As regular readers here know, I'm an admirer of Tlaloc, the Aztec 'rain god.' There is a rainy season in Mexico, so consciousness of its lord -- Tlaloc -- can be useful to one's thinking. But I must admit now my infatuation with him was pretty superficial. Depicted with fangs and googly discs over his eyes, Tlaloc is technically the god of fertility. Among his many responsibilities, he demanded the constant sacrifice of children to bring tears of rain upon the earth.
Tlaloc's appetite for infant souls is apparently well documented. Aztec priests believed the children had to be crying at the moment of death in order to appease the god, so sometimes kids had their fingers torn out, before the tearing out of their beating hearts. Keep in mind this had to have happened right at the Templo Mayor, thousands of times, near where the Metropolitan Cathedral and National Palace now stand.
A bit chilling, no? The legacy of ritual sacrifice in Mexico is not something people of any class or stature -- on either side of the border -- find easy to discuss. Personally, I'm still wrapping my head around the topic.