Did Aztec Shamans sacrifice babies not yet born to ensure that crops would be bountiful?

Question

I have heard that at times, the Aztec Shaman would require that someone (at times his wife) would have to sacrifice an unborn baby to ensure that crops would be bountiful. Is this true or fiction??

Answer 1

I heard they ripped the hearts out of virgins while they were still living to sacrifice to their gods. I'll check on both and update...

Don't know how reliable this is, but:

According to these early accounts, some sacrificial victims were not eaten, such as children offered by drowning to the rain god, Tlaloc, or persons suffering skin diseases. But the overwhelming majority of the sacrificed captives apparently were consumed. A principal -- and sometimes only -- objective of Aztec war expeditions was to capture prisoners for sacrifice. While some might be sacrificed and eaten on the field of battle, most were taken to home communities or to the capital, where they were kept in wooden cages to be fattened until sacrificed by the priests at the temple-pyramids. Most of the sacrifices involved tearing out the heart, offering it to the sun and, with some blood, also to the idols. The corpse was then tumbled down the steps of the pyramid and carried off to be butchered. The head went on the local skull rack, displayed in central plazas alongside the temple-pyramids. At least three of the limbs were the property of the captor if he had seized the prisoner without assistance in battle. Later, at a feast given at the captor's quarters, the central dish was a stew of tomatoes, peppers, and the limbs of his victim. The remaining torso, in Tenochtitlán at least, went to the royal zoo where it was used to feed carnivorous mammals, birds, and snakes.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/aztecs/sacrifice.htm