! Extra Information & Clarifications ! Corrections are in the description. 0:00 The conversation around Aztec sacrifices and the Aztec normalization of killing humans is often rife with tu quoque argumentation. The most discussed tu quoque argument is that of the Spanish Auto-da-fé. Even though the Spanish were disgusted by the "horrors" of Aztec human sacrifices, it could be argued that they themselves practiced their own type of "religious sacrifice", the Auto-da-fé. The Auto-da-fé was an elaborate execution of a person or people who were found to be guilty of impiety by the Spanish Inquisition. The argument is that in some ways the religious manner of the Auto-da-fé executions could be compared to that of the ritualistic Aztec sacrifices and, therefore, we should not call the Aztecs "barbarians" or even worse. Auto-da-fé is the most common pointed out tu quoque argument but there are many others which people use. As for me, outside of acknowledging at the start of my video that human sacrifices happened in almost every corner of the world at some point in history, I did not find it necessary to partake in the tu quoque arguments. As, I believe the Aztec violence should be discussed in its own context without trying to compare it to other people's violence because that could be done for almost anyone. There are no saints in history. Caroline D. Pennock. "Mass Murder or Religious Homicide? Rethinking Human Sacrifice and Interpersonal Violence in Aztec Society". 0:48 The Mexica weren't just people from the city of Tenochtitlan, however, Tenochtitlan was the most important Mexica city, hence, my use of the word "capital" here. Even though it wouldn't necessarily have been a "capital" of the Mexica in the traditional sense as the word Mexica is an ethnos, not a nationhood. The Mexica also had a "kinship alliance" with Culhua so the ethnos is sometimes referred to as the Culhua-Mexica. Lastly, the Mexica from Tenochtitlan were traditionally referred to as the Tenochca. Tenochca is a specific altepetl name of, in this case, the Mexica from Tenochtitlan, however, altepetls as institutions existed all across pre and even post-Columbian Mexico not just in Mexica society. Altepetl is a kind of pre-Columbian city state that often played into defining people's ethnic identity but did not solely dictate it (more on this later in the comment). These altepetls could form larger polities like the Aztec Empire but could also be created and destroyed by internal and external forces and, as such, specially in the powerful Aztec Empire, they functioned more like state subdivisions rather than actual city states. 2:29 Just like most geographical terms "Central Mexico" isn't a precise term, however, that is on purpose. In the video I show a line defining Central Mexico with a faded border to symbolize the fact that the "Aztec Religion/Culture" didn't really have borders. There were cultural and religious variations among the people in Central Mexico whose differences increased the further apart two specific places where. As such, it is important to know that the religious and cultural difference in Central Mexico worked as a continuum. 2:42 The Aztec Religion involved much more than just human sacrifices. There were elaborate religious rituals without sacrifices, sacrifices of animals, and various other religious aspects. However, this video focuses on the ritual human sacrifices of the Central Mexican societies and, therefore, I largely skipped over the rest of the religious rituals as it would make the already long video even longer. 5:44 The Central Mexicans also believed that the current iteration of the sun, the fifth sun, and its humans (us) will be destroyed with earthquakes and sky monsters. They also believed that the destruction of the world can only happen on one specific day, the new fire day, that occurs every 52 years. The world cannot end on any other day between those 52 years. However, the Aztecs didn't know how many iterations of those 52 years there will be. If you're interested, the next New Fire day is suppose to happen in 2027. 7:41 "Similar" but not identical. Just as the various mythologies differed slightly so did most likely the details of the rituals between various central Mexican cities differed all while sharing common themes. 8:34 The flower wars weren't conducted by the Mexica and other central Mexican peoples just to feed their need for more human sacrifices. There were also political and economic reasons why these wars were conducted but there was no time to mention it. If you want to know more read; Hassig R., Aztec Warfare, University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. 13:45 I did not mention this but speeches by rulers and priests would be common during these ceremonies and, also, dancing and music along with the singing. 19:05 I will briefly mention here the ball game. There were many popular ball games in Mesoamerican culture and the pre-Columbian Central Mexicans had their own version of this ball game called ōllamalitzli. Unlike in some other Mesoamerican cultures, the ballgame in Central Mexican culture was viewed as more of a sport. There was some kind of ritualistic symbolism associated with it but in practice the ballgame was viewed as a game. A game that you could play between different sports teams, different cities, a game that you could bet on. The game was also more associated with the nobility and Noble kids were taught to play it in their special schools. The point of the ball game in Central Mexican culture was for sport, not ritual or sacrifice. On special occasions special ball games were played where the losers did get sacrificed but these were ceremonies, special, and separate from the actual sporting aspect of the game. Scarborough V. L., The Mesoamerican Ballgame, University of Arizona Press, 1991. 26:46 Ok so I said "wrote" here because I did not have the time to go into the complicated nature of pre-Colonial Central Mexican codices. At the moment the scholars are divided on whether the the pre-Colonial codices were semasiographical or grammatological. Either way, all scholars agree that pre-Columbian Central Mexican codices used largely pictures, combined with oral tradition, to transmit most of their information. Therefore, you could say the pre-Columbian peoples of Central Mexico (it wasn't just Nahuas who made codices) "painted" their codices not wrote them. 27:26 There are many accounts of the Spanish calling the Mesoamericans as "illiterate" and "barbarians". Neither of which are really true. Florescano E., National Narratives in Mexico, University of Oklahoma Press, 2006. p. 67-8. 29:32 You could argue that I am showing here (in the video) language differences rather than the ethnic and cultural differences that I am talking about, which is a valid point. However, ethnicity in pre-Columbian Central Mexico is very complicated and, sometimes (I would argue often times), people's ethnic identity was partly defined by their language, which is why I chose to go with the language map. Although, ethnic identity was also defined by ones Altepetl. Even though Altepetls could be and often were multiethnic. So, one must consider the fact that the pre-Columbian people of Central Mexico could have viewed language, ethnic, cultural, and national (city state) identities as separate from each other but also most likely effecting each other. If this is true I don't really have any effective way of showing that in the video hence my use of the language distributions of pre-Columbian Mexico. So just keep in mind this is a very complicated subject that I am kind of glossing over in the video because, I do not have the time nor expertise to address it. 30:28 Also, what I did not mention was the fact that the pre-Columbian central Mexicans "wrote" in a different way than the Europeans. Not only did their picture books rely heavily on pictographs (which means, as we discussed above, the use of the word "written" as I use in the video might be inappropriate here) but they were also considered as works of art not just records of information. Hence they had a different mentality and goals when "writing" these codices compared to European writing. Also Amerindian historical accounts themselves were written in a different way than the European ones. They would often write about the same event multiple times from multiple perspectives. This different style of historical "writing" (painting) or just "writing" in general clashed with the colonial Spanish writing of history that resulted in some books and codices which may seem very chaotic and weird (with a lot of possible mistakes) to our western perceptions of record keeping. Ramos G., Indigenous Intellectuals, Durham, 2014. p. 137-8. 31:08 To continue the idea of the statement in the video but seemed unnecessary to mention directly in it. As Charles Gibson states “Indian poetry and oral tales occasionally touched upon the military glories of Chalco or Acolhuacan (other people than just the Mexica). But these were weak reminders of the tribal structure, and they were deliberately nostalgic … it tended to single out particular towns, to fix its attention on celebrated individuals … or to speak vaguely of a composite Indian (in contrast to the Spanish) culture.” These did not, however, represent the true cultural ethnic difference of the pre-Columbian societies and were often nostalgic for a single world, the "Indian World". As such, in later years the most powerful and well known Nahua tribe, the Mexica, became the main tribe that was written about and looked back to as the heritage of not just all the Nahuas but also most of the Mexican Amerindians. This Amerindian historical narrative survives to this day. After all, there’s a reason the country is called Mexico and not Texcoco or something else. Gibson C., The Aztecs under Spanish Rule, Stanford, 1964. p. 31.

I wonder if any of the priests wearing bloody flayed skins of their victims ever thought "this is kind of messed up".

I feel bad for the poor Aztec janitors who had to do festival cleanup.

I liked the part where you said "Most people think of the sacrifice involving cutting out the heart". Made me think for a second perhaps they weren't all as brutal. But no the alternatives were even worse.

They just recently found thousands of skulls. It was a litteral mountain of skulls there

As a chronic enemy of stairs, I can only imagine how many people must have slipped on a bloodstain and fallen down those stairs trying to climb up

When I visited the Mayan city of Tulum, my guide talked about the importance of science and religion to politics. To maintain what was essentially a dictatorship requires the compliance of the masses. In secret, the priests (scientists) would predict astronomical events down to the hour, and would inform the civilians that the king was causing these events. They would time it with sacrifices, etc, as an elaborate show of what looked like cosmic power, though it truly was the power of suggestion! I know that the Maya culture is distinct from the Mexica, but it shares some elements that may help us understand the latter.

"Oh mom! thank god you're here. the town, they're gonna-" "Hey uhhh... once you die, be sure to ask for a profitable harvest this year. Thanks!" "what? mom!" *walks away*

I think a huge factor in not only the normalization but glorification of human sacrifice in Aztec society was due to their predecessors the Toltecs. Their priest king Ce Acatl Topiltzin opposed human sacrifice, he was also believed to be an incarnation of Quetzalcoatl the god of compassion who loved humans his creations and abhorred the practice harming them, rather being sustained by animal sacrifices. However this outlaw of the practice upset a political faction and sparked a war resulting in Ce Acatl to flee with his supporters from Tollan and founding other Nahua speaking areas like the Pipil of El Salvador and as far as parts of Costa Rica. But with this hostile takeover of Tollan it legitimized the practice into the culture of central mexico which the Mexica would later pick up.

Pre-colonial Mexico reminds me of how historians talk about the Balkans. Easily simplified but once you go into just ONE layer of complexity then suddenly you have to explain 7-9 different people groups, multiple languages, age old hatred, alliances held together by treads, and many other factors just to talk about one thing.

damn humans are brutal... imagine a dude dressed up like god, casually strolling the streets smoking a cigar surrounded by his 4 wives on his way to lunch with the mayor of the city. Probably the guy was like " fuck it, live a year like a rockstar ...kill me later, go with a bang." Dude probably played a flute solo before breaking it.

This is such an excellent video. I'm used to this topic being presented as a sensationalist, salacious detail told for thrill value without any historical or cultural nuance or context. This is the most comprehensive and carefully researched video I have ever seen on this.

History teaches us that humans will normalize anything.....as long as it's not done to them or their loved ones and it benefits them in some way, weather it's something real or perceived.

You are basically making thesis-level works as videos for free on the internet. Mad respect. Edit: Before you disagree, read what has already been written in this comment chain and make an actual argument.

Imagine trying to climb those corpse-strewn bloody steps WHILE tripping out of your mind on hallucinogenic drugs. Like, I’ve seen people have bad trips just sitting on a couch in the comfort of a living room.

For the effort put into this, very informative and I love learning about my Mexican culture. Bs that this isn’t monetized

The ecological aspect has another dimension. If I remember Jared Diamond's chapter on the Maya collapse right, the environment in which they lived is prone to suffer unexpected, unpredictable droughts. This might have stimulated greater religious extremism in an effort to "make sense of things" and increase "certainty", which humans generally like.

Man I'm so impressed by how you not only manage to pick interesting after interesting niche topic, but then also present everything in such fascinating detail. Excellent video

I’m really curious about how the lives of the “imitators” actually played out. I feel like giving a young man a literal god complex, 4+ maiden wives, and the power to decide when he is sacrificed, might have had mixed results 😂

Thank you for the video. For years I've commented on various sites that the Aztecs and other civilizations---Mayans and Incas----practiced human sacrifice for one reason or another. Other commenters posted there was no sacrifice in the Americas----that everyone lived a happy existence pre-Columbus, all dancing around sacred fires and trees, with people content with their rulers; no wars ever occurred, no famines, no infanticide, no killing of prisoners, and more importantly----no slavery. These commenters want to rewrite history to remove all the realities of life, but the truth is out there. Thank you for making the video and daring to state that human sacrifice did occur.

I remember watching a video that talked of a ceremony where the blood of the sacrifices had been strewn all over the city and said something like "Imagine the smell of a city covered in the rotting blood of human sacrifices" That uh... that painted a vivid, repugnant picture. That must have been one hell of a society to stumble upon as an outsider.

The things that this video made me think about 😱 I remembered a study on pigeons in which the scientists gave the pigeons food on random bases. One of the pigeons accidentally made a full turn in front of the feeding tube just before the grain appeared. So when he did it again the scientists confirmed his conclusion by giving him another grain. By the end of the day all pigeons were turning as approaching the feeding tube. Even when the grain giving whent back to random, the pigeons kept turning multiple times until the food arrived. So I can see how once a group is convinced that human sacrifice is the way to get things (rain, sun…) then no matter how long it take they will sacrifice as many as they have to until the result is accomplished.

It pains me greatly on a very personal level how much of history was lost for so many reasons I am sure everyone reading this can think of some themselves. I really hope that our current history will never be lost to some unforeseen turmoil.

This feels almost too well researched for a youtube video. Really amazing effort putting this all together into such a concise yet extensive format. Also, the aesthetics really reflect the time period. I love the color scheme especially. Used to study history myself but wasnt able to stick with it. This reminds me of everything i did love about the field. A+

as a mexican myself, i thank you for contributing to shedding light on this intresting part of our history.

the political explanation is the one that makes sense the most. they used an already existing religion to justify expansion, as you constantly need sacrifices and you don't want to sacrifice your own citizens. this way, they also instilled fear in their enemies. at the end of the day, in every civilization, it's mostly about power.

I've climbed the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, and I can easily see why the sacrificial victims were, let's say, less liable to fight back by the time they reached the top. It's a tough climb!

The series of historical novels by Gary Jennings called Aztec are spectacular if you want to journey back into the Aztec world on a intimate level. Could not get that book out of my head for years.

This is such a well-researched video and the production is top notch 👌 the narration is well written and delivered clearly. I appreciate the pronunciations and clarifications. The subject is fascinating. A great video!

Great video, but man I can’t wrap my head around how UKposts allows content like mukbangs to be monetized but a video in which someone pours time and effort to share an unbiased version of the history of an important culture doesn’t.

As soon as you started picking appart what the word Aztec actually refered to, you had me. Subscribed.

As a native American, I thank you for making this video. A lot of people don't like to talk about the savage history of the tribes nor even admit to the horrible things that many tribes have done.

Such an interesting video! Thank you for your hard work in presenting a complicated subject in an easily accessible way ❤

Your presentation sets a really high bar for other UKposts content creators to match. You treat your viewers as intelligent people, you give plenty of information, you do not overdramatise the topic, you consider fairly various possible explanations and views, and you cite your sources so others can read for themselves and check your conclusions. You have produced an impressive work.

"It is how it is and it has always been this" I wonder how many lives would have been spared if this mindset wouldn't exist.

Really interesting and well-written. You've got great pacing! Thank you for the info!

Top-tier content. Immediately liked, subscribed, and went to comments to type this. It’s remarkable that this content is free. When I graduate, I plan on subscribing to a Patreon

This is one of the most beautiful examples of UKposts's potential to inform rather than disinform. I love the historical criticism you've applied!

I'm not really a big history guy, but decided to give this video a try because it kept getting recommended and it was WAYYY more fascinating that I expected. I think that's the sign of a good educator. If you can make people who don't usually care about a topic become interested in it.

Thank you for not hiding history like so many others do. Certain groups of people love to attack others from behind a false shield of “my history is better than yours” and this shatters that narrative. Thank you

Thanks for your work and time making this ❤

Man, the part about the sources was excellent.

Imagine how bad those stairs smelled

Excellent investigative work! I appreciate your efforts to present and objective perspective. Rodolfo.

Awesome job man. Really appreciate the amount of work that went into this

I studied Latin American History at Uni and it's refreshing to listen to someone refer to the Aztecs as Mexica (for they were never called Aztecs- or the people who wandered from Aztlan) that was more a 19c invention.

17:50 it's crazy that they would give someone as low status as a slave a whole year of the best possible life they could have. I mean 4 wives and unlimited wishes sounds pretty sweet, except for the sacrifice thing at the end of the year.

The section about butchering the sacrificed bodies and the parts being sent to be used in various ways including being given to the original captor to be eaten in a shared ritual with their family really got me. Insane

Love your channel and appreciate your stating of sources

As a Mexican thanks for clearing right away in the first 3 minutes why Mexica are not "Aztecs". Now if only we could do something to stop people calling Moctezuma "Montezuma". :p

i am head over heels for the “source material” section, this is the first video i’ve seen actually talk about the issue of sources.

WOW! Thank you, this js a subject that has always fascinated/horrified me. Excellent presentation!

Thank you, found the video extremely informative. It is a credit to the hard work you have done.

M. Laser History has briefly addressed this in his video and pinned comment, but it is worth bearing in mind that many sacrifices involving humans were not necessarily lethal. Sacrifice could be a communal activity - such as voluntary and non-lethal 'autosacrifice' involving pulling strings of thorns through your own tongue, earlobes, or the fleshy bit between the index finger and thumb. This could also involve general bloodletting or self-flagellation (for Xipe Totec) etc. Of course lethal sacrifices were the most important in a religious sense and in terms of public spectacle

Exploring the motives was a really fascinating aspect of this video. It's really important never to "excuse" or "shrug off" things from different cultures as "it's just the way they are" or "we'll probably never understand". Something this grand in scale and continuous practice had to have multiple factors that kept it going and exploring all the possible reasons is really interesting to me. The Aztec peoples, of all the different sub-groupings, had a very complex society and were very advanced in different ways from how other cultures had developed; trying to see the "logic" through their eyes, or at least trying to guess, really helps to expand our perspective on how many different ways a human being can take an idea or a premise.

Thanks Mr Laser, that was a great lecture.

Just happened upon this video and was instantly hooked amazing work!

> Wears the coolest drip in town > Bangs the hottest chicks > Treated with utmost respect > Learns arts and instruments > Dies ceremoniously at their own time on top of a pyramid as thousands whip themselves down below in a historic ritual *W O R T H I T*

Man I hope the Maize crop is doing well this year.

This, was so educative, entertaining and horrifying at the same time! Thank you, I didn't know you before but now you have earned a subscriber.

this was one awesome video. Thank you for the effort.

I'm aiming to give presentations as interesting and detailed as this one. Excellent content man

I'd like to know how the new religion of Christianity was adopted relatively quickly and if the refusal of human sacrifices was one of the major factors for that. Indeed I guess that the core belief of a god sacrificing himself to save Mankind instead of having to sacrifice humans to save/help a god had to be a mind blown concept but easy to understand for Aztec peoples and something they could relate to. Furthermore, the kind of "symbolic cannibalism" that happens in the Eucharist where the blood and body of Christ are consumed, it is something that I think an Aztec could understand and adhere to as well.

Thanks for making such a great video!

Thank you ! This video was fantastic

Man I'm getting pretty tired of UKposts censoring everything. History has to be about debate and hypothesis and this video was very balanced and without agenda. I hope people have been kind with donations

Thank you so much for this video which I encourage anyone watching it to watch all the way to the end. As an Anthropologist, I have spent most of my life studying AmeriIndian cultures from North of the Rio Grande. This video was a refresher course for me and I really appreciate it. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 2000 - 2004.

man the child sacrifices hurt my soul

Thank you for your work.

It sounds like an almost industrialised process, so much sacrifice was done. Thank you for an excellent video!

Thank you for your exhaustive description of this topic! Well done!

Great work on this, thank you💯

I am so glad M. Laser is finally getting the big views!

I hope it feels good to see something you put so much effort into getting such great views. I don’t know what in my algorithm led me here, but I’m so, so glad it did. I graduated from an anthropology/religious studies bachelor’s program in 2020 and I miss it SO much lately. This video made me feel like I was back home, in a way. Thank you 🥰

Your channel is so underrated. This has to be one of, if not my favorite channels on historical subjects.

The Spanish Inquisition be like: 👀🥺👉👈

Thank you for such a thorough and clear lesson....

Pretty interesting, though it presents a culture really quite alien to our own -- as it must have been to the first Europeans to encounter it. It's tempting to say that genocide and public executions are similar, but those things are generally treated as exceptional events. They are pursued with a single end goal in mind and are not carried out as a matter of course in perpetuity. The simple fact that many sacrifices went so willingly and even enthusiastically to their deaths, to the rapturous approval of their fellow citizens (and family members), makes this something utterly different. It's not an act of hate or reprisal, but of worship. That's what makes it so bizarre.

Excellent content. Well written with a really clear narration. Thanks, I'll now watch another of yours. Cheers from Vancouver.

Chilling... great content. Great explanation

Wow, what a video! I am listening to Micheal Wood's, 'Conquistadors' and this video has helped illustrate it. Thank you 👍

The way the impersonator lives for a year before he is sacrificed is basically the human version of Kobe beef cows' lives

I just read the book "The Conquest of New Spain" by Diaz. Wow, what a story. Much of it sounds like a story from millennium past, but it was only 500 years ago. Great book, a thriller.

I really liked this video! It was uncomfortable but in the best way possible: educationally

Great video! Thank you so much for sharing.

That was a tremendous video. Got to the point, gave caveats and context, shouted out alternative sources, and did it all with a non-pretentious, briskly paced, but very viewer friendly presentation. This is what every history video should be. Can definitely tell you spent a year on this and appreciate that you had the restraint to keep it short and simple when with that much research time it's easy to be tempted to drag it out with more shaky material.

Dziękuję za materiał 👍🏿

Great great vid! If all the references are correct, its a superb content! One of the best ive seen on UKposts

The issue with cannibalism is also that it is wildly inefficient, for the same reason that we don't raise carnivores as livestock. Large herbivores turn inedible plants like grass into huge slabs of meat, whereas carnivores turn huge slabs of meat into lesser slabs of meat. This is because in addition to building muscle, the nutrients from eating another animal are also lost to keep the carnivore alive and are lost in a myriad of ways (e.g., heat, sweat, respiration). You could argue that eating humans from a different tribe is a gain regardless because the nutrients used to make that person come from elsewhere, or that you could raise human livestock solely on fruits and vegetables, but it is still wholly inefficient to feed a large scale human population with other humans. Also, if you could raise human livestock on vegetables than that negates the need for eating human meat entirely. At most, you might consider it a delicacy. Now I'm interested in reading these historian's papers to see how they defend their hypotheses.

Thank you for making this video. As a Mexican, I’m always trying to learn more about how my ancestors lived. Other cultures keep written records of their ancestors up to more than 200 years ago Sadly, mine didn’t and I only know up to my great grandparents. I hope to one day find more about my history

Now I understand Mexican Gore and Cartels

Thanks for this informative video. Aztec human sacrifice is something I was interested in, but knew little to nothing about.

The level of detail in your videos are incredible. Always making sure that not even a single sentence could be missunderstood. An amazingly well done presentation about a very interesting topic. Thank you for sharing these, keep up the good work!

For randomly coming across this and watching it all, I'm impressed by how this was put together! Super good job man. I bet it was an interesting time to live haha.

A fine video! Excellent work.

“Hey I know your about to be sacrificed in the most brutal and unusual way imaginable but can you listen to my problems and maybe take it up with the big snake upstairs?” ….just wow.

Thank you for a notable effort and for forging ahead with well presented work about the “unpleasant” detail. All cultures present these unpalatable challenges and without grappling with them in proper cultural context we miss the lesson so to speak!

What are those holes in the middle of the empire? Cities that never bowed? Also, the idea of the priests and sacrificial victims tripping balls all the time is the fucking wildest thing I can think of

Excellent, well researched and presented documentary video. Thanks.

I love the calming acoustic fishing channel guitar music during this particular subject.