[Aztlan] Porque no a los 500 sacrificados

[Dodds Pennock, Dr C.E.]

Dear colleagues,
 
My thanks to Roberto for taking the time to reply in such detail to some of my comments. Apologies for my tardy reply. Teaching here is in full swing, which rather interferes with finding time to discuss these things with you all!
 
Firstly, and briefly (as this is something which has been discussed before at some length) on the use of the anachronistic term 'Aztec' which, with all due respect to Ruben, I believe was first used by Francisco Javier Clavigero, on whom Humboldt drew in his work. In following what is frequently the common practice of using it on this list, I believe I share a feeling with other colleagues that it is sometimes desirable to be comprehensible to the widest possible audience. (Although, in other forums, such as my book, it is used only after detailed qualification and considerable discussion.) I might argue, in fact, that 'Tenocha' would be a more precise description of the people we are discussing than Culhua Mexica, which applies to a wider ethnic grouping. 
 
To return to the issue of human sacrifice, as Roberto rightly points out, it is not a practice limited to the 'Aztecs'. It is certainly important to recognise this fact, which must naturally be an important factor in any 'understanding' of the cultural motivations for the practice. 

The figure of 87 ‘events’ of sacrifice is not extrapolated from building numbers but taken from my own original research (now partly published in my book). It is derived from a survey of both fixed and moveable feasts and ceremonies in Book 2 of the Florentine Codex, ‘The Ceremonies’. (Admittedly, only a single source, but I address this in my book and will not bore you all the details here.) Rather than simply counting the festivals within which various types of sacrifice occurred, any instance of sacrifice was deemed to be a single ritual. As many festivals and ceremonies lasted several days or even weeks and often had multiple elements and import, I hoped that this would provide a more detailed picture of the various patterns and models than was otherwise possible.

Regarding the figure of 500 sacrifices, Roberto is absolutely correct to cast doubt on this, and I certainly present it as an extremely tentative figure. As I mentioned in my previous email, Sahagun specifies victims ranging from one to an unspecified figure, but in most cases where a number of victims is mentioned, it is between one and five, so 500 is nothing more than a best guess estimate, based on the data I have. I did not, however, claim that we should necessarily multiply the figure of 500 possible sacrifices, by 20 calpullis, merely that it is possible we should multiply our sacrificial figure (whatever that be) by as many as this number (at most).

The disposal of cadavers is an issue which has been of considerable concern to historians interested in this issue and a reason which I would certainly argue supports considerably lower figures than are often asserted. We need not accept, however, that the lake is the only form of disposal for corpses – cremation, cannibalism, and the feeding of corpses to animals are all mentioned in the sources, quite apart from the possibility that they were removed from the city. This is not a question which has been resolved, but on some of the practicalities of sacrifice I highly recommend Ruben’s article in the book he edited with Richard Chacon on ‘Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence’. 

I certainly cannot but agree with Roberto that all the figures any of us have are speculative – all we can ever do is contribute additional uncertainties to this debate, but I hope at least the logic behind my own contribution is now a little clearer.

Best wishes,
Caroline
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Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock
Lecturer in Early Modern History
School of Historical Studies
University of Leicester
University Road
Leicester
LE1 7RH

email: ced22 at le.ac.uk
http://www.le.ac.uk/history/people/ced22.html