Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T12:56:09.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human Sacrifice at Tenochtitlan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

John M. Ingham
John M. Ingham
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Many fixed and movable festivals in ancient Mexico were occasions for human sacrifice. The sun in particular was offered hearts and blood, ostensibly because its vitality and, therefore, life itself depended on such oblations. Numerous festivals also included ritual cannibalism, apparently because it was thought to facilitate communion with the gods.

Type
Law and Religion
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 1984 , pp. 379 - 400
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alarcón, Hernando Ruiz de. 1953 [1892]. “Tratado de las supersticiones y costumbres gentflicas,” in Tratado de las idolatrías, supersticiones, dioses, ritos, hechicerías, y otras costumbres gentílicas de las razas aborígenes de México, vol. 2, Tronscoso, Francisco del Paso y, ed. Mexico City: Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 17–180.Google Scholar
Barlow, R. H. 1963. “Remarks on a Nahuatl Hymn”. Tlalocan, 4:2, 185–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berdan, Frances F. 1978. “Replicatión de principios de intercambio en la sociedad mexica: de la economía a la religion,” in Economía político e ideología en el Méxicoprehispánico, Carrasco, Pedro and Broda, Johanna, eds. Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones Superiores del Instituto Nacional de Antropologfa e Historia, 175–93.Google Scholar
Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo. 1968. “Los que trabajan con el tiempo: notas etnograficas sobre los graniceros de la Sierra Nevada, México”. Anales de Antropologfa, 5, 99–128.Google Scholar
Broda, Johanna. 1978a. “El tributo en trajes guerreros y la estructura del sistema tributario mexicana,” in Economía político e ideología en el México prehispánico, Carrasco, Pedro and Broda, Johanna, eds. Mexico City: Centra de Investigaciones Superiores del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 115–74.Google Scholar
Broda, Johanna. 1978b. “Relaciones políticas ritualizadas: El ritual como expresion de una ideología,” in Economía político e ideología en el México prehispánico, Carrasco, Pedro and Broda, Johanna, eds. Mexico City: Centra de Investigaciones Superiores del Instituto Nacional de Antropologfa e Historia, 221–55.Google Scholar
Calnek, Edward E. 1972. “Settlement Pattern and Chinampa Agriculture at Tenochtitlan”. American Antiquity, 37:1, 104–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calnek, Edward E. 1976. “The Internal Structure of Tenochtitlan,” in The Valley of Mexico: Studies in Pre-Hispanic Ecology and Society, Wolf, Eric R., ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 287–302.Google Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro. 1976a. “Los linajes nobles del México antiguo,” in Carrasco, Pedro, Broda, Johanna et al. , Estratificación social en la Mesoamérica prehisp´nico. Mexico City: Centra de Investigaciones Superiores y Instituto Nacional de Antropologfa e Historia, 19–36.Google Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro. 1976b. ”Estratificación social indigena en Morelos durante el siglo XVI,” in Carrasco, Pedro, Broda, Johanna et al. , Estratificación social en la Mesoamérica prehispánico. Mexico City: Centra de Investigaciones Superiores y Instituto Nacional de Antropologfa e Historia, 102–17.Google Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro. 1978. “La economía del México prehispánico,” in Economía político e ideología en el México prehispánico, PCarrasco, edro and Broda, Johanna, eds. Mexico City: Centra de Investigaciones Superiores del Instituto Nacional de Antropologfa e Historia, 15–76.Google Scholar
Caso, Alfonso. 1958. The Aztecs: The People of the Sun. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Codice, Chimalpopoca. 1945. Anales de Cuauhtitlan y leyenda de los soles, Velázquez, Primo Feliciano, trans. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Historia.Google Scholar
Codice, Mendocino. 1938. James Cooper Clark, ed. 3 vols. London: Waterlow and Sons.Google Scholar
Cohen, Abner. 1969. “Political Anthropology: The Analysis of the Symbolism of Power Relations”. Man, 4:2, 215–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Sherburne F. 1946. “Human Sacrifice and Warfare as Factors in the Demography of Pre-colonial Mexico”. Human Biology, 18:2, 81–102.Google ScholarPubMed
Cook de Leonard, Carmen 1966. “Robert Weitlaner y los graniceros,” in Summa anthropologica: en homenaje a Robert J. Weitlaner. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Secretaría de Educatión Pública, 291–98.Google Scholar
Cordry, Donald. 1980. Mexican Masks. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Cortés, Hernán. 1971. Letters from Mexico, Pagden, A. R., trans, and ed. New York: Grossman Publishers.Google Scholar
Demarest, Arthur, AND Conrad, Geoffrey. 1983. “Ideological Adaptation and the Rise of the Aztec and Inca Empires,” in Civilization in the Ancient Americas: Essays in Honor of Gordon Willey, R., Leventhal, Richard M. and Kolata, Alan L., eds. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press; Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 373–400.Google Scholar
Durán, Fray Diego 1967. Historia de las indias de Nueva Espana e Islas de la Tierra Firme, Angel Ma. Garibay, K. ed. 2 vols. Mexico City: Editorial Porrua.Google Scholar
Edmonson, Munro S. 1971. The Book of Counsel: The Popol Vuh of the Quiche Maya of Guatemala. New Orleans: Tulane University, Middle American Research Institute, Publication 35.Google Scholar
Garibay, K., Ángel, Ma., ed. 1958. Veinte himnos sacros de los nahuas. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.Google Scholar
Garibay, K., Angel, Ma., ed. 1965. Teogonía e historia de los mexicanos: tres opúsculos del sigh XVI. Mexico City: Editorial Porrua.Google Scholar
Gibson, Charles. 1971. “Structure of the Aztec Empire,” in Handbook of Middle American Indians, Robert Wauchope, ed., vol. 10, pt. 1. Austin: University of Texas Press, 376–94.Google Scholar
Graulich, Michel. 1974. “Las peregrinaciones aztecas y el ciclo de Mixcóatl”. Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl, 11, 311–54.Google Scholar
Harner, Michael. 1977. “The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice”. American Ethnologist, 4:1, 117–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Marvin. 1977. Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Hicks, Frederic. 1982. “Tetzcoco in the Early 16th Century: The State, the City, and the Calpolli”. American Ethnologist, 9:2, 230–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, Eva. 1977. The Transformation of the Hummingbird: Cultural Roots of a Zinacantecan Mythical Poem. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ichon, Alain. 1973. La religión de los totonacas de la sierra. Mexico City: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Secretaría de Educación Pública.Google Scholar
Ingham, John M. 1971. “Time and Space in Ancient Mexico: The Symbolic Dimensions of Clanship”. Man, 6:4, 615–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, Barry L. 1983. “Aztec Warfare: Goals and Battlefield Comportment”. Ethnology, 22:2, 121–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Friedrich. 1972. The Ancient American Civilizations. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Kurtz, Donald V. 1978. “The Legitimation of the Aztec State,” in The Early State, Claessen, J. M. and Skalník, Peter, eds. The Hague: Mouton, 169–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Litvak King, Jaime. 1971. Cihuatlán y Tepecoalcuilco: provincias tributarias de México en el siglo XVI. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas.Google Scholar
López Austin, Alfredo. 1980. Cuerpo humano e ideologia: las concepciones de los antiguos nahuas, vol. 1. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas.Google Scholar
Madsen, William. 1960. The Virgin's Children: Life in an Aztec Village Today. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Mendieta, Fray Geronimo de. 1971. Historia eclesiástica Indiana. Mexico City: Antigua Librería.Google Scholar
Molins Fábrega, N. 1956. El Códice Mendocino y la economía de Tenochtitlan. Mexico City: Biblioteca Mínima Mexicana.Google Scholar
Moreno, Robert. 1969. “El axolotl”. Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl, 8, 157–73.Google Scholar
Motolinía, Fray Toribio de Benevente O. 1971. Memoriales, o libro de las cosas de la Nueva Espana y de los naturales de ella, O'Gorman, Edmundo, ed. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas.Google Scholar
Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. 1978. “Aztec Cannibalism: An Ecological Necessity?” Science, 200 (no. 4342), 611–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oviedo y Valdez, Gonzalo Fernandez. 1959. Historia general y natural de las indias, vol. 4, Bueso, Juan Perez de Tudela ed. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas (Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, vol. 121).Google Scholar
Padden, R. C. 1967. The Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico, 1503–1541. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Pohl, Mary. 1981. “Ritual Continuity and Transformation in Mesoamerica: The Ancient Maya Cuch Ritual”. American Antiquity, 46:3, 513–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Barbara J. 1978. “Demystification, Enriddlement, and Aztec Cannibalism: A Materialist Rejoinder to Harner”. American Ethnologist, 5:1, 98–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Michoacán, Relación. 1956. Relación de las ceremonias y ritos y población y gobierno de los indios de la provincia de Michoacán. Introduction by Josí ía Luis. 1979. “El término calpulli en documentos del siglo XVI”. Paper presented at the Forty-third International Congress of Americanists, Vancouver.Google Scholar
Rounds, J. 1979. “Lineage, Class, and Power in the Aztec State”. American Ethnologist, 6:1, 73–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sahagün, Fray Bernardino de. 1950–1969. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Dibble, Charles E. and Anderson, Arthur J. O., trans, and eds. 13 parts. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah; Santa Fe: The School of American Research.Google Scholar
Sahagun, Fray Bernardino de. 1956. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana, Garibay K., Angel Ma., ed. 4 vols. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall David. 1978. “Culture as Protein and Profit”. New York Review of Books (23 11), pp. 45–53.Google Scholar
Scholes, France V., AND Adams, Eleanor B. 1957. Informatión sobre los tributos que los indios pagaban a Moctezuma, ano del 1554. Mexico City: Porrúa e Hijos (Documentos para la historia del México colonial, vol. 4).Google Scholar
Séjourné, Laurette. 1956. Burning Water: Thought and Religion in Ancient Mexico. New York: The Vanguard Press.Google Scholar
Seler, Eduard. 1963. Comentarios al códice borgia. 2 vols. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica.Google Scholar
Serna, Jacinto de la. 1953 [1892]. “Manual de ministros indios,” in Tratado de las idolatrias, supersticiones, dioses, ritos, hechîcerias y otras costumbres gentilicas de las razas aborigenes de México, vol. 1, Troncoso, Francisco del Paso y, ed. Mexico City: Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 40–368.Google Scholar
Tezozomoc, Hernando Alvarado. 1943. Crónica mexicana. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas.Google Scholar
Tezozomoc, Hernando Alvarado. 1949. Crónica Mexicayotl. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas.Google Scholar
Toors, Frances. 1947. A Treasury of Mexican Folkways. New York: Crown Publishers.Google Scholar
Torquemada, Fray Juan de. 1969. Monarquía Indiana. 3 vols. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric. R. 1959. Sons of the Shaking Earth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Zorita, Alonso de. 1963. Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain, Keen, Benjamin, trans, anded. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar