On the manuscripts of some rare pre-Hispanic codices, such as the Borgia or the Borbonicus (exceptionally loaned to the Quai Branly Museum), miraculously saved from destruction after the conquest, we see the blood of victims sacrificed to the gods taking the form of a controlled red flow, enhanced with jade and floral motifs, which goes on to penetrate the mouth of Tonatiuh, the solar entity of the Nahua peoples. Divine sustenance, supposed to nourish the sun to perpetuate its cyclical movement, to restore strength to all other gods, and to prevent the end of the world, this unstained blood bestows a vital fluid upon the fragile universe, in an unstable balance between the cosmic anecumene and the earthly ecumene.

By Emmanuel Daydé.

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