m coming to an end. According to the Aztec religion, the only way to keep the world, as well as the gods, alive was "with the continual offering of human blood" (111). In the Aztec view, the world had already been created and destroyed four times before. It was believed that, if not properly appeased through human sacrifices, the Aztec gods would again bring about the end of the world with darkness covering the land and celestial monsters descending from the skies in order to "devour all human beings" (119). Because of these beliefs, the Aztecs were constantly trying to avoid the anger of the gods.
This belief in the gods' need for human sacrifice stemmed from an Aztec myth in which two gods, Nanauatzin and Tecuciztecatl, were required to jump into a fire in order to cause the creation of a new sun and moon. After jumping into the fire, the god Tecuciztecatl, as the moon, shone as bright as the sun. According to the Aztec myth, this sign of pride greatly angered the other gods, who in turn blinded the moon in one eye in order to make it less bright (Berdan 111). From this, it is clear that the Aztec gods were capable of anger, a fact which helps to explain the constant attempts of the Aztec people to appease them. In this mythical story, the other gods sacrificed themselves in order to cause the new sun and moon to start moving in the sky. It is for this reason that human sacrifice became so important to the Aztecs. As such, the gods provided an example to humans in which "it then became the solemn duty for mortals to continually provide the sun with human blood, thus sustaining the sun's daily movements" (112).
The Aztec Indians were therefore fearful of the anger of their sun god, and their grisly practices of human sacrifice were adhered to in order to help insure against causing such anger to erupt. Many aspects of the Aztecs' bloodthirsty behavior could also be attributed to their concern over preventing the ange...