Human sacrifice as political control in Aztec society

Human Sacrifice Among the Aztecs

The Aztecs were one of many pre-Hispanic Mexico and Central America's cultures that practiced human sacrifice. To the modern western eye, this ritualistic killing of a captive or slave seems brutal and cruel. But human sacrifice performed many functions in Aztec society and helped to reinforce the social, political, and economical hierarchy of the culture. This act performed many functions in Aztec society and helped to cement cultural and social ties and understandings between the Aztec people and their kings and gods. In order to maintain a high level of social order in a growing and often extremely militaristic society, the cultural elites needed a way of preserving the power structure through legitimized, religious means. They used human sacrifice and in some cases cannibalism as a way to reinforce cultural norms and expectations as well as honor their most celebrated warriors and kings. To understand the Aztecs culture, one must fully understand the social and cultural functions of their rituals and practices, no matter how barbaric or anti-human nature these practices may seem to be.

The Cultural and Social Functions of Human Sacrifice: Theories

Many scholars have debated the function of Aztec human sacrifice and each has come up with their own explanation. Some scholars believe that it was a way in which the Aztecs practiced their religious beliefs, or even as a means of population control. These explanations offer inaccurate reflections of Aztec life, and often assume that the culture was war-like and perpetually violent (Ingham, 1984, pp. 379) One of the best theories for the reason why the Aztecs sacrificed human beings in a ritualistic way is described by Professor John Ingham (1984, pp. 376) in his book on the subject of pre-Hispanic Mexican cultures,

Various students of ancient Mexico have noticed, if only in passing, that human sacrifice was an instrument of political repression. & #8230;this is not an incidental finding but rather an important key to the social meaning of pre-Hispanic religion. Whatever else it may have been, human sacrifice was a symbolic expression of political domination and economic appropriation and, at the same time, a means to their social production and reproduction. The images of gods reified superordination (and subordination), and sacrifice to them was symbolically equivalent to payment of tribute. The sacrificing of slaves and war captives and the offering of their hearts and blood to the sun thus encoded the essential character of social hierarchy and imperial order and provided a suitable instrument for intimidating and punishing subordination.

According to Ingham, the practice of human sacrifice was more than just a barbaric religious practice in the Aztec culture. It performed a multitude of functions, encompassing many modern-day deterrents to insubordination and tithing. Politically, it motivated people to accept the current hierarchy or Aztec status quo, while it reinforced the power that the Aztec leaders had as well as their supposed direct connection with the gods. The only humans powerful and godlike enough to perform the human sacrifices were the priests that acted for the kings by proxy (CITE POSS. Ingham)

The U.S. currently executes criminals based on certain criteria similar to the way the Aztecs sacrificed humans for insubordination. Murder, no matter what a person believes, is still an act of social and cultural insubordination in the United States, and therefore is dealt with in a way that makes an example out of the person who committed the crime. The Aztecs used human sacrifice in a similar way, to show the general population that their leaders were serious about being taken seriously. In a sense, sacrifice was about controlling the population.

Social Evolutionary Considerations

The evolution of a culture is often complex and multifaceted, as with the Aztec. Many cultural anthropologists and social scientists believe that once a society reaches a certain number in population, there is a major shift from sustaining the culture to controlling its citizens. Smaller civilizations have more of a concern for growth and sustainability. As the Aztec society grew in size, and its culture grew in influence, there became an intense need to control the population from the lens of their pre-established belief system (Harner, 1977). Perhaps it would have been less socially acceptable for the Aztec kings to treat insubordinates differently, perhaps incarcerating or banishing them. But the kings and their priests needed a way to strike both fear and intense feelings of subordination and religious dependence into the hearts of their citizens (Harner, 1977). This is the root of Aztec human sacrifice. It is surely deeply rooted in their belief system but it serves extremely important cultural and social purposes.

As Aztec society progressed, the practice of human sacrifice may have taken on new meanings or social importance. Some have even suggested that during the later years of the Aztec civilization there was a shortage of meat, and human sacrifice and cannibalism way a way to dole out prized pieces of meat for honored citizens, kings, and priests to consume, thereby further reinforcing the social and religious hierarchy of the society (Gould and Lewontin, 1979, pp. 147). This theory is centered on the idea of protein scarcity and most scholars disagree with it. This theory certainly presents an interesting set of questions however, and shows that the practice of human sacrifice is a complex topic and could have been adapted by the Aztec to perform a multitude of functions from social deterrent to god worship.

Cross Cultural Considerations

An excellent way of examining the cultural importance of a practice like human sacrifice is to take a closer look at it in other cultures to hopefully gain some insight into its sociological and cultural significance as a multi-functional ritual. The practice of human sacrifice in Aztec culture correlates well with the same practice in other cultures when population density and growth is taken into consideration (Winkelman, 1998). This is a clue as to when and why the practice developed both in the Aztec culture and in other cultures worldwide. Other Mesoamerican cultures were using human sacrifice in religious rituals centuries before the Aztecs, where this method of social order and control had been successfully employed. Winkelman (1998) states that, "While human sacrifice has no significant correlations with measures of agricultural potential, protein, total food, food storage adequacy, and famine risk, there are significant positive correlations with population density, population pressure, and war for land and resources." As the Aztec culture developed and began to thrive, there was more and more need for population control through religious and sacrificial means.

The Aztec social elite understood that in order to exert control on the general population and to maintain their social status among other neighboring cultures, they had to develop a religious or ritualistic system of exerting their power and influence. This took the form of human sacrifice with the Aztecs as well as other cultures both nearby and elsewhere on the planet (Winkelman, 1998). In order to legitimize human sacrifice in the eyes of the general population, the practice was included into the religious and ritualistic practices of the Aztec culture. This in turn legitimized the control that the kings and priests and other elites needed to maintain on the ever-growing population. This legitimate human sacrifice was carried out by Aztec religious leaders as a normative social activity (Winkelman, 1998).

Warfare and Expansion

There are other relevant cultural functions of human sacrifice relating to the warrior class besides providing a means of upward social mobility and recognition. Much social value was put on being a successful warrior, similar to the way much social value is put on sports stars or celebrities in modern western cultures. Human sacrifice was a method of not only controlling their own social structure but also a way to intimidate and humiliate the Aztec's enemies and rivals (Carrasco, 1999). The knowledge that, if a one group of Aztecs lost in battle to another that they would likely be taken captive, sacrificed, and potentially cannibalized would have likely given a huge psychological advantage to the Aztec warriors. This psychological advantage would not only cause warriors from other civilizations or city-states to become fearful of other warriors, it would also solidify the superiority of the winning group's warrior class, and the idea that the gods had possibly pre-ordained the success of certain groups of Aztecs (Carrasco, 1999). In a way, human sacrifice was a self-fulfilling prophesy for many Aztec groups. It was a way in which to appease the gods, honor successful warriors, and maintain the social structure on both the micro and macro-societal level.

Final Thoughts: Conclusion

Human sacrifice is one of the most ancient aspects of Mesoamerican culture and there is evidence for human sacrifice among its earliest complex societies (Conrad and Demarest, 2002, pp.19). The Aztec practice of human sacrifice and cannibalism is greatly misunderstood. Many modern cultures regard both practices as barbaric and savage. It must be remembered however, that these practices were undertaken with a ritualistic, religious undertone, and the entire Aztec culture was influenced by them. These practices also helped keep the social, political, and religious structure of the culture intact through the reinforcing of the social norms and the agendas of the elite. Human sacrifice was but only one method of keeping a population under control and was sometimes used in a similar manner to today's death penalty, as a way of punishing cultural and societal insubordinates in a public way. Human sacrifice was built into the Aztec's religious rituals and practices so that it could be more easily accepted and justified by the masses as a means for the gods and the political and social elite to maintain their hierarchical monopoly.

The practice of human sacrifice served a very real purpose for the Aztecs as well as many other neighboring and non-neighboring cultures. Without a doubt there is evidence that this practice helped to create the means for the social and warrior elites to rule the general population. There is much evidence that human sacrifice is a, "central religious performance in the construction of social order and the authority of city-states" (Carrasco, 1999, pp.3). So instead of looking at human sacrifice through the lens of modern-day religious and social understanding, it is necessary to understand the roots and functions of human sacrifice and ritualistic cannibalism in order to fully understand it in its correct cultural context. It is with a renewed sense of cultural understanding that the associations of "brutal," "savage," or "inhumane" can be stricken from the subject of Aztec culture and social structure, or at the very least the cultural context that the sacrifices took place inside of can be more fully recognized.