The Third Category of Creation Myths—
Creation by Blood Sacrifice
In none of the other three categories were the
Aztecs so adamant in their beliefs about the creative act: in this category,
creation was defined very concretely. It was not an act sui generis,
once and for all; rather it was an act of blood sacrifice that would always be
repeated and indeed had to be repeated. Sacrifice was a mechanic, an
inner logic of the universe, almost a god in itself. This concept permeated the
whole of Aztec mythology, whether cosmogonic or otherwise. It was also the
central preoccupation of the Aztec state.
It appears centrally in the Nanahuatl myth, where
the god sacrifices himself by leaping into the fore so as to become the sun,
thereby providing light and life for the world. . . .Blood sacrifice—the method
by which the stellar and the atmospheric parts of the cosmos came into
being—established for the Aztec mind a corollary: the created cosmos was
finite, its strength waned rapidly, and it must constantly be revivified. This
renewal could be accomplished only by sacrifice, which thus became a ceaseless
activity and an incumbency on those who desired the continuance of the cosmos.
Nanahuatl’s original sacrifice was not only the
great exemplar; a series of sacrifices had to follow it. Gods, earth, and sky
were entirely dependent on blood sacrifice to maintain them. Retroactively this
defines the blood sacrifice performed in the creation of the sun and the moon
as the precursor of necessity in a finite world. If there is to be life, there
must be sacrificial death, all this is presented to us in a remorseless Aztec
dialectic. (Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec World
[Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1979], 33)
