The Aztec Culture Of Sacrifice
Introduction
The concept of sacrifice is a fundamental basis of almost every religion. However, its manifestation in the form of human sacrifice is both more controversial and, as a result, rarely studied by anthropologists today. As one scholar observes: "The modern social anthropologist does not best endear himself to the elite of the Third World by an obsessive interest in how great-grandfather shrunk the heads he hunted or in the quality of the wood needed to burn great-grandmother alive" (Davies, 1981, p.13).
While one may question the sense of humour evident here - and even its implication of a racist subtext - it must be acknowledged that the role of human sacrifice in the history of religious practices is seldom addressed.
There exists, in general, two analytical approaches to the practice of human sacrifice: one seeing it as an analogue to cannibalism, and a means of the community ensuring a supply of animal protein, while the other perceives it as a cultural......
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