Article suitable for older students

Question for June 2024

When someone was sacrificed did the family get a chance to say goodbye? Asked by Heathlands CE Primary School. Chosen and answered by Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock

Like many aspects of Aztec history, this is a question which is rather shrouded in mystery – the archaeology doesn’t speak to these kinds of intimate interactions and it’s not something that the Spanish invaders who recorded much of the information we have about Aztec-Mexica culture would have thought to ask about. So, it’s important to start by saying that anything we say about this is always going to be informed speculation, based on sources from the colonial period which are so problematic that some people have even claimed there is no firm evidence human sacrifice even happened.
The likelihood of a farewell seems higher on those few occasions when the sacrificial victim was selected from within the Aztec-Mexica’s own people.

At the festival of Atlcahuahlo (the ‘Ceasing of Water’) which took place during the rainy season, children were sacrificed to the Tlalocs, the water gods. These ‘human paper streamers’ – marked by the two cowlicks in their hair, swirling like whirlpools – seem to have been either enslaved or younger children of the nobility, possibly purchased from their mothers, and so there may have been a chance for the family to say goodbye, even if the children were too young to understand what was fully happening to them.
Similarly, at the festival of Ochpaniztli (the ‘Sweeping of the Roads’) associated with crop fertility, a young woman was sacrificed, seemingly from within the city, and ‘unaware’ of her fate until the last moment. It was vital that she seemed to go along with the rituals, and so women from among the community – midwives, physicians and prostitutes of all ages – kept her entertained and consoled during the day. It seems unlikely a young woman could reach adulthood without knowing about this important festival so it is very possible that some farewell with her family was possible, even while they pretended that sacrifice wasn’t her fate.

The most obvious case where a family probably had a chance to say goodbye is the sacrifice of the ixiptla (impersonator) of the god Tezcatlipoca. A young man chosen for his perfection and great beauty, the ixiptla roamed free in the capital city of Tenochtitlan for a year before his death, living in great luxury with many ‘wives’, before supposedly choosing the very moment at which he was to die. This man, even if he were a captive, would likely have had opportunities to bid farewell to his family if he wanted, although his consent remains a murky question, as even Indigenous nobles later admitted that it would have brought great dishonour to himself and his family if he had run away and tried to avoid his death.

In the case of war captives, sacrificed far from home in foreign cities, it seems unlikely that they were able to say goodbye to their relatives. There was a lull between their capture and their actual sacrifice, but it is hard to imagine that their family would have travelled into an enemy city to bid their farewells, though there may have been a tearful departure before they were transported to Tenochtitlan.
Fascinatingly though, we do have one poignant possibility of a captive farewell. In the sixteenth-century Florentine Codex, a compilation of Indigenous testimonies edited and transcribed by the missionary Bernardino de Sahagún and a group of Nahua collaborators, it records the ritual relationship which was developed between a captor and his captive, a bond which was supposed to mirror that of father (captor) and son (captive).

In a world where sacrifice was seen as an ideal death, men saw their own honour reflected in this bond and in their captive’s ‘manly’ performance on the sacrificial stone.
The captor was responsible for the wellbeing of his captive, who lived in the warrior’s district while awaiting death, and ceremonies between them encouraged a personal intimacy and shared understanding of ritual sacrifice. On the day of the sacrifice, a warrior accompanied his captive – his metaphorical son – to the temple on the day of his death. We have no record of the informal exchanges between the men – only the official recitations that reflected spiritual expectations – but it is easy to imagine that an honourable man, bringing another warrior to face his death, might have felt moved to offer consolation and courage as they bid farewell at the base of the temple. An honourable goodbye for an honoured death.

Picture sources:-
• Pix 1 & 3: images from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Pic 2: image from the Codex Borbonicus scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1974
• Pic 4: photo by Evita Sánchez Fernández/Mexicolore
• Pic 5: image from the Codex Mendoza scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark 1938 facsimile edition, London.

Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock has answered 2 questions altogether.

Did the Aztecs allow divorce?

When someone was sacrificed did the family get a chance to say goodbye