now in search of History relives forbidden Aztec rights of human sacrifice and cannibalism discover the secrets of this sophisticated Mighty Empire steeped in [Music] blood some say that the Indians were born of Springs of water others say that they were born of caves or that their race is that of the Gods father Diego Duran the Aztecs cast their Mighty Shadow across an Empire stretching from northern Mexico to what is today Guatemala they ruled over 10 million subjects dominating a far-flung kingdom of city states at the height of Aztec power between 13 and 1500 their Capital was the largest city in the world but today that city is no more who were these people so brilliant in the Arts so fierce in battle and so fanatically devoted to their religion of human sacrifice to this day their exact origin is lost in the shadows of time one of the points Specialists are still arguing about is where the Aztecs really come from whether the group was already settled in the valley of Mexico or if they came from the north these questions are still unanswered despite the scholarly controversy Aztec Legends relate that they first emerged from a supernatural place called The Seven caves from there they journeyed to ason an island in the middle of a lake it is from aslon that they took their name Aztec from ason in the year 1116 they began an epic 200-year Odyssey [Music] but what drove these Wanderers who like the Israelites of the Bible saw themselves as a chosen people searching for their Promised Land [Music] according to Aztec Legends the command to set out on their Journey came from their tribal deity withy loley the god of the sun and God of War as the tribe wandered the high priests carried an effigy of WIIL lole with them when their God spoke they obeyed but how did he communicate with [Music] them supposedly this image actually spoke to them in their language but spoke through the medium of the priests and then the priests would transmit this message and the original message was now you must leave asan you must migrate to the South but and you must obey my commands but I promise you this great Destiny uh I promise you the world the Aztecs felt that they were the people destined to maintain the cosmos and to see that the sun would have enough energy to fight its way across the sky and that the Earth had enough nutrition to Bear the crops and they felt that they could only do this by making offerings and most mostly blood offerings according to Aztec belief the human heart was the most precious gift which mere mortals could offer to the [Music] gods the ritual of human sacrifice was not an act of murder but proof of their devotion the basic rationale for it was that the sun literally subsisted on human hearts and human blood they were feeding the sun to maintain the universe they felt it was an obligation for the good of their [Music] Community during their Epic Journey the Aztecs would sometimes settle for a time and work the land to promote fertility they worshiped the rain God clock strangely their belief in talok would Inspire even more extreme forms of human sacrifice the rain gods were conceived as infantile dwarfs so uh in the cult of talik it was considered particularly appropriate to sacrifice young children up to the age of five and six the Aztecs believed that to obtain the blessings of talok the young victims must shed tears before their [Music] sacrifice and this apparently was a form of what they call sympathetic magic the tears of the children would bring down the tears of the sky namely the rain uh which they were always so anxious to promote and then they would sacrifice them in the usual fashion by tearing out their little Hearts after a 200-year Odyssey the Aztecs reached the valley of Mexico there at the hands of a neighboring tribe they suffered a humiliating defeat they were forced to retreat to the swamps of a tiny Island in a vast Lake [Music] it was here that their Priestly oracles commanded them to search for an eagle perched upon a cactus this sign they said would Mark the end of their quest for a [Music] Homeland at dawn they glimpsed a mighty eagle upon a prickly pear cactus they named The Spot tach tlon finally after 200 years their Journey had [Music] ended by 1324 ad the Aztecs had finally reached their Promised Land an island in the middle of a [Music] lake in this most unlikely of sites they would somehow build tach Tian one of the most awesome cities the world had ever seen But How could a City built on a small island hold a population that would soon swell to a quarter of a million [Music] people using the simple but ingenious method of pounding Stakes into the lake bed and then lashing them together with reads the Aztecs poured in mud and rocks to literally build themselves more land they expanded their small island into a vast 2500 [Music] Acres when the Spanish conquistadors first saw the Aztec city in 1519 they were amazed there in the center of the lake was this gleaming White City it was something they had never seen before and for us we could almost imagine as Dorothy looking at the U you know at Oz for the first time it was far larger at a quarter of a million people than any City they had ever seen in Europe by the 1500s tach tlon was a teaming Metropolis at 200,000 people it held twice the pop potion of London or Rome the creation of Teno tlon demanded a skilled Army of thousands of Craftsmen yet how the Aztec performed this formidable task of construction remains unknown for though the Aztecs used the wheel for their children's toys they put it to no practical use without the wheel or or beasts of Burden how could the Aztecs build on such a Monumental scale experts theorize the answer lies in the ingenious concept of the city itself like Venice Italy tach tlon was crisscrossed by an intricate network of [Music] canals the Aztec might have used thousands of canoes to move the tons of materials needed for the city's construction however tach tlan was completed the Spaniards were awed by this surprisingly modern city when they got closer to the city and began to walk down the causeways they were astounded at how clean the streets were in the city in fact Refuge was uh taken out of the city daily they were astounded at the uh reuse of everything they were Master ecologists the way everything was so carefully painted and ornamented and and how orderly Aztec life was to determine precisely the exact days for planting and harvesting the Aztecs established an accurate calendar systematically charting the heavens Aztec medicine was also highly sophisticated with over 100 herbal remedies for specific [Music] ailments as impressive as the Aztec scientific achievements however was their creative genius to an extraordinary degree they viewed every aspect of life as an opportunity for Creative EXP expression Aztec society is known for its militarism its interest in human sacrifice so that there's a tendency to look at all Aztec life as having been brutal but in fact there was an Aztec a rich Aztec tradition of of poetry of music and of drama surprisingly many of the most sensitive Aztec poems came for the most unlikely composers the battle hardened world Warriors the gold and black butterfly is seeping the nectar the flower bursts into bloom oh my friends it is my heart I send on a shower of white frangi Pon flowers [Music] the Aztec produced a dazzling variety of sculpture breathtaking in its austere Beauty and awesome [Music] power researchers have been astounded that the Aztec used only primitive Stone chisels to create these Monumental Works yet for all its life affirming Splendor Aztec culture was also steeped in a cult of death even the city's most remarkable architectural achievement the Great temple had a dark purpose for here in the inner sanctum of shrines to the gods talok and wiy pole were bloody receptacles containing the hearts of sacrificial victims and in the shadows of the temple another even more startling ritual was performed by the 1500s the Aztecs dominated most of of the surrounding city states and governed an Empire of over 10 million despite the Aztec's agricultural genius the capital of tenage Tian could not support itself economically to survive it required the tribute of conquered peoples I believe the Aztecs are an example of a Waring people part Excellence their world was structured around War the young men knew that the only possibility they had to leave the harsh life of farming carrying Stones working to build the temples and palaces was to be skillful in war surprisingly the goal of Aztec warriors was not to kill their enemies in battle [Music] instead the Aztecs believed they had to capture them alive to sacrifice them to the gods I think the scale and scope of human sacrifice in Aztec culture was probably the greatest of any known culture but I think there's been a lot of misunderstanding about it uh there was nothing sadistic or savage or barbaric as we usually Define it it was just a religious obligation that they took very seriously Scholars have been surprised to discover that to the Aztecs and their neighbors death by sacrifice was more honorable than death in battle in fact the sacrificial victims went willingly and in return the captive was promised a world uh an afterlife in a world with the son himself he would live as a king in this world of the Sun may his heart not falter may he long for the flowery death by the obsidian knife may he Savor the sweetness of the darkness astec prayer for sacrificial Warriors presiding over these blood offerings were the priests both male and female scholars believe these religious Acts were intended not to display the Priest's power but to show their humility they would let their hair grow long paint their bodies black and at a ceremony in which they extracted a heart they would let the victim's blood fall upon their heads in such a way that the sticky dry blood the skin and the dirt symbolize the Battle of man against his own vanity that rep pulsive look showed much devotion Human Sacrifice took many forms perhaps one of the most mystifying to Scholars was the act of flaying a captive and then wearing his skin they really apparently developed surgical skills in dispatching their victims and in taking off their skins and we have a number of Imes Stone uh Idols of the god chipe shown actually wearing the human skin the purpose of this strange ritual is the subject of heated debate among Scholars what the exact significance of wearing the skin was has been very controversial and Scholars disagree it seems to have had some connection with the promotion of fertility [Music] even the most forbidden of all human practices was viewed by the Aztecs as a sacred Sacrament for after death the victim's limbs were severed from the body stewed and ritually eaten by the priests and the nobility the victim was transformed uh sacralized as we say uh into uh the godhead and by ingesting small pieces of the flesh uh of the victim they were ingesting into their own bodies the sacred Essence when the first Catholic missionaries viewed these startling rights they were horrified for they viewed them as a diabolical perversion of their own ritual of communion the azex however saw them as essential for the survival of their world [Music] one rare ceremony only performed every 52 years was considered the most vital of [Music] all as night fell the high priests dressed to personify their most powerful Gods ascended the highest hill in Teno titlan at precisely midnight one priest killed a captive and pulled out his heart then inside the victim's chest cavity he attempted to Kindle the [Music] fire if the priest had failed to ignite this new fire the universe would end the Stars would turn into monsters they would descend from heaven they would devour Mankind and that would be the end of everything thing but if the fire flared up then they knew there was Renew at least for 52 years the Aztec sacrificed to sustain their gods and to ensure the stability of the cosmos yet ironically their very belief in the Supernatural would lead to their annihilation [Music] [Music] proud of itself is the city of Mexico ten Tian here no one fears to die in war who could conquer tan who could shake the foundation of Heaven Aztec poem 1400s by the year 1519 Teno chlan had attained the height of its power it was here in the capital that their all powerful King mot Kazuma II resided in awesome splendor the ruler who would later be known as monuma lived like a God because he and his subjects believed he was one you could not touch him you could not look at him commoners could not have any contact with him he thought he was a living God and no one could turn their back on him or look him in the eye despite its Grandeur the Aztec Empire was poised on the brink of Destruction for in the year 1519 the words of an ancient prophecy would come back to haunt motuma the prophecy told of the ancient god Ketel coad who was said to have departed Mexico on a raft of woven serpents curiously Ketel Cole was said to have been white- skinned and to have worn a beard before he left ketzel coad had promised that one day he would return to reclaim his [Music] throne the predicted year of ketzel Cole's Second Coming was to be the year one read on the azte calendar as fate would have it that year on the Christian calendar was 1519 the very year mot Kazuma received reports of strange Moving Mountains seen in the waters off the Mexican [Music] Coastline the Armada of the Spanish conquistador Cortez had arrived [Music] depending on how you look at it this could have been one of history's most remarkable coincidences or the ancient Aztec prophecy coming true as soon as the Spaniard landed mot Kazuma sent him lavish gifts ironically the very gold intended to win Cortez's favor would assure mot kazuma's destruction M Kuma's Ambassador asked Cortez why he hungered for a mineral the Aztec called the excrement of the Gods Cortez's answer was surprisingly candid we as Spaniards suffer from a disease of the heart which only gold can cure [Music] whatever gold the Aztecs could provide him only wetted Cortez's appetite for more to achieve his conquest of Mexico Cortez would rely on a frail Indian woman he encountered named bin who became his [Music] interpreter she became the mediator between Cortez and all of the Aztecs that he came into contact with so she was she was the the communications link without her he never could have succeeded the Mexicans today use the term Malin for traitor and they see her as a traitor a woman who betrayed her own [Music] people with melin's help Cortez launched his bloody Invasion Into the Heart of the [Music] Kingdom at first local tribes resisted the Spanish Onslaught but their arrows and War clubs were no match for the swords and Cannons of the [Music] Spaniards some historians have suggested that the real secret weapon of the Spanish was the horse an animal which the Aztecs had never seen before there's a favorite Legends repeated in every book on the history of Latin America oh the Indians thought the horse and the man were one creature but how true that is how do we know what they really thought when they first saw a horse but the idea they thought it was a one creature like a centaur I think is nonsense witnessing the Aztec practice of human sacrifice the Spaniards viewed them as barbarians yet the Aztecs were equally shocked by the brutality of the [Music] Conquistadors these soldiers were setting fires these soldiers were killing these soldiers were branding the captured Indian slaves in the forehead with Hot Irons like they the Spaniards fought to kill and of course the Aztecs fought to take sacrificial victims so an Aztec would never want to kill someone on the battlefield because it would be wasted blood the Aztecs saw that as an incredible waste of human life why on Earth would anybody just recklessly destroy the human body to the Aztec the body was something sacred it did not really belong to man it belonged to to a God but how could Cortez with only 600 men 16 horses and a few Cannon conquer an Empire of millions as he fought his way towards Mexico City Cortez made allies of many of the tribes mot Kazuma had oppressed these Warriors swelled his eager Force into an army of thousands eager to destroy their Aztec [Music] overlords whether the neighboring tribes the Aztecs had enslaved saw CZ as a God or a man to them he represented [Music] salvation by November 7th 1519 the Spaniards and 50 th000 Indian allies looked down upon Teno [Music] Tian the stage was set for one of the most extraordinary confrontations in [Music] history Scholars have been mystified that that after waging so many battles against Cortez mot Kazuma welcomed him as the returning God ketzel coad oh our Lord thou Hast come to arrive on Earth thou Hast come to govern the city of Mexico the ancient rulers departed saying that thou wouldst come now it hath been fulfilled motuma the second motuma invited the Spaniards Into the Heart of the City there the Aztec ruler showered them with lavish Gifts of gold and silver jewelry he indulged them in the Splendor of his ornate Palace and yet within one week Cortez paid mot kazuma's Hospitality with [Music] betrayal the Spaniard had his men Shackle motuma in [Music] Chains in November 1519 the Aztec ruler mot Kazuma was held a prisoner in Chains in his own Palace by Cortez and his [Music] men hungering for more gold the Spanish found the Royal Treasury and looted it Priceless ancient artifacts were melted down into gold [Music] bars to the Aztecs the spaniard's frenzy of greed seemed [Music] absurd They seized upon the gold as if they were monkeys clearly their thirst for gold was insatiable they starved for it they lost it for it they wanted to stuff themselves with it as if they were pigs from the AAC accounts told to Father Bernardino's hagon 1577 part of the spaniard's mission had been to spread the true faith of Catholicism they saw the Aztec gods as Devils and set out to destroy their Idols Cortez did try to throw down some of the idols he demanded when he had motua a prisoner that they removed the two principal Idols of the Temple of Mayor which was a a hug Stone image of wosley and another talik the preeminent rain God so the Indians took them down the stairs hid them some place in a cave that never been found to this day Scholars wonder whether this Priceless lost treasure may be hidden somewhere in the valley of Mexico waiting to be discovered [Music] on June 29th 1520 with their temples desecrated and their emperor in Chains the Aztecs finally rebelled against the Spanish Invaders thousands surrounded the palace in this final climactic moment Cortez brought Muma out on to a balcony to calm the mob but his subjects shouted that mot Kazuma was a [Music] traitor and then something very mysterious happened the Spaniards claimed that a rock did in fact impact moma's head and didn't in fact fracture his skull according to Cortez Moma was then was not dead at the time he was escorted back to his quarters where he then re received the holy sacrament from a frier and died in Heavenly Bliss as a true Christian the Aztecs however tell a dramatically different story they insist that Cortez seeing mot Kazuma was no longer of value drew his dagger and drove it deep into the emperor's back [Music] whether mot Kuma was murdered by Cortez or killed by his own people we may never [Music] know what is known is that after Mo Kuma's [Music] death the Aztecs attacked the Spaniards with a [Music] vengance during a night of confusion and bloodshed Cortez fought his way out of the city but lost half his [Music] men ironically many wounded Spaniards drowned in the canals weighed down by the gold they had [Music] stolen yet in the blood blest defeat of their campaign the Spanish left behind something far more lethal than the blades of their swords small pox there came to be prevalent a great sickness a plague many died of it no longer could they walk indeed many people died and many just died of hunger there was no one to take care of another there was no one to attend [Music] another from the AAC accounts told to Father Bernardino deson [Music] 1577 over the next decade 80% of the population of central Mexico died from the deadly Legacy of the Spanish conquistadors 5 months after their Retreat the Spanish returned to tach Tian in vengeful Fury they laid waste to what had once been the mightiest city on earth so totally was the Aztec capital of Teno titlan obliterated that even the location of the Great temple was lost for centuries modern Mexico covers the ancient Aztec capital and every time a new building is built um or a New Foundation is dug they will come up with an ancient Aztec sculpture or an edge of an old Aztec Temple or Palace because the great cities of Mexico are on top of the old Aztec cities so the mystery I think for today is what else is there waiting to be found [Music] in September 1978 digging 15 ft below street level a Workman made an astonishing Discovery a magnificent sculpture of the Aztec Moon Goddess coyol Shuki at over 8 tons and 11 ft in diameter she had rested undisturbed beneath the asphalt of downtown Mexico City for over 4 [Music] centuries the sculptures seem to be part of a much bigger structure the Aztec's holiest Shrine the long lost Great temple had at last been found since 1978 Professor Eduardo Matos moaz Zuma and his team have excavated over 5,000 Priceless objects at the ancient Aztec site relics which speak eloquently of a vanished way of [Music] life I think the biggest misconception about the Aztec is that people feel they were Savages but in fact they were not they were deeply moral people and from the time an Aztec child was very young that child was taught to be prudent to be discreet to be modest and to always do the correct thing the Aztecs even though they did practice human sacrifice and their warriors were Valiant were themselves circumspect and moral people [Music] today in the shadow of a Catholic cathedral built over what was once a holy Aztec Shrine the Aztec civilization still survives for every year drawn from Villages throughout Mexico the descendants of the Aztecs make a pilgrimage here they come in search of their own history which seems as distant as a dream yet as real as the land itself [Music] sweet flower of cako bursts open with perfume the fragrant flower of peot falls in the raining Mist I the singer I live my song is heard it takes root our flowers stand up in the rain as Tech Sal [Music] well to God [Music] [Music]