As a result, the Gods would deliver all things they needed. This shows how much people really favored sacrifice, to get their daily needs.
As I abruptly stated in paragraph two, religion was also a major part of Aztec culture.After all that was the main reason sacrifice existed in the first place, to give to the Gods.

Document D agitates how the ceremony always took place on a sacred temple, and after they avulsed the heart and rose the heart to the sun they threw the hearts into a shrine before the Gods. Then the rolled the bodies down the the temple stairway.

An Additional reason as to why Historians should dramatize Human sacrifice over agriculture is because it had to do with the expansion of territory. Document A shows a map and how the expansion led to more sacrifice because the more territory the had the more people the more people the more people they have to sacrifice and give to the Gods, so it benefited the circumstance.

Some people may say that we should emphasize agriculture when looking at Aztec society because they made chinampas, and used slash and burn farming to fertile the land and they had may food they they ate. But in reality Human sacrifice is more important because they did it for agriculture so they conducted each other. They assumed that without sacrifice the crops wouldn't be okay. So this all revolved around human sacrifice, human sacrifice for

agriculture.
In essence Human sacrifice should be more of a crucial factor when looking at Aztec civilization because, to them it was a grateful ceremony for the gods to bring good fortunes etc. It was a major part of Aztec religion, it gave more reasons for territorial expansion, and they believed it to help the agriculture and improve their life.