29.8 America: a.d. 1401 to 1500  (Page 3/9)

It is well known that the Aztecs used human sacrifices as a part of their religious activities, in the form of ceremonial cannibalism. Tenochtitlan priests ripped open chests of living victims with flint knives, tore out still beating hearts and ate them. The heads were hung on racks (perhaps the brains were eaten also) and the remainders of the bodies were tumbled down the steep-sided temple steps for the populace to eat. At times one thigh was given to the Supreme Council and other choice cuts to other nobles and then the remainders given to the victim's captor, who took it home and had it cooked into a maize and man stew, to be eaten by all the family. (Ref. 211 ) A subsidiary nation, Tlaxcalan, may have been preserved simply as a "stockyard" to supply human meat for Aztec raiders

Mexican writers tend to indicate that the cannibalism was entirely a religious rite, re-enacting a mythical battle between the God Huitzilopochtli and his sorceress sister, Coyalxauhqui, whom he dismembered. (Ref. 148 ) Anawalt (Ref. 273 ) writes that as children of the sun the Aztecs felt a heavy responsibility to keep the sun (representing Hiutzilopochtli in his daily battle) strong, by giving it the most sacred of all foods - human blood. The most common blood offerings were from auto-sacrifice from every man, woman and child, from ear lobes, tongues, extremities, chest or genitals. Human sacrifice, however, was the most holy rite and took place on one or more days of each of the 18 months in the Aztec year. Most of these were captives or specially selected and prepared individuals.