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Human sacrifice rituals were performed at the appropriate times each month or festival with the appropriate number of living bodies and other goods. These individuals were previously chosen to be sacrificed, as was the case for people embodying the gods themselves, or members of an enemy party which had been captured and prepared to be ...
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.
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 ...
Sacrifice of a war captive (Image based on the Codex Magliabechiano) The tecpatl or sacrificial knife, was an important element in Aztec rituals. The tecpatl was used by Aztec priests to open the chest of the victims of human sacrifice to extract the heart that would feed the gods, in the hope that the offerings would bring blessings to mankind ...
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]
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]
Boys were younger than 6 when they were sacrificed. The team behind the new study was able to extract and sequence ancient DNA from 64 out of around 100 individuals, whose remains were found ...
The scale of Aztec human sacrifice has provoked many scholars to consider what may have been the driving factor behind this aspect of Aztec religion. In the 1970s, Michael Harner and Marvin Harris argued that the motivation behind human sacrifice among the Aztecs was the cannibalization of the sacrificial victims , depicted for example in Codex ...