Page 65 - A History of the World in 25 Cities

At the top of the Great Temple, hundreds of human sacrifices took place every year. Some of the ceremonies could be gruesome. Strange though it may seem to us,
being chosen to feed the gods with your heart and blood was seen as a great honour. Victims were often
the strongest and most handsome prisoners of war, but sometimes they could be enslaved people, ullamaliztli (ball game) players,
or ordinary adults and children.
The Aztecs had some poetic names such as Cozamalotl for a girl, which means ‘rainbow’, and Huitzilin for a boy, meaning ‘hummingbird’. Both boys and girls could be called Eztli, which means ‘blood’!
Montezuma II was the Aztec emperor when the Spanish arrived at Tenochtitlán in 1520. He made the invaders welcome – possibly because he was setting a trap for their leader, Hernán Cortés. Montezuma died while he was in Spanish custody, and the Aztecs blamed the Spanish for their emperor’s death. Cortés and his army were almost destroyed when they tried to leave the city.
Within a few years, the Spanish had killed all of Montezuma’s successors
and as good as enslaved the Aztec people. They destroyed Tenochtitlán, building their own city on its ruins.
Many Aztecs died of the diseases the Europeans brought with
them, but many lived on and became part of
the new Mexico.
89
Population of Tenochtitlán around the 1520s:
3OO OOO
Population of modern Mexico City:
61
Cozamalotl