The Festival of the Toxcatl

[Kyriakos]

I was reading a bit about the grand festival of Toxcatl, which is argued to have been the main Aztec feast. It was centered on the (surprise) ritual sacrifice of a young man who was chosen for this one year before (as part of the previous feast) and until then lived as an impersonator of the god Tezcatlipoca.

The actual sacrifice would begin with the removal of the heart, using an obsidian dagger, but the body would then be decapitated and have all limbs cut off, flayed, and the remains were to be eaten by high-ranking Aztecs.

I have a few questions about this very charming and cheerful festivity:

A) Questions about the impersonator

1) Was the impersonator (original Aztec term for him is Ixiptlatli) always a prisonner of war?
2) Did the impersonator realise what would happen in the end of his year as a god?
3) Why would the Aztecs ritually kill an impersonator of a god (Tezcatlipoca) who they regarded as pretty much a gruesome monster that asked to be empowered by human blood so as to keep fending off supposedly even worse monsters from attacking the humans?
4) Did the impersonator take part in the last bits (well, not a pun) of the feast of the previous year, by being given to eat from the body of the previous impersonator?

B) Questions about the etymology of Toxcatl

1) Did that festivity's name mean 'drought' or something related to smoke/mirrors?
2) Was there any previous mesoamerican festivity which can be said to have served as a basis for the Toxcatl?

*

Thanks for any help

 

[Rubidium]

Disclaimer: I'm by no means an expert on the Aztecs, but I have done some reading on them. If you're interested, I'd strongly recommend reading some of the Florentine Codex by Sahagun (compiled by a Spanish missionary, so it has some obvious biases, but still quite good; sadly, it's mostly not available online, but if you have access to a good library...). There are also quite a few good scholarly works; I'm partial to Inga Clendinnen's Aztecs: An Interpretation for a reasonably readable, if dated, account of Aztec society. Sadly it's been a while, so I'm relying on memory. As I recall, Olivier's Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God - Tezcatlipoca, "Lord of the Smoking Mirror" has some information about it, but again, it's been a while.

As to your questions:
A)
1) Impersonators (Toxcatl was far from the only festival featuring sacrifice of a slave portraying a god) were generally slaves, but our sources differ on what kind in this instance. Some domestic slaves could be sacrificed (it was a threat for those who misbehaved), while other festivals specifically involved war captives.
2) Almost certainly, it's not like it was a huge secret, nor was human sacrifice unusual in Aztec or broader Mesoamerican society. It's worth remembering that the impersonator would have been treated extremely lavishly (with concubines, etc.) in the previous year. He also may have been drugged for the actual ceremony (Aztec priests had an extensive knowledge of the local plants and had access to several that would serve quite well for such a purpose). But it wouldn't be a surprise.
3) Why does human sacrifice happen in the first place? It was part of the ceremony to honor one of the paramount gods (and note that the Aztec view of Tezcatlipoca was somewhat more nuanced than what you are describing here). As I noted above, ritual sacrifice of an impersonator of a god or goddess was a key part of many Aztec festivals; one of the ways that various guilds/clans would "show off" was to provide slaves to serve as such impersonators in the lesser festivals. There was probably also a cyclic component to it (sacrifice the old, select the new).
4) I'm not sure.

B)
1) Disputed among the sources/scholars; as I recall Olivier has a discussion of the various theories, but again it's been a while.
2) Hard to say. Human sacrifice in various forms had been prominent in Mesoamerican culture and religion long before the Aztecs.

As always, we have the issue of very limited sources (mostly, but not exclusively, coming in a Spanish context, either from missionaries or from colonial legal documents; this causes obvious biases and distortions, as Aztec practices get slotted into Spanish preconceptions, such as the effort to equate Quetzalcoatl with the Apostle Thomas).

 

[Kyriakos]

Thank you for the great post, Rubidium