AZ: Child-sacrifice

[Richard Haly]

Listeros:

One of my students is researching the practice of child sacrifice and is
stuck on the issue as to where the children came from. As I don't know
either (per my speculation in answer to her query below), I thought I see
what y'all might have on this. If you respond to the list, I'll forward
things.

Thank You

Richard Haly


>Dear Professor Haly,
> As we discussed in class, I'm going to write my paper on sacrifices of
> children. From what I have read so far, it seems that Aztecs sacrificed
> children to the rain god and maize god, which was also associated with rain.
> It seemed to me, that they sacrificed children instead of adults because
> children were very valuable, and Aztecs needed to please the rain god
> because rain was needed for crops, and so for survival. However, I'm
> interested to find out what kind of atmosphere was associated with taking or
> buying children from their mothers. I can't believe that mothers-even if
> they believed in gods-would do it voluntarily. Please let me know if there
> is some literature about it , or maybe since you know Aztecs better than me,
> maybe you can help me to speculate about it. Thank you
> Eva Lowe
>
Dear Eva:

This sounds good. Looking at the festivals in Florentine Codex will
certainly give you more context and help you sort out the logic of such
practices. Look for equivalences. Things that can stand for one another or
replace one another. This leads to the interesting issue as to where the
children come from. Something must "replace" them. I agree that parents
probably didn't give up children voluntarily tho' their may have been some
institutionalized way for all this to happen. They also may have been very
ill-behaved children as these could become slaves. Yet this doesn't ring
quite true either as it sort of taints their acceptability. It could have
been as a "punishment" for the parents in that they might have gone so far
in debt, say by gambling, that the children were lost... I don't know a
specific source that details all this but you might search for articles in
the library database on "child sacrifice" or look at one of the works that
deals with Aztec slavery.


Richard Haly