Aztec Human Sacrifice Essay

The practice of human sacrifice was a very prevalent in the ancient cultures of the Mesoamerican region. While practiced by smaller civilizations, the Aztec empire’s aggressive use of sacrifice was romanticized in movies, books, and other mediums. Before the Aztec empire’s height in 1427, historians speculate that the natives practiced sacrifice only in small quantities. The Aztecs dominated the Mexican region in culture for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. After the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico, many Aztecs were wiped out by the introduction of new diseases by Hernan Cortes and his soldiers. However, the Aztec culture thrived for so long because they were one of the most advanced civilizations on the continent, with their unique religion and importance placed on agriculture. To understand how and why human sacrifices were practiced, it is crucial to understand the fundamental ideas of the Aztec people and their religion. The religion of the Aztecs was very adamant on the importance of human sacrifice to please the Gods. This was considered an honor, basically giving the “essence” of an organism for a god was an ultimate honor for an Aztec. This essence was essentially returned back to the gods who created the earth that …show more content…
Regional battles were often finished with the ball game, where chieftains were sacrificed in rituals to the gods. An archeologist of Mayan ruins found, “In another carving from Yaxchilán, a local ruler, “Bird Jaguar IV,” plays the ball game in full gear while “Black Deer,” a captured rival chieftain, bounces down a nearby stairway in the form of a ball. It is likely that the captive was sacrificed by being tied up and pushed down the stairs of a temple as part of a ceremony involving the ball game. In 738 A.D., a war party from Quiriguá captured the king of rival city-state Copán: the captive king was ritually