Political and Social Functions of Ritual Violence
While warfare played a role in all complex societies in the Americas, it was particularly important in the Aztec empire as a major means of political expansion and tribute extraction.
Consequently, the state promoted a religious ideology based on the sacrifice of war captives. The religious architecture and rituals legitimised Aztec hegemony, demarcated a hierarchy between centre and periphery, and fostered social and political cohesion. The elites of the numerous city-states that made up the empire were integrated into a redistributive network of marriage partners, goods and sacrificial victims. Aztec supreme rulers (huey tlatoque) even invited hostile kings to Tenochtitlan to witness the sacrifice of the latter's compatriots caught in war.[804] Thus, the ritual killing of scores of victims displayed Aztec might and helped to impress allies as well as enemies. The longings of the gods mirrored the exigencies of the expanding state. This led to an increase in war and human sacrifice, because ferocious divine beings could not be appeased unless more victims provided a larger amount of animistic energy.[805]Human sacrifice not only demonstrated a polity's might to neighbours but also corroborated unequal power relations between classes, generations and genders within the society. In Moche iconography, for example, elite members are depicted as executers in sacrificial dramas, which underlines their fundamental role in mediating between the human and the divine worlds, protecting their realms against enemies, and procuring plant growth, life and well-being. This is confirmed, for example, by grave goods such as ritual knives with representations of the sacrifice of victims found in Moche elite burials in the Huaca Rajada at Sipan.[806]
In the Aztec case, no human sacrifices have been recorded from the private sphere, although domestic religion was important and house altars were ubiquitous.
A hierarchy of political and religious authorities controlled ritual human sacrifice. Through its institutions and agents the elites monopolised the task of detecting the needs and moods of the major divine beings. Although their responsibility was to deliver, appease and strengthen the gods, the latter's caprices provided the state with a certain ideological flexibility.[807] Sacrifice and auto-sacrifice confirmed the social order and the essential role of elites and rulers for securing the society's well-being because of their special qualifications in upholding the political-cosmic order. Maya iconography and hieroglyphs, for example, describe the flow of the king's blood as k'uh(ul), meaning ‘sacred' or ‘saint', and associate it with the colours yax (green) and k'an (yellow) symbolising vitality. Thus the ruler was perceived as a divine being. The essence in the blood of the ‘godly king' (k'uhul ajaw) represented a holy force and vital energy needed for agriculture and the maintenance of life.[808]Warriors not only were the main agents of state expansion but also provided ‘food' for the gods by capturing sacrificial victims. Therefore, they were particularly honoured. Warriors accompanied their captives to the temple and danced with them before the sacrifice.[809] They ascended the military ranks according to their personal merits, especially in taking captives. Commoners could raise their status to that of the lower nobility. Death on the battleground (‘flowery death', xochimiquiztli), or as victim on the sacrificial stone, in the case of men, and dying in childbed, in the case of women, promised a prestigious afterlife at the House of the Sun (a celestial paradise).54 As in other warrior cultures, death as sacrificial victim was as prestigious as being killed in battle. Even sacrificed slaves gained a prestigious afterlife. The children offered to Tlaloc passed over into the god's realm (Tlalocan) where fertility and food abounded.
An ordinary death, in contrast, was barely attractive. The underworld was regarded as an inhospitable place of suffering to be reached after a troublesome journey. This may explain why, according to Spanish records, some victims destined to human sacrifice refused to be freed and parents occasionally offered their infants as sacrificial victims.55Violence also fulfilled a didactic function and was part of the socialisation in households and schools. Elders depicted the world as a cruel, tough and dangerous place in their moral discourses (huehuetlatolli) to young nobles. From an early age, children watched sacrifices to gods and even participated as assistants cleansing the temples or decorating them with flowers. Thus the young were seasoned to violence, death and killing, preparing the next warrior generation.[810] No wonder that Aztec warriors had the reputation of being particularly ferocious.
Ritual violence was also important with respect to gender relations. In the Aztec case, for example, it confirmed male dominance. Although individuals of both genders were sacrificed, their executioners were invariably male. After flaying a woman representing a goddess her skin was donned by a man transforming him into the respective deity. The most important roles as priests, mediators or executioners were all filled by men.[811]
Human sacrifice was also a thrilling entertainment for the audience, as indicated by the gladiatorial combats and the ritual ballgames where much betting took place. Some ballgames also had important political implications as some rulers allegedly played for the autonomy of their polity. The matches were dedicated to particular gods and self-sacrifice as well as human sacrifice took place in the ball courts, which proves that the ballgame had also important religious functions. This is confirmed by ball court decorations and other iconographic data from many Mesoamerican sites. In Yaxchilan a ruler is represented as a ballplayer waiting to play a ball bouncing down the stairs of the pyramid delimiting the playing field.
The ball, however, is not just that but a bound victim. In fact, victims were mostly slain by decapitation in the rituals related to the ballgame. The iconography also highlights water symbolism and plant growth, which indicates a strong relationship to a creation and fertility cult. Rubber, the material from which the balls were made, was a symbol for blood. Thus ballgames should be interpreted as a combination of sport and ritual where gods could be honoured, nourished, challenged and maybe also entertained.[812]The frequency of ritual violence seems to be relevant for its performance. In Tenochtitlan, for example, it could be observed almost daily at one of the temples.[813] This may also explain why some sacrifices were carried out more dramatically than others. The dramaturgy helped to establish and demarcate a hierarchy between rites, their protagonists or executioners, and the gods addressed.
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