Aztecs Essay

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The Aztecs, as conquerors, expanded their power, influence and territory by subjugating a myriad of local and tribal cultures. Ignoring the obvious violence and death, the Aztecs imposed their culture and values on the conquered peoples. The cultural practices of the Aztecs which focused upon fertility, agriculture, ancient games, war, and social and political power, led to the perversion and distortion of the Aztec’s initial religious ambition by virtue of their increased usage of human sacrifice. Their original spiritual worship involved minimal human sacrifice to appease their various gods of the cosmic structure; however, eventually, human sacrifice was required in virtually every aspect of their lives. I would argue that this perversion, in form of extensive human sacrifice, was used solely for political purposes to instill fear and had nothing to with religious worship. The Aztecs viewed their life and the cosmic world around them as an unstable and destructive; human life was insignificant and was created solely to serve the gods. The mythology of the Aztecs describes their gods sacrificing one another in order to create and sustain the fifth and final era of the sun in which the Aztecs lived on earth. The Aztecs assimilated the story of creation from the earlier Mesoamerican cultures such as the Maya and Olmec and hyper-extended it, 1 now practicing massive sacrificial ceremonies in order to re-enact the forming of the suns as well other sacred myths.2 The practice of human sacrifice was essentially a reflection of the self-sacrifice the Aztecs had learned from their gods. Since the gods had sacrificed their blood to bring the world into existence, the Aztecs also offered the blood of humans as a sacrifice to aid in keep... ... middle of paper ... ...li by sacrificing more than twenty-five thousand captives. In short, the Aztec waged war to satisfy their war god.”14 Rather than waging wars primarily for the purpose of expanding and assimilating surrounding cultures, the Aztecs used warfare in the perverted sense of satisfying their lust for bloody sacrifice to instill fear not only in their enemies, but in their own people as well. Through the Aztecs explicit use of human sacrifice quickly progressed from religious worship to political intimidation in their quest for power. Although the original religious goals of the Aztecs was to pay homage to their various deities, the expansion of their political, social and economic power required that they instilled fear into the hearts of the subjugated people in their empire. As a result they deployed sacrifice into all elements cultural practices of their society.

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