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Quetzalcoatl preferred nonhuman sacrifice. Other gods of the Aztec pantheon, such as Tezcatlipoca, Tlaloc, and Huitzilpohctli, however, did have a lot of human

• ergot_vacation 5y ago
  This is the level of detail I appreciate. It was a fascinating culture, just not a very warm and friendly one.
  • endgame 5y ago
    You might enjoy this blog post: https://abandonedfootnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/aztec-political-thought.html https://abandonedfootnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/aztec-politi...
    • bradrn 5y ago
      I quite liked that blog post as well. Unfortunately, I discovered recently that it is, if not wrong, then at least misleading. For one thing, it misrepresents Clendinnen: when she states that the incoming tlatoani is called ‘our lord, our executioner and our enemy’, it is as part of a reminder that such a powerful leader must act benevolently towards his people. Indeed, the whole thing was meant to be a speech delivered to the incoming tlatoani, in much the same way that we might remind a president of their power over millions of people’s lives. (Also, Classical Nāhuatl rhetoric relies heavily on allusion and parallelism, and doesn’t translate to English very well.) Furthermore, the blog post treats Tezcatlipoca as very much an evil god; though this seems a sensible interpretation to us, my understanding is that the Aztecs certainly did not think this way. Given that it has this number of obvious mistakes, I wouldn’t really trust this blog post. (Source: I linked to that post on another forum, and someone else with an interest in the Aztecs went through it and came to the conclusions above.)