Were the Aztecs as barbaric as described by the Spanish?

I am wondering if the author truly believes that Jesus instructing his followers to think of his body and blood while eating wine and bread are in any way comparable to taking a human being and ritually murdering them and then eating portions of their bodies. The question in you own article was “Were the Aztecs as barbaric as described...” Each of your points seems very disingenuous or impossible that a human could actually believe them. For example, you mention the agricultural beliefs surrounding cannibalism and the fact only upper class privileged people could partake...as if i somehow that lessens the objective wrongness. I lready covered the next attempt to soften the inherent wrongness of human sacrifice by falsely equating it to communion.
We are supposed to perform some strange mental gymnastics and go back in time and judge Spanish missionaries and conquerers based on today’s liberal bias..however, at the same time, we are supposed to only judge indigenous cultures based on their relative understanding at the time. This is clearly not a fair way to perform analysis is it? Isn’t it fair to state that a culture in which human sacrifice and child sacrifice is foundational is inherently evil?

This article makes multiple false claims about Christianity in order to justify Aztec attrocities.
1. This article claims Jesus was “sacrificed” by THE ROMANS. This is false. Jesus was, in fact, sacrificed for our sins, but the Romans DID NOT INTEND for Christs death to be a sacrifice. The Romans saw Jesus as a common criminal. He was murdered by them becuase he was seen as a threat to Roman supremecy, as well as a false profit by Jewish leaders at the time
This is a clear false equivalency, which can only be achieved by lying about the Romans intentions in Killing Jesus, which this article does. To sacrifice implies its done for the greater good or for a good purpose, but this is NOT why the Romans killed Jesus. They murdered him as a criminal.
2. This article, again, employes a false equivalency by lying about Christian doctrine. It tries to justify Aztec cannibalism by talking about Jesus’s command to counsume his body during the last supper. The command to consume Christ’s body was clear metaphore. Jesus NEVER commanded his followers to LITERALLY consume his flesh. This is in clear contrast to the Aztecs LITERALL consumption of human flesh. One was a metaphore for accepting Christ, the other is literall cannibalsim. Once again, this article perverts Christian doctrine in an attempt to justify it’s pro-Aztec bias.
3. This article employes whattaboutism to further justify Aztec atrocities. The article talks about how the Spanish missionaries, who condemed Aztec murder and cannibalism, were a part of the Holy Roman Empire, which also tortured and killed in the name of religion. So what? Bringing up one dose not excuse or justify the other, it’s whattaboutism (The priests who condemned the Aztecs were part of a culture that also did bad things)
4. The article also claims that human sacrifice was an act of “compassion”. Howver it ignores the fact that the Spanish were actually AIDED BY OTHER NATIVE TRIBES IN THE REIGON to overthrow the Aztec empire. The other native tribes obviously didn’t think the Aztecs were all that “compassionate”, did they?
This article, at best, misrepresents Christian doctrine and, at worst, lies about it in a blatent and flimsy attempt at justifying a biased view on the attrocities commited by the Aztec empire.
A website that is supposed to be educational should not be allowing blatant lies about Religion in order to justify a biased view

The Aztecs did make major cultural accomplishments, their capital city, Tenochtitlan, was the largest in the world at the time. No doubt it was a highly impressive city. The major flaw in their society, in my opinion, was their extremely flawed and failed religion. It seems to me, that any belief system that calls for the mass sacrifice of innocent people was created by highly immoral men hell bent on power and control. Their religion was inherently evil, not saying all the people were, I do know that many tribes in the American Southwest are glad the Aztec empire is gone, as they were a constant threat to them with their victim gathering parties. The Aztecs could have eventually wiped these other tribes out. I think it’s pretty telling that around 200,000 members of other tribes joined 200 Spanish soldiers in rising up against Aztec rule and destroying them. Not saying the Spanish were angels in their own right, not by a long shot. But these other tribes threw their lot in with Cortez and the Spaniards to get rid of an evil empire. A whole civilization was destroyed in the process, God knows how many Aztecs died of smallpox and other illnesses the Spaniards brought over, to say nothing of the other tribes. Spain conquered the area, Spanish colonists arrived and married the Natives, producing Mestizo children, and this was how Mexico was essentially born. Did fate play a part in all this? Maybe, maybe not.But one thing Imwill say, the Alec’s did contribute to world culture in a few ways, like chocolate, tortillas and other food products. Gotta give credit where it’s due.

Just a casual reminder that Europeans were eating Egyptian mummies for approximately 400 years: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/europes-hypocritical-history-of-cannibalism-42642371/
”By the 16th century, cannibalism was not just part of the mental furniture of Europeans; it was a common part of everyday medicine from Spain to England.
Initially, little bits of pulverized mummies imported from Egypt were used in prescriptions against disease, but the practice soon expanded to include the flesh, skin, bone, blood, fat and urine of local cadavers, such as recently executed criminals and bodies dug up illegally from graveyards, says University of Durham’s Richard Sugg, who published a book in 2011 called Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians.
Medicinal cannibalism reached a feverish pitch around 1680, Sugg says. But the practice can be traced back to the Greek doctor Galen, who recommended human blood as part of some remedies in the 2nd century A.D., and it continued all the way into the 20th century. In 1910, a German pharmaceutical catalog was still selling mummy, says Louise Noble, who also wrote a book on the topic called Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture.
While Europeans ate “mummy” to cure their physical ailments, the same culture sent missionaries and colonists to the New World to cure New World indigenous people of their purported barbaric cannibalism, some of which was entirely fabricated as a rationale for conquest, Bowdler says. “It’s certainly possible that Europeans were consuming more human flesh at the time than people in the New World,” Sugg says.
“It’s a big paradox,” Noble adds. The term cannibal was being used to describe someone inferior while the “civilized in Europe were also eating bits of the human body,” she says.
The word cannibal first entered the English language in the mid-16th century by means of Spanish explorers, says Carmen Nocentelli, a 16th-century comparative literature and culture scholar at the University of New Mexico. It derives from the Spanish word Canibales, which was used by Columbus in his diaries to describe indigenous people of the Caribbean islands who were rumored to be eaters of human flesh, Nocentelli says. In his diaries, it is clear Columbus didn’t initially believe the rumors, she adds.
But the name stuck: Cannibal became a popular term used to describe people in the New World. It was certainly sexier than the Greek and then Latin word “anthropophagi,” which a 1538 dictionary defines as “people in Asia, which eate [sic] men,” Nocentelli says.
Because there’s evidence that colonists exaggerated accounts of cannibalism in the New World, some scholars have argued that all cannibalism reports in the colonies were fictitious. But the balance of evidence suggest some reports were certainly true, Bowdler says, namely, from human blood proteins found in fossilized feces at American Southwest sites to first-hand reports from reliable sources about cannibal practices among Mesoamerican Aztecs and Brazilian Tupinambá. “One of the reasons cannibalism is so controversial is because we have few detailed accounts of how it worked in society,” Bowdler adds.”

The clear anti-Christian, pro-Aztec bias displayed by the author in the text and comments is evidently clouding his judgement and distorting his presentation of the facts.

The aztecs were savages. We should ALL be thankful that the Spanish came to spread Christianity to the Americas and civilize this barbaric tribe of literal cannibals.

I think it’s important to bear in mind that people in history, no matter where they come from, generally have a very different view of the world to our own. 16th century Spanish people were a lot closer in time and culture to people in the middle ages than to modern people. Publicly torturing and killing human beings was a normal part of their society. The century or so after the Spanish arrived in Mexico is actually one of the most violent periods in European history. Millions of people were massacred in conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, and parts of Europe were seriously depopulated as a result. Modern “civilization” and the relatively kind and humane society we have today is the result of some very hard lessons learned from history. The tragedy, though, is that so much of the history of the Aztecs and other indigenous cultures was written by their conquerors, and thus their descendants have been denied the chance to learn from their own history in the same way. Trying to understand these historical cultures in their own terms is the first step towards repairing some of that damage.

I like how the Europeans on here pretending Europe never practiced cannibalism. Europe the region has a long chronicle of cannibalism, from prehistory through the Renaissance, right up to the 21st-century Meiwes case. Europe boasts the oldest fossil evidence of cannibalism. The world’s first cannibal incident reported by multiple, independent, first-hand accounts took place during the Crusades by European soldiers. By the 16th century, cannibalism was not just part of the mental furniture of Europeans; it was a common part of everyday medicine from Spain to England. Want me to go on Europeans?

It’s always very interesting to me that the ritual sacrifice of humans by the Aztecs is viewed as somehow more barbaric than the religious executions that were occuring at the same time in Spain and across Europe. It seems to me that in the basics of it, both States were killing considerable numbers of people because it was demanded by the Divine.

We don’t really know the extent to which Mexica human sacrifices were voluntary. According to the often flabbergasted Spanish eyewitness accounts of the practice, however, many victims at least appeared to be willing participants in the ritual, ascending the temple steps freely, and dancing and playing music for the spectators below. Failing to display bravery by voluntarily offering to be sacrificed was, rather oddly, punishable by execution , so it’s not like there were lots of options. The difference was the manner and lack of honor associated with such a death. Given that many of the victims were other Nahua peoples, they shared the same worldview as the Mexica, believing that death by sacrifice was one of the few ways to escape rebirth in the terrifying multi-layered netherworld of Mictlan.

The text is biased and is not serious. Aztec sacrifices are well documented by archeologists and other reliable historical sources. These human sacrifices of even children is at least disgraceful. Any comparison with the Romans, a civilization 1000 years older is not to the advantage of Aztecs.

Yes, we all know they were performing sacrifices in the name of their religion, but as we can plainly see the sun did not stop rising when the sacrifices stopped, so they were wrong. Hitler killed millions because he believed they were inferior, that does not justify his actions. In my book i judge people by their actions, not by their beliefs. I think it’s telling that Aztecs did not volunteer themselves for the sacrifice, rather they sacrificed captives and slaves. Cutting out the hearts is the least of the horrors they perpetrated, what about the one where they repeatedly poked a child with a needle to make them cry, after which they would drown the poor soul as a sacrifice to the rain god? In my opinion Cortez did the right thing for the wrong reasons, sure enough he was greedy for gold, but as for the massacre of Aztec population i won’t be shedding any tears for them, they were all complicit in this orgy of violence, there were no innocents in that city, what happened to them was nothing short of karma.

This is a great source of information that I recommend showing to white historians and perhaps movie-makers to avoid perpetuating negative stereotypes about the Aztecs and other indigenous Americans.

Which rituals did the Aztecs practise cannibalism? Panquetzalitzli, probably, or Tlacaxipehualiztli, assuradely, but which others?

My ancestors were not barbaric in the least! Those lies are promoted by whote colonizer-minded people who seek to justify their racism towards indigenous peoples. The dorks who wrote hateful comments should study a little history before making false and very insulting affirmations.

Thank you so much for this source. It helped me so much for my debate on if Aztecs were sophisticated or barbaric. (guess which side i’m on)

Neil Young’s Cortez The Killer started by research on this subject. All I know is that the Aztecs documented their own deeds through their artwork. What i do appreciate is the way you do not censor your comment section, bravo !!

Donald must be confusing aztecs with nahuas in nicaragua warring with chibchas of a colombian affinity, and uto aztecans, who im not sure sacrificed anything but definitely werent as far north as canada!

The Aztec made Gengis Khan look like a boy scout. They practically depopulated the American west. Sent raiding parties as far north as Canada and as far south as Colombia to feed their sacrifice machine! Look how terrified the pueblo people were! Retreating higher on to the cliffs. The Aztec were the most horrible people the planet has ever seen

Thank you so much for this article and website. I moved last year in mexico city and have been researching about the mexica and the life of nezahualcoyotl, i’m flabergasted... Such an amazing civilization who’s history was writen by barbaric priests, even the destruction of amazing places like texcotzingo was an act of religeous barbarianism.
The haters comenters below do not seem slightly informed about anything.
Thank you mexicolor for helping me get a better understanding about this region of the world!

The Aztecs were a brutal barbarous civilization that sacrificed all manner of people in the name of slating a god’s thirst. What of degenerate culture does this? One can never justify what happened to them. However, gotta call it like you see it. The Aztecs were great in certain regards, but by an large, their religious and social culture was backwards and as bankrupt in terms morals as it gets. Modern archeology backs this up folks. LOOK IT UP. Archeologists are corroborating the carnage that the Spanish documented. Please, and you want people to respect this type of culture? Get outa here with that crap...

Right now at school, I’m doing a Law and Order themed project of the Aztecs vs the Spanish. As much as I rooted for the Aztecs, I was placed on the Spanish side. So I’m forced to find bad things about the Aztecs in order to support my case. So, was there anything “bad” that the Aztecs ever did? Thanks if you can answer.

“Why did the Aztecs rip out hearts by the thousands?” “To nourish their gods.” This is what’s known as “begging the question.” How did they get the idea that the gods needed to be nourished with hearts in the first place?
Consider the rites of Xipe Totec, whose victims not only had their hearts ripped out - standard fare - but had their skins removed whole, which were then worn by priests! Think about that. A priest would take the bloody, slimy flayed skin of a human being and wear it for 20 DAYS, until it was putrid and stinking and rotting off of him. Meanwhile he’d parade through the streets, entering houses and demanding alms - just imagine some ghoul draped in decaying human skin busting into your house! - and brandishing the defleshed thigh bones of the victim as “blessing” wands.
So you had an culture in which behavior that rivals that of the most depraved serial killers was absolutely normative. It doesn’t work to just say “it was their religion.” WHY was it their religion?

I do feel that a comparison with the Eucharist is not a valid comparison. Neither the eucharist nor the Greek-based rituals it derived from ever involved anything more than symbolism. In fact, if we had ever actually performed it using a real person who was slain, it’s only too easy to imagine what the attitude to it would be now! I’m not saying this to suggest that the course of history is a simple matter. The Spanish replaced one evil with another. But we can look back at our own history now, and rightly condemn such things, like the Inquisition, which were wrong with it. We should be able to do the same with other civilisations too, while still acknowledging their good aspects. Basically, I see it as a matter of accepting that evil has existed in all cultures, though it’s taken on different forms. It’s not a matter of good guys and bad guys.

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/23/news/adfg-sacrifice23
LA Times article regarding the proof of the barbarity of the Aztec Culture.

What a load of rubbish. The Aztecs were most definitely brutal cannibals. An act of “solemnity and compassion”?? They cut the hearts out of their victims and ate the bodies. The proof is in the archaeology and no amount of apologetic nonsense as is written on this page can change those facts. To this writer, maybe the decaptitations of ISIS are merely solemn and compassion homage to Allah, distorted by the point of view of the civilized world.

Well, I suppose you could be more deliberately ignorant, but I’m not sue how. I’m going to have to think on this one. In the meantime, I propose you live without those things the barbaric Europeans developed, like electricity, cars, plumbing, hospitals, antibiotics and the like. You wouldn’t want to be culturally contaminated by them, would you?

The Aztecs were not defeated by the Spaniards! How Could a group of less the 200 sickly Spaniards? they were defeated by the peoples they had subjugated and murdered with the assistance of the Spaniards. The Aztecs were little more than the Nazis of Mexico. May they all burn in hell.

I think the Aztecs were following what they believed, same with the spaniards, we are all religous in some way, say for christians they follow the holy bible, and others follow diferent rules for there own religion. We are doing the same as they were back then. Were following what we belive in

The Aztec had a totally different way of looking at death. It was simply part of the cycle of the universe. The overwhelming majority of those chosen for sacrifice were willing and eager to perform their duties. Ritual death at the hands of the priests was a great honor. It assured the victim entry into the highest of the heavens, moreover, he bypassed old age!

Here’s what I think: Both the Aztecs and the Spaniards who killed and tortured in the name of religion were following a false religion. They did not have a personal relationship with Christ; they were not born again, which Jesus said is essential to be a genuine believer.

The problem we have with the popular idea of human sacrifice is that first of all the word sacrifice does not exist in the Nahuatl language. Second European sources claim that hearts were offered to gods, in the Nahuatl language there is no word for god or gods either. They claimed our ancestor sacrificed people to the sun god, in order for the sun to continue to rise. That’s a lie, prove if the Tonalmachiotl. One of the most precise calendars known to man. Our original Amoxtli or books were mostly all burnt by the spaniards. Thus allowing them to re write history in their own way.

Yea, they were no more savage than any European group could claim to be. They simply had a different way of doing it. I think that a lot of it was more politically inclined than religiously in the later years-- Tributes were taken from surrounding tribes as a means of keeping them under control. I mean, look at the surrounding peoples... they thought the Aztecs were waaay overdoing it with the whole sacrifice thing. It was definitely important in terms of religion but not to the degree that the nobles were making it out to be, I think.

I do not think the Aztecs were barbaric people, but there is no question in my mind that their leaders, the priests of their aztec religion, were evil and manipulative men. In my opinion religion always works this way. It is a dogma of power, and in this case their victims, the aztec people, were un-educated and un-worldly enough for the priests to wrench what they really wanted from them. Wholesale slaughter. I have no doubt that when the priests put away their robes at night and went to bed, they were not soaked only in blood [...] Like most men of the cloth, they were [...] sadists who knew their religion was a sham, and their main drive was for more and more power. I do resent the catholic churches double standard in labelling all the Aztec people as savage. I have no doubt that most of them were just trying to live their life, and that it was largely regular- they were forced by coercion, intimidation, being outcast, and the plain threat of death, to nod their heads to religion and to attend these festivals. If all of mankind had such an insatiable lust for blood then civilization (including the aztec civilization) would have never come about

The Aztec civilization was fasinating. I believe I have read the Cortes was actually very impressed with the splendor of Aztec society. As far as the religion is concerned I find it strange that in the name cultural sensitivity that we can’t condemn the act of capturing other people against their will and sacrificing them.

Do you mean the same Spaniards who raped, pillaged & destroyed an entire civilization? History is often written by the victors. Cortes and his men did not go to bring salvation; solely to seek riches and used their own religion to justify their crimes.
In 1591, the only rights you had were those conferred upon you by your king. Did the Aztec religion have violent aspects? Yes, many religions still do to this day.
Heard of the “Flower Wars”? These wars were organized, not to kill, but to capture worthy sacrifices. The Tlaxcalans, allies of Cortes, also sacrificed Aztecs. Cortes and his men had no problem with that.
The Aztecs brought society (art, culture, prosperity, trade, religion and stability) to the region. They themselves suffered at the hands of most everyone they came into contact with on their journey from Aztlán. A society that condones genocide & mass slaughter, not for a good rainfall or harvest but, in the name gold, jewels and riches, is truly perverse.

Carlos, matt has a point i myself would like to point out. True the Aztec might be considered violent but when you look at it from differant perspectives they were actually a very brave and very generous people. They did not eat people for pleasure, they did not kill for pleasure, they did what they believed they had to do for the world. They saved us everyday by their sacrifices. Whether or not you actually believe in their religion doesn’t matter. On top of this, who is the real barbarians? The Aztecs? or the Spaniards? The Aztecs lived good lives, they were happy, they were healthy, they could be considered to be better off then most of the world at this time period. Then the Spaniards showed up, saw something they didn’t like and didn’t agree with and went on to just about eradicate it. They held no mercy in their killing either. The Aztecs were animals to them, at least if you were captured by the Aztecs you were held with respect and treated like a human still. Sure you were going to die anyway but you got a few more days or hours out of life. As Matt said, you were thought to be enough to save the world.

Please, be serious... what was described by the Spanish is very well confirmed by archeology and anthropology : the Aztec religion was violent and violating all human rights. It is impossible to defend such a perverted society which needed cyclic mass killing. What objectivity is that ? What would you say if they took your kids, parents or yourself to be slaughtered ?

On the point about Aztec sacrifice being called barbaric; if you look closely at the Aztec belief in the sun, much of their sacrifice can be justified as a method of saving the world, healing the sun god with human blood. They did, infact, value human life, as they thought it was enough to save the world. :)

Thank you so much for this page! It helped me out so much on my Aztec project for social studies. I know that I’m going to get at least an ‘A’ on it for sure! Thanks a bunch! ~Julia