It sometimes seems as if quite a few people have decided that the Aztecs were uniformly a warlike, uncaring group. Of course, being human, they weren't at all. Though we might be thoroughly creeped out by practices like human sacrifice and goddesses of filth and purification, we shouldn't forget that they were also people focused on community and family life.
Given how dedicated many Aztec people were to family, it might come as no surprise that, upon the death of a loved one, they would often enter into states of deep, ritualized mourning. As Everyday Life in the Aztec World reports, for instance, the death of a merchant would mean that his family was plunged into elaborate, days-long rituals to mark his passing.
For widows, mourning for their husbands could get, frankly, pretty gross. According to History Extra, an Aztec woman mourning for a husband lost to war would enter into an extraordinary 80-day period of grief. During this time, she would not wash her face, head, or clothing. The accumulated filth expressed her deep emotion during the time it reportedly took for her husband's spirit to reach paradise. After this time, she was to clean herself and, having ritualistically washed the evidence of her sorrow off her body, move on with her life.
