Unpacking Human Sacrifice in the Aztec World Pt. I

Before I eventually dive into the complicated-yet-fascinating experience that is the Aztec Goddess of Filth and Purification, I have to preface this discussion with a warning: I will be examining, explaining, and unpacking the propagation and use of human sacrifice.

Often, I’ve heard the concept of human sacrifice in the Aztec world as existing on a dichotomic scale: it’s brutal and inhumane OR it’s so immensely enchanting that people salivate at the vulgarity of it. I refrain from using “barbaric” and “savage,” for the connotations linked to these terms encourage an ethnocentric view that should be disposed of as much as possible in the academic setting (I’ll speak about the importance of this a little further down, I promise).

What I mean is that it’s rather dissatisfactory to utilize a biased approach when we try to understand cultural practices, traditions and beliefs that exist out of those which we deem “normal” and “appropriate.” We decontextualize them, but not in a way that inhibits biases to encroach our judgment of them. What do we do? We frame cultures not within a culturally relative one (one which utilizes beliefs and values set forth by that respective culture), but our own. This is a big issue. As contemporary viewers and participants that look at established practices of societies and cultures outside of our own, we have to be mindful that these world views and ideologies are not our own, and therefore it is vital that we approach other practices as equally vital as we would consider our own.

This does not mean I will blindingly defend and advocate for the practice of human sacrifice in the civilizations of the Americas. However, it would be disingenuous for me – as a researcher and participant in the academic world – to paint the world of these civilizations of the Americas as “barbaric.”*

* “Well, how can one single term be disrespectful? How is barbaric harmful?”

Quick side lesson: The term barbaric has a fantastic history from the Classical period of Greece, which I encourage everyone to take a look at further. But I’ll try to keep this brief so I can move forward to what I anticipated writing about.

The term barbaric has a very interesting history. So we begin with the moment that allowed for it to pivot.

Given the increased contact and trade in the Mediterranean, the world was expanding. Greece emerged as one of the great influencers at this point in history, particularly because this was the moment of fruition of the polis – the city-state. The Greeks’ identity depended upon their allegiance to a particular city-state (hi, this is where we start seeing the rise of cities like Athens and their naval dominance, and the militaristic war-centered society of Sparta, etc. I can also talk about the battle of the Greek city-states a lot too, so if you want an OG lesson on Ancient Greece – what’s good? Let’s do it!)  & also, from non-Greek peoples. This is a crucial point where the identity of the Greek-speaking world was forged, and where the notion of “us” as challenged by the world of “them” was born. 

So how does this play into the term barbaric?

I’m glad you’ve made it this far. The Greek-speaking world viewed themselves much differently than non-Greek speakers, and they certainly made it known. Anyone who didn’t speak Greek were referred to as barbarian – βάρβαρος (source; and Cameron McPhail’s doctoral thesis “The Roles of Geographical Concepts in the Construction of Ancient Greek Ethno-cultural Identities, from Homer to Herodotus: An Analysis of the Continents and the Mediterranean Sea,” is a great read about the ethnocentric attitude of the Greek-speaking world). The barbarian was ethnically non-Greek, and therefore culturally un-Greek. The Greek speakers viewed non-Greek speakers as speaking gibberish – bar-bar noises. It was unintelligible to Greek speakers, and these gibberish sounds belonged to foreigners.  On this basis, the barbaros speakers came to be synonymous with uncivilized (a later development in Latin, Yasser El Masri’s thesis “Decentralizing Power: Building Peace through Architecture in the Middle East” discusses this to an extent).

What does this all mean?

Using terminology like barbaric – and savage, etc. – have particular connotations associated with them. In me saying this, it means that there are implications already encoded into these concepts. We offer a suggestion of how we view whatever it is we associate with words like “barbaric” or “savage.” We consider them uncivilized; we presume them to be cruel because they exist outside of the civilized periphery. These words are encoded with an underlying meaning that they are uncivilized, and that they are inferior. Is this excessive? I don’t think so. I think it’s a necessary precaution that we – as a collective society – need to take seriously. That our words have significations built into them, and often we don’t understand the severity that those nuances can have when we talk about or interpret cultures, objects, ideas, peoples and so forth.

So – re: human sacrifice. The Aztecs and other Central Mexican civilizations were known for it, but it really is the former who is associated with the practice. When we consider Mesoamerica, before the arrival of the Spanish and the Conquest of the early sixteenth century, we imagine these societies to be bloodthirsty, violent, and cruel to one another.

 We see images of the Aztec ritual as such:

A teocalli or Mesoamerican temple pyramid in Mexico, with a priest offering human sacrifice on the top, circa 1500. An engraving by J. Chapman for the 'Encyclopaedia Londinensis', 1817. (Source)

Even this is a bit problematic because we have to consider how and why this engraving was made. Who was the audience? Did the author take personal liberties? Why? Personal liberties, yes. We have to consider that this image was created for a “scientific publication” of the nineteenth century for an audience who possibly had no understanding, relation, or knowledge of the Aztecs. It’s a sensationalized depiction of the act, and often these images are accompanied by “first-hand accounts” from the missionaries who lived during the period of the Conquest and engaged with the Mesoamerican civilizations through their own scope of religiosity. We have to consider that the Spanish missionaries and friars were Catholic Christian practitioners and had an entirely different set of ethical and moral principles that is at odds with the Aztec world.

Once again, I refer to Carolyn Dean’s powerful argument in The Trouble with (The Term) Art, in which we often approach non-Western societies with “colonialist perspectives, judgments, and rationales.” (p. 26) She furthers this phenomenon, the way in which we falsely claim an objective stance because we are saturated with particular lenses when we look and approach cultures that we appropriate as “Other.” We turn foreign objects and phenomenon into “the Other,” often without acknowledging that we are doing so. 

… those of us who practice art history in regions once colonized by Europe have questioned very little the ways our discipline enables certain avenues of investigation while discouraging others, about how the questions we ask and the things we choose to examine often respond to colonial discourses and are shaped by European disciplinary apparatuses… [When is art?] … would then be always cognizant of the contexts in which objects were named and, more important, the consequences of that naming. (p. 30, my emphasis)

How does this relate to the practice of human sacrifice?

Well, like non-Western works and objects of “art,” we don’t necessarily engage with the materiality and agency of these objects within their own cultural framework. We experience these objects and occurrences through a Western approach of what is and isn’t art, culture, tradition, etc. and don’t consider the vital role and function they played within it. I will continue to reiterate this until I am gasping for breath, yes, and I think we need to consider the dynamics for all aspects of these Mesoamerican societies and their practices. We think of the practice of human sacrifice in the context of “humane,” we evaluate it on a spectrum that is written by our own prejudices and beliefs, without considering that the Aztecs were not merely murdering individuals without purpose.

The argument as to whether that purpose is meaningful or not is an entirely other monster and I’ll refrain from engaging in it with a bias. Rather, I will turn to the depiction of human sacrifice the way in which the Aztec viewed it. 

Upper-left fragment of an entire page from Codex Laud, which belongs to the Borgia Group Codices (Source).

C. A. Burland, a British researcher, described the Codex Laud as such:

Codex Laud is presumably Cuicatec or Mazatec from southern Mexico. It was painted at two distinct periods, and covers were added at a third point of time. The main portion of the paintings remains in a perfect condition. There is no defacement of any symbol or human figure in this portion of the work. The surface has lost any gloss cover but has a slightly crystalline texture which gives the painting great brilliance. Codex Laud is a book of religious instruction. It contains eleven sections, one of which deals with the passage of the human being through life, and two with priestly initiation. Its only previous publication was from tracings of A. Aglio in Kingsborough’s Mexican Antiquities (1829). (Source: Codex Laud on FAMSI, my emphasis added)

(Side note: There are arguments about the stylistic interpretations in Codex Laud and whether or not it is a Mexica – Aztec – codex or belongs to the Mixtec Group Codices. Álvarez Icaza Longoria argues in “The Codex laud and the Problem of Its Provenance” that it demonstrates Nahuatl cosmogony and utilizes Quetzalcoatl as Ce Acatl and not as Lord 9 Wind. However, given the increasing similarities between these cultures, we utilize similar pictorial readings in human sacrifice)

Human sacrifice is not a “savage” act, but a highly ritualized practice. Let’s consider an example in the excavation which occurred around the Temple of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan, built during the Classic Period (pre-Aztec): 

Temple of Quetzalcoatl (source)

Coe and Koontz (2002)* remark that two hundred individuals had been sacrificed in “elaborate dedicatory rites” during the construction of the temple pyramid, in which young warriors were discovered to have their hands tied behind their back and eighteen of these warriors belonged to one group; they were interred at the northern and southern pyramid sides, and other sacrificed warriors had been interred on the east-west axis of the temple (p. 108). Not only that, but one slain captive was placed at each of the four corners, and the center had twenty victims and thousands of pieces of jade, shell, and other precious materials (110). 

[* I provided the link for the publication I used; however, the linked book is the seventh edition and I have the fifth in my possession (I can't afford to continually update my editions, I'm so sorry guys!)]

Examining the rendering of the positioning of the sacrificed warriors, we can see that sacrifice was deliberate and, once again, a ritualized act that was revered by Mesoamerican societies – not simply the Aztec.

Source: Coe, Michael and Rex Koontz, Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs, p. 110; my own scan

“You mean… human sacrifice wasn’t just a willful act of murder?”

Yeah, not necessarily the case. Often that isn't the case at all, if it occurs at all.

Mesoamerican civilizations, if it isn’t evident, had purpose for sacrificing their victims. Perhaps we, as a contemporary audience, don’t necessarily understand it as being viable or necessary, though I’d be able to argue there are plenty of facets of contemporary life and society which are detrimental and/or unnecessary. I will, once again, refrain from traveling down that path and reiterate that Mesoamerican societies had particular beliefs and traditions which they believed sustained the cosmos. As we can see in this mass burial, we acknowledge even then that these sacrificial victims were not ordinary people – they were warriors. Often captured warriors from rival city-states and kingdoms were sacrificial victims, but they were not carelessly flung down the steps of the temple as many accounts would like to lead you to believe. It was a plausible scenario, but I remain skeptical now, in my academia-fueled days, that the act rendered in Apocalypto was not the most accurate portrayal (and despite the authenticity of Mayes C. Rubeo's costuming work, I have a lot of bones to pick with that movie anyway).

 What the Aztecs loved and glorified above all was warfare.

… Imperial Rome, is that your better half? Much like their Roman counterparts, the main incentive of the state was expansion, which meant capturing peripheral communities and collecting them to be a part of the well-fueled war machine. Yes, the Roman Republic and subsequent Empire was just like this – imperial Rome was perhaps less guilty of requiring tributary costs out of the conquered territories, but they demanded manpower and that’s just as potent (I'd like to interject temporarily that growth occurred for many reasons, often for sustenance and acquisition of resources; the Aztecs did reach a point where they had exhausted themselves and reached what they presumed to be "the end of the world.") To continue, Coe and Koontz (2002) write that there was no greater activity for the Aztecs to acquire captives or to die for the glory of Huitzilopochtli (Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs, p. 203).

Coe and Koontz continue with a Nahuatl song that is a testament to how important warfare was to the Aztecs.

The battlefield is the place: 

where one toasts the divine liquor in war,

where are stained red the divine eagles, 

where the jaguars howl, 

where all kinds of precious stones rain from ornaments, 

where wave headdresses rich with fine plumes, 

where princes are smashed to bits. 

[…] 

There is nothing like death in war, 

nothing like the flowery death 

so precious to Him who gives life: 

far off I see it: my heart yearns for it!” (p. 204) (my emphasis)

Warfare, for the Aztecs, was not merely a function of state expansion, though it was certainly a large incentive for them. Victorious was the one who could expand the boundaries and collect tribute from the captured states. This was not merely limited to material goods but captured warriors were highly prized spoils of war. A captured warrior was highly prized because, in the Aztec world, these men were raised in military schools, they were educated to be warriors and were created to only be warriors. It can be concluded that if one could capture a warrior during battle, they had bested a rival who boasted military strength, prowess and was an intelligent foe. On some level, the captured warrior was inferior to the victorious warrior.

Also, we consider on some basis that a captured warrior was a valuable prize on the supposed belief that the successful warriors were often the children of warriors and nobles. Aguilar-Moreno concludes in Handbook to Life in the Aztec World that “sons of nobles and warriors were more inclined to the warrior’s life than other boys were, and these youths, whether trained in the telpochcalli or the calmecac, received military instruction in the house of the eagle and jaguar military orders.” (p. 99. Aguilar-Moreno’s survey book on Aztec life is tremendously informative and I encourage anyone to peruse through it in order to get an insight to the highly standardized military system that the Aztecs utilized.)  

This would be an appropriate moment to introduce the concept of the flower wars – ritual “wars” between the Aztecs and any other city-state that was prearranged. Yes, the Aztecs staged mock wars with other kingdoms in order to a) produce sacrificial victims and b) at some level, to train younger soldiers. Warfare occurred for a myriad of reasons – from accumulation of power and resources to gaining access to victims to training novice warriors – but my point is that these flower wars were often inexpensive tools to appease the Aztec state (this, too, had the consequence of assisting in the collapse of the Aztec state) and their need for victims. 

* For further reading about the significance of flower imagery in the Aztec world and Southwestern peoples, consider reading Hays-Gilpin and Hill’s journal article “The Flower World in Material Culture: An Iconographic Complex in the Southwest and Mesoamerica.” I cannot stress enough the importance of flower imagery in the civilizations of the America, particularly when we consider the importance the theme that opposites played in the Aztec world and other Mesoamerican civilizations. 

* Further reading can be found in Kendrick’s Aspects of Aztec Poetry, Taube’s Flower Mountain: Concepts of Life, Beauty, and Paradise among the Classic Maya, and Hill’s The Flower World of Old Uto-Aztecan; these are invaluable resources to begin with.

Let’s revisit the imagery of human sacrifice in Codex Laud one more time (mostly because the codices are the bulk of my research and I think they are incredibly fascinating and there is always so much to engage with every single time you look through the “images”):

Opening page of the Codex Laud, source. I’ve pointed out the depiction where the human is placed upon the sacrificial stone and the heart is removed from the chest cavity (just in case).

I suppose this is the part where I introduce the description of the sacrificial act. I’ll begin with the first-hand account from Fray Diego Durán (but I’m also going to challenge the ethnocentric bias that underscores his account).

Human sacrifice was where 

[The hierarch] descended from the platform, followed by all… they seized the victims one by one, one by foot, another by the other, one priest by one hand, and another by the other hand. The victim was thrown on his back, upon the pointed stone… the high priest then opened the chest and with amazing swiftness tore out the heart, ripping it out with his own hands. Thus steaming, the heart was lifted toward the sun, and the fumes were offered up to the sun. (Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, trans. Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden, p. 92) 

This is where I encourage all viewers to remove their own knee-jerk reaction and to examine their responses. How and why have you reacted as such? What is credible about Durán’s account? Why should we – the contemporary audience – refrain from such immediate emotional responses?

Yes, Durán offers us a genuine and primary account to the act of human sacrifice. However, the account is rather sensationalized – not all acts of human sacrifice required the chief priest to “rip it out with his own hands.” It is violent and bloody by nature; it would be false to claim otherwise – yes, removing the heart of the victim is not pleasant. Yet to immediately punctuate this act as callous or unnecessarily cruel is misleading on and toward the belief system that the Aztecs revered and held so dearly. 

For the Aztecs, the sacrifice of the human was essential to life. Yes, death promoted life.

The ritual honored the victims that were consumed by it. Sacrificial victims were accorded the same veneration as those who had died a “flowery death,” those warriors who died upon the battlefield (Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation, p. 74). The performative function of the sacrifice was a transaction, according to the Aztecs: these individuals were all those who were to die before the gods (I’ll revisit this below); they were dying with honor, sacrificed in order to provide sustenance under and for the gods and humankind. 

I would like to take this moment to acknowledge that the use of the term “sacrifice” is our most fitting terminology for the Aztec practice, for there were no exact words that could be translated from Nahuatl to convey what this act was and what it meant. Clendinnen really presses forth this concept – the untranslatability of the function of the human sacrifice-offering.

The Spanish word for ‘sacrifice’ was insinuated into it by its Franciscan compiler, to the continuing profitable befuddlement of professors of comparative religion, the single Spanish word being used to cover three word clusters. The first meant literally ‘all those who were to die before the gods,’ and signified, I think, just that, being used as a simple category description, as in ‘those who are to die for the gods enter left.’ (Sometimes the word for death was modified to qualify the death, as in ‘flowery death,’ meaning the honourable death of a warrior in the field of battle, or of death on the killing stone.) The second cluster was typically invoked in relation to the festivals, and centered on the notion of arranging, of laying out in formal order, or of making a gift or presentation to someone. It lacked any specific identification with the offering of humans. (p. 74)

The action that the Aztecs committed, in this definition, is not what we consider to be the embodiment of the term sacrifice. It is consequently our best contemporary term for it because it exists on that spectrum of, quite literally, being untranslatable. The Aztecs viewed this performative act – the killing of the victim – as “standing in” for the gods themselves. It’s a huge honor for the Aztecs, despite the usage of captured warriors or peoples from conquered city-states. What Clendinnen, and many other scholars propose, is that the Aztecs viewed the act of human sacrifice as that human being as replaced by the gods. (74)

These humans were transformed into offerings – to appease the gods – and it allowed for the gods to enter the earthly space of humankind. I touched upon this in my previous discussion on the Aztec sun stone, but I’ll also reiterate it here: the Aztecs viewed themselves in a patterned existence with the gods, and it was the sacred duty of the Aztecs to repeat this function (the sacrifice of the human being). Without this action, the consequences were severe. The Aztecs had an involuntary debt to the gods.

Allow me to continue forth with what Clendinnen is proposing, because I think it’s a valuable portrayal to the necessity of the continuity of this act for the Aztecs (and many civilizations of the Americas, not simply the Aztecs). 

… the Mexica knew that all humans, unequal as they might be in human arrangements, participated in the same desperate plight: an involuntary debt to the earth deities, contracted through the ingestion of the fruits of the earth. That debt could be acknowledged by the payment of a regular token levy – those offerings of one’s own blood – but it could be fully extinguished only by death, when the earth lords would feed upon the bodies of men, as men had perforce fed upon them. It is that divine hunger which appears to underly the gross feedings of undifferentiated mass killings… [Nahuatl words clustering] … the offerings indicate, is not about feeding but feasting, which as we have seen was a very much more complex emotionally and socially charged affair. (p. 74-75)

We really only have to consider the magnitude of this act when we revisit the Myth of the Five Suns (something which I discussed briefly when considering the central motif in the Aztec sun stone; feel free to revisit it here). I guess this would be the most appropriate time to actually expand upon the Legend of the Fifth Sun, when we consider the seriousness of the endeavor – the atonement of the deities in order to sustain humankind.

 [Nahuatl text] … “Here is the oral account of what is known of how the earth was founded long ago.” The First Age, or First Sun, had its beginning more than 3,000 years ago and was called 4 Jaguar. That age lasted 676 years, during which the different gods did battle to gain ascendancy, and then ocelots descended on the people and devoured them in a ravenous battle. The First Sun was destroyed and the cosmos was in darkness… The world was dark and without movement at the end of the Fourth Sun when the gods gathered in a place called Teotihuacan, the Abode of the Gods. The gods gathered around a fire that gave them warmth, and they contemplated how to re-create the sun, the world, and life. It was decided that one of the gods must sacrifice himself by hurling himself into the fire, out of which the sun would be born. The gods debated among themselves about who would make the ultimate sacrifice.

[Four times he tried, four times he failed] After these failures, the gods then spoke to Nanahuatzin, and they said to him: “You Nanahuatzin, you try!” And as the gods had spoken, he braced himself, closed his eyes, stepped forward, and hurled himself into the fire… Seeing him burn thus in the blazing fire, Tecuciztecatl also leaped into the fire.” (Carrasco, Davíd and Scott Sessions, Daily Life of the Aztecs, 2^nd ed., p. 44-45)

We have to consider the immense selflessness of this act for the people of Mesoamerica. According to the Nahuatl text, the myth of creation for the Aztecs, the gods were responsible for the cycle of life – its destruction and inevitable rebirth was in the hands of the deities. Without the gods, the sun could not exist, for it was the heroism of one of the gods that allowed for the cosmos to continue to exist. The earthly realm and the celestial sphere operated because the gods had selflessly sacrificed themselves, which allowed for humankind to perforce feed upon them. If we consider this use of “perforce,” we’re encouraged to read that humankind was powerless and defenseless – they were reliant upon the goodwill and offering made by each god who was the respective incarnation of the sun. 

Ultimately, as I mentioned before, we should really focus upon Tonatiuh – the Fifth Sun, the Poxy One, the last and final incarnation of the sun – as the savior, who selflessly threw himself into the fire when all the other gods could not bring it within themselves to do so. The Aztecs thus viewed their gods as transcendent beings, yet also beings who hesitated when contemplating the task which they were presented with – to willingly offer their life, an imminent death, in order to sustain life. It is a large task for even the gods, and it is one that has tremendous weight.

 The Aztecs acknowledge that the act of offering the human to the gods is not one which is simply to be done. The act itself is sacred and inscribed with that same layer of hesitation and finality that the gods were faced with; to sacrifice a human is not simply to be committed, but it is to be done with purpose. It is not an inhumane act for the Aztecs, but rather it is one which incites mourning; if we can consider it this way, we acknowledge that the Aztecs are seeking atonement – they seek to fulfill the obligations, to fulfill the indemnity to which they owe the gods. What is the end, none could say. However, the Aztecs commit to this obligation because, much like the selfless acts made by the gods to renew the world, and the cosmos, the gods demand that same payment. To be given something is not without a price – and the Aztecs pay it solemnly through human sacrifice. 

As Isabel Laack points out, the notion of blood drawing was associated with words like debt payment, levy, tribute, and obligation. Obligation is perhaps the closest term we can use that will come close to the burden that is placed into sacrifice to the gods (Aztec Religion and Art of Writing: Investigating Embodied Meaning, Indigenous Semiotics and the Nahua Sense of Reality, p. 176). 

“… Except these bodies were thrown down from the steps of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan!”

Oh certainly, they were. Yet, the action of “throwing down” the bodies is not the careless action which we accentuate it to be. That is my point I'm attempting to drive home. 

Well. How?

Let’s return to the creation myth of the world and the beautiful moon goddess, Coyolxauhqui. *

* For those interested in the proper pronunciation of Coyolxauhqui – CO-YOL-SHAU-KEY. (the x in Nahuatl is pronounced with the “sh” sound, and the “xauh” reads as shau as if you would elongate the beginning of “shower.”) 

Side note: yes, this means the proper pronunciation of “Mexico” would be Meshico, because Mexico is actually derived from the Mexica – who we know and refer to as the Aztecs.

Head of Coyolxauhqui, diorite, c. 1500 (source). (if anyone is super obsessed with size comparisons, Obelisk Art History has an amazing rendering here. Also this is an amazing resource to get your feet wet in art history!)

The story of Coyolxauhqui begins and ends with her brother – Huitzilopochtli. If you can recall, he is the sun god, god of war and of human sacrifice. Huitzilopochtli, too, is the patron god of Tenochtitlan – the beloved city of the Aztec state. If there is any way to describe the relationship between Coyolxauhqui and Huitzilopochtli, I’d probably have to admit that they have one of the more… interesting dynamics. For every sibling pair that beat each other up (and beg the other “not to tell mom, you can hit me back harder!” – thanks Ceasar and Steve, you two were the worst yet best big brothers), I can say that Coyolxauhqui and Huitzilopochtli had us all beat. You beat each other up and play wrestle? 

Huitzilopochtli actually decapitated his older sister. Talk about sibling love.

I’d like to also say that, based on which myth or Nahuatl text you read, Coyolxauhqui probably deserved it. Going off of Milbrath’s work in Decapitated Lunar Goddesses in Aztec Art, Myth, and Ritual, we acknowledge that there are actually three mythic narratives (I'll mention the recurring and most prominent two) for Coyolxauhqui and derive from one source (p. 185). I also am forced to mention that, depending on these mythic origins, Coyolxauhqui is at times credited as Huitzilopochtli’s mother, rather than his sister – eliminating the role of Coatlicue, who is typically credited as the mother of Huitzilopochtli. In order to reduce as much as confusion as possible, I’ll refer to Coyolxauhqui as the sister of Huitzilopochtli and leave any further familial connections for further discussion.

First myth: Coyolxauhqui insisted on remaining at the sacred mountain Coatepec. Huitzilopochtli sought to migrate and resettle a new site – Tenochtitlan – and was upset at his sister’s insistence to remain at Coatepec. Her disobedience caused Huitzilopochtli to punish Coyolxauhqui, in which he decapitated her and ate her heart, then led the Aztecs to the land of the future Tenochtitlan. Probably the most unforgiving response by Huitzilopochtli. 

Second, possibly the most compelling one which greatly legitimizes and favors Huitzilopochtli’s violent response. Coyolxauhqui, daughter of Coatlicue – the Serpent Skirt Mother Goddess (super awesome earth goddess who had fire-serpents for arms and hands instead) – was not pleased that her mother had become pregnant by a “floating ball of feathers.” Coyolxauhqui was skeptical of the “creature” in her mother’s womb and sought to destroy it because her mother had become pregnant in a dishonorable fashion. Coyolxauhqui enlisted the help of her four hundred brothers – the Centzon Huitznaua - to destroy the presumed child. Coatlicue fled for her life, afraid for Huitzilopochtli. Somehow, amidst the panic, one of the huitznaua had a change of heart and warned the unborn Huitzilopochtli of the impending attack from his sister and their brothers. 

Huitzilopochtli emerged from his mother’s severed neck (most unfortunate for Coatlicue – she had been decapitated by her own daughter), fully grown and in warrior regalia, wielding the xiuhcoatl-weapon. Huitzilopochtli cut off Coyolxauhqui’s head right after his emergence from their mother, where he extracted her heart, and killed all four hundred of the Centzon Huitznaua. Some myths tell that Huitzilopochtli took each of their hearts and devoured them on the ballcourt at midnight.

 * Further reading – obviously – can be done in Milbrath’s Decapitated Lunar Goddesses in Aztec Art, Myth, and Ritual. The role of Coatlicue can also be examined in Ann De Leon’s fantastic examination of the historicity of the sculpture of Coatlicue and her role/symbolism in Coatlicue or How to Write the Dismembered Body. 

* Also, Feminist scholar Gloria Anzaldúa has done some amazing work on the importance of Coyolxauhqui and Coatlicue, and how the divestment of female power has affected the way in which we interact or approach these mythic origins. Perhaps this is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s appropriate that we reframe the way in which we approach these goddesses and shed the demonized attitude around them. Further reading: Daughter of Coatlicue: An Interview with Gloria Anzaldúa and Putting Coyolxauhqui Together: A Creative Process.

I return to the way in which Huitzilopochtli treated Coyolxauhqui, following her demise, and the parallel it has to the way in which human sacrificial bodies were “tossed” from the steps of the temple (yes, we’ve made it full circle).

“[This sacred precinct] … the image of the cosmic mountain where primordial sacrifices were carried out in the mythic era. It is interesting that the description of the victim’s body crashing down the steps after death, “rolled them over; they bounced them down. They came breaking to pieces… Thus they reached the terrace at the base of the pyramid,” is reminiscent of the battle and sacrifice in the myth of Coyolxauhqui at Serpent Mountain (Coatepec, my addition). After attacking the shrine on the top of the mountain, Coyolxauhqui was defeated, sacrificed, and dismembered. The text of her demise reads, “The body of Coyolxauhqui rolled down the slope, it fell apart in pieces, her hands, her legs, her torso fell in different places.” … her image is carved on a huge circular stone that was placed at the bottom of the stairs down which fell the bodies of sacrificial victims during the height of the Aztec empire.” (Carrasco, Give Me Some Skin: The Charisma of the Aztec Warrior, p. 14; my emphasis added)

That work which Carrasco is alluding to is the beautiful circular Coyolxauhqui Stone.

Coyolxauhqui Stone, stone, c. 1483-87 (on proposed renovation of the Huēyi Teōcalli – Templo Mayor) source

There’s a lot of history underscoring the Coyolxauhqui Stone, but I have to preface this by saying its discovery in the 1970s is one of the most significant discoveries for recent Mesoamerican studies.

 What we see is the dismembered body of the moon goddess, Coyolxauhqui, her demise the actions of her brother Huitzilopochtli. I will revisit the Coyolxauhqui Stone at a later date (and go into depth over the sculptured relief as I did with the Sun Stone), but I would like to reiterate that its discovery was so tremendous because of where it was placed. Researchers discovered it at the base of the Templo Mayor (as Carrasco delineated) – what it provided was confirmation of what researchers expected: it’s a mythical parallel of the fate of Coyolxauhqui to sacrificial victims.

What do I mean by this?

Well, The Aztec priests embody the role of Huitzilopochtli. They pull open the chest cavity and extract the heart (they do not eat it, but I suppose this is another discussion entirely as well), offering it to Huitzilopochtli. They “toss” the body, much like the sun god had done to his sister. Her body thrown from the sacred mountain of Coatepec, the priests throw the bodies of the victims down the steps in a similar fashion.

Look at the reconstruction of the Templo Mayor with the Coyolxauhqui Stone at the base of the steps of the pyramidal structure.

Rendering of the structure and organization surrounding the Templo Mayor (source)

They are recreating the myth of the sun god’s most profound moment. They are becoming Huitzilopochtli themselves.

So what is it? Well, AMAZING.

The sacrificial victim is not "carelessly" tossed from the steps as is presumed (a normal knee-jerk reaction when you consider these sacrificial victims were often captured warriors and enemies of the Aztec state). They are Coyolxauhqui. They have been elevated to that same value as what was given to Coyolxauhqui, and perhaps in the contemporary sense we look at it and go “Well, that’s kind of messed up.” Yet, when we approach this act in the same manner as the Aztec… it isn’t. 

I would not consider it beautiful, but I would consider its impersonation as compelling. The notion of mimesis for the Aztecs allows them to express the connection to which they have with the divine; to recreate the mythic narrative, they present themselves as fulfilling the duties and roles which are imprinted in the divine, and thus are inscribed into their own personhood and beings. They must commit these rituals, much like the gods had done.

We’d consider this “role playing” today, albeit a slightly violent and bloody one, but the connotations are there. These motivations are not simply without cause or void of significance. It is not simply cruel and unjust, either. You can draw similar responses as one would when you consider the transfiguration and the transubstantiation of the Eucharist rite in Catholic Christianity. They function very similarly in respect to the metaphysical aspects that they each express and attempt to define. Feel free to offer a counterargument (I will entertain it, but I don't know if anyone wants me to really break out my defense?).

Rather, this violence is deeply entrenched in religious motivation and also moved by it; the focus is on ideals of honor for the victim, glorified in death in a similar fashion as the moon goddess. We frame the notion and narrativization of this act of human sacrifice condoned by the Aztec state as sponsored. These individuals did not simply “lose” their lives, they gained great momentum in death. They become quasi-heroes, significant players who occupy the role of the sacrificed deities who allowed the earthly world to subsist and continue.

I argue that the heart and blood of the victim embodies this tremendously important role – to spare the end of life and the world as they knew it, they allow it to persist. They become the food for the gods, to nourish the earth. They mimic the sacrifice of the gods, like the beloved Tonatiuh, and the punishment of those same gods – Coyolxauhqui – in order to provide an essential substance for this realm. 

… On that note, I will continue the impact of other forms of human sacrifice in another discussion, where I’ll talk about ritual forms of human sacrifice – I'll return to the “compassion” aspect that the Aztecs displayed to their captured sacrificial victims – and the act of god impersonation further (the Aztecs really loved to play god). I’ll go further into the implications of human sacrifice and hopefully, in another discussion, I’ll be able to finally get into the mythic personage of Tlazolteotl, the Goddess and Devourer of Filth and Purification.