Aztec Religion, Economy, and the Fall of Tenochtitlan

Mexica religion was polytheistic and syncretic, absorbing deities from the peoples it conquered or emulated. Tenochtitlan's Templo Mayor, a double pyramid, was dedicated jointly to Huitzilopochtli, the war and sun god tied to Mexica ethnic identity, and Tláloc, god of rain and fertility, reflecting a central duality between war and water. The myth of the "Five Suns" told of earlier cosmic eras each destroyed by cataclysm, leading to the present era of the sun Tonatiuh, who required nourishment through human blood to keep moving; Mexica theology framed human sacrifice as payment of a "cosmic debt" owed to the gods who had sacrificed themselves to create the sun and moon. Most sacrificial victims were prisoners taken in war or in the flowery wars against señoríos such as Tlaxcala, and the dedication of the enlarged Templo Mayor under Ahuízotl in 1487 is the most frequently cited episode of mass sacrifice in the colonial sources, though its exact scale remains disputed among historians.