s never fully conquered many of the surrounding states. They needed a steady supply of ritual sacrifice victims. If they used their own people for sacrifice then it could cause an uprising. There was another reason for these ritual sacrifices---cannibalism. After the hearts were removed and the bodies tossed down the temple steps, the limbs were removed and later cooked. As repugnant as cannibalism is to us today, back then to the Aztecs, cooked human bodies were looked upon as great delicacies which explains why only Aztec royalty, not the common people, were allowed to engage in cannibalism. The favorite parts for the Aztecs to munch on were the hands and thighs. The Aztec emperor, Moctezuma, was reported to have been partial to cooked thighs served with tomatoes and chili pepper sauce. This scene might turn our stomachs but it must also be remembered that the Aztecs had no domestic livestock so the body leftovers (the hearts given to the gods were the main course) from the ritual sacrifices was a way for the Aztec royalty to obtain proteins and fats. Thus in the Aztecs we can see a mingling of religion and nourishment which resulted in human sacrifice. The Aztecs: Ambivalence and Beauty The Aztecs were also known as the Tenocha or the Mexica and the name Mexico comes from this. They were the dominant peoples of Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 1500s. Read The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz for an absolutely gripping account of this by a conquistador who was there. The center of Aztec culture was the city of Tenochtitln [Teh-noche-TEE-tlahn- 'place of the prickly pear cactus'] in the Valley of Mexico. This was on the location of the present day site of Mexico City. It is estimated that at the time of the Spanish conquest Tenochtitln had in the region of 200,000-300,000 people and it was apparently a beautiful sight. It would have been larger than any European city of the time. It contained more ...
