Article suitable for older students

‘Nearly everything you were taught about Aztec “sacrifice” is wrong’

29th Jul 2020

Codex Laud human sacrifice, animated by Mexicolore

We’re most grateful to Dr. Gilbert Estrada, History Professor at Long Beach City College, California, for writing specially for us this stirring and thought-provoking article on the contentious question of ‘Aztec human sacrifice’, setting it into a much-needed global context, and challenging our use of antiquated and culturally loaded terms.

Google ‘human sacrifice’ and undoubtedly, that act is mainly attributed to Brown people. Killing people for god(s) has become racialized and ancient Mexicans are to blame. But they’re wrong. Dead wrong. While there is no doubt ancient Mexicans publicly killed people, nearly everything you were taught about Aztec ‘sacrifice’ is wrong and grossly misleading.*

Terminology
First, ancient Mexicans have zero concept of what we understand as ‘sacrifice’. For us, ‘sacrifice’ is doing something we really don’t want to do, but we do it for a diet, karma, or as a religious submission. Common contemporary sacrifices are going to work, doing your homework, or not having that extra slice of cake (geez, what an Aztec warrior you are and what a sacrifice). As Davíd Carrasco, the preeminent Mexica scholar has shown, a better term would be ‘pay-back’ or ‘payment’.
Why did ancient Mexicans want to payback their gods? Because the gods provided life for them. It’s a concept shared by many religions: give to the god(s) who have given so much for us. Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for transgressions is also ubiquitous. People also pray and make sacrifices in order to garner favor with their god(s). In essence, it’s what people do. It’s what the Aztecs did because it was deeply embedded in their worldview.

A better way to understand Mexica teotl offerings (gifts for gods) is to use the term gift or offering (the Nahuatl word is nextlahualtin); don’t use the term sacrifice because it’s inaccurate and taints any other understanding of Mesoamerican History. It’s academically sound to call the entire gift an offering, and that’s exactly what they were: gift offerings. It wasn’t a sacrifice. The Aztecs weren’t going to complain; they had duties and they were carried out. Period. Ancient Mexicans were the most dedicated gift givers in history, but it’s not how or what you think.

Most common offerings
What was the most common gift given to the gods? Well, gifts. The most common gift offering, not sacrifice, were regular items given as gifts even today, such as flowers, pottery, and art. Mexica offerings were also masks, jewelry, idols, tobacco, cacao, food, and even dancing were considered sacred gifts to their pantheon. Within the Templo Mayor, the most important building within the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, more than 12,000 of these gifts were discovered in recent archaeological digs. These types of gifts were likely given daily.

What’s the second most common offering in the Mexica world: human blood. But not from “sacrificing” others, but from acquiring blood from oneself through a process known as bloodletting. Be clear, people weren’t killing others or themselves with this process.
High ranking officials, mostly priests and rulers (tlatoani) were mandated to shed blood; it was a requirement of leadership. This was usually done by piercing themselves with cacti needles, stingray tail spines, and obsidian shards or blades, among other objects. Common places to draw blood were earlobes, tongues, shins, and genitals (for priests).

Evidence suggests that the more meaningful (and painful) locale where blood was collected, the better the offering. Aztec leaders weren’t looking for the least painful way to draw blood, such as a modern-day glucose test where less pain is optimal. The ancient Mexican worldview was based on rebirth, pain and hard work was necessary, even in their gift giving.

A famous example of ritual bloodletting is found in the British museum. In this great Mayan artwork categorized as Lintel 24 from Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico (725 C.E.), Shield Jaguar (not shown), holds a torch over his consort, Lady Xoc, as she pulls a rope with obsidian shards through her tongue (pic 7). The blood is collected in bowls lined with paper (pic 2). Then, the gift is then given to their deities by burning the paper and blood. Although this example was farther south and attributed to the Maya, Aztec bloodletting was very similar.

The most common ritual killing that was offered to Mexica deities were animals. Animals were held in high regard and were avatars for many Mexica deities. As such, they made great gifts. They were important. In the Templo Mayor, more than 400 animal offerings were discovered in 140 caches after careful excavations by the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). Bioarcheologist Ximena Chavez Baldera, Ph.D., and others have written on this important ritual. Large avian offerings were discovered within the Templo Mayor adorned with jewelry, such as shell pendants and copper bracelets. At the Templo Mayor Museum in Mexico City, multiple Aztec animal offerings are displayed.

These include eagles, crocodiles (pic 8), sawfishes, puffer fishes (pic 9), mountain lions (pic 20), and multiple birds including seventeen hummingbirds from four different species (pic 19). The Codex Borgia displays multiple offerings, including the offering of a jaguar, a highly regarded animal and offering.
Finally, what was the least common offering in the Mexica world? Human offerings. Because they were likely the most important, they were the least common gift offered. David Carrasco elaborates that human offerings in ancient Mexico date back to the Tehuacán Valley around 5,000 B.C.E. By the time of the Mexica, there were a variety of offering styles. The most common was probably a captured male offering marched up the Templo Mayor, offered with an obsidian knife, in a symbolic retelling of the Coatlicue, Coyolxauhqui, and the Birth of Huitzilopochtli narrative. In her recent work, Fifth Sun: A New History of The Aztecs, Camila Townsend reminds us ‘although Aztec political life has been assumed to revolve around… human sacrifice… the annals indicate that this notion was never paramount for them.’

How many offerings?
The next greatest error taught about Aztec offerings is the number of gifts offered. The bonafide answer is no one knows; it’s uncertain. What is clear is the number of human offerings has been greatly exaggerated for European political and cultural purposes. As Professor Matthew Restall and many others have shown, the numbers of human offerings make great stories and helps justify 300+ years of Spanish brutality in the Americas, but they are grossly inaccurate. Restall outlines the myths made over the centuries of alleged annual offerings that range from 20,000 as Zumárraga claimed, 50,000 as Gómara claimed, or 50-100,000 people as Las Casas, the great Native Protector, claimed. Most exaggerated are the offerings for the special ceremonies, such as Motecuhzoma II’s coronation or temple rededications where an additional 50, 80, or 120,000 people have been alleged to been offered over several days. Restall adds an ‘authoritative’ and frequently cited work by Sherburne Cook, ‘By removing a heart every 15 seconds, a team of Aztec priests could indeed have sacrificed 88,320 people in 4 days.’ These numbers are false, of course, and other academics like Manual Aguilar Moreno for a History Channel series show the folly of such claims. Juan de Zumárraga, Inquisition leader in New Spain who killed thousands, falsely claimed that two million children were killed in the century before the Spanish saved ancient Mexican barbarians: this helps prove that Spanish accounts of human offerings are implausible and no evidence exists to support their claims.

Examining the evidence at the Templo Mayor, among other evidence, helps prove the aforementioned tales as nonsense. After 30 seasons of intensive excavations at the Templo Mayor, the remains of only 126 people were located. Only three complete human skulls were found, a far cry from the alleged millions. Sacrificial knives were also found, but they were never used and were left with the 12,000 other gifts discussed earlier. More sacrificial human remains were unearthed at Teotihuacan than the Aztec capital where ‘rivers of blood’ were common, according to the History Channel. Mathematically, only 0.0021% of archeological evidence reaching any of the aforementioned fables have been found since digging began in 1978. No evidence approaching 1/100th of the alleged tens of thousands of killings for the 1486 ceremony has been found. And although the INAH rediscovered the Huey Tzompantli (skull rack), Restall argues it only produced a small percentage of the Spanish alleged 130,000+ skulls. Still partially buried under Mexico City, a full excavation of the entire rack is unattainable; some 180 complete skulls have been uncovered.

Comparative ‘Sacrifice’
Almost never discussed in primary or secondary school education is the fact that the Romans, Greeks, Japanese, Chinese, Africans, Andeans, and Egyptians also practiced ritual killings of humans, often in high numbers. Their violence is mostly taught as empire building, legal punishments, or ignored, leaving ancient Mexicans as the sole savages. In fact, Carrasco reminds us there is zero evidence the Mexica offered more people than any other group in world history. Although ancient Mexicans are alleged barbarian killers par excellence, no evidence exists to substantiate that fantasy. Evidence of European or “Old World” human sacrifice is ever-present, even the Bible is a source of human offerings.

Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt the City of Jericho by burying his eldest son beneath a gate, according to Camilla Townsend. God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, and was in the process before he was ordered to stop by his deity, according to the Book of Genesis. In Psalm 106:37-38, ‘they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.’ The Canaanites sacrificed children by fire or stabbing them first. If not burned to death, their blood was used to anoint the altar. The Celts also immolated humans by fire. They placed offerings inside a straw structure called “Wicker Man,” then set it ablaze. Within English lore, Townsend reminds us that Geoffrey of Monmouth had to talk his way out of becoming a foundation sacrifice for a king’s tower.

Moreover, Christians burned countless people at the stake for centuries, and in this regard, Europeans and Old World cultures were far superior to ancient Mexicans. For ancient Mexicans gift giving was serious, whose main purpose was payment to their gods. But Inquisition authorities went further and also boiled people alive, subjected people to the rack, entombed people in iron maidens, ripped orifices with the Judas Cradle and pear of anguish (pic 14), tore limbs by strappado hangings, slashed and burned people in the interrogation chair, and inflicted a variety of pain through state of the art torture devices. Many Christians, non-Christians, and people of other faiths were tortured. This occurred in at least four continents and in the name of their God. The Mexica did not have this kind of technology or imagination as part of their worldview. In fact, many of these acts would be considered barbaric to the Aztecs, and we know this because that was their response to Spanish atrocities in Mexico since 1519.

The comparative examples of human offerings are nearly endless. Retainer sacrifice was practiced in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Chinese Shang and Zhou empires also practiced retainer sacrifice, burying servants alive so they could serve their elite in the afterlife; some people had their heads chopped off and evidence suggests many servants didn’t want to follow their employers in the afterlife. Pigs, dogs, wives, concubines, bodyguards and other elite necessities were also sacrificed with their rulers. Wee Kek Koon writes, ‘When Duke Mu of Qin died in 621 B.C., 177 people were buried alive with him,’ largely based on Sima Qian’s historical records. Offerings also took place in India. Assyrians flayed people alive.

Ancient Greece performed human sacrifice, as they did during the Trojan War (pic 12); animal sacrifice was also common practice. The Romans utilized incredible tools to inflict human pain, including the brazen bull (pic 16). The wretched victim was placed inside a metal bull, replete with horns. Once the fire was lit under the bull, the fire would heat the bull, along with the person inside. Inevitably, the burning victim’s screams would amplify outward through the bull’s horns in full acoustical effect, until their death. The Romans crucified countless people across multiple continents, the most famous was the crucifixion of the Christ. People like Vlad the Impaler found new levels of violence, especially with the use of a pike. In fact, evidence suggests impaling people was so perfected that a stake could be placed up a person’s anus, missing the vital organs and protruding out their shoulders or back so the victim was immobilized on the stake, and could survive for several days.

French Anthropologist Jacques Soustelle states the obvious, ‘At the height of their career, the Romans shed more blood in their circuses and for their amusement than ever the Aztecs did before their idols.’ He continues, ‘The Spaniards, so sincerely moved by the cruelty of the native priests, nevertheless massacred, burnt, mutilated and tortured with a perfectly clear conscience. We, who shudder at the tale of the bloody rites of ancient Mexico, have seen with our own eyes and in our own days civilized nations proceed systematically to the extermination of millions of human beings and to the perfection of weapons capable of annihilating in one second a hundred times more victims than the Aztecs ever sacrificed,’ cited in Restall’s When Montezuma Met Cortes.

Many of these public killings entertained large crowds who watched the ‘judicious tortures and exemplary maiming,’ often cheering and encouraging the deaths, according to Inga Clendinnen. Compared to Mexica public offerings, Camilla Townsend makes clear that during the early days of their rise, few people were offered for monthly religious festivals. Crowds were likely quiet and composed, not like the wild portrayals in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto.

It’s clear, enough violence existed throughout world history so humans should share the honorific titles for violence and killings. Ancient Mexican offerings have been greatly exaggerated, which began when the Spanish invaded and killed hundreds of thousands of Mesoamericans, then spawned a genocide through slave labor and viral diseases such as measles, smallpox, and sexually transmitted diseases. No evidence exists to place ancient Mexicans as the greatest human offerers. In fact, archeological evidence lowers them significantly down this list, and placing the practice of human gift giving in comparative context further erodes popular notions of Mexica savagery.

*The term Mexica is the appropriate term when describing what most people know as ‘the Aztecs.’ The Mexica spoke Nahuatl and called themselves the Mexica (Ma-shee-ka). Although the term Aztec is a Nahuatl word, it’s not what they called themselves. The label Aztec was popularized after William H. Prescott’s extremely popular ‘History of the Conquest of Mexico’ (1843). Moreover, although much of the focus for this essay is the Mexica, many ancient Mexicans and Mesoamericans practiced similar rituals. To avoid repetition, I use the terms interchangeably.

‘Synchronized blood-letting’

Comments (13)

Spencer

3rd Feb 2025

I see that this article is about the great exaggerations in human sacrificial numbers in comparison to many other religions who practiced it as well as the guilt of all humans in bloodshed.
I cannot argue for or against that seeing the fact that I don’t have the necessary tools to do so.
But my question is what about the alleged baby or child ritualistic killings as well as the skinning people alive for the Xipe Totec god?
Didn’t these things also occur?
I’m not arguing. I’m just curious about your viewpoints about this.

Mexicolore

Thanks for contributing.
Yes, the Aztecs engaged in both these ritual practices, but here’s where we get mildly irritated: when folks add a bit of good old ‘spin’ to the story to make things sound even worse:-
• Child sacrifices were essentially acts of desperation in times of drought, the victim’s copious tears being a symbol for rain; it was not a killing just for the sake of it
• The war captive who ended up being sacrificed to Xipe Totec took part in gladiatorial combat first, and was then sacrificed BEFORE his skin was flayed and worn by the god impersonator. He was not ‘skinned alive’.

Mike Cikraji

30th Jan 2024

You have to copy/paste that link, I just tried and it worked. Dave Roos, “Human Sacrifice: Why the Aztecs Practiced This Gory Ritual,” History Channel, October 11, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/aztec-human-sacrifice-religion

Mexicolore

Thanks for checking the link. Have now checked the article. Did you read this sentence: ‘it’s true that the Spanish undoubtedly inflated their figures...’? The truth surely has to fall somewhere in between the poles of this argument.

Mike Cikraji

30th Jan 2024

This article greatly underestimates the number of sacrificial victims. You shouldn’t short change your history. https://www.history.com/news/aztec-human-sacrifice-religion

Mexicolore

I say, be a decent fellow and give us your evidence for the far ‘greater’ number of victims - please! That link you provided is dud, BTW.

Lilith

27th Jan 2024

I thought the bull burning wasn’t Roman, but was Carthaginian? I recall Hannibal being associated with that.

Iris

2nd Jul 2023

i see there’s a lot of scholars giving information, but i was wondering if anyone ever goes to the elders of nahua & Mayan communities who still hold a lot of the oral history and traditions?

Mexicolore

Thanks for raising an excellent point...

Rich Gunning

15th Jan 2022

Interesting article- but for those of us who actually learned our history lessons, the stories of sacrifice and violence in old world and Caucasian cultures are not news. And what people need to remember now is that human sacrifice is still carried out in modern times, not only by secretive cults but also in the name of nationalism through the annihilation of countless (mostly) young males through conscription and war. And unfortunately the Mexican drug cartels seem to have come to favor the time -honored practice of the Aztecs of cutting out one’s heart.

anonymous

3rd Aug 2021

Great information! Crazy to think that they lived for only 100 years. They definitely made there mark not to say the least. People always mix the Maya with the Aztecs. They definitely were ahead of there time but underestimated the Spanish. The People that believe that brown people were the only ones doing that obviously don’t know that so many other civilizations did that . Some warrior groups went as far as sacrifice to obtain the persons mana. But I can see the correlation of these references. Maybe they are putting us down or against us or maybe it’s what it is . Weather it’s wrong or not I still like to believe that the Aztecs loved the taste of blood . Peace ✌????

Ilya

13th Mar 2021

This is a good article. The culture of ancient Aztecs was fascinating, and by understanding their worldview, the sacrifices they made are much more understandable. However, it is somewhat funny that in order to clear the name of Aztecs you are mentioning plenty of other exaggerated mythos like Inquisition and Brazen Bull. The amount of people killed by Inquisition is absolutely same story as Aztec sacrifices - largely exaggerated without actual proof. And the brazen bull is nothing more than a subject of legends.

Zoryan

1st Sep 2020

Hello,
I am [doing] a painting for exhibition at the local church and mine will be about our modern world, what to do to help it, and expressing this with teotl concepts, my question is that I thought the maya believed the milky-way was in a doubling spiral. I was wondering if the Aztecs/Mexica also believed in this and if not what there beliefs about the milky-way or galaxy were. Thanks ahead.

Mexicolore

Another good question. According to Professor Anthony Aveni (on our Panel of Experts), the Maya ‘thought of it as the umbilical cord which connected heaven and the underworld to the earth. Some think of it as a great celestial roadway’ (‘Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico’, p. 97). He notes, incidentally, that the Incas saw it as ‘the celestial river, a continuation of the vital river system which flows through the valley of Cuzco, branching out to its remotest parts via a complex array of aqueducts’ (do., p. 297).
For the Mexica/Aztecs the goddess Citlalicue (‘Skirt of Stars’) personified the Milky Way. She resided in the second of the thirteen ‘heavens’. There’s an image of her in Durán’s Atlas. She was invoked, among other deities, when a newborn was named and held up to the heavens by the midwife. However some scholars believe the Milky Way was seen as the road built by Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, along which they travelled to and from the earth and heavens. And others associate the Milky Way with the god Mixcóatl (see Yólotl González Torres, ‘El culto a los astros entre los mexicas’) Complicated...!

Zoryan

26th Aug 2020

Thank you very much for the two articles they were very good! The first one was very informative and interesting it is just what I need amazingly different from western concepts such as god. Though it was complex. The second one though good did not focus as much on teotl and sometimes said teotl was as it was explained in the philosophy article. I think many people do not understand what teotl is. Your website however does its best on everything it can I believe. Thank you once again.

Mexicolore

Thanks for positive feedback. We do our best, though we’re always learning too as we go...

Zoryan

23rd Aug 2020

Thank you very very much. This was a very amazing article and I must thank Dr Gilbert Estrada a lot. I have been seeking a good article (at mexicolore) on “aztec”“human sacrifice” and this one appears to be very good. The only possible flaw l noticed is just what Robert Gloria said: translating teotl to god. However that wouldn’t make much of a difference. Anyway thanks for the article.
By the way l was wondering if you could please recommend a mexicolore article about teotl.

Mexicolore

Thanks for your comments. We do have an article ‘in the pipeline’ precisely on ‘teotl’, by Anastasia Kalyuta (on our Panel of Experts). Until that’s uploaded, the two articles that most touch on the concept already on Mexicolore would be:-
https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/aztec-philosophy and https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/gods/gods-of-the-month-ometeotl.

Alexa

19th Aug 2020

The Iron Maiden, Pear of Anguish, torture chair, and Judas cradle were not used by the Inquisition (or anybody in Medieval Europe). https://www.medievalists.net/2016/03/why-medieval-torture-devices-are-not-medieval/

Mexicolore

Many thanks for this illuminating contribution, and for pointing out this misconception. Whilst it looks like the dating of some of these inventions may well be wrong (the brazen bull being far more ancient, the pear of anguish more modern...) the moral of the story remains sadly very true - that torture was a routine (and legal) method of extracting ‘confessions’ in Europe at the time Aztec civilisation was at its height, and that the methods employed - and the worldview behind them - would probably have been seen as utterly barbaric by and alien to the Aztecs.

ROBERT GLORIA

30th Jul 2020

While I’m grateful for this article, it’s very unfortunate that Dr. Estrada disproves one myth while perpetuating another. Translating Teotl as God ignores all of the layers of meaning held within the word in the same way that ‘human sacrifice’ does for offerings.

Codex Laud human sacrifice, animated by Mexicolore