Aztec Mythology

Matt Clayton

The Aztecs believed that offerings of human blood and human lives were necessary to the continued running of the universe. Indeed, in Aztec myths the gods themselves make sacrifices of their own blood and even of their entire bodies in order to create a universe humans can live in and, in one story, to create humans themselves; humans therefore must make blood sacrifices in turn to feed the gods and to keep the universe in existence. To the ancient Aztecs, these practices seemed fitting, necessary, and honorable, helping to connect the world of humans to the divine world of the gods, a universe that in Aztec myth took shape in cycles of creation, destruction, and rebirth.