Ritual Violence in the Aztec Empire
The sheer number of killings gains the Aztecs a top position among the societies that realised human sacrifices in the world. Between 20,000 and 80,000 victims alone were sacrificed during the inauguration of the enlargement of the Templo Mayor or the Great Temple (huey teocalli) in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (today Mexico City) in 1487 according to Spanish chroniclers.
These numbers are certainly exaggerated. Nevertheless, even conservative sources estimate that at least several thousand victims were sacrificed under Aztec hegemony per year in a population that probably ranged between 3.3 and 4.56 million people in Central Mexico in the early sixteenth century.11The Templo Mayor was not only the scene of human sacrifice but the spiritual centre of the empire's religious cult. The stepped pyramid rested on a large platform and was enlarged several times corresponding to the increasing power of the Aztec state. Two sanctuaries oriented towards the west were located on the platform on its summit, one dedicated to Tlaloc and the other to the war, sun and tribal god Huitzilopochtli. A tzompantli platform decorated on three sides with about 240 carved stone skulls was situated close to the building. The Spanish conquerors reported high wooden racks with numerous human skulls and heads on top of important temples. In the Templo Mayor more than 100 offerings and funerary urns including over 7,000 objects were excavated. A cache below eleven polychrome sculptures of Tlaloc contained infant bones including forty-two skulls. The infants, whose sex and social status could not be determined, had been 3 to 7 years old and were probably killed by cutting the throat.1[770] [771]
However, war captives represented the largest group of victims sacrificed by the Aztecs. The second largest group were male and female slaves bought on the markets.
They had to be purified in a ritual bath before being sacrificed. The possibility of raising one's prestige by offering a sacrificial victim was thus opened to Aztec citizens who could not take prisoners in war. Other victims were orphans, individuals considered abnormal (such as albinos or twins) or people chosen for their immaculacy, age or name that made them eligible to represent a particular god (see below).[772] Aztec nobles and commoners as well as the inhabitants of the city-states under the empire's hegemony contributed to the steady supply of victims needed for the frequent rituals by sending slaves and sometimes even family members.Victims were killed by diverse methods, among them heart-extraction, beheading, shooting by arrows or darts, cutting the throat, drowning, burning, battering to death, strangulation, entombment alive, starving, or killing during gladiatorial combats. Most met their fate on sacrificial stones or altars on top of the temple pyramids or other buildings in the ceremonial precincts. Others were slain at important natural sites.[773]
Humans or animals were sacrificed in all major Aztec rituals, such as the installation of a new ruler (tlatoani) or of other important dignitaries, the celebration of victories in war, times of severe crisis or the inauguration of a temple. Sacrifices dedicated to one or more gods and goddesses occurred regularly on the festivals of the Mesoamerican calendar. In the eighteen- month cycle of the vague solar year (xiuhpohualli of twenty days plus the five so-called ‘unhappy days', nemotemi) rituals were particularly frequent, including about ninety occasions of human sacrifice. The divinatory calendar cycle of 260 days (tonalpohualli) and the combination of both cycles into a period of fifty-two years yielded additional occasions for ritual killings.[774]
Religious feasts often lasted for days and included preparatory and purification rituals of cleansing, sweeping, consecrating and energising the ritual locations, sexual abstinence and fasting of important protagonists, nocturnal vigil, processions, dancing, music, contests, ritual bloodletting, incensing, special costumes and other ritual paraphernalia, and diverse offerings and meals.