Exactly how extensive was Mesoamerican human sacrifice?

by phloog
Mictlantecuhtli

Some areas do perform more sacrifice than others. My area of focus, highland Jalisco, doesn't appear to perform any human sacrifice during the Formative and Classic periods (I don't k ow enough of the Post Classic to comment). That outlook may change once more excavation, especially of households, is performed

I would like to make a note and say there are differences in types of sacrifice. The common notion that the Aztec sacrificed people daily so the sun would rise is different than the sacrifice of people (or animals) to animate a building in areas like Teotihuacan or the Maya region.

Jierdan_Firkraag

That can also depend on what you mean by extensive. Do you mean strictly in the number of people sacrificed? It's really hard to get specific numbers on that because so much of the written record of these peoples was lost. As far as I know, the only known native source for as big an event as the Conquest of Mexico is We People Here(this is a link to the full text: http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic200819.files/Florentine_Codex.Book_XII_1.pdf). How much sacrifice happened tends to depend on the source, Spanish sources like Cortes say there was lots of sacrifice (unsurprising). One thing that was really important is that sacrifice was foundational to the structure of the Aztec Empire. The symbol of a vassal tribe's submission to the Aztec was the contribution of sacrifices (either by capture or willing donation). This was discussed by Francisco López de Gómara, one of the Spaniards who came to Mexico with Cortes.