Tlaezzotia: The Persistence of Ritual Blood-Offerings in Post-Conquest Mexico

The demolition of the native temple apparatus in sixteenth-century Mexico and the imposition of Spanish state hegemony radically altered the performative character of Nahua religion: the great spectacle of human sacrifice (tlamictiliztli) was effectively abolished and substituted by the sacro/judicial violence of the Catholic auto-de-fe. The Nahuas, however, were able to continue making clandestine traditional offerings to their deities, adapting them to the constraints of the new era, and ensuring thus the survival of their own ethnic identity. This paper will focus on the varieties of penitential bloodletting (nezoliztli), as well as animal sacrifices (tlaezzotia). An examination of the Inquisition records of the 1530s and of the contemporary role of animal sacrifice in Nahua religion will allow us to discern the contours of mimetic religious violence in a colonized world.