| Human sacrifice is the most difficult part of dealing with the Aztecs. Does it help if I point out that the Christian tradition is based on the bloody sacrifice of an innocent person? Probably not, and I don't want to pretend that there were no performances of human sacrifice re-enacting Aztec myths. On the other hand, I have read enough student versions of "Human sacrifice is bad, but we must remember that the Aztecs thought it was necessary" with a queasy sense of distress to know that telling you how sacrifice was the motive force in the Aztec universe may not persuade you to entertain the possibility that human sacrifice could conceivably, from a certain perspective,not be bad. If sacrifice was the motive force for the Aztecs, then it was not only thought necessary but was part of "The Good," or what is right. If you find yourself unconvinced of that possibility, let me at least do as Inga Clendinnen does, and simply make this practice intelligible. And that begins with the mythic traditions of the rise of the first sun of the present age, commemorated at the New Fire ceremony. It requires an understanding of the cyclical Calendar Round. It is enriched by considering the life of a boy training in the houses of song to become a warrior, a topic best considered from the perspective of the Nahuatl-speaking informants for Fray Bernardino de Sahagun's Florentine Codex.
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