owth), and Xipe, (God of Spring) (Welker, 2003).
             A major component in the religious beliefs of the Aztecs was human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was very important, honored, and common. This had been practiced all throughout the Mesoamerican world, but the Aztecs practiced it at a scale never seen before or since. There were many different types and ways the Aztecs sacrificed people. Some were very brutal and horrid while others were, compared to the brutal ones, nothing. One example of a vicious sacrifice was done to honor the god Huehueteotl. Sacrificial victims were drugged and then thrown into a fire at the top of decretive ceremonial platform. Before the fire had killed them, they were dragged out with hooks and their living hearts were pulled out and thrown back into the fire. An example of one of the miniscule human sacrifices would be the most common form of human sacrifice, voluntary blood letting. These sacrifices occurred at every religious function. Such blood letting was tied to rank. The higher one was in social or priestly rank, the more blood one had to sacrifice. For example, some of the priests had to have their wife pull a thorny rope through their tongue three times. After that the priest would then slit his wife's throat. As soon as she died he would then take the same thorny rope she used and pull it through his genitals until he died. The logic behind all this human sacrifice was the concept that the gods gave things to human beings only if they were nourished by human beings. Also, Aztecs believed that it was their sacred duty t
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