Killing for Harvest

The ritual of the Aztec sacrifice can be viewed as a delicate and powerful act to bring stability and fertility to the earth. The majority of the public have considered the Aztecs to be savages, when they look upon the dismemberment of their captives. When analyzed, it is clear that the Aztec sacrifices have a purpose and there is a higher meaning behind every action taken in the “Feast of the Flaying of Men” (p.67). According to Clendinnen, the Aztecs viewed these rituals to be a key component in the success of their agriculture.
This warrior society believed the human body was the key to the manipulation and the fertility of the land. An ancient story depicts an earth monster being dismembered by the gods, only to create “trees, flowers and herbs with her hair; rivers and large caves with her mouth; mountain valleys with her nose; and mountains with her shoulders” (p.72). To complete the sacrifice it was believed that she had to be “soaked in human blood and fed with human hearts” (p.72). Through this belief system, the Aztecs found the sacrifices essential to their way of life.
Although the rituals themselves were brutal, each and every body part that was taken was for a purpose and a reason. They linked nature and the human body as two of the same things; one had something to do with the other. For example, “human flesh represented maize, vegetable foods and the earth; human blood was key to rain and flowing water; while the sacred human heart