Is it really fair to characterize the Aztec religion as being particularly cruel and bloodthirsty, or was it not bad as is commonly assumed?
r/AskHistoriansu/pseudogentry:
Varied but generally limited. There are accounts, mostly in the Florentine Codex, to both alcohol (in the form of pulque, which was fermented maguey sap) and psychedelic plants and fungi. Use of these was strictly limited; it seems the Aztecs recognised their disposition to alcoholism very early on. Only older people were allowed to drink, and public drunkenness was punishable on the first occasion by death for nobles, and shaving the head for commoners, who would be killed if found drunk again.
As for psychedelic drugs, they would be consumed by priests, and occasionally by nobles at certain banquets. However, like alcohol, use was tolerated but undesirable, and pleasure-seeking was seen as a weakness of character. In the Codex, Sahagún records native opinions as follows:
“The bad noblewoman [is] infamous, very audacious, stern, and proud. Very stupid, brazen. besotted, and drunk. She goes about besotted; she goes about demented; she goes about eating mushrooms.”
“The Lewd Youth is a drunkard, foolish, dejected; a drunk, a sot. He goes about eating mushrooms” […]
Sahagún sugests that Aztec warriors consumed mushrooms as part of ritual warfare.