Aztec essay
...sacrifices, which were the focal point of many religious rituals, symbolised the continual effort of the Aztec people to repay this blood debt to the gods, to provide energy for the movement of the sun across the sky and to prevent their own world of the 5th sun from coming to an end. AZTEC RELIGION AND RITUAL In the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan massive pyramid structures rose in the clear mountain air. These manmade mountains of stone, with temples to the gods perched on top, dominated the landscape just as the gods and priests dominated the religious life of the people. On these brightly painted pyramids and in their associated buildings elaborate rituals were performed. Here priests served the large pantheon of powerful Aztec gods, many of whom had been adopted from conquered states to add their power to the Aztec empire. These gods contolled human fate and destiny. Indeed the intricate balance of the universe itself depended upon their goodwill. To insure that life would survive and that the gods would be favorably inclined toward the needs of humankind, ceremonies were performed in their honor. These involoved gifts of incense, food, birds, and animals as well as the sacrifice of human beings whose hearts and blood were considered the supreme offering. Religion permeated the daily life of elite and commoners alike. Each year throughout the religious calendar people were called upon to participate in colorful ritual performances that pleased and empowered the demanding deities. Performed in the open, on the steps of the pyramids and in the great plazas of the city, the performances included musicians who played flutes, drums and conch shell trumpets, and dancers who wound their way around the pyramids and through the streets of the city. In addition poetry was chanted and sung to the gods and ritual dramas, often ending in human sacrifices, were enacted with performers and diety impersonaters dressed in elaborate brightly colored paper costumes. These ceremonies with their rituals and offerings were the symbolic link through which the Aztecs sought to propitiate their gods. At the heart of Aztec religion lay the belief that in the past the world had been created and demolished by the gods four times. At the end of each era the sun was destroyed and the earth depopulated. The Aztecs believed that their own world, the 5th sun, was created at the ancient site of Teotihuacan through the sacrifice of a god who flung himself into a fire in order to reappear in the sky as the sun. This sun, however, was unable to move across the heavens until other gods also sacrificed themselves by providing their own blood as sustenance for the movement of the sun. The human sacrifices, which were the focal point of so many religious rituals, symbolised the continual effort of the Aztec people to repay this blood debt to the gods, to provide energy for the movement of the sun across the sky and to prevent their own world of the 5th sun from coming to an end. In general, Aztec religion appears to focus on three themes of prime importance to the empire; each incorporating a group of anthropomorphic dieites (gods imbued with human traits) who needed to be constantly nourished. These themes were: celestrialprimordal creation; war and sacrifice; and rainagriculturefertility. Living at the summit of the world was the primordial creator force, a diety who combined male and female characteristics in one being. From this dual being all other gods and humans were descended. Closely connected with this abstract diety were Xiutecutli, the old god of fire, one of the most ancient gods in Mesoamerica and Tezcatlipoca the all powerful shaman, god of theAztec kings. Tezcatlipoca was seen as a young handsome warrior, and a special ceremony was celebrated in his honor. Each year a young, beautiful male was chosen from a group of captive warriors to impersonate this young vital god of kings. The impersonator spent a year in ritual luxury, wandering the streets of the city playing his flute and recieving, as if he were the god/ king himself, the adulation of the people. At the end of the year he was taken to an outlying pyramid where he climbed the steep steps to his death a god, sacrificed in honor of the god. Immediately another impersonator was selected and the ritual pattern started over again. As might be expected, gods associated with the theme of war and sacrifice particularly demanded offerings of human blood. Much of this divine nourishment was supplied in the form of captives taken in battle. All warriors were seen as soldiers of the sun and whether they died in war or on the sacrificial stone their destiny after death was to accompany the sun on his journey from the rising at dawn until noon. From noon until sunset, the sun was accompanied by women who had died in childbirth; these women were also percieved as having died in battle producing new warriors for the empire. Huitzilopochtli, the supreme god of warriors and patron of the Aztec people, was especially associated with warfare. He was the most important god in the Aztec Empire. Having led the Aztecs into the Valley of Mexico from their homeland to the north and encouaged them in their wars of agression he was ensconced with the god of rain on top of the Templo Mayor in the central sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan. Underlying all other themes was the ancient cult concerned with rai...