Human Sacrifice in The Other Conquest

By Carina Meleca, with comment by Kim Weber

[1] Arguably, human sacrifice, one of the most controversial demonstrations in Salvador Carrasco’s The Other Conquest, is a topic not easily understood by modern Western culture, but certainly easily judged. Many stereotypes surrounding the act of sacrifice have been vindicated in their numerous cinematic portrayals. The question we as intellectual and responsive viewers must ask ourselves is: are these portrayals of savage executions supported by any historical merit? What were the ideological justifications for and origin of sacrifice? Beyond religious reasons, were there other catalysts for sacrifice to occur? Do these purposes match or negate the objectives Carrasco wishes to achieve in his account of sacrifice in The Other Conquest? One prominent recent source, City of Sacrifice by David Carrasco, outlines the purposes and merit of the sacrificial act in a particularly generous manner towards the Aztecs. I will attempt to answer and expand upon the aforementioned questions in the body of this issue essay through this Carrasco’s (no relation to Salvador as far as we know) educated lens.

[2] What is the ideological justification and origin of sacrifice? The entire origin and justification of Aztec sacrifice stems from the people’s understanding of their “vision of place” or, rather, “the way they conceived the character or their cosmos and their vital and pressured role within it” (52). In short, the Aztecs believed that the human body inherently contained many cosmic forces and that the only way to release and regenerate these forces was to die in the divine manner of human sacrifice. Certain body parts (the heart, the head, and the liver) were believed to contain cosmic entities that made them more like gifts or offerings to the gods, rather than the essential sacrifices needed to carry on daily life. In fact, the essentiality of sacrifice to the Aztec people is an imperative point in understanding the mentality of this culture; sacrifice was vital in order to maintain the natural existence of the world. According to Carrasco, “Offerings . . . were especially crucial for the sun’s continued motion through the heavens and the earth’s subsequent renewal of time, crops, human life, and the divine forces of the cosmos” (73). Thus, it seems that The Other Conquest has the basic mentality of sacrifice down; the virgin is being offered to a specific Mother Goddess, she seems to possess some sort of inherent characteristic worthy of being expelled for a deity, and, lastly, the sacrifice is indeed a heart-extraction.

[3] What were the common, more ritualized aspects of human sacrifice? There were many aspects of the act that were consistent and extremely habitual. The rituals were organized by a number of festival calendars (at least five), which cite ceremonies on birthdays of patron deities that were honored by the community and local empire. The rituals for preparing the sacrificial act are much more extensive than elaborated on in many films, including The Other Conquest. The preparatory period was usually four days (or a multiple of four days) in which the priests performing the act would fast. The preparatory period also involved a

nocturnal vigil and offerings of flowers, food, cloths, rubber, paper, poles with streamers, as well as incensing, the pouring of libations, and the empowering of the temples, statues, and ritual participants. Dramatic processions of elaborately costumed participants moving to music ensembles playing sacred songs passed through the ceremonial precinct before arriving at the specific temple of sacrifice. (83)

Though not as savage as the manner in which Mel Gibson’s 2006 Apocalypto may have depicted the act, the ceremonies, according to Carrasco, are much more elaborate, deliberate, and meditative than even The Other Conquest suggests. (see comment by Kim Weber)

[4] Beyond religious reasons, were there other catalysts for sacrifice to occur? This religious portrayal of sacrifice, though not uncommon, was not the only motivation for the act. Religion has notoriously and inevitably been intertwined with the politics of a people, and the Aztecs are no exception. For example, Carrasco cites Johanna Broda’s analysis of a time of particular exponential increase in Aztec human sacrifice. According to Broda, a disparity between the central and peripheral city-state political control lead to religious sacrifice taking place more and more. The vulnerable state of the Aztec political order coupled with the unfulfilled divine responsibility of conquering and subduing enemies led to cultural anxiety concerning cosmic legitimacy. This anxiety eventually evolved into sheer chaos and paranoia, the only remedy of the leaders being “the ritual strategy to feed the gods, [which] became the major political instrument to subdue the enemy and control the expanding periphery” (74). Though Carrasco does not offer a specific figure concerning the number of Aztec deaths due to sacrifice, he does cite that the act increased between the years of 1440-1521, suggesting that the exact number may have been drastic. The increase in sacrifices during these years may account for the dramatic portrayal of mass sacrifice that occurs in such films as Apocalypto, as opposed to the more ceremonious portrayal in The Other Conquest, as well as the common misperception that sacrifice was a gluttonous slaughter of the masses.

[5] Were there uncommon aspects of sacrifice that took place historically that haven’t been portrayed in film? There are a number of sacrificial techniques utilized by the Aztecs but perhaps not properly represented in the medium of popular cultures. Techniques include decapitation, shooting with darts or arrows, drowning, burning, hurling from heights, strangulation, entombment and starvation, and gladiatorial combat. Most commonly depicted, however, is the heart extraction, as shown in The Other Conquest. After a parade of captors and captives sang and danced in procession, the captives were led upstairs to the sacrificial stone, where they were held down by a group of four priests. The temple priest would cut through the person’s chest and would grasp the person’s still-beating heart, which he would offer to the sun for “vitality and nourishment” (83). This reading fully justifies the sacrifice acted out in the film and even further gives reasoning behind the act.

[6] Do scholar Carrasco’s depictions of sacrifice meet that of filmmaker Carrasco’s in The Other Conquest? Especially considering the portrayal of the woman’s role in sacrifice, the director and the author differ vastly. It’s interesting that the body of this essay has referred to the sacrificial body of people largely as “they,” “them,” or “the victims,” because it is worth noting that women played an integral and unique role in the act, separate from the men entirely. In our film, the virgin woman sacrifice is a respectful honor; she is given drugs for her pain, and the entire process seems almost gentle and surreal. Carrasco the author paints a very different portrait of what might have occurred. Contrary to what we see in the film, the women exerted no control or direction in this situation. City of Sacrifice outlines several festivals in which the women endured a sequence of direction, seduction, insult, and eventually cannibalistic consumption, quite the opposite of what The Other Conquest has to offer. These issues of gender roles in sacrifice are large, intriguing, and should be expanded upon thoroughly and independently of a general essay on human sacrifice. David Carrasco offers several graphic counterexamples of how a female sacrifice might have been portrayed, and that evidence alone suggests that The Other Conquest’s version may have been sugarcoated.

[7] Sacrifice is a complex ritual that had evolved and was practiced throughout the history of the Aztecs. Though City of Sacrifice offers many answers and historical support to promote an understanding of sacrifice, unlawful killing is not something Western culture will ever be able to fully accept. However, when utilizing accounts like David Carrasco’s, a reader can more willingly accept that sacrifice was a ritual, much like Catholics might think of taking communion. To them, the practice was not killing in vain but, rather, offering in celebration, which ultimately was the real story that should have been documented on the reel and was, in many aspects, by The Other Conquest.

Comments

Kim Weber 2/15/12

I am very intrigued about the details surrounding the intricate rituals Meleca provides from her research on Carrasco. Yet, these new details also leave me wondering why Carrasco did not choose to include more of these unique practices into the Aztec ritual scene in the beginning of the film. One thought that comes to my mind is that Carrasco wanted to avoid making this scene look too overdone. Use of incense and poles with streamers could have seemed unbelievable and verged on the extreme Apocalypto-esque representation of ritual. Another thought is that maybe some of these additional portions of the ritual took place during the preparatory periods preceding the actual sacrifice, which are not pictured in the film. Whatever the reasoning, Carrasco's depiction of the Aztec ritual opens a lot of questions about these sorts of practices and leaves the viewer curious about the history of Aztec culture, which could've been one of Carrasco's aims all along.

Works Cited:

Carrasco, David. City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.