Throngs chant below, in the courtyard in front of the temple. Some dance with rattles made of “ayoyote” tied around their wrists, lower legs and ankles and sing in accompaniment to ritual drums and crude metal bells while loincloth-clad musicians beat tones on beautifully carved bamboo “Tponaztlas”. The young captive warrior, his body painted blue, stumbles ever so slightly, woozy from the intoxicating balche poured into him lovingly by four beautiful maidens representing the four Chacs, or rain gods, each associated with a cardinal direction and with its own special color. For a year now the youth has consorted with them and lived a life of utmost luxury, the finest of all the culture available to him. It is now the fifth ritual month of Toxcatl. The priest, arrayed to represent a god, possibly Tezcatlipoca, a wizard and a master of black magic, now spreads his arms wide as the warrior-captive nears the top of the altar steps.

The crowd is in a frenzy now, chanting, yelling, writhing in unison like a massive wave of the sea below. In front of the stone carved altar, smoke rises from copal incense burning in pottery vessels. Suddenly, the waiting attendants seize the youth, who, beginning to come to his senses and realizing with stark foreboding what is about to happen, vainly struggles against his burly captors. Prostrating him face up on the altar with his head pointed Northward, they spread-eagle and hold his arms and legs immobile. Running rivulets of sweat now streak the blue-painted torso. The priest raises his arms in salutation to the gods and crowd before ceremonially cutting open the sacrifice’s chest with a gold-hilted sacrificial flint knife and tears out his heart as an offering. The balche does its work in deadening the pain, but it is not enough.