Talk:Human sacrifice in Aztec culture

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To-do list for Human sacrifice in Aztec culture: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • total overhaul required- present article has many issues, including internal contradictions, opaque sources, bald assertions which are not justified or in-line with actual scholarship, etc.
  • add references
  • add images


Contents

[edit] 18 monthly festivities?

Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale, sacrificing human victims on each of their 18 monthly festivities.

Does this mean they had 18 festivities every month, or there was 18 months in the calendar and there was 1 each of those months, or perhaps something else? --Fxer 22:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the azteca had 18 months of 20 days each one... the last 5 days were special, considered bad days, nothing was done on those days. Nanahuatzin


When it says that the sacrifices were meant to be voluntary, does that include the sacrifices of prisoners?

Not exactly meant, but "supossed" to be voluntary. Acording to tradition, when an aztec would capture a warrior he would gretted him with the words "welcome my son". If we believe the aztec and ohter peoples acount, recopilated after the conquest, War prisioners seem to be fairly well treated, and some of them could became slaves.. with all the rights of an aztec slave (see aztecs), wich mean they could have a lot of liberty. Theres even a story from Tlaxcala, (see flower war) about a tlacaltec warior that was capture, then became an aztec captain, and then intestad of get his libert, he asked to be sacrified. Personally i dont think all the captive accept their sacrifice , some accounts i have read sugest prissioners were drugged, so people believed it was voluntary. Maybe we will never get the exact details, although recent excavations in the Main temple may show new light in this issue. If you think the redaction of that part should be changes to reflect this, please do it.Nanahuatzin 07:44, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link

The externally linked paper by James Q. Jacobs appears to be a grad student essay for a course. I'm not necessarily objecting to linking it, but shouldn't we identify it as such? - Jmabel | Talk 04:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Might be worth looking online to see if we can come across some of those journal articles he cites. - FrancisTyers 07:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Expanded article by merging in text from Aztec religion

Please go to Talk:Aztec and read the comment titled "Moved much of the "Religion" section to Aztec religion article".

Merged in text from the Aztec religion article. Subsequently restructured merged text and removed redundant passages.

Richard 09:58, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article still needs cleanup

the article still need cleaning, i have removed a lot of duplicate info, but still lack coherence. Can you help me with that? Nanahuatzin 19:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I'm glad to but, frankly, I've read this stuff so many times that it's hard to give it a good solid read. Can you identify specific passages that you think need work? Thanx.
Richard 20:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
mainly its a problem of style. Still it fells that each part was wrote separatelly, and the times of the verbs are not correct.. But it,s beyond my english... Just still it does not seems right.

[edit] Estimates of scope of sacrifice

Nanahuatzin,

I found this text at the beginning of the section...

"While Cortes and his men reported some gruesome stories of these sacrifices, none of them actually claimed to be a witness. Cortez even acepted that all this had been reported to him by others, not specifing his sources."

Did you write this? If not, what is your opinion of it?

Richard 09:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

yes i wrote it, although later i realized that i had writting almost the same at the begining of the article, where i cite the source. Actually Cortez cited his sources so "not specifing his sources" is wrong.. The conquererors had little oportunity to actually wittness human sacrifice, in Tlaxcala they had not permision to be near the tempels, and in Tenochtitlan the first things they do, was to forbid sacrifice. LAter, Diaz del Castillo, the only one that actually claimed to be a witness, saw it from at least 5 km away (durgin the siege of the city, he saw a human sacrifice in the main temple, but... he was not in Tenochtitlan, but in the shore of the lake). So the "gruesome stories of these sacrifices" by the conqueror seem to have little basis. Most of them were recolected later. A lot has been write about it, but a lot of the stories had little basis. That is why i always try to verify the sources. I have some work to so, so, in the afternonn i will answer your other question...  :)

Nanahuatzin 21:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't see the point of quibbling over whether or not Cortez had reliable informants regarding human sarcrifice by the Mexica. The fact is, human sarcrifice was a central part of Mexica culture, regardless of what Cortez did or did not say.

The quibbling comes from the fact that the cortez is ussually cited as a first acount witness to assert the number of sacrifices. While Human sacrifice was a central part on most mesaomerican cultures. The number of sacrifices has been greatly exagerated. Neither Cortez or Diaz del Castillo actually claimed to be witness. Nanahuatzin 11:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tlaloc requires tears of the young

Please review the last sentence of this paragraph. Is this supported in the documentary evidence?

Tlaloc was the god of rain. The Aztecs believed that, if sacrifices weren’t given to Tlaloc, the rain wouldn’t come and their crops wouldn’t grow. Another thing that was believed to happen if sacrifices weren’t given to Tlaloc was that the leprosy and rheumatism, diseases believed to be caused by Tlaloc, would infest the village. The Aztecs believed Tlaloc required the tears of the young and as a result sacrificed thousands of children at once so their tears would wet the earth.

--Richard 04:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC) Made by Karina Diaz


uhhh... So far the archeologist have found about 99 of children sacrified to Tlaloc in the offerings of the "Templo mayor", covering about two centuries of sacrifices, so the numbers of "Thousands at once" is a bit exagerated. Children were sacrified only when rains were late. And aobut the second aprt.. all the children were sick, and the antropologist have concluded, they had the kind of sickness that would make them to cry constantly, so this part is correct. (source: "Sacrificio de niños en honor a Tláloc. by antropologist Juan Alberto Román Berrelleza) . http://www.conaculta.gob.mx/saladeprensa/2002/25mar/tlaloc.htm Nanahuatzin 11:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Restored Tlaloc section

User:Tevus deleted the Tlaloc section on the grounds that it seemed POV. I agree that sacrificing "thousands of children" sounds like hyperbole. We need a citation to back up that claim.

--Richard 06:49, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arguing with itself

There are two places where a single paragraph (or a single sentence) seems to be arguing with itself. "As a comparison, at the Dachau concentration camp, working 24 hours a day with modern techonology, 4,200 prisoners a day were executed, but this is an apples and oranges comparison because Dachau was not a death camp, so there would be fewer executions than at someplace like Auschwitz. …Another figure used is from Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Spanish soldier who wrote his account of the conquest 50 years after the fact. In the description of the tzompantli, a rack of skulls of the victims in the main temple, he reports to have counted about 100,000 skulls. However, to accommodate that many skulls, the tzompantli would have had a length of several kilometers, instead of the 30 meters reported, unless it was stacked in several rows." (Italics mine.) I assume that what is happening is that two sources are arguing with each other. Neither is cited. Both should be, and it should be explicit who says what. - Jmabel | Talk 20:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


I wrote the originals of this, but it have been edited and corrected several times, by people arguing on both sides, so it leaves a paragraph that argue with itself. This is a hightly controversial point, so i think it will be continually edited and reedited.
The modern reconstructions of the Tzompantli allow for a stack of 5 vertical rows and 10 rows deep and the skulls were apart by aprox 1 meter. Based on this, the tzompamtli would have to be at least 2 to kilometers long. In the space allocated (acording to the recontruction in the National Museum of antropology) there was only space for about 1,500 skulls. This agrees with the excavations of the Tzompantli of tlatelolco that found 800 skulls. The original cite of this was W. Arens , "The man eating myth", but he calculated 100 km long, I change it, since his estimates are clearly wrong, he calculated just a linear row. Arens took his estimates from Nigel Davies "The human sacrifice", but i don´t have that book to see the original cite.
At its peak, Auschwitz executed about 37,250 prisioners a month. (http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n2p21_Widmann.html) or about 1242 daily, using gas chambers, or shooting them (puting several prisioners in row, to kill each row with just one bullet to be more eficient). At the end of the war, both Dachau and Auschwitz were death camps. Maybe the comparision is a bit gross, i will apreciate your opinion. But the point of this comparision is: It takes time to kill so much people. Could really a bunch of priests with stone knieves be more efficient than gas chambers and fire arms?. ...
I am an engineer, and i am used to work with numbers. I am surprised on how easily those big numbers have been acepted withouth challenging it´s feasibility.
through the article i have been stressing the imprecition of all estimates, citing the lower and higher estimates, so the reader could apreciate this by itself.
While W. Arens has some of the best arguments for a lower estimate, not all agrre with him.

Nanahuatzin 05:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


I have been trying to verify the statistics for Auschwitz, but the sources vary wildly, from 1200 to 23,000 daily i will try to correct the figures, as soon as i found wich are generally considered correct... Nanahuatzin 07:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Auswitch → Auschwitz - Jmabel | Talk 04:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
So far most of the sources I have found, does not cite how they got their figures. But i think this can be used as a cite:
"* * * During July 1944, they were being liquidated at the rate of 12,000 Hungarian Jews daily, and as the cre-matory could not deaI with such numbers, many bodies were thrown into large pits and covered with quick lime." (L-161) source: official Polish Government Commission Report on the Investigation of German crimes in Poland, report Auschwitz Concentration Camp (6161)" (http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/jewspers3.htm)
this was presented as "Document L-161, Exhibit USA 292" in the Nuremberg trials http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-02/tgmwc-02-20-04.shtml
Seem this is the closest to an oficial figure. The earlier I found of 1242 is from an revisionist source, while the figure of 23,000 does not cite cources. Nanahuatzin 06:55, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
So where does 19,200 in the article come from? If 12,000 is what we have that is citable, then that is what we should be saying. - Jmabel | Talk 19:52, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
At first it seemed it was from a reliable source, until i tried to check how it was obtained, so i began to check the diferent sources  :(...Nanahuatzin 01:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Why don't you just cut any references to auschwitz and the holocaust all together, it really is less than relevant in this context. you could just say that the numbers given by early chroniclers are exaggerated and quote a respectable a scholar who is also of that opinion. Comparing with Auschwitz and making new arguments is coming close to original research as well. Maunus 20:11, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
mhhh.. i think i need to understand the concept of "original research". I will read again the guidelines.. By the way... Good work. Nanahuatzin 01:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

So, I'm confused... is there any reliable source that compares the rate of Aztec human sacrifices with the killing rate of Nazi concentration camps? If not, then this comparison qualifies as original research even though the comparison may be useful for illustrative purposes. I understand that this may be a bit of a "hard line" on what is and is not original research but I think this is what the policy intends in saying "no original research". --Richard 03:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I've seen the original research issue come up before. In my opinion, an encyclopedia such as this one necessarily juxtaposes information that may never have been juxtaposed before, and it is counterproductive to building an encyclopedia to condemn that as original research. If there are referenced figures for both, I don't see any issue in mentioning the comparison.--Curtis Clark 04:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that this juxtaposition of information, if not having been done by a previous scholar, constitutes a new argument in a scientific discussion. This means that it should be published in a scientific discussion about human sacrifice and not in an encyclopedia. Also I don't think the comparison is relevant or necessary.Maunus 06:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Every time an article uses more than one source, we juxtapose information that may not have previously been combined. People are starting to carry "NOR" to a fanatical extreme. At this rate, there will be no room for any thought in writing articles. Is it also inappropriate "original research" when we conclude that when our various sources write Cortez, Cortés, Hernán Cortez, etc. they are all talking about the same person?
It seems extremely useful to the reader to compare the scale of something of which they mostly have no knowledge (reports of Mesoamerican human sacrifice) we make a comparison to something the scale of which is meaningful to people who live in our time. This is no more "original research" than juxtaposing the size of two cities. - Jmabel | Talk 01:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
If I may weigh in here, I'm not sure what good it does to compare this to Auschwitz. I will have to disagree with the respected Jmabel in that very few readers know anything about Auschwitz other than it was a Nazi death camp, and some don't even know that. In fact, as pointed out above, we don't even have reliable death statistics for Auschwitz, much less the Aztecs. So how can we compare?? My 2 pence, Madman 02:23, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More weirdness

And now there have been edits (including a rather unencyclopedic "he was most certainly NOT the sun god") that directly contradict earlier material without providing any new sources. This is a topic about which I know little, so all I can do is raise a flag here.

Would people please discuss this stuff on a talk page, rather than making big, unreferenced changes in the article? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 06:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

J, those unencyclopedic edits you refer to were made by te anonymous 151.200.189.62. If you feel an edit is unencyclopedic (etc) just go ahead and change/improve/revert it. Please!! Wait are you waiting for?  : ) Madman 14:27, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • The wording was unencyclopedic, but sometimes this is exactly how we get corrections on substance. That's why I raised the flag. - Jmabel | Talk 04:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Good point, Joe. Madman 15:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Also, consider opening a dialogue with User:151.200.189.62 to understand what the basis of the assertion is. This anon user has made very few Wikipedia edits and may not be aware of how things are done in Wikipedia.
I was going to make an argument about assuming good faith since it appears that some of the anon's edits to this article may be good. At least, no one has reverted them yet.
However, upon checking the anon's contributions, I see that he/she has made very few and the most recent one before these edits was this edit to the Aztec article which was reverted. I will leave a note on the anon's Talk Page suggesting that he/she discuss future edits on the Talk Page of the article before inserting them.
In the light of the "human food a staple of the Aztec diet" edit, it behooves us to check this anon's recent edits to this article carefully for supportability. This task requires someone more knowledgeable than me.
--Richard 14:47, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources? Blood libel?

Like in most detailed accounts of Mesoamerican human sacrifice, most statements are made without any references to primary sources. In many ways, this subject, treated at length by Eurocentric authors, is equivalent to a detailed encyclopedic article on the veracity of child kidnapping and ceremonial sacrifice by the Jewish community, aka the infamous Blood Libel. The fact stands that the Spanish used the Blood Libel extensively in the years leading up to the Jewish Expulsion of 1492, the same year the "New" World was "discovered". Is there any surprise that we find that Spanish authors slanted their presentation of Aztec society?

Thus, without providing reliable sources, and this article is largely devoid of references, we are contributing to the modern equivalent of a Blood libel.

NoraBG 13:55, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, let me see. So far, comparisons between the Aztecs and the Nazis and between the Aztecs and the Jews.
To respond to your concerns, we certainly do need references and, in fact, it is the To Do at the top of this page. Jump in and help.
However, there is absolutely no doubt that the Aztec and most Mesoamerican cultures practiced human sacrifice so to suggest that the whole concept is made up and say that this article is "the modern equivalent of a Blood libel" is just plain way-out-in-left-field weird. Madman 15:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Stake burnings, hangings, electrocutions, lethal injections are all some of the ways Western society has killed people in normal society with the attendance of a "ceremonial" priest. What anthropological basis do we have for calling one a state-sanctioned human sacrifice and the other a state-sanctioned execution? The whole point is that the presentation is one-sided, full of conjecture, surmise and lacking in credible sources or any sources at all for that matter. Lack of sources is a serious problem that will plague this article for a while. The only reason it is acceptable here is because this is a pro-"western" politicized slant on "barbaric" meso-american societies. And by your logic, you would require a Jew to prove that the Blood Libel is true before responding??
NoraBG 15:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
We call the Mesoamerican practice of state-sponsored ritual murder "human sacrifice" because that is what it is called in the academic literature and it is Wikipedia policy to use standard terminology. The facts are that the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice. It is our challenge to write a balanced NPOV article detailing this practice.
Obviously you feel strongly about this subject, but Wikipedia is not a soapbox. We would encourage your contributions as long as they do not push any agenda, but attempt to dispassionately gather and summarize existing research into the subject. Madman 16:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
If they are facts, then how about citing some sources. NoraBG 16:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict with Madman2001)
To answer the question about sources: This content of this article was factored out of Aztec religion which was factored out of Aztec. The sources got left behind because of laziness and ignorance of the editor doing the factoring (me). We need someone familiar with the sources to copy over the appropriate sources which support the content of this article.
To answer this question "What anthropological basis do we have for calling one a state-sanctioned human sacrifice and the other a state-sanctioned execution?", I would answer that the line between the two is tenuous but the putative difference is that one is a sacrifice of an innocent for the good of the state and the second is the execution of the guilty as punishment and ultimate restraint as a consequence of a transgression. In Aztec society (it is claimed), those who were sacrificed were not criminals but the best members of society (+ also those vanquished in battle). Not just anyone was acceptable, those who were sacrificed had to be from a Nahuatl culture.
If you wish to argue that state-sanctioned executions are a form of state-sanctioned human sacrifice, that is your prerogative but that argument belongs elsewhere (e.g. in Capital punishment) but not here. This is a viable argument but it is unclear what its relevance is to this article.
That having been said, I think User:NoraBG makes some worthwhile points.
First, what is the evidence that human sacrifice was practiced "throughout the Aztec empire". Do we have evidence from multiple sites or is it just based on post-Cortes Spanish sources? Is it possible that human sacrifice was practiced only only at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan? How do we know how widespread the practice was?
A similar challenge can be made against the assertion that human sacrifice had been practiced in Mesoamerica for millenia. How do we know this?
Secondly, User:NoraBG is right in saying that this article lacks primary sources. That is not to say that the content of the article cannot be grounded in primary sources, just that none of those sources are provided at the end of the article. I would guess that we could ground the material in some of the Aztec codices as well as various commentaries by Spanish contemporaries of Cortes including Cortes himself. Can someone more familiar with these sources help by providing the appropriate references?
Finally, we need to go to the heart of User:NoraBG's challenge which is to claim that human sacrifice did not occur at all and is, in fact, blood libel. Is it at all plausible that the allegation of human sacrifice was completely a fabrication of the Spanish starting with Cortes? If we can cite such challenges to the very existence of the practice, we should mention them. Thus, the answer to NoraBG's assertion "by your logic, you would require a Jew to prove that the Blood Libel is true before responding", I would say "No. Wikipedia policy on verifiability would require that the charge of Blood Libel be sourced to a reliable source. If you can find a reliable source who argues that human sacrifice in Aztec culture is a form of Blood Libel, we can include the argument in the article. In fact, we should include the argument if it represents a significant body of opinion. We are not obligated to assert that this argument is valid and we are justified in characterizing it as a minority opinion if we have reason to believe that this is true. However, we are not able to insert it at all without the reliable source.
--Richard 16:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I have added quite a number of references as well as removing some of the sillier "verification needed". I will leave the rest to you, Richard. Madman 02:55, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Madman but I'm not knowledgeable enough for this task. Someone else with access to the sources will have to do it.

I'm finding it a challenge to locate first-hand or eye-witness accounts of human sacrifice. Can any scholar help with this? NoraBG 10:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

There are very few extant pre-conquest documents (see Aztec codices) and these are primarily pictorial. Thus, most documents about the Aztecs are tainted by the potential of Spanish influence. That is, the documents were either written by Spaniards or Spaniards using Aztec sources. Madman is our resident expert on the Aztec codices. He can help you with the details of what they say. (P.S. to Madman, I left a note on Talk:Aztec codices for you that is unrelated to this thread.)
Also, try leaving a message for User:Nanahuatzin who is a Mexican Wikipedian has been studying with primary sources and has expressed reservations about the reported scale of human sacrifice in Aztec culture. He believes the number may be a lot smaller than is widely reported. (In other words, the blood libel goes more to the scale than to the actual fact.) We've discussed this in various Talk Pages (e.g. Talk:Aztec but it is probably easier if you just start a new dialogue with him and ask him to summarize his position. Sorry, I didn't realize his perspective was already discussed in the article. Feel free to contact him regarding this or any other section of the article.
I would be happy to include any non-mainstream perspectives on this issue as long as it can be sourced to a reliable source. Nanahuatzin is a highly valued contributor to Aztec-related articles but we've had to warn him against turning his personal expertise into original research. We really need to be able to reference a scholar (even one with a minority opinion) who holds this view.
Look at it this way. If we put Nanahuatzin's perspective in the article without a reliable source, people would argue "How can we rely on information about Aztec civiliztion generated by a metallurgical chemical engineer? What credentials does he have to speak on this topic?". And we would be unable to counter that argument.
--Richard 16:42, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you immensely for your suggestions, Richardschusr. I understand perfectly the need for referenced sources and understand the difference between cited positions and original research. That is all well and good. I would like to simply focus on getting sources for the many descriptive assertions in the current article. Rather than reference popular written accounts of which there are many, I am only asking for primary references for three quite specific things:
1.) statements about eye-witness accounts;
2.) statements that indicate both numerical, temporal and spatial extent of human sacrifices;
3.) statements that assume ritualistic human sacrifice instead of post-mortem funerary rites, as when human remains are found without eye-witness accounts.
NoraBG 17:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Someone with a university subscription to JSTOR can easily source primary evidence of human sacrifice - tons of articles under Google scholar, search terms = aztec human sacrifice evidence. (Mounds of bodies dug up with clear indications of ritual murder etc.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 17:09, 14 September 2006 69.251.241.26 (talk • contribs).

I blush at your characterization of me, Richard.
NoraBG, as Richard states, nearly all primary sources were either written by Spaniards or were written by Aztecs under Spanish supervision. See Aztec#Discussion of primary sources. Some of the pre-Hispanic codices (of which they are very few) are primarily tonalamatls and they do contain some information about human sacrifices (check out the image in tonalamatl).
I think it's a mistake to only look for eye-witness accounts. The archaeological record contains the most incontrovertible evidence of human sacrifice. There are online references in this article itself detailing recent archaeological findings. Also, check out the tzompantli article.
Primary sources are certainly good, but scholarly articles and books, of which many are referenced in this article, help put the primary evidence in perspective. Mr or Ms 69.251.241.26 mentions that above.
Hope this gives you a lead, Madman 17:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Selection of primary sources

Regarding primary sources/eyewitness accounts of Aztec human sacrificial practices:

There are a few surviving direct narratives from sources on the Spanish side who were participants in the expeditions of Grijalva and Cortes (ie first-hand external descriptions of the Mexica, other Nahua peoples and the conquest itself). These include Cortes himself, Juan Diaz, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Andreas de Tapia, Francisco de Aguilar, Ruy Gonzalez and the Anonymous Conqueror. To these we may add the likes of Martyr d'Anghiera, Lopez de Gomara, Oviedo y Valdes and Illescas, who while not in Mesoamerica themselves wrote their accounts based on interview and direct testimony of those who were, and figures such as Las Casas and Sahagun who were later in Mesoamerica but also had access to direct testimony. To the best of my knowledge all of these narratives mention and describe the practice as something actually witnessed by them, either in the act or very shortly afterwards. Some examples:

  • Juan Diaz (who was on the 1518 Grijalva expedition, and wrote his Itinerario de Grijalva before 1520) describes the witnessed aftermath of a sacrifice on an island off the Veracruz coast; in his Verdada Historia Bernal Diaz (who was also with Grijalva) corroborates (J.M. Cohen trans., pp. 37-38) "on these altars were idols with evil looking bodies, and that very night five Indians had been sacrificed before them; their chests had been cut open, and their arms and thighs had been cut off, and the walls were covered with blood... At all this we stood greatly amazed, and gave the island the name of the Isla de Sacrificios", and later after landing on the coast they come across a temple dedicated to Tezcatlipoca where "that day they had sacrificed two boys, cutting open their chests and offering their blood and hearts to that accursed idol".
  • Bernal Diaz continues with many more such descriptions from his exploits on the later Cortes expedition. Arriving at Cholula, they find "cages of stout wooden bars...full of men and boys who were being fattened for the sacrifice at which their flesh would be eaten" (p.203). Reaching Tenochtitlan itself, he describes the sacrifices at the Templo Mayor there :"They strike open the wretched Indian's chest with flint knives and hastily tear out the palpitating heart which, with the blood, they present to idols...they cut off the arms, thighs and head, eating the arms and thighs at ceremonial banquets. The head they hang up on a beam, and the body...is...given to the beasts of prey" (p.229).
  • Cortes describes similar events in his Letters, for eg "Y que les tomaba sus Hijos para los matar, y sacrificar á sus Idolos". [1]
  • The Anonymous Conqueror's Narrative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan details Aztec sacrifices in his resume of that venture- see particularly Ch. XV, online here.

True enough, these spanish accounts may often contradict one another in places and on details, and their reliability can also be generally suspect for various reasons. Their professed horror at the practice may also be a bit ironic given the conquistadors' own prediliction for casual torture and execution. Even so, I'd say just about every single 16th C. spanish source mentions the practice, for the Aztec as well as other conquest-era Mesoamerican cultures.

For contemporary indigenous descriptions and mentions, there are numerous illustrations in central mexican codices such as the codices Rios, Tudela, Telleriano-Remensis, Duran, and Sahagun's Florentine- see for eg here.

For Mesoamerica as a whole, accumulated archaeological, iconographical, osteological and (in the case of the Maya, written) evidence indicates it was widespread across cultures and periods, dating back to at least the mid-Formative (ca 600 BCE and earlier).

For osteological analyses interpreted as being of sacrificial remains, see for eg Hammond [2] (mid-Formative Cuello), Cowgill [3] (Classic Teotihuacan) and Tykot [4] {postclassic Kaqchikel) remains. See also here, skeletal remains of sacrificed infant from an interrment at El Manati, early/mid Formative site near the Olmec centre of San Lorenzo.

For a selection of illustrations of sacrifices on Classic era Maya ceramics and inscriptions, see here and here.

The Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures are hardly unique in this respect, human sacrifice is is known for very many other regions and cultures throughout history.--cjllw | TALK 05:39, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First-hand, second-hand

"In addition, there are many known second-hand accounts of human sacrifice related by Mexicas to Europeans." Does this mean to say that these accounts were second-hand on the part of the Mexicas who related them, or first-hand on the part of the Mexicas who related them and second-hand on the part of Europeans who wrote them down? - Jmabel | Talk 22:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I meant it to read the latter of the two. There are no writings by any European witnessing human sacrifice. However, there are some writings by Europeans re-telling descriptions given to them by individual Mexicas who allegedly did witness such events. NoraBG 00:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think this is true. Both Bernal Diaz and Cortés describe human sacrifice. Nahuatl language sourcees talk very openly about human sacrifice and even ritual cannibalism (the florentine codex even has a recipe in nahuatl for how human flesh was prepared)Maunus 06:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, it would not be correct to say "There are no writings by any European witnessing human sacrifice". For eg, and in addition to the refs I gave above, in Diaz's True History he relates how when they were being escorted around Tenochtitlan by Moctezuma and came across the Templo Mayor, the priests (papas) were in the process of conducting some sacrifices atop the structure. When the Spanish climbed up, they saw "the blood which had been spilled that day" and braziers in which "they were burning the hearts of three Indians whom they had sacrificed that day" (pp. 234-236). In the battles which ensued when the Spanish were later expelled from the city during La Noche Triste after Moctezuma's death, the Aztec forces flung at them the severed heads, hands and flayed skins of captured Spanish and Tlaxcalan soldiers who had just been sacrificed, in a (no doubt successful) attempt to instill fear as they fought their retreat. When during the later siege and slow advance along the causeway from Tacuba, Diaz (from a distance) "...saw our comrades who had been captured in Cortes' defeat being dragged up the steps to be sacrificed....the papas laid them down on their backs on some narrow stones of sacrifice and, cutting open their chests, drew out their palpitating hearts which they offered to their idols before them." (pp.386-387). Diaz can and has been criticised for over-dramatisation and exaggeration, but it's most likely a matter of degree, not if or whether.--cjllw | TALK 09:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
The above references are emblematic of the problem. In the first Diaz reference it is related how the Spaniards come upon evidence of human sacrifice having taking place previously earlier in the day. Most other near experiences of human sacrifice are removed in time either a few days before or at best earlier in the day. That's the confounding detail in tracing the history; actual first-hand witnessing of the ritual is missing in written accounts. In the latter and infamous Diaz reference, written many years after the "experience", in the comfort of Spain, he gives his position in the city in relation to the Templo Mayor. Because we know the relative location of these buildings he was describing as having witnessed, it is believed that the passage is problematic at best because he could not have witnessed such events from the large distance across the city (>1 km). Are there any better references folks? NoraBG 00:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why you seem so eager to put the idea of Aztec human sacrifice into doubt. If you read any nahuatl sources at all you will see that it is clear that the aztecs did sacrifice people, and that they weren't ashamed or shy to tell about it. Human sacrifice also figures prominently in pre-columbian iconography in all of mesoamerica. I see no need to put in doubt the numerous conquistador and native accounts of human sacrifice, and anyway those doubts are not shared by the scholarly community. There is an overwhelming consensus that aztecs and other mesoamerican cultures practiced human sacrifice. Maunus 20:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes; total overhaul needed

The recent and extensive changes by anon 75.31.192.237 (talk • contribs) under the guise of "correcting inaccuracies" have in their turn introduced a fair few of their own. I am reluctant at the moment to simply reverse these as there were some alterations which could be useful, or at least are no worse than the previous state; however, the article is now quite a mish-mash of differing points of view, much unsourced/unattributed material and assertions which go beyond (in one direction or the other) what mainstream scholarship would hold.

For eg, the lead now opens with a the boldly-asserted figure of 20k sacrifices as if it were something established, when clearly (and as noted further on in the article) estimates vary quite considerably. There are numerous other factual problems or at least misinterpretations, both recently introduced and pre-existing. It is going to be a long haul to clean this article up, and separate out the differing POV voices which have been at work here, and particularly the extremes (ie 'there was no/minimal human sacrifice, it's all libel' vs 'it was rampant, nasty and led inevitably to their downfall') need to be carefully toned-down and placed into overall context.

It's hard to know where to begin, but as a first step we should demand of each main statement explicit, accessible and multiple citations, and ensure that where there's a margin for interpretation (ie most of the topic) it is put in terms of "sources X, Y and Z maintain that...; however A, B and C contend..." instead using terminology implying areas of contention as disembodied facts.--cjllw | TALK 08:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

These persistent inaccuracies are simply part and parcel of over 500 years of careless, blood libel perpetrated by genocidal Euro-Americans waging cultural war against native inhabitants. The entire subject suffers from lack of neutral POV and rigorous analysis. Even the moniker of "Aztecs" is an academic European term with overt political intentions. I went ahead and reverted. Nothing is ever lost. NoraBG 20:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I have added a POV tag to the article. You only switched the previous biased version with your own equally biased version. Your ideas about bloodlibel against native americans are simply not up to the scientific standard: there are innumerable pieces of evidence for widespread human sacrifice throughout Mesoamerica from the preclassic period and up untill the conquest, as well as several first and second hand accounts by early sources, in fact it is mentioned in 95% of early accounts whther they were written from a native or a conquistador pov - the aztecs were not ashamed of their earlier practices and wrote about it many times. As for the choice of nomenclature Aztec is chosen because it is the most commonly known term, and because it was in use before the spaniards arrived.Maunus 21:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I only reverted to what was already there before; I would not call the previous version my POV. NoraBG 20:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
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