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Inca god or goddess associated with the mountain.
Frozen mummies of sacrificed children have also been found on other high peaks in the Andes mountains. Young children were reportedly chosen for offerings because they were considered to be purer and more innocent than adults. Healthy good-looking children were selected, and then fattened up on a special diet for several months, before being led away to be sacrificed. In most cases the trek to a high mountain summit would have required at least a week of arduous climbing. When the summit was reached, the child was given an intoxicating drink intended to dull the senses. Most likely a ceremony was performed in the desolate surroundings, and then the child was killed. At least one victim appears to have died from a blow to the head. Others may have been killed by strangulation or by being abandoned to freeze to death.
Some of the most horrifying descriptions of human sacrifice can be found in the reports of Spanish soldiers who participated in the conquest of Mesoamerica in the 16th century. These soldiers were especially horrified by the scale of the practice. For example, some of the Spanish who fought against the Aztecs saw a giant "skull-rack" structure which by one estimate contained about 100,000 skulls of sacrificial victims. Based on this report, as well as other evidence, some scholars have estimated that the Aztecs sacrificed at least 20,000 people annually. Human sacrifices also took place on a large scale in regions occupied by the Mayans, Toltecs, and other native peoples of Mesoamerica. In fact, some societies in the region would regularly start wars for the purpose of capturing enemy soldiers to serve as victims. However, there is evidence that members of noble families were also sometimes sacrificed.
Descriptions of Aztec sacrifices say that they took place on a flat area at the top of a tall pyramidal temple. Here the Aztec priests would first perform various ceremonies while accompanied by musicians playing conches, horns, and trumpet-like instruments. Then, with the musicians still playing, the priests would lay the victim on his back, cut open his torso with a stone knife, then grab the still-beating heart and rip it out of the body. After the heart was pulled out, it was placed in a bowl held by a nearby idol of an Aztec god. The victim's head was then cut from the body and taken to a Skull Rack for public display. Some accounts say that the rest of the body was later cooked and eaten.
