Aztec and Inca Human Sacrifice Compared

The Aztec and Inca empires had grown to prominence since the early fifteenth century by a combination of conquest and alliances with polities controlled by local elites. While human sacrifice was present in both states, it was a key aspect of ritual, cosmology and politics only in the Aztec empire.

Demographic or cultural materialist interpretations have been suggested to explain Aztec mass sacrifice. Michael Harner and Marvin Harris once argued that the dense population in the Valley of Mexico suffered from a diet deficient in protein owing to the absence of meat from large animals (domesticated herbivores, such as the llamas and alpacas in the Andes) that had to be compensated for by sacrifices and anthropophagy.^[814] The argument is not convincing, however, since the consumption of human flesh was mostly confined to the elite and to ritual contexts. Given the dense popula­tion, ecological restrictions and land distribution forms in central Mexico, additional enslaved workers were not needed, according to Harris and Lopez Austin. Unwilling to send the captured enemies home, where they would have been a future threat, and having no capacity to integrate the captives socially or to exploit them economically, it seemed much better to assure the favour of the gods through their sacrifice.^[815]

In the Inca realm, in contrast, labourers were a prized resource. The admin­istration struggled to distribute workers needed for state or temple farms according to economic necessities. Some groups (mitmaqkuna) were relocated to cultivate virgin lands, access new resources or intensify agriculture and herding. Their production was delivered to a complex system of redistribution.

Although both the Incas and the Aztecs were aggressive towards their enemies, and their state ideologies focused on co-optation, for example high­lighting the ruler's benevolence in terms of social well-being and protection, the Aztec state was relatively weak when compared with the Inca empire.^[816] In the Aztec empire, in contrast, the inability to effectively control the conquered polities was probably a major factor in explaining the huge numbers of human sacrifices, who were mostly captured warriors. Massive population growth in the Valley of Mexico and the rapid expansion of the Aztec state had resulted in ecological instability, organisational stresses, and crises affecting both com­moners and leaders. Mass human sacrifice can be considered here as a form of political terror to hold allies in line in the relative absence of institutionalised structures of domination.^[817] Thus, ‘the increase and decrease in human sacrifice must be related to the stage of political domination'.^[818]