Let the Sun die

Story based on real traditions held by the Mexicas (Aztecs) and other surrounding civilizations.

The food was scarce. Villages started to starve. Kids died in their mothers’ arms. Some priests started talking about the death of Huitzilopochtli, the Sun. It was time. The divine son of Coatlicue demanded blood, a lot of blood. A new Xochiyáoyotl was declared against Texcoco. The Flower War would start after the next full moon. Two thousand of each finest would face each other on the valley, near the most holy place in which our ancestors found the eagle devouring the snake, divine signal sent down from the heavens by Huitzilopochtli himself. Their leaders agreed, they had too. We all need to feed our own, and the Sun.

We are the proud children of this land. Blessed by the gods. The chosen people of the Omnipotent. We were always taught how great an honour it was to harvest victims for the Great Lord. This was the first time I was summoned to participate in the sacred war. My heart, filled to the brim with devotion for my people and my gods, beat hard on my chest when I was appointed by the cihuacóatl himself. Our commander always picked personally one or two of the most promising youngsters to join the veterans.

I remember those two weeks of training and spiritual preparation as the most intense of my life. I was about to become part of the most essential and divine cycle. We were brought to the temple the day before the battle to pray and get our macuahuitls – ritual clubs – blessed. The priests had been bleeding themselves for the past days. They too were getting ready.

“Remember, whether you bring back victims or are taken by the enemy, you will help quench the thirst of the great Huitzilopochtli. What nobler purpose could there be? What else is worth living for? What else is worth dying for?”

The day came. The two armies, face to face, waited patiently as the priests ignited the ritual pyre to mark the start of the sacred war. As always, no projectiles were allowed. Hand-to-hand combat was the only appropriate way to gather the much-needed hearts that were to feed the Sun, the land, and our people. Enemies were to be taken alive to be properly sacrificed by the priests, the only ones whose hands were pure enough to rise the beating hearts as offerings to the Blue Tezcatlipoca.

As the smoke rose from the burning wood, so did our prayers. All our hearts were ripe for the harvest. The fire died out, and the battle began. We Mexicas always have the upper hand. Our warriors are always better fed, better trained, better equipped. Wailing and roaring, the armies clashed. I was in the front line. An enemy faced me directly. Red paint and a monstrous grimace covered his face. I felt my arms hardening. Everything went black save the red man in front of me. A cocktail of fear and excitement rushed through my veins. Instincts kicked in when he jumped at me. I dodged his attack and hit him with all my strength in the back.

An intoxicating sense of power came over me as I saw my opponent maimed, bleeding, defeated at my feet. My macuahuitl had tasted blood for the first time, and now it wanted more. I went on a spree, blocking blows and breaking bones as I moved forward. One more fell by my hand, and then one more. I could feel the strength of Yaotl flowing through me. Inspired, some of the other warriors followed my lead. Enemies started to fall one after another. I had never felt more alive, perfectly in tune with my brothers in arms. I lost track of time. My arms, my legs, my full body was moving on its own, doing the will of the gods.

When the sun started getting low, I realised we’d been battling the whole day. It was now time to regroup. Each army had the right to take the defeated rivals back with them. Three had gone down under my club. The first one had already died. I tied the other two together and dragged them with me. No other youngster had ever captured more than one, much less on their first expedition. I was a hero, an instant legend. My brothers kept cheering me all the way back home.

We arrived right when the lights of the temple were being lit. We handed the prisoners to the priests, who took them to the main compound. I counted more than fourty; over two cempohualli. The harvest had been good. The priests started to paint the victims, getting them ready for the next day. Some of us were allowed to stay and keep watch until dawn. The prisoners were given Teonanáctl and forced to dance with the priests. We too were offered some of the ceremonial mushrooms. The same kind the priests used to talk to the gods. That’s when things started to go south for me.

I remember hearing a high-pitched sound, like a scream, but I couldn’t find where it was coming from. The shadows casted by the dancing procession turned into Tzitzimimeh, the night demons destined to devour mankind when the Sun finally dies out. The scream turned louder. The demons closed in on me, their faces more and more horrific at each passing moment. I wanted to scream, but my voice had left me. I wanted to run, but my legs had turned to stone. All I could do was stand there, my insides boiling, my mind drifting down to hell.

I woke up just before sunrise with an impending sense of doom. Neither the priests nor the prisoners had stopped dancing and shouting around the fire, waiting for Huitzilopochtli to show his face on the horizon. As soon as the first sun ray hit the court, the priests let out a shrill howl in unison. The moment had arrived. We all left the temple, headed to the pyramid. Once there, the high priest started climbing the steps, carrying the técpatl, the sacrificial knife, high above his head. Four priests went right behind him. The first prisoners followed closely, naked and marked with the symbols of the victims, the priests and some warriors forcing them up at spearpoint. The cihuacóatl heard of my exploits and gave me the privilege of going up the pyramid with the group.

I saw the face of one of the group that were about to feed the Sun, looking back at me, begging with his eyes. The first victim reached the peak, and the four priests quickly held his limbs, pushing him against the stone that served as an altar, exposing the chest. With one swift move, the high priest opened the chest of the victim with the obsidian knife and pushed his free hand inside the body, looking for the heart. In a single, expert motion, he ripped it from its place, taking it out and holding it up to the sky while it was still beating, trying to pump blood to a body that was no longer there. I saw the terror disfiguring the face of the victim, looking at his own heart outside of his body. Maybe it was that I hadn’t fully recovered from my waking nightmare the night before, but, to this day, I’m still haunted by that face. Not a moment passed when the high priest took the hair of the poor man with one hand and cut off the head with the other, always with clean, quick movements. The body, headless and heartless, was pushed down the side by the helping priests. The head, held high for a moment by the high priest, was put on display on the tzompantli.

The next victims followed one after another. The high priest, in some sort of maddening trance, kept pulling hearts out and cutting heads off from twitching bodies. Blood covered him from face to toes, streaming down the altar, down the steps, soaking everything around. I felt my insides burn even more than the night before. When I looked down to see my feet smeared with the blood of the victims, I felt as if my spirit descended into Mictlán. This didn’t feel like it was supposed to. The cries of pain and desperation didn’t feel glorious. The headless bodies with chests wide open were ripping my soul in half, and the pain grew with every new corpse being thrown down the steps.

That day was burnt into me, scarring me forever. Three more weeks we fought in the valley, capturing more hearts, spilling more blood. Years, droughts, and famines went by. Never again have I had a peaceful night. Is the price of keeping the Sun in the sky really this high? Is it really worth it? Maybe we shouldn’t try so hard to please such a terrible god. Maybe we ought to let the Sun die.