The Aztecs believed that the world was created and destroyed four times before the then "fifth creation" in which they lived.
Their supreme god was Huicilopohtli, the sun and war god. As they feared that one day the sun would cease to ascend into the sky and that their world would end like this, the Aztecs offered him as victims of captured enemy warriors.
Namely, to keep him alive, the Aztecs made human sacrifices to Huicilopohtli because he believed that he needed human hearts and blood as food.
