USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods.

Detailed explanation-2: -In order to postpone their destruction and appease the gods, men performed human sacrifices. Their duty was to feed the gods with human blood, thereby keeping the sun alive. They believed that the gods could be satisfied through the sacrifice of animals, objects, and, in particular, people.

Detailed explanation-3: -When the Aztecs sacrificed people to Huitzilopochtli (the god with warlike aspects) the victim would be placed on a sacrificial stone. The priest would then cut through the abdomen with an obsidian or flint blade. The heart would be torn out still beating and held towards the sky in honor to the Sun-God.

Detailed explanation-4: -Many of the region’s cultures, including the Maya and the Mexica, believed that human sacrifice nourished the gods. Without it, the sun would cease to rise and the world would end. And sacrificial victims earned a special, honored place in the afterlife.

Detailed explanation-5: -The Aztecs sacrificed human beings atop their sacred pyramids not simply for religious reasons but because they had to eat people to obtain protein needed in their diet, a New York anthropologist has suggested.