Journal 1: Culture of the Native Americans

Native American culture is far from a specialty of mine but I do have a bit of knowledge in the area. My main knowledge is on the culture of the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, and Olmec and those inhabited Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula. The Aztec culture was my favorite to learn about because of their ritualistic sacrifices. The Aztec priests were actually so specialized at ripping out a man's heart they could do it so quickly that the heart would still be beating after they ripped it out. It took 5 priests to sacrifice the person and it was usually a prisoner of war. Four of them would hold them down and the last would use an obsidian dagger to tear open the chest and tear out the victim's heart. They sacrificed them because they thought that the sun god and and serpent god Quezocaotal demanded sacrifices to keep the sun rising. If they did not sacrifice enough people then the gods would not allow the sun to rise and their crops would be destroyed. The Aztecs were a very violent group going to war to gain prisoners. When they fought they tried only to incapacitate their opponents so they could either use them as slave labor or sacrifice them to the gods. They had two pyramids in their capital city of Tenochtitlan that were dedicated to their sun god. The pyramids were the largest buildings in the city and they only usually used one to sacrifice their prisoners. Many of the commoners were farmers or fishers who lived in the city of Tenochtitlan fishing from the lake their city rests on. Holy men were the most revered people in their city and below them on the social ladder were their warriors who wore the pelts of jaguars or eagles that they killed. Depending on the skin they wore they were known either as Eagle or Jaguar warriors. The city of Tenochtitlan is now where the city of Mexico City stands.