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The Aztecs believed that Huitzilopochtli needed daily nourishment (tlaxcaltiliztli) in the form of human blood and hearts and that they, as “people of the sun,” were required to provide Huitzilopochtli with his sustenance. [18] When the Aztecs sacrificed people to Huitzilopochtli, the victim would be placed on a sacrificial stone. [19]
However, since Copil was his relative, Huitzilopochtli decided to honor him and made a cactus grow over Copil heart and it became a sacred place. The Aztecs attempted to ally with the Colhua to confront the Tepanec: they were allowed to settle in Tizapán, near Colhuacan. In 1323, the Aztecs slaughtered a Colhua Princess in front of her father.
Tlacaelel recast or strengthened the concept of the Aztecs as a chosen people, elevated the tribal god/hero Huitzilopochtli to top of the pantheon of gods, [5] and increased militarism. [6] In tandem with this, Tlacaelel is said to have increased the level and prevalence of human sacrifice , particularly during a period of natural disasters ...
The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521 after a long siege of the capital, Tenochtitlan, where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox. Cortés, with 508 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala , and eventually other Aztec tributary states.
Guided by their priest, the Aztec tribe fled. On the road, their god Huitzilopochtli forbade them to call themselves Azteca, telling them that they should be known as Mexica. Scholars of the 19th century—in particular Alexander von Humboldt and William H. Prescott—translated the word Azteca, as is shown in the Aubin Codex, to Aztec. [2] [3]
The Aztecs adopted his cult during the reign of Axayacatl (1469–81). During Tlacaxipehualiztli ("Flaying of Men"), the second ritual month of the Aztec year, the priests killed human victims by removing their hearts. They flayed the bodies and put on the skins, which were dyed yellow and called teocuitlaquemitl ("golden clothes").
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
The rest of the gods present: Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, Nochpalliicue, Yapallicue and Xochiquetzal sacrifice themselves in Teotihuacan to make the Sun move across the sky, starting the contemporary era. [7] Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli is also viewed as one of the four gods who kept the sky up and was associated with the cardinal direction East. [8]