Sacrifices

16th century Mexica codex

Every winter quarter, the University of Washington Alumni Association teams up with the History Department to present a series of public history lectures.  I've attended almost all of them since 1976, back when the UW's teaching professor extraordinaire Giovanni Costigan taught ten-lecture series, year after year.

This evening, I attended the first lecture of a series entitled "Life, Death, and the Gods."  Tonight's lecture dealt with the meaning of human sacrifice and blood letting among the Aztecs.

The lecture was interesting, but not entirely satisfying.  The professor, whose name I failed to note, spent half the lecture arguing that the Spanish invaders of the sixteenth century sensationalized the extent of human sacrifice among the Aztecs, and often misrepresented its purpose and meaning in order to conform with Christian teaching.  The exaggerations were for the purpose of justifying the colonization of Mexico, and the misrepresentations were -- I gathered -- largely unintentional, and resulted from the common human need to view unfamiliar practices through the lens of one's own experiences and beliefs.

I felt that none of the above was surprising or new, and could have been stated and, if necessary, supported in much less time.

The second part of the lecture was an interpretation of the meaning of these practices within the context of the Mexicas' (the Aztecs own word for themselves) culture.  This portion of the lecture was supported by quite interesting Spanish texts and by "codices" -- illustrations -- both by pre-Columbian Mexica artists and by Mexica artists working in collaboration with Spaniards after the colonization.  The codices were beautiful, brilliant in color, and not simple to interpret.

The professor explained that Mexica "sacrifices" were not always sacrifices as we understand them, but were attempts to relate to the gods, and to propitiate for transgressions both by individuals and by the entire Mexica nation.  This discussion was interesting, but the lecture ended before the speaker was able to fully explain his thesis -- or at least to make it clear to me.

I note that a number of articles exist on-line regarding the purpose of Mexica sacrifices, one of which may have been an attempt to feed or nourish the gods.  According to a 2018 article in Science Magazine,

 Many of the region's cultures, including the Maya and the Mexica, believed that human sacrifice nourished the gods. Without it, the sun would cease to rise and the world would end. And sacrificial victims earned a special, honored place in the afterlife.

This purpose wasn't discussed in tonight's lecture, although it may have been implied.

All in all, an interesting lecture, but the subject was perhaps too complex and controversial for the speaker to do it justice in the hour of actual lecture time afforded by tonight's lecture.  Next week's topic will deal with practices in the Roman Empire.