Sacrifices
Aztecs are notorious for their religious human sacrifice that they performed in great numbers, but the actual number of sacrifices is object of debate.
For the construction of the main temple, they reported that they sacrificed about 100,000 prisioners in four days. How a city of 80,000 people could take, accommodate and dispose of that many prisioners is not clear. Specially since they reported that Ahuitzotl sacrificed them personally. This means about 17 sacrifices by minute, every 24 hours for 4 days. Some scholars thing that problable they took about 3,000 sacrifices and the rest were war propaganda.
Another figure used, is from Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the spanish soldier who wrote his account of the conquest 50 years later. In the description of the "Zompantli", a rack of skulls of the victims, of the main temple, he reports to have counted about 100,000 skulls. But wiht those figurs the Zompantli would have had a lengh of several kilometers, instead of the 30 metters reported. Modern reconstructions account for about 600 to 1,200 skulls.
Aztecs waged "flower wars" to capture prisoners to sacrifices they called nextlaualli, "debt payment to the gods" so that the sun could rise every morning. Harvard professor David Carrasco has compared this practice to "bringing home the war" in modern television.
Materialist anthropologist Marvin Harris has suggested that the flesh of the victims was a part of aristocratic diet as reward, since the Aztec diet was lacking in proteins. According to him, the Aztec economy couldn't support feeding them as slaves, so the columns of prisoners were "marching meat". Most other historians of Mesoamerica believe that while there was ritual cannibalism related to human sacrifices, human flesh was never a significant portion of the Aztec diet. It's important to note that there is little documentation on this matter. There are only four acounts of canibalism from the date of the conquest. The difference between this accounts and what has been described as the Cannibal kingdom, has led to some people to believe there is a complot to hide the "real evidence".
So the only accounts of cannibalism are:
- Cortez wrote in one of his letters, that his soldiers had captured an Aztec, who had a roasted baby ready for breakfast.
- Gomarra, reported that during the siege of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards had asked the Aztec to surrender since they had no food. The aztecs answered, asking the spaniards to try to attack, so they could be taken as prisioners, and then served with "molli" sauce.
- In the books of Bernardino de Sahagún, there is an illustration of an Aztec being cook ed by an unknown tribe. This was reported as one of the dangers of the Aztec traders.
- In the Ramirez codex, written by an Aztec after the conquest using european caracters, it's reported, that after the sacrifices, the flesh from the hands of the victim, were given as gift to the warrior who made the capture. This was supposed to be eaten, but it was discarded and replace with turkey.
There are no other reports, or evidence, although Bernal Diaz reported cannibalism, a close reading show that he does not claim to have see it done, he is only reporting it.
Downfall
The Aztec were conquered by Spain in 1521, when after long battle and a long siege where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox, Cuautemoc surrendered to Hernan Cortes. Cortes with his up to 500 men did not fight alone but with maybe up to 150.000 - 200.000 allies from Tlaxcala and eventually from Texcoco that resisted Aztec rule. He defeated Tenochtitlan's forces in August 13 1521,.
An anonimous Aztec poet wrote:
- How can we save our homes, my people
- The Aztecs are deserting the city
- The city is in flames and all
- is darkness and destruction
- Weep my people
- Know that with these disasters
- We have lost the Mexican nation
- The water has turned bitter
- Our food is bitter
- These are the acts of the Giver of Life.
But even in this moment, most of the other Mesoamerican cultures were intact. The Tlaxcaltec expected to get their part, Purepechas and Mixtecs probably were happy of the defeat of their long time enemy and it was the same for other cultures.
It seem that the intention of Cortez was to maintain the structure of the Aztec empire, and at first it seems the Aztec empire could survive. The upper classes at first were considered as noblemen (to this day, the title of duke of Moctezuma is held by a Spanish noble family), they learn Spanish, and several learn to write in european characters. Some of their surviving writings are crucial in our knowledge of the aztecs. Also the first missionaries tried to learn Nahuatl and some like Bernardino de Sahagún, decided to learn as much as they could of the Aztec culture. There is a surviving record of a dialogue between the "Tlatimine" or wise man, and the misioners, where the Aztec try to defend their ways.
But soon all changed. The second wave of missionaries, and authorities showed what it seems like a profund hate for every aspect of the Mesoamerican cultures, and they began a process to wipe it. Eventually, the Indians were forbidden, not only to learn of their cultures, but they were forbidden to learn to read and write in Spanish, and under the law, they had the status of minors.
It has been reported that epidemics of smallpox and typhus killed up to 75% of population, from an estimated population of 15 million, seventy years after the conquest, the estimated population was of 3 million. Mexico City was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan.
Information about Aztecs survives in contemporary sources like Codex Mendoza collected in 1541 and the works of Bernardino de Sahagún who worked with the surving aztec wise men.
Nahuatl is still spoken by Mexican Indians.
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