Mr. Caleb Smith
World History
4/25/13
Essay: Aztec and Inca Civilizations:
I think the Aztecs were more impressive, in one of the captions I read that one of their squares was twice as large as the city of Salamanca surrounded by porticoes daily sixty thousand people are buying and selling all kinds of merchandise that the world has to offer embracing the necessaries things of life. In the same square there are some people who constantly go around watching sells and the measures used for sales these people have been known to go around and stop unfair deals or break the measures completely. The men and women who agree to be sacrificed are thrown to their backs, so they can be sacrificed to their gods and without uttering …show more content…
They had three dominate gods: Huitzilopochtli, (“Hummingbird wizard” the native and) the (chief god of the tenochca, Huitzilopochtli was the war and sun god), Tezcatlipoca (“smoking mirror” chief god of the Aztecs in general) and Quetzalcoatl (“sovereign plumed serpent” widely worshipped throughout Mesoamerica and the god of civilization, priesthood and learning). Below these three gods were four creating gods who kept themselves from the human world. Under these were a large number of other gods, the most important) was (tlaloc, the rain god); chalihuitlicue, (the god of growth and Xipe, the “flayed one” a god connected with spring. The Aztecs worshipped about) one thousand (gods, but the sun god was the most important. Religious ceremonies were held in a temple called a teocalli. The temples had pools for ceremonial cleansing, gardens, living quarters for a priest, and racks to hold the skulls of victims. The most prominent part of Aztec religious life was the role of human sacrifice. It was practiced in all of Mesoamerica but the) tenochca (used sacrifice on a grand scale. We don’t know a great deal about the details, but we can successfully reconstruct its character and justification with a high level of