The flowery wars (Nahuatl = Xochiyaotl) were semiritual battles that the Aztecs and their neighbors waged for the specific purpose of gaining captives for sacrifice.
In 1454-55, in response to four years of famine, either the Aztec great speaker Moctezuma I or his cihuacoatl,
Tlacacla, established the flowery wars. Believing that regular and abundant human sacrifice was needed to propitiate the gods, the speaker and his cihuacoatl initiated a perpetual war with the other peoples of the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley in order that all might secure a source of sacrificial offerings. These battles were distinct from the concurrent wars of conquest: In this case, conquest would be self-defeating because it would leave no more enemy warriors to capture.
Combatants seem to have gone willingly in response both to the warrior ethos and the belief that only those who died in battle would attain a comfortable afterlife (see Aztecs). Participation also assured a comfortable existence on the earthly plane, given that Moctezuma I and Tlacacla had also established a system of privilege based on battlefield success allowing for exaltation of valiant commoners and debasement of less bellicose nobles.
There is some evidence that Moctezuma’s idea was no innovation, but rather an adaptation of a practice long used by various peoples of ancient Mexico. Nonetheless, it was a significant development, marking the beginning of more than half a century of continuous hostilities between the Aztecs and their neighbors, especially Tlaxcala, resulting not only in a climate of animosity toward the Aztecs but also a tendency toward monumental sacrifices and thus the need for increased warfare, flowery and otherwise. In the long run, the institution of the flowery wars left several independent states within the Aztec Empire that were both able and willing to aid the Spaniards when they arrived in 1519.
Further reading: Geoffrey W. Conrad and Arthur A. Demarest, Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Nigel Davies, Aztecs: A History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980); Kay Almere Read, Time and Sacrifice in the Aztec Cosmos (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).
—Marie A. Kelleher
World History
