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

multiple offspring, who were worshipped by the Aztecs as creators of the earth..
These multiple gods were feared by the Aztec people, so many rituals were put into place in order to appease these gods; the most prevalent of these practices was the use of human sacrifice.

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

victim.
As for the account of creation, the Aztecs looked to two gods who were truly seen as one: Ometeotl, the Lord of Duality, and Omecihuatl, the Lady of Duality, or as they were simply known, Ometecuhtli.

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

sun.”
The Aztecs shared a common belief of the world beginning as a flat plain that was divided into four quarters: North, East, South, and West. Each quarter was associated with certain gods, colors, and days of the year, and at the center of these quarters was the god of fire, Huehueteotl. The Aztecs also believed in the existence of 13 heavens above the Earth, as well as 9 underworlds below the Earth. However, despite this common belief, there were many stories of the creation of Earth, with two stories standing out among the others and each involving two of the major gods in Aztec religion: Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca.
In the first story, it is said that Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca took a woman from the sky, stretching her out into a cross-like shape to form the surface of the Earth. Because of her treatment, she became angry and began to “devour” the bodies of the dead in the ground. Another story describes how Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca worked together to lift the sky from the Earth, after it collapsed following a great flood, and became large trees tasked with holding the sky above the Earth. As for life on Earth, a story emerged telling of how Quetzalcoatl gathered the bones of the man and woman who survived the flood, mixing them with his own blood to create human life on Earth once again.
The Aztecs were a complex people whose religion revolved around the natural world, while their civilization and culture revolved around their religion. Many of their practices were adopted from Mayan culture, but their use of human sacrifice made their religion and way of life stand out in history. They were not a people with a strict social hierarchy, though their priestly class held a higher respect than the common people, and despite their emperor-like rule, their daily lives were always run by the gods they served. Through their religious practices, they were able to develop a calendar system that allowed them to chart major events and patterns, as well as advance their divination practices. They were a civilization that heavily relied on human fate, and their fate led them to become one of the most prominent civilizations studied in history today.