Religious change among the Aztecs
Annotated Bibliography
Berdan, Frances, Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory, pp. 215-296. NY: Cambridge University Press (2014).
The source tells of the history and religion of the Aztec people.
Burkhart, Louise. “The missionary missionized.” In her The Slippery Earth: Nahua- Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico, pp. 15-45. Tucson: University of Arizona Press (1989).
This source tells about the implementation of Christianity on Aztec society.
Cervantes, Fernando. “The Indian response.” In his The Devil in the New World, pp. 40- 73. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press (1994)
The source reminds one that they should be looking at the paper through an objective lens, rather than proscribing any ideals onto the Aztecs or the Spaniards.
Florescano, Enrique, “Transformation of indigenous memory and resurgence of mythic memory.” In his Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico, pp. 100-183. Austin: University of Texas Press (1994).
This sources tells the effect that the destruction of their religion and way of life had on the Aztecs.
When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. They forever changed the lives of the Aztec people. This paper will look at the way that the Spanish conquerors destroyed the Aztecs
The Basis of the Aztec Religion
The Aztec religion consisted of a complex interaction of gods that were based on the fear of nature and the end of the world. The religious and political systems of the Aztecs worked synonymously with each other. This was necessary in order to keep the god Huitzilopochtli strong so that he could keep the sun moving and the world could avoid the disaster that would threaten the world every 52 years. (Berdan, 2013). The best way to understand the actions of the Aztec people is to know how they looked at the world.
The Aztecs believed that it took god five tries to create the world properly because of the fighting between the gods. The gods themselves were neither good or evil but both (Cervantes, 1994). In fact; the Aztecs had no word for either, but words such as teoil which was ambivalent. This is because the Aztecs believed that both gods and people were capable of good and bad actions. (Cervantes, 1994) The first creator Tezcatlipoca turned into a jaguar after being knocked from his position as ruler. He subsequently destroyed the world. After the world was recreated the creator gods would take turns being the sun, until the gods had a meeting as decided that it would be better if one of them sacrifices himself to the new sun (Berdan, 2013). This was because the new sun god Nanauatl was not moving and if the gods were willing to sacrifice themselves then the people would die. The gods were sacrificed by the god Ehecatl, and the wind blew moving the sun (Berdan, 2013). The problem is that the sun would always need help to keep moving and this made it necessary for the Aztecs to engage in human sacrifice. They also believed that there was a constant battle between light and dark and that the battle would ultimately be lost.
After the sun was able to move the world needed to be generated. Quetzalcoatl was the god who created mankind (Berdan, 2013). He did this by going into the underworld and retrieving the bones of the people who were created before and mixing them with his blood. When he had retrieved the bones he tripped as he was fleeing. This caused the bones to shatter and is why people are different sizes. The way in which the world was created caused the Aztecs to view nature as something that must be kept in balance. In fact: every 52 years they would fear that the end of the world was nigh and would proceed to destroy their belongings and extinguish religious fires before going into a period of mourning while they waited to perish (Berdan, 2013). When the Pleiades constellation appeared then they would know that they were safe for another 52 years. Even when the Aztecs were not waiting for a worldwide extinction, they still focused on death (Berdan, 2013). People were buried in a squatting position along with the items it was felt that they would need in the afterlife. They felt that a person’s afterlife was reflective of their cause of death. Some would become butterflies, or birds and perhaps they may once again become humans after many reincarnation cycles. The people who were sacrificed would join the battle to fight the darkness. In order to achieve the opportunity to fight the darkness or reincarnation it was often necessary for the dead to fight their way out of the underworld. They would then become spirits roaming the Earth
The Aztec world was divided up into a center, the city of Tenochtitlan which was surrounded by four quadrants. It was the place that the Aztecs believed that Heaven and the Earth intersected. The heavens consisted of 13 ascending levels, while the underworld had 9 descending stratums. A better descriptor of Heaven and the underworld for an Aztec would be a wheel within a wheel. The Aztec people were strong believers in prophecy (Berdan, 2013). This is why they were quick to think that Herman Cortes was Quetzalcoatl, a god that was banished. This belief would eventually destroy the Aztec way of life.
The Aztec Religion
The Aztecs practiced their religion in various ways including art, the building of great temples and human sacrifices. In Tenochtitlan there was a walled city like structure that housed over 78 small temples along with the main pyramid shaped temple, which was known as the Great Temple. At the top of this pyramid sat two sanctuaries belonging to the gods Huitzilopochtli, and Tlaloc (Berdan, 2013) The Aztecs conquered many societies, but they always allowed the conquered peoples to continue to worship their gods.
Every one of the months in the Aztec calendar was controlled by a different god. Some months the person to be sacrificed would dress up like the god of the month because to die emulating a god would result in a higher status in the afterlife. Even though many see Aztec sacrificial rituals as being brutal. The Aztecs saw the taking of the heart from the chest as a ritual that was to be revered. On the last day of every month a young child would be taken to the Great Temple and his heart pulled from their chest (Berdan, 2013). Then his body would be served to the most significant people in society. Amongst the that would eat the sacrifice would be the boy that would be the next sacrifice in twenty months’ time (Berdan, 2013)
The Arrival of the Spaniards
Before the arrival of the Spaniards there was an omen in the sky, “It was like a flaming ear of corn, or a fiery signal, or the blaze of daybreak; it seemed to bleed fire, drop by drop, like a wound in the sky. It was wide at the base and narrow at the peak, and it shone in the very heart of the heavens (Rickard, 1966). The omen ended up being correct ten years later when the Spanish came to the Aztec Empire and not only massacred millions of Aztecs but forced thousands to convert to Christianity. When the Spanish first arrived they were seen as aggressive, cold and odd. The seems to have been a number of “signs” associated with their arrival, “Consultation of the pictorial texts and calendrical records by Aztec historians and divination specialists revealed that there were also several important historical and cosmological associations surrounding the strangers’ arrival.” (Ricard, 1966).
Cortes made it his agenda to rid the Aztecs of their beliefs and to make them Christians. This was because Cortes could not abide the thought of ruling over Pagans. This is why he aimed to covert people to Christianity at the same time they were being conquered (Ricard, 1966). Upon initially meeting the Spanish, the Aztecs gave them many gifts of gold and other gems because they believed that they were physical manifestations of their gods. They soon came to realize how greedy the Spanish were and came to hate them. The Spanish quickly took to destroying the city of Tenochtitlan. This was mostly due to the epidemic that hit during the siege with the Spanish. The Aztecs had no immunity to the diseases that the Spanish brought with them such as smallpox, malaria or influenza (Berdan, 2013). The destruction of Tenochtitlan was catastrophic to the Aztecs because it did not only represent the destruction of their way of life but also the center or their religion (Florescano, 1994) They were then forced to give up their lands to Cortes and the other conquerors that came to destroy their culture and way of life. They would then be forced into servitude (Florescano, 1994). The Aztecs tried to rationalize what was happening by convincing themselves that Cortes was their god Quetzalcoatl returned. (Florescano, 1994).
A further insult and separation from who the Aztecs were as a culture occurred when their calendrical system fell. For the Aztecs keeping track of events was a vital operation as it allowed them to know when to perform rituals and feasts. The calendrical system was banned by Cortes after he conquered them. Those who knew how the system worked were executed as practitioners of witchcraft and for being possessed by the devil (Florescano, 1994). Many of the Spanish attempted to claim that the Aztecs would kill the leaders of the Spanish conquerors and that more force was necessary. This was not true the Aztecs were not intending to kill the Spanish but to capture them. This is why Cortes or any of the other Spanish captains were killed (Graham et, al 2013). After the fall of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire in 1521, the Spanish replaced it with New Spain (Berdan, 2013). The Aztecs were quick to adapt to paying taxes and tributes to the Spaniards, as this was something they had done in the past when they had been conquered before.
The Spanish quickly sought ways to convert the remaining Aztecs to Christianity. Spain sent twelve Franciscans in 1524 (Burkhart, 1989). They had been proceeded by three Flemish Franciscans and followed by Dominicans, and Augustinians. The Franciscans had the highest amount of missionaries and worked primarily in the central regions (Burkhart, 1989). The three groups tended to follow the strategies laid down by the Franciscans, but there was conflict within the three due to the Franciscan need for personal faith and adherence to poverty, the Dominicans need for orthodoxy and legality and the Augustinians need for sumptuousness (Burkhart, 1989). While the church was against the violence that the conquerors used they supported the colonization and conquest of the land. “the utopia that they sought to create was paradise as they defined it, with the Indians cast in the roles of perpetual children” (Burkhart, 1989). The Aztecs were further deprived of self- determination and self-actualization because they were banned from holding offices in the higher ranks of government and the priesthood.
After the Spanish Friars arrived they demanded a meeting with the Aztec Priests. The intent of this meeting was to inform the Aztec Priests that they were no longer permitted to practice their faith. The Aztec Priests told the Friars that their religion was about controlling the destructiveness of nature by making blood sacrifices to appease the gods. The Aztecs told them that the existence of the sun was dependent on the blood of man (Ricard, 1966). Nevertheless, there were a number of equivalents between the religion of the Aztecs and Christianity. Despite seeming to have nothing in common. Their gods Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli were born of virgins, just like Jesus. The myth of Quetzalcoatl went that “He had been miraculously begotten by a ball of down whose light and airy character could symbolize the Holy Spirit”. (Ricard, 1966). Like Jesus, who believers trust is going to return one day to ensure that the faithful get into Heaven. Quetzalcoatl was promised to return and restore paradise to his people. The Catholics were not too happy about this and actively sought to ruin the Aztecs faith in the return of Quetzalcoatl by telling them that their ancestors had lied and that he was never returning (Ricard, 1966).
Rather the Aztecs converted to Christianity peacefully or through threats and terror is varies among converter. One story goes that Father Luis Caldera imitated Hell for the Aztecs by throwing cats and dogs into an oven, which he then lit. “The cries of pain of the unlucky animals naturally filled the Indians with great fear.” (Ricard, 1966). Others converted the Aztecs by praying or just speaking to them. One such story of this occurring was when Cortes had explained the concept of baptism. Afterwards he supposedly told them that it upset King Charles greatly that they were not Christians because he wished for their souls to be saved. A man named Ixtilxochitl responded favorably and asked to covert and take the sacrament. By the end of that day more than twenty thousand Aztecs had converted to Christianity (Ricard, 1966).
Works Cited
Berdan. Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory. N.p.: Cambridge UP, 2014. PDF.
Burkhart, Louise M. "Missionary Missionized." The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-century Mexico. Tucson: U of Arizona, 1989. 15-45. PDF.
Cervantes, Fernando. The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994. PDF.
Florescano, Enrique. "Transformation of Indigenous Memory and Resurgence of Mythic Memory." Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico: From the Aztecs to Independence. Austin: U of Texas, 1994. 100-83. Print.
Graham, Elizabeth, Scott E. Simmons, and Christine D. White. "The Spanish Conquest and the Maya Collapse: How ‘religious’ Is Change?" World Archaeology 45.1 (2013): 161-85. Web. 29 Apr. 2016
Ricard, Robert, and Lesley Byrd Simpson. The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico; an Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523-1572. Berkeley: U of California, 1966. Print.
