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The Aztecs participated in blood rituals around 500 years ago. [2] The blood in the rituals has a symbolic meaning, depending on the group and ritual being performed. Around 1376 to 1521 AD, Aztecs used blood and sacrifice frequently as an offering to the Sun God. [2] The Aztecs saw death as part of life, just like birth. [2]
The Aztec priests defended themselves as follows: Human sacrifice as shown in the Codex Magliabechiano, Folio 70. Heart-extraction was viewed as a means of liberating the Istli and reuniting it with the Sun: the victim's transformed heart flies Sun-ward on a trail of blood. Life is because of the gods; with their sacrifice, they gave us life. ...
The Aztec religion is one of the most widely documented pre-Hispanic cultures. Diego Durán in the Book of the Gods and Rites wrote about the religious practices devoted to the water gods, Tlaloc and Chalchiuhtlicue, and a very important part of their annual ritual included the sacrifice of infants and young children.
The Aztecs performed ritual self-sacrifice (also called autosacrifice or blood-letting) on a daily basis. [17] The Aztecs believed that Huitzilopochtli needed daily nourishment (tlaxcaltiliztli) in the form of human blood and hearts and that they, as “people of the sun,” were required to provide Huitzilopochtli with his sustenance. [18]
An important aspect of Aztec ritual life was the teixiptla, which can be understood as a kind of "substitute" or embodiment of a godly being. [33] Priests or otherwise specially elected individuals would be dressed up to achieve the likeness of a specific deity. [34] To honor the gods, various outfits and festivals were held.
A proposed translation of the Epi-Olmec culture's La Mojarra Stela 1, dated to roughly AD 155, tells of the ruler's ritual bloodletting by piercing his penis and his buttocks, as well as what appears to be a ritual sacrifice of the ruler's brother-in-law. [8] Bloodletting permeated Maya life.
It is possible that many of the ritual practices may have come from the ritual practice of autosacrifice, the practice of bloodletting on oneself. It had a potent tie to the shamanistic and religious beliefs of the Aztec. By drawing blood they appeased their primary god, Huitzilopochtli. [2]
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/priestly figure, spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in ...