Following months of preparation, the priests carried the god of warriors to the Great Temple. He was waiting at the top of the steps to the pyramid for the ultimate honour. Soon, he would be joined by Tonatiuh the sun god. The warrior's whole life had been preparing him for this awe-inspiring moment.

At the highest point of the pyramid temple, the warrior god was welcomed by the nobleman who had taken him. The holy ritual was about to begin. Four priests took the warrior-god by his legs and arms and laid him on the altar made of stones. He stared up into the sky that was infinitely blue. The chief priest raised his arms high and plunged in a knife into the chest of the god of war. The priest practiced his movements to insert his hand into the wound to grab the warrior's heart. Tonatiuh the god of sun, he received the body that was still pulsing. Others pushed the corpse through the steps of the Great Temple. The priests then removed the head and displayed it on a skull display along with hundreds of others.

The Aztec Empire's Aztec Empire was comprised of hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices. The Aztecs believed that gods had sacrificed their blood to make human beings. They believed that the gods were the ones responsible for their blood to preserve the empire. They sacrificed warriors captured during battle, as well as other soldiers or women as well as children to fulfill what they believed to be the gods' bloody desire. However, the very beliefs which were designed to preserve the Aztec Empire played a role in its downfall.

The Mexica

The Aztecs who were later to settle in the Valley of Mexico (the area now surrounding modern Mexico City), were not the only people to arrive in the Valley of Mexico. These fierce Nahuatl-speaking people from the Chichimec culture first arrived around 1200 A.D. from the north which they called Atzlan. The people who called themselves the Mexica people, these nomadic tribes from north discovered the majority of the area settled by a sophisticated agriculture-based culture that dwelt in cities and around well-developed towns.

Itzcoatl

Itzcoatl, the Mexica king, was the first of the six Aztec Emperors. Itzcoatl introduced radical changes to Aztec lifethat accelerated the expansion of the empire for over one century. Itzcoatl invented an Aztec feudal system, Hernan Westmann much like the one of Europe and concentrated riches, privileges, as well as political power in the hands of the emperor, his soldiers as well as other nobles. Itzcoatl transferred lands from defeated Tepanecs to his elite warriors. He instituted a new system of honorable titles and privileges to honor warriors who captured prisoners in battle. Itzcoatl stated that the common people owed them financial tribute in the form of labor, military service for the purpose of supporting the newly titled classes.

How did the Empire functioned

Itzcoatl was able to conquer other Aztec cities-states within the Valley of Mexico, despite his changes in his religion and his feudal ways. The Aztecs had no army standing. Instead they were a Triple-Alliance. Triple-Alliance males were called into service when a war started. Noble warriors were given a reward with respect to the number prisoners they rescued during combat.

Aztecs fight to kill, but , more importantly, they fought to take captives. Their belief was that if they were killed in combat, their souls would be joined by the gods. One-on-one combat was usually fought with spears or wooden swords that were made of sharpened obsidian (a kind of volcanic glass) with deadly rows.

Itzcoatl and the emperors that followed him, would dictate the amount of tribute to be paid from cities-states that were defeated and also the selection of a trusted local noble as their new King. Under this system of indirect rule, things generally continued in the city-states that were conquered--as long as tribute flowed to the Aztec capital. Because the emperor controlled the Aztec kingdom in such a loose manner the city-states who were defeated frequently rebelled and were forced to be re-conquered.

Resentment at the burden of the system of tribute was the primary reason for most of the rebellions against the empire. The Aztec capital was typically fed by the growing class of nobles who were frequently assisted by conquered city-states in Tenochtitlan. Common tribute items include warrior's uniforms as well as animal skins. They also offer ceramics, building materials firewood, as well as construction materials. Aztecs required conquered countries to provide copper, gold, feathers and incense. These were then used as money. In addition, the Aztec ruler would request workers from conquered cities to construct temples, aqueducts, as well as other public projects.