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Human Sacrifice, the central rite of Aztec ‘Religion’

“Human sacrifice, practiced by most other Mesoamericans, had become the central rite of Aztec religion.” (Honour and Fleming 522) In this quote I found the concept of a religion that commits acts that show such outright disregard for humans, in some cases their own kind, to be intriguing. Yet, in the quote, the human sacrifice by the Aztecs is attributed to religion, and nothing more. This is one thing I disagree with to some extent. I believe that the Aztecs must have had multiple underlying reasons for sacrifice, ranging from religion, to nutrition, and economic state. There are many accounts and estimates by various authors regarding the number of sacrifices made annually by the Aztecs. Some say it was three to four thousand (Cortes 24) to random estimates ranging from 20,000 to 250,000 based on remains at Tenochtitlan and Xocotlan. What we do know however, is that no matter what the exact number of annual human sacrifices was, it was much more than most of us would like to pon...

Posted by: Rheannon Androckitis

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