Civilization’s Lessons

“Montezuma Teaches a Lesson in Mexican History,” May 5.

The historical pageant about Montezuma and the Aztecs was very interesting and colorful. The presenters failed, however, to mention that the central element of Aztec life was the worship of numerous gods--the mightiest of which was Quetzalcoatl, the feathered or stone serpent. Human sacrifice was one of the main religious expressions with killings on a considerable scale, sometimes reaching thousands in a single day. Carried out on the top of huge stone temples, tearing out the hearts of living victims was a common form of sacrifice. In the library records of Mexico of 1487, it is recorded that in the most spectacular sacrificial display ever seen in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan (later Mexico City), 20,000 people lost their hearts to Huitzilopochtli, the war god.

As with the Carthaginians in the 5th century B.C., who sacrificed babies to their god Moloch, or Prussian Germany in the first half of this century, studying Aztec culture provides us with a far greater lesson: that the more advanced a civilization is, the worse it can be.

ROBERT LUKE ANDERSON, Granada Hills