FROM DISCOVERIES TO EMPIRE^103So with the Aztecs, alias the Mexica. They were a small group, a
rough nomadic people come into the sedentary areas of the south from
primitive desert lands to the north (what is now the southwestern
United States). They found no welcome and even served a time as
slaves to a more civilized people on the shores of the great lake of the
valley of Mexico (a lake long since dried up and today the precarious,
subsiding seat of the world's most populous city). Slavery was a school
for war and power. When the Aztecs broke free, they fled into reed-
choked fastnesses and sheltered there until they grew in numbers and
strength. When they came out, originally because they needed drink
able water, they conquered one people after another, using a combi
nation of art, prowess, and above all a terror that unstrung their
adversaries and brought them to surrender before they were defeated.^2
Aztec terror took the form of the industrialization of blood sacrifice.
This is a touchy subject, which anthropologists and ideologues of in-
digmista have preferred to avoid or ignore, if not to excuse. Yet one
cannot understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Aztec empire,
its rise and fall, without dealing with this hate-provoking practice.
Human sacrifice for religious purposes was general to the area (in
cluding Mayan lands to the south) and reflected a belief that the sun
god in particular needed human blood for nourishment. Unfed, he
might not rise again. Other gods also needed offerings: of babies and
children, for example, to ensure the fertility of crops or an abundance
of rain; the tears of the victims were a promise of water.^3
Such symbolic gestures (perceived as acts of consubstantial nourish
ment) needed few victims. Adult flesh came primarily from capture in
battle, and the victim was presented and told to think of himself as a
hero in a noble cause: this is what we were born to. Some scholars have
pretended that these heart and blood donors did think of themselves
that way, but it should be noted that they needed a dose of tranquil
izer before they could be persuaded docilely to climb the steep steps to
the altar.
The Aztec innovation was the work of a member of the royal fam
ily, Tlacallel, kingmaker and adviser to a series of emperors. This prince
of darkness thought to impose and substitute for other, milder gods the
Aztec tribal god Huitzilopochtli, the hummingbird of the south, a
bloodthirsty divinity all wings and claws; and behind those beating
wings, to make of the sacrificial cult a weapon of intimidation. Where
once the sacrifice touched a handful, Tlacallel instituted blood orgies
that lasted days and brought hundreds, then thousands, of victims to
the stone, their hearts ripped out while still beating, their blood spat-