[Aztlan] Discovery Channel - Blood For the Gods

[David Hixson]

Estimados Listeros,
 
The question of how many sacrificial victims were offered during various Aztec rituals has been a constant debate since the colonial period.  First hand accounts vary significantly in their numbers, as do modern estimates.  We do know that human sacrifice was practiced during Aztec times and certainly long before.  In fact, at places like Teotihuacan (centuries prior to the Aztec empire), mass graves of sacrificial victims were entombed as offerings.  The exact number and frequency of similar sacrifices by the Aztecs may never be known due to the ambiguity of Spanish primary sources (which were often focused upon highlighting the horrendous nature of human sacrifice and the Aztec religion in general) and the burial of the Aztec capital beneath modern Mexico City.
 
The recently posted ethnographic source by Karrie is also correct, in that many (most?) Mesoamerican graves were buried beneath their homes to be later disinterred and redeposited as secondary burials.  I have studied this practice of secondary burial in the ethnographic, ethnohistoric and archaeological literature across cultures.  Love to chat with Karrie more on this subject.
 
To debate precise numbers of sacrificial victims by the Aztecs on this listserv would be relatively futile, as there is no new evidence for or against the quantity of sacrificial victims during the reign of the Aztec Empire.  We still must rely upon the age-old primary sources and the speculative modern estimates (which are often at odds) to recreate such events.
 
Regardless, even if the number is in the hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands, human sacrifice was crucial to the continuity of both religious and political power in Central Mexico.  It not only kept the cosmos in motion (from a religious perspective), but it also kept the powerful rulers in play.
 
In the end, it is more important to understand the "why" than the "how many".  The latter question merely muddies a rather important aspect of Mesoamerican religious beliefs.
 
Finally, as a moderator I request that fellow listeros refrain from argumentative comments regarding references to WWII, Hitler, or the Holocaust.  These messages will only inflame an unnecessary debate.
 
Let's keep the topic limited to archaeological data and ethnographic / ethnohistoric sources within Mesoamerica or native North America
 
-Dave