cost+of+courage+in+Aztec+society

Aztec combat was highly individualistic, and depended utterly on the courage of the individual. For his first venture in to war the fledgling warrior went only as an observer, to “carry the shield” of an experienced warrior whose technique he was to study. On his second time out he was expected to participate in a group capture: up to six novices could combine to drag a warrior down….With that initial capture, cooperation was at an end: from that time on the youth was in direct competition with his peers, as he searched through the dust-haze and mind-stunning shrieking and whistling to identify and engage with an enemy warrior of equal, or preferably just higher, status….

Glimpses in both the painted and written sources suggest that combat was initiated by a formal ..gesture, with a “presentation stance” of the club arm dropped and the body in a half-crouch. Since each warrior had an interest in not damaging his opponent too severely, there being no honor to be won by killing in the field, and a maimed man being useless for the most engrossing rituals, it is likely there was an initial preference for using the flat side of the club to stun, resorting to the cutting edges only when faced with a singularly difficult antagonist

The action, when it came, was very fast: the clubs, although heavy, were handy…..The aim was to stun or sufficiently disable one’s opponent so that he could be grappled to the ground and subdued…..

Explosions of anger, paralyzing eruptions of rage, transformations from the stillness of perfect control to furious violence—great Aztec warriors would seem to the uncomfortable people to be with. And lesser warriors had less control. Young men kept ata a pitch for war and trained to a style of touchy arrogance were hard to maintain peaceably in a city. To an outsider there was a startling incidence of violence tolerated within Aztec society, much of it generated from the young men in the warrior houses….

So, it would seem, society strove to contain and limit the undesired costs of courage by a determined effort to impose order on the unruly men of war. Penal codes were savage, with swift and violent retribution laid down for all socially disruptive acts, from drinking and adultery to theft and extortion and the higher the rank the more strenuous the punishment. Public rhetorica insisted on the virtues of humility, modesty, frugality and self-control…..