A Brief History Of Human Sacrifice: The Aztecs

The Aztecs were a civilisation who lived in Central Mexico from 1300 to 1521. History has painted the Aztecs as a strange civilisation, one capable of great intelligence and architectural marvels, who simultaneously worshipped a bunch of strange, angry gods and routinely ritually sacrificed each other to them.
A lot of our beliefs about the Aztecs trace back to 1519 and the Spanish conquerors of the time and although we accept that human sacrifice was a part of their culture and religion, the extent of it is still debated today.

The fall of the Aztec Empire and our subsequent beliefs on human sacrifice in their culture, can be traced back to 1519 and the expedition of Hernán Cortés that culminated in the conquest of the capital Tenochtitlan and the fall of the Aztec Empire by 1521.
Upon arrival in Tenochtitlan, Cortes reported discoveries of the practice of human sacrifice, horrifying the general public and lending credence to the conquest. Its thanks to the Spanish writings of the time that people saw Aztecs as a horrifying civilisation who routinely murdered its own people. But how true is it? Lets find out more in today's video.

#aztecs #history #humansacrifice #weirdhistory #historychannel #aztechumansacrifice

Video Editor & Motion Graphics: Ravi Chauhan

Voice-over Artist: Chris Redish

Copyright © 2021 A Day In History. All rights reserved.

[teriday]

Have you noticed the priests never offer to sacrifice themselves?

[carlharmeling]

Human sacrifice carried out in public terrified the people and kept them obedient to their overlords. Fear is a powerful weapon of control. Still works even today.

[kat]

Imagine the horror of the man who thought they were peaceful and gave his daughter to marry the chief. He snuck back later not invited to a wedding, and seen his daughter skinned and alive as their priest put her skin on and was throwing a huge murder torture party instead of a wedding. Seriously. Can't believe no one mentions that.

[rajasimanta]

Prime example of what human can normalise something horrible just because of the cultural influence

[ericvulgate]

This channel never fails to remind me
how horrifying human beings are

[Lockbar]

So getting picked to be sacrificed would be kind of like receiving an army draft notice from The Aztecs..."Greetings citizen, the chief sacrificial priests requests your presents at the Temple of Doom""

[mikemorales]

The ultimate example of nature worship that was doomed to failure. No wonder so many of the Aztecs neighbors joined Cortes in fighting the Aztecs.

[kmk]

Very informative. It’s the most detailed of anything I’ve read about the rituals of the Aztecs. I’ve read ‘The Golden Conquistadors’, and the descriptions quoted by witnesses at the time describe the enormous numbers sacrificed in just one ceremony. Astonishing to the modern mind to conceive of such atrocities, and, yet, we still ‘sacrifice’ human lives for one reason or another today.

[kingcosworth]

It's the Cartels who are killing people like this now.

[MF_DOOMer]

I'm not mad at the Conquistadors one bit. It also makes sense why the Cartel is so brutal. It runs in their Ancestry.

[stevensnake]

5, 000 war captives were shot full of arrows on top of the war sun god temple and fell off the temple 150 feet high. A huge fire of burning logs were waiting down below. As they fell into the fire they would jump up and run out of the scalding fires. Waiting Aztec warriors would then. Beat them to death. This was the most horrific of ceremonies

[jimparsons]

Being a mainly agricultural society, I had thought that human blood sacrifice was done to promote the rains and to keep away damaging insects, like with many or most other agricultural societies down through history. I've wondered that once currency came into existence, societies might have stopped killing people because there's money; money I've heard is better than rain or Off bug spray? But perhaps I'm wrong?

[cierakitty]

They had ssoooo many gods, and sacrificed for sun, rain, crops, fertility, etc....all requiring...blood. Man, woman, child...did not matter. (yes they raided and took captives....but when they had none...well, you guessed it ). Imagine waking up one morning and "they" came for you...wow...you're it ! !

[lamon.mennsdressingmyhutch]

I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing this

[pinoyakoh]

And this is why the were wiped off the face of the earth. No civilization that did human sacrifice lasted, no matter how powerful they were

[kalebj]

Aztecs believed to save mankind humans have to be Sacrificed to Gods... When the Spanish landed with their belief that God sacrificed himself to save mankind, that must have sounded sooo strange and such a relief for them 😅

[russpaxman]

The human propensity to believe first:- in Gods, and Second that doing the right things or saying the right words, influence the invented Gods, in your favour?
Absolutely universal, and absolutely crazy.
It’s all about having control of nature, which we have no control over.

[jdee]

They sacrificed 20, 000 people a year! Omg I didn't know it was that bad.

[shmoonie]

Great video! Closed Caption was a hoot.

[SamPan]

I understand that they didn't have science to explain stuff, so they believed in gods, but why did their beliefs become so barbaric? How did they get into their heads they needed human sacrifice? Why couldn't they believe, for example, you could cook a feast (not containing humans) and offer it to the gods? I reckon some really messed up people in charge used this to control others and blamed it on the gods to justify it.