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Fig. 16.
Gladiatorial sacrifice. A captive warrior, tethered to a sacrificial stone, is armed
with a shield and a macuahuitl in which the stone blades are usually depicted as
having been replaced with feathers (e.g., Códice Tudela 1980:12r). His opponent
is armed in the normal fashion. (Tovar 134; courtesy of the John Carter Brown
Library, Brown University) |
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tlan), every town sacrificed the prisoners taken by its own warriors.
84 Sacrifices were held in towns throughout central Mexico. |
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Captives were also sacrificed for special occurrences other than feast days, such as celestial events. The New Fire ceremony marking the end of the fifty-two year cycle (the Mesoamerican "century") and, if all went well, the beginning of the next,85 accounted for numerous sacrificestwo thousand prisoners from Teuctepec on one occasion.86 Captives were also slain at the emergence of the morning star87 and at solar eclipses.88 |
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Many sacrifices were held when major temples were dedicated. For example, King Ahuitzotl brought captives from Quimichtlan and elsewhere to be sacrificed at the dedication of a temple in the ward of Tlillan.89 Perhaps the most famous example was King Ahuitzotl's dedication of the main temple to Huitzilopochtli in Tenochti- |
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