Role Of Sacrifice In Aztec Society

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The perspective of another society is always subjective, especially when two completely different cultures interact for the first time. In Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s The History of the Conquest of New Spain, the first hand account illustrates a barbaric and pagan society where sacrifices are pervasive in everyday life. However, David Carrasco’s essays titled “The Exaggeration of Human Sacrifice” and “Human Sacrifice / Debt Payments from the Aztec Point of View” shed a significant amount of insight into the religious roles that human sacrifice played in Aztec society rather than the cruel and barbaric connotations which Díaz heavily implied. Based on the readings of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Carrasco’s essays offered an outside perspective In an essay by Carrasco titled “The Exaggeration of Human Sacrifice," the purpose of nextlaoalli seemed logical, as it was believed that the gods had died in order to create the lives of plants, animals and humans, and that a ritual sacrifice of plants, animals, and humans offered a way to transmit the energy of these beings back to the gods. These types of sacrifices arguably played a minute role in the actual rituals performed to appease the gods, but rather it was in combination with the regalia and practices of the priests which contributed to the overall “barbaric” atmosphere Díaz experienced in these sacrificial rituals. Although viewed by the Spaniards as cannibalistic and obscure in nature, these rituals formed a pivotal function in the religious culture of both Tenochtitlan and the Aztec empire. The true purpose of nextlaoalli was misconstrued because of the numerous biases present among the collective Spanish mindset, and therefore these rituals became a target for the Spaniards to denounce the established religion under pretenses that it was paganistic, and therefore

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