[134] The “Anonymous Conqueror” assures us, as a fact beyond dispute, that the Devil introduced himself into the bodies of the idols, and persuaded the silly priests that his only diet was human hearts! It furnishes a very satisfactory solution, to his mind, of the frequency of sacrifices in Mexico. Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 307.
[135] The Tezcucan priests would fain have persuaded the good king Nezahualcoyotl, on occasion of a pestilence, to appease the gods by the sacrifice of some of his own subjects, instead of his enemies; on the ground that they would not only be obtained more easily, but would be fresher victims, and more acceptable. (Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 41.) This writer mentions a cool arrangement entered into by the allied monarchs with the republic of Tlascala and her confederates. A battle-field was marked out, on which the troops of the hostile nations were to engage at stated seasons, and thus supply themselves with subjects for sacrifice. The victorious party was not to pursue his advantage by invading the other’s territory, and they were to continue, in all other respects, on the most amicable footing. (Ubi supra.) The historian, who follows in the track of the Tezcucan Chronicler, may often find occasion to shelter himself, like Ariosto, with
“Mettendolo Turpin, lo metto anch’ io.”
[136] [Don José F. Ramirez, the distinguished Mexican scholar, has made this sentence the text for a disquisition of fifty pages or more, one object of which is to show that the existence of human sacrifices is not irreconcilable with an advance in civilization. This leads him into an argument of much length, covering a broad range of historical inquiry, and displaying much learning as well as a careful consideration of the subject. In one respect, however, he has been led into an important error by misunderstanding the drift of my remarks, where, speaking of cannibalism, I say, “It is impossible the people who practise it should make any great progress in moral or intellectual culture” (p. 100). This observation, referring solely to cannibalism, the critic cites as if applied by me to human sacrifices. Whatever force, therefore, his reasoning may have in respect to the latter, it cannot be admitted to apply to the former. The distance is wide between human sacrifices and cannibalism; though Señor Ramirez diminishes this distance by regarding both one and the other simply as religious exercises, springing from the devotional principle in our nature.{*} He enforces his views by a multitude of examples from history, which show how extensively these revolting usages of the Aztecs—on a much less gigantic scale indeed—have been practised by the primitive races of the Old World, some of whom, at a later period, made high advances in civilization. Ramirez, Notas y Esclarecimientos á la Historia del Conquista de México del Señor W. Prescott, appended to Navarro’s translation.]
{*} [The practise of eating, or tasting, the victim has been generally associated with sacrifice, from the idea either of the sacredness of the offering or of the deity’s accepting the soul, the immaterial part, or the blood as containing the principle of life and leaving the flesh to his worshippers.—K.]
[137] Rel. d’un gentil’ huomo, ap. Ramusio, tom. iii. fol. 307.—Among other instances is that of Chimalpopoca, third king of Mexico, who doomed himself, with a number of his lords, to this death, to wipe off an indignity offered him by a brother monarch. (Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 28.) This was the law of honor with the Aztecs.
[138] [“The advancement of Mexico rested for support on ... a system of perpetual war, remorselessly maintained against neighboring peoples, ostensibly to procure victims for sacrifice, but really to provide animal food for consumption by the privileged class engaged in it; and the religious ritual had been so expanded as to ensure for them, by a sacred and permanent sanction, an almost continuous cannibal carnival.” Payne, New World Called America, vol. i. p. 300. Mr. Payne shows that this continuous cannibalism prevailed because Anahuac possessed no large animals capable of furnishing a regular food supply. “Organized cannibalism, fortified by its religious sanction, was in fact a natural if not a necessary outgrowth of circumstances.”—M.]
[139] Voltaire, doubtless, intends this, when he says, “Ils n’étaient point anthropophages, comme un très-petit nombre de peuplades Américaines.” (Essai sur les Mœurs, chap. 147.)
[140] [The remark in the text admits of some qualification. According to an ancient Tezcucan chronicler, quoted by Señor Ramirez, the Toltecs celebrated occasionally the worship of the god Tlaloc with human sacrifices. The most important of these was the offering up once a year of five or six maidens, who were immolated in the usual horrid way of tearing out their hearts. It does not appear that the Toltecs consummated the sacrifice by devouring the flesh of the victim. This seems to have been the only exception to the blameless character of the Toltec rites. Tlaloc was the oldest deity in the Aztec mythology, in which he found a suitable place. Yet, as the knowledge of him was originally derived from the Toltecs, it cannot be denied that this people, as Ramirez says, possessed in their peculiar civilization the germs of those sanguinary institutions which existed on so appalling a scale in Mexico. See Ramirez, Notas y Esclarecimientos, ubi supra.]
[141] Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 45, et alibi.