The Aztecs created and enacted a ritual--subsequent to the conlusion of a battle--that consisted of bringing a captured soldier to the top of a pyramid, where his heart was extracted and fed to the sun-God.

The Aztecs--as well as the other Mexican city-states--believed that the sun-God would stay alive only if fed with the hearts and blood of sacrificial victims. The Aztecs were aware of the fact that they were enacting a sacrificial ritual. 

Western societies created and enacted a ritual, 1914-1918, which consisted  asked soldiers to get out of trenches and to run into artillery shells and machine-gun fire. Their bodies were torn apart in "no-man's land."

The Western nations and leaders of the time, as well as historians who continue to document the war, do not acknowledge that a sacrificial ritual was being enacted. They claim that this futile battle "strategy" was undertaken with the intention of "winning" the war.