Roberto Vargas

LBST 2102
Tina Katsanos
28, October 2016

The Aztec Beliefs

The Aztecs began as a northern tribe of hunter-gathers. They arrived in Mesoamerica
around the beginning of the Thirteenth century.The Aztecs became a very successful tribe in
central Mexico, creating social, political, and religious platform. This caused many of the citystates to lose control by the fifteenth century. Their capital city, Tenochtitlan was mainly where
the civilization thrived. In 1428, the Aztecs formed an alliance with two other tribes, Texcocans
and Tacubans to help defeat each of their rivals. Montezuma is know as the father of the
Aztecs because of his bravery. He led the Aztecs to more developed social, intellectual, and
artistic civilizations all together. They decided to have a very strict caste system. The top of the
food chain was the nobles and the bottom was the serfs (servants or slaves).
Their religion involved human sacrifice. Many of the Aztec buildings included statues of
the Aztec gods. The Aztec calendar had a lot to do with religion as well. Their calendar consisted
of 365 days from a solar cycle, and their rituals came every 260 days. The Aztecs took their
religion very serious, it was considered to be the center of the civilizations daily life. They
worshiped nature gods. The top most important were known as Huitzilopochtli or
(Hummingbird Wizard), Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), and Quetzalcoatl (sovereign
plumed serpent). They believed that there had been many worlds, and that they were apart of

the fifth world. The Aztecs believed that the other worlds were destroyed by natural events, they
strived to not let that happen to their world. They thought by keeping the gods happy through
human sacrifice, that this would not happen to them. As the civilization grew they decided that
more human sacrifice was required. To help with that, during wars, they would capture instead of
kill. They captured and sacrificed 20,000 of their enemies. A Key aspect of the religion was
bloodletting, which is harming or bleeding out on purpose. The higher ranked in the religion had
to give the most blood during the ritual. Supposedly the Aztec gods required human hearts that
were still beating. This caused more wars between the Aztecs and other civilizations. The human
sacrifice was performed at a pyramid or temple and the captive was taken to an alter. The Aztec
priest would then cut out the heart of the captive. The heart was then burned and the body was
pushed down the stairs of the temple or pyramid. If the captive was honorable he was held and
walked down the stairs instead. If the sacrifice was for the god, Huehueteotl (the god of warmth),
then the ritual was changed. The person being sacrificed was thrown into a fire and pulled back
out right before death. The heart of the captive was then removed and thrown back into the fire.
They believed that these rituals are what brought the civilizations happiness and peace.
There was also another huge part in Aztec religion. The impersonation of deities. Priests
or other elected people would dress up to represent a deity. A person elected for this ritual was
considered the human form of the god, but when it came time the person would then sacrifice
himself to the god they represented. This ritual was a reenactment of a specific event that
occurred. They did this to preserve past events that happened in the past worlds. The ones who
controlled and were also military leaders were the chief of man, or tlaltecuhtli. Under them
there were several other religious and military officers.

The main source of the Aztecs success was through their religion. Their sacrifices relied
on the Aztecs to conquer other tribes. Which meant that they had to be strong as a whole.
Religion brought everyone in the civilization together, which in the grand scheme of things is
what helped them thrive into such a powerful empire. It is believed that with each sacrifice the
gods would reward the Aztecs in a way. They created their own religion by using certain aspects
of the other civilizations religion that they conquered. This helped the Aztecs thrive where no
other civilization could. They were well cultured in all areas, social, political, and religiously.
The empires power was driven by worshiping their gods through human sacrifice.
Work Cited:
Aztec Religion. Aztec Indians, http://www.aztec-indians.com/aztec-religion.html.
Goldman, Phyllis Barkas. Aztec Religion. Monkeyshines On Central and South
America (1995): 6. History Reference Center. Web 30 Oct. 2016.
By a Series of Calculations Based on Astronomy, the People Could Figure out How to Act.
"Welcome to the Aztec Civilization Website." Welcome to the Aztec Civilization Website. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016.