15. The Aztec practice of human sacrifice was known to the Spanish before the arrival of Cortes
One of the earliest Spanish explorers of Mexico was Juan de Grijalva, who explored the coastline in company with Juan Diaz. On an island near Veracruz, the Spaniards observed firsthand a sacrificial ritual, though neither knew what it was they had witnessed. Diaz wrote of the incident in the Itinerary of Grijalva, “the Captain asked him (an Aztec) why such deeds were committed there and the Indian answered that it was done as a kind of sacrifice…and that the heart was taken out of the breast and burnt…parts of the arms and legs were cut off and eaten”. Another member of the expedition corroborated Diaz’s account, describing the “altar” on which the ritual killing occurred and recounting that the Spaniards named the islet “Isle of Sacrifices”. Diaz wrote of the human sacrifice before Cortes and the Spanish conquest took place.
Much later in another work, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Diaz described a human sacrifice which the Spanish witnessed at a temple dedicated to Tezcatlipoca. “That day they had sacrificed two boys, cutting open their chests and offering their blood and hearts to that accursed idol”. When the conquistadores reached Tenochtitlan Diaz described the scenes of sacrifice within the Great Temple and the practice of the priests and nobles eating the arms and legs of the victims. While the Spanish were approaching Tenochtitlan Diaz reported encountering cages guarded with armed warriors which held future sacrificial victims being fattened before their slaughter. Diaz reported seeing the practice of human sacrifice every day on the march through Mexico, before finally noting that the “readers will be tired of hearing of the great number” of sacrifices observed. “I shall go on with my story without saying any more about them”.