# Ancient Aztec Human Sacrifice? Myth or True? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 6, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961 "2010-01-06T21:29:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fandango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5ac83/32.png) [@fandango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fandango)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/21 "2010-01-07T17:53:23Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I understand that the Spanish burned a largenumber of Aztec documents-so s there any proof to support the stories about this custom? Slight nitpick–Aztecs didn’t really have what we’d consider to be a written language enough to support documents. Maya did and the Spanish destroyed nearly every bit of it they could find. (The Maya buried whatever they could, but guess what happens to parchment when you bury it…) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/22 "2010-01-07T18:38:36Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Was it the Aztecs who had that ritual where a young man and woman were made to have sex and then had a heavy slab dropped on them, or did I just make that up? I recall reading that about a tribe in the New Guinea part of the world, in _The Power of Myth_. Not sure if I still have a copy. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/23 "2010-01-08T00:09:39Z")
Thanks for the links. It just sounds so fantastic-can you imagine holding somebody down, and slicing him open with stone knives? Blood spurting everywhere, with the victim screaming his head off-and ripping a still beating heart out? The whole thing would make me sick-and these priests did it daily? I suppose humans are capable of such cruelty-but this sounds over the top. ---
**Author:** ![Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gam_Zeh_Yaavor)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/24 "2010-01-08T00:18:59Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The whole thing would make me sick-and these priests did it daily? > I suppose humans are capable of such cruelty-but this sounds over the top. There is no over-the-top when it comes to human cruelty. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/25 "2010-01-08T00:54:37Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Thanks for the links. It just sounds so fantastic-can you imagine holding somebody down, and slicing him open with stone knives? Blood spurting everywhere, with the victim screaming his head off-and ripping a still beating heart out? I know - it _does_ sound fantastic! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/26 "2010-01-08T01:58:34Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The whole thing would make me sick-and these priests did it daily? Actually - many, many, many times an _hour_, not just daily. It was assembly-line human butchery. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/27 "2010-01-08T02:17:04Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Thanks for the links. It just sounds so fantastic-can you imagine holding somebody down, and slicing him open with stone knives? Blood spurting everywhere, with the victim screaming his head off-and ripping a still beating heart out? Most victims did not scream or flail about. From [Wiki:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_human_sacrifice) > [@](#): > > Although Aztec accounts mention some victims who wept, ‘faltered… weakened’ or ‘lost control of their bowels’ when going to be sacrificed (Sahagun Bk 2: 81), this reaction does not seem to have been the norm, as when this occurred, it was viewed as a bad omen (Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites, 132), and a tetlazolmictiliztli (‘insult to the gods’)(Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites, 132). Such victims were hurriedly taken aside and slain amidst the congregation’s sarcastic jeers of ‘(the victim has) quite acquitted himself as a man’(Sahagun Bk 2:21). Contrary to popular perceptions of Aztec victims being terrified of their fate, even the Conquistadors Cortes and Alvarado found that those they freed ‘indignantly rejected [the] offer of release and demanded to be sacrificed.’(Bernal Diaz, The Conquest of New Spain,159). Being a sacrificial victim was considered an honorable way to die, and a death that was a quick way to heaven: > [@](#): > > Finally, it should be noted that according to the Aztec (and Mesoamerican) world-view, the circumstances in which people died determined the type of afterlife they enjoyed. The Aztecs had meticulously organised death into several types, which each led to specific ‘heavenly’ and ‘underworld’ levels. In the levels Sahagun records, passing away quietly at home was the lowest, as it required the unfortunate soul to undergo numerous torturous trials and journeys, only to culminate in a sombre underworld. By contrast, what the Aztecs termed ‘a good death’ was sacrifice, war (which usually meant sacrifice) or - in the case of women - death whilst giving birth. This kind of end procured for the deceased the second-highest heaven (death in infancy being the highest). Persons who had died sacrificially or in war were called ‘the God-dead’ (Teo-micqui ) and were said to 'go pure… live hard by, nigh unto the Sun… [who] always forever … rejoice … [since] the House of the Sun is … a place of joy (Sahagun Bk 6: 21). > [@ralph124c](#): > > The whole thing would make me sick-and these priests did it daily? > I suppose humans are capable of such cruelty-but this sounds over the top. As has been mentioned, they sometimes did it many times a day: > [@](#): > > For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,400 prisoners over the course of four days, though there were probably far fewer sacrifices. According to Ross Hassig, author of Aztec Warfare, “between 10,000 and 80,400 persons” were sacrificed in the ceremony.[32] The higher estimate would average 14 sacrifices per minute during the four-day consecration. As a comparison, the Auschwitz concentration camp, working 24 hours a day with modern technology, approached but did not equal this pace: it executed about 19,200 a day at its peak. Four tables were arranged at the top so that the victims could be jettisoned down the sides of the temple.[33] Nonetheless, according to Codex Telleriano-Remensis, old Aztecs who talked with the missionaries told about a much lower figure for the reconsecration of the temple, approximately 4,000 victims in total. However, even the lowest figure means victims were sacrificed at a rate of better than one every minute and a half over the course of the four days, assuming they continued day and night. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/28 "2010-01-08T02:21:52Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Actually - many, many, many times an _hour_, not just daily. It was assembly-line human butchery. On ritual days, though; I don’t think even the Aztecs were guilty of around the clock, 365-days-a-year sacrifices. On the other hand, the beating-heart sacrifice with obsidian knives to the Sun God thing wasn’t the only thing they had going on. Nor to Tlaloc the Rain God they sacrificed with fire… Living children. Who were made to cry first, as their tears were considered propitious. As gruesome as stabbing and removing the beating heart of a criminal or defeated warrior, I have to say that this seems worse. As for the “wear the skin of a flayed man” ritual, it was in honor of the Flayed God, [Xipe Totec](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xipe_Totec). The Wikipedia article I linked to there has a picture of a statue of the god in his flayed form which is kinda stomach churning. The religious story is that he flayed himself to bring agriculture to humans. (It doesn’t appear that the victims were flayed alive, but were sacrificed first in other ritual ways, and then the skin used for the Xipe Totec rituals.) Assuming there are Neo-Pagan revivals of the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican religions, I wonder how far they go to recreate some of these rituals… I know Asatru revivalists of Old Norse gods are known to do animal sacrifices. ---
**Author:** ![Lawn\_Gnome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lawn\_Gnome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lawn_Gnome)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/29 "2010-01-08T02:57:00Z")
I remember reading my high school’s AP World History book that basically said that many of the Aztecs’ human sacrifices actually WERE voluntary. Their religious beliefs told of the Sun god and other various gods occasionally sacrificing themselves for the Aztecs, so the Aztecs in turn sacrificed themselves to give more energy, blood, and life to the gods. In this way the Aztecs found it a HUGE honor to be sacrificed for the gods in this way. I remember the book mentioning instances in which Aztecs who were designated to be sacrificed actually willingly walked up the pyramid steps by themselves all the way to the altar where they would shortly have their hearts cut out and have their bodies pushed down the side of the pyramid. This is similar to how the winning teams of their ball game, ullamaliztli, were sacrificed also. The members of the winning team were sacrificed in honor to the gods. Both were believed to be honorable deaths. Of course there were many other rituals during the year where people were forced to be sacrificed completely unwillingly. For example, the daily sacrifice to the sun god (for the sun to come up the next day) always used captured peoples. The Aztecs and surrounding city states and empires that shared the same culture and religious beliefs actually left certain villages and cities undefended for “flower wars” where the empires’ armies would go and steal hundreds of people to be sacrificed over time. This book also mentioned certain holidays that occurred annually or every couple of years where literally dozens or in some cases, several hundred people would be sacrificed over the span of a day or a few days in the celebrations. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/30 "2010-01-08T08:38:43Z")
Has no-one seen \*\*Apocalypto \*\* ? Of course the sacrifices were real, movies never lie 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/31 "2010-02-02T20:28:12Z")
You may wish to check this out; it also airs tonight on PBS’s _Secrets of the Dead_ (check local listings): [Aztec Massacre | About the Episode | Secrets of the Dead | PBS](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/episodes/aztec_massacre/1/) ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/32 "2010-02-02T23:53:12Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > On ritual days, though; I don’t think even the Aztecs were guilty of around the clock, 365-days-a-year sacrifices. > > On the other hand, the beating-heart sacrifice with obsidian knives to the Sun God thing wasn’t the only thing they had going on. Nor to Tlaloc the Rain God they sacrificed with fire… Living children. Who were made to cry first, as their tears were considered propitious. As gruesome as stabbing and removing the beating heart of a criminal or defeated warrior, I have to say that this seems worse. > > As for the “wear the skin of a flayed man” ritual, it was in honor of the Flayed God, [Xipe Totec](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xipe_Totec). The Wikipedia article I linked to there has a picture of a statue of the god in his flayed form which is kinda stomach churning. The religious story is that he flayed himself to bring agriculture to humans. (It doesn’t appear that the victims were flayed alive, but were sacrificed first in other ritual ways, and then the skin used for the Xipe Totec rituals.) > > Assuming there are Neo-Pagan revivals of the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican religions, I wonder how far they go to recreate some of these rituals… I know Asatru revivalists of Old Norse gods are known to do animal sacrifices. What a spectacle! Imagine the horror. I still can’t imagine reaching in to someone’s innards, and ripping out the heart! ---
**Author:** ![Getheren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Getheren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Getheren)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/33 "2010-02-03T02:22:15Z")
> [@capeo](#): > > Just because the boy was kept in luxury doesn’t mean he was willingly there. What age are we talking here? Would the kid even be cognizant of what he was in for? As for human sacrifices in general? Yes, Aztec human sacrifice, particularly of prisoners of war, is well attested. I would say that in 2010 we can all look around and find plenty of evidence that some people will willingly and eagerly die, and even go to great patient lengths to do so, if they’re offered a profound religious motivation for doing so. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/34 "2010-02-03T04:16:45Z")
I remember reading that when the first crusade took Jerusalem they slaughtered pretty much the entire population, blood ran ankle deep in the gutters. These days we have humans choosing to sacrifice themselves for religion on the news almost every fuckin’ night. What’s so hard to believe ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/35 "2010-02-03T13:54:46Z")
> [@Getheren](#): > > I would say that in 2010 we can all look around and find plenty of evidence that some people will willingly and eagerly die, and even go to great patient lengths to do so, if they’re offered a profound religious motivation for doing so. And that there are even more people willing and eager to kill, if they’re offered a patriotic motivation for doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/36 "2010-02-03T14:17:54Z")
> [@Getheren](#): > > I would say that in 2010 we can all look around and find plenty of evidence that some people will willingly and eagerly die, and even go to great patient lengths to do so, if they’re offered a profound religious motivation for doing so. > [@outlierrn](#): > > These days we have humans choosing to sacrifice themselves for religion on the news almost every fuckin’ night. What’s so hard to believe > [@Quercus](#): > > And that there are even more people willing and eager to kill, if they’re offered a patriotic motivation for doing so. [Moderating] Let’s stick to the question in the OP, please, and not extend this to current events. If you want to explore that, please open a thread in GD. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/37 "2010-02-03T14:36:11Z")
One method sacrifice was used on enemy warriors captured in battle. The captive was dressed up as an Aztec mythical character (I forget which) and then led out to a fighting area. There, one of his feet was secured to the ground, but otherwise left free. He was given a club covered with bright feathers and had to fight a local warrior. If he dispatched his foe, another was brought up and the fight continued until the captive was dead. The Aztecs believed that the more guys he beat before dying, the better the sacrifice. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/38 "2010-02-03T16:38:33Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Thanks for the links. It just sounds so fantastic-can you imagine holding somebody down, and slicing him open with stone knives? The stone knives thing conjures up a pretty gruesome and ineffective “hacking and stabbing” image, but if the Aztecs used obsidian for the knifes, as **robardin** claims, keep in mind that obsidian can be used to make very very sharp knives indeed, even with extremely primitive technology (and a lot of skill). [according to Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian#Current_use), it’s being used _today_ for surgical scalpels. ---
**Author:** ![Getheren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Getheren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Getheren)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/39 "2010-02-03T17:30:20Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > The stone knives thing conjures up a pretty gruesome and ineffective “hacking and stabbing” image, but if the Aztecs used obsidian for the knifes, as **robardin** claims, keep in mind that obsidian can be used to make very very sharp knives indeed, even with extremely primitive technology (and a lot of skill). [according to Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian#Current_use), it’s being used _today_ for surgical scalpels. Quite so; obsidian produces edges down to one molecule thick at the edge, around 200 times as sharp as the finest surgical steel. That edge doesn’t last long under use, but for instruments used during a single surgery and then discarded that’s not an obstacle. (I’ve knapped stone tools myself, and can speak from bloody personal experience on how terribly _sharp_ stone flakes can be.) ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961/40 "2010-02-03T18:21:12Z")
While Aztecs may have been willing to die, I highly doubt the many captives conquered in the various Feather Wars were so pleased. Aside from the fact that many came from distinct cultures and societies, IIRC their leadership was extremely anti-Aztec. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-aztec-human-sacrifice-myth-or-true/523961.md?page=3)