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needed to do to appease the gods. Before going into combat, the Aztecs prayed to their gods for victory,
13 and the priests played a major role in communicating with the gods about matters of war.14 Also, after human sacrifices were made, the gods were said to have promised the Aztecs victory.15 Supernatural aid was also sought in defensive actions. When a city was besieged, the Aztecs performed human sacrifices in hopes of eliciting supernatural assistance.16 |
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Before leaving for war, the soldiers went to the main temples. There they received weapons and performed autosacrifices, cutting their fleshears, tongues, and limbsto offer blood to the gods in return for their blessings.17 Soothsayers predicted the war's outcome.18 During the campaign against Tlaxcallan (Tlaxcala), Huexotzinco (Huejotzingo), and Atlixco, astrologers for the Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan advised the kings to stop advancing, and they did.19 The Aztecs also tried magic to help defeat the enemy if necessary.20 After one successful war, the king enlarged the temple to Huitzilopochtli and adorned the god's image with war spoils, a practice followed since the reign of Tizoc in the 1480s and probably earlier.21 Astrology also played a prominent role in martial matters as it did in Aztec life generally;22 the calendar dictated other ritual events dealing with war as well.23 While the army was away at war, the priests in Tenochtitlan kept a vigil throughout each night and performed penances.24 But priests did not play an exclusively passive or supporting role; senior priests also went to war, fighting in battle and being awarded clothing and insignia just as the warriors were.25 Priests bearing images of the gods accompanied the army on wars of conquest and encouraged the soldiers through appropriate rituals26 (see fig. 3). |
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Thus the supernatural was interwoven with Aztec warfare, but this was just as true of other civilizations. Yet the religious elements, which were of such interest to the Christianizing Spaniards and which occupied a large portion of the clerical chroniclers' attention, have assumed enormous proportions in some modern analyses of Aztec warfare, many writers seeing Aztec warfare as inextricably tied to religion.27 Much of this orientation derives from the often repeated Aztec view that the gods required the nourishment of human blood and that this blood was best obtained from captives taken in battle. Without such nourishment the gods would die, and the world would end. Thus a failure to engage in warfare was a threat to the continuation of the world. While this belief may have underlain some |
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