--- title: "Tlacaxipehualiztli: The Aztec Flaying of Men for Xipe Totec · Fly Brain Experiment" url: https://theflybrain.com/experiments/flaying-of-men/ description: "The fly is the captive at Tlacaxipehualiztli, the Mexica feast of Xipe Totec, as the Florentine Codex (Book 2, chapters 2 and 21) describes it: tied to the…" language: en --- # Tlacaxipehualiztli: The Aztec Flaying of Men for Xipe Totec The fly is the captive at Tlacaxipehualiztli, the Mexica feast of Xipe Totec, as the Florentine Codex (Book 2, chapters 2 and 21) describes it: tied to the round stone and armed with a feathered club against jaguar and eagle warriors, it has its heart taken on the stone, its cuticle is flayed off whole in the calpulco, and a young man wears it in the dance. **An eight-second loop from the workstation. Full recording pending publication.** [Follow along](#recordings) for the release. ## What the fly saw Frames rendered from the fly’s eye camera at four points in the timeline, each with the 32-column retinal input the connectome model receives at that moment. ![Eye-camera frame at 0:21](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/flaying-of-men-0.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 0:21](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/flaying-of-men-0-retina.png) 0:21 Down from Yopico ![Eye-camera frame at 0:58](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/flaying-of-men-1.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 0:58](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/flaying-of-men-1-retina.png) 0:58 Two jaguars ![Eye-camera frame at 1:34](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/flaying-of-men-2.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 1:34](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/flaying-of-men-2-retina.png) 1:34 The flaying ![Eye-camera frame at 2:11](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/flaying-of-men-3.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 2:11](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/flaying-of-men-3-retina.png) 2:11 Dance of the heads ## Timeline 13 steps, with their times in the experiment 1. 0:00 **The vigil** Night in the calpulco. By the fire the captor plucks the bristles from the crown of the captive’s head and keeps them as a relic. 2. 0:10 **Down from Yopico** At dawn priests dressed as the gods come down the stair of Yopico. Behind them two jaguar and two eagle warriors feint with club and shield. They sit in a ring around the round stone; flutes, conchs and whistles play. 3. 0:22 **Pulque and the quail** The captor leads the captive to the stone by the hair. He lifts a bowl of pulque to the four directions and drinks it through a hollow cane. A priest tears the head off a quail and throws it behind him. 4. 0:32 **The rope through the eye** The captive climbs onto the stone. A priest in a bear pelt ties a rope from the stone’s centre hole around his waist and hands him a club edged with feathers instead of obsidian, and four pine cudgels. 5. 0:42 **Shields to the sun** The four warriors raise their shields and clubs toward the sun. 6. 0:48 **Two jaguars** A jaguar warrior attacks from below. The captive swings his feathered club and throws the pine cudgels. The obsidian edges open his legs; the second jaguar comes on. 7. 1:02 **Two eagles** The eagle warriors join. Two attack at once, then three, then all four, dancing round the stone. 8. 1:14 **The left-handed fifth** A fifth warrior, who fights with his left, comes up. He beats the captive down, takes his weapons and throws him onto the stone. 9. 1:24 **On the edge of the stone** The chief priest bends him back over the stone’s edge, opens his chest and offers the heart to the sun. A second priest dips a hollow cane in the wound and raises the blood. The captor catches it in a feathered bowl. 10. 1:34 **The flaying** In the calpulco the body is cut along the back. The cuticle is peeled open, worked off the legs and lifted away in one piece, leaving the raw, glistening body on the mat. 11. 1:50 **Wearing the skins** Young men step into the flayed skins and lace them shut. Their own eyes look out through the empty faces; the empty feet dangle at their wrists. They dance around the stone. 12. 2:04 **Dance of the heads** The captors dance with the captives’ heads held by the antennae in their right hands. The priest in the pelt lifts the ropes to the four directions and weeps. 13. 2:14 **Twenty days** For twenty days the skin wearers go through the streets collecting gifts. The skins darken, dry and crack. They sit on beds of hay and mock-fight anyone who provokes them. ## Setup - 13 seekable stages over 146 seconds: the vigil, down from Yopico, pulque and the quail, the rope through the eye, shields to the sun, two jaguars, two eagles, the left-handed fifth, on the edge of the stone, the flaying, wearing the skins, dance of the heads, and twenty days. - A paved plaza before Yopico, Xipe Totec's stepped temple with a south stair and a red shrine. In the middle stands the round stone, modeled after excavated examples at about 2.64 m across and 0.94 m high, with a carved side band of victors seizing captives, a sun disk on top, a central hole and a channel to the rim; around it are low seats, a calpulco with a hearth and reed mat, and a bed of hay. - A fly's skin is its cuticle, so the exoskeleton is cut along the back and peeled off as one shell with the legs and eye facets, leaving the raw body of striated red muscle and yellow-white fat; two priests lift the empty cuticle upright before a young man steps in and it is laced shut with a red seam. - The cast includes the chief priest in a flayed skin and the young man who wears the skin (articulated flies), two jaguar and two eagle warriors, the left-handed fifth, the priest in a bear pelt, six captors, twelve seated priests dressed as gods, eight musicians with white feather banners and up to twelve skin wearers. - Gore (Low / Standard / Extreme, default Extreme) and blood tone (cinematic red or fly hemolymph) are scene controls; the eye camera sees the splatter. How long he holds out: valiant, against all four warriors and then the fifth (default), or fainting and lying down on the stone, as the codex says some captives did. Skin wearers: 2–12, default 8. - Eight cameras: director, the round stone and ring, a low view of the fight, the flaying close-up, the dance of the skins, the Yopico procession, the crowd, and the eye in first person; a replay control jumps to the flaying. ## Measurement - Retinal-only input: the eye camera's 32 luminance columns reach the fixed connectome model, measured spikes drive the neural display, and no direct stimulation is sent. - The eye image includes the calpulco fire, the procession, the stone, the warriors looming up from below, the priest and the heart against the sky, and the priests at the mat; from the dance on, the eye camera rides the worn skin's own eye on the wearer. The raw and cuticle display doubles and the captive's own club, shield and crown bristles are excluded. - The host's lights are switched off while the scene is loaded (restored on unload), so the night vigil and the dawn match in the viewport and the eye. - The fly's movements, the warriors and the rest of the cast follow a pre-programmed timeline; measured spikes do not move the fly. ## Limitations - The plaza, Yopico, the calpulco, the warriors' costumes and the numbers of seats, gods, musicians and skin wearers are approximations; the striking order, the wounds and all timing are pre-programmed. - The codex describes a human skin; here the fly's cuticle comes off whole, and the head's bristles and an antenna stand for the hair. How the cuticle opens is an approximation. - The codex says the skins were worn for twenty days; their darkening from yellow to black over that time is not documented in the cited sources. The eye riding the worn skin's eye from the dance onward is a camera placement. - The codex says the bodies were divided and eaten; this is not shown, and the raw body is simply carried off. - Gore is deterministic, instanced scene content, not a tissue or injury simulation. ## Sources - [Florentine Codex, digital edition (Getty Research Institute)](https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/) ## About The fly is the captive at Tlacaxipehualiztli, the Mexica feast of Xipe Totec, as the Florentine Codex (Book 2, chapters 2 and 21) describes it: tied to the round stone and armed with a feathered club against jaguar and eagle warriors, it has its heart taken on the stone, its cuticle is flayed off whole in the calpulco, and a young man wears it in the dance. [theflybrain.com/experiments/flaying-of-men](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/flaying-of-men/) [rituals-and-ceremonies](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/rituals-and-ceremonies/) [drosophila](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [connectome](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [malecns](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [specimen-237](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) - Subject [Specimen 237](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) - Readme - MaleCNS data · CC BY 4.0 - Views not yet tallied - Stages **13** - Duration **146 s** - Round stone **2.64 m across, 0.94 m high** - Skin wearers **8 (2–12)** ## Recordings No recordings published yet. - [Follow on YouTube](https://youtube.com/paranoidamerican) - [Follow on TikTok](https://tiktok.com/@paranoidamerica) - [Follow on Instagram](https://instagram.com/paranoidamerican) - [Follow on X](https://x.com/paranoidamerica) ## Packages [workstation source](https://www.patreon.com/cw/ParanoidAmerican/membership)Included for Research Associates · [setup guide](https://theflybrain.com/workstation/setup/) ## Credits 2 [![Specimen 237](https://theflybrain.com/images/specimen-237.jpg)](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) [PA](https://paranoidamerican.com) Official Experiment ## Notes - Setup38% - Measurement25% - Limitations31% - Sources6% ## Share [X](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Tlacaxipehualiztli%3A%20The%20Aztec%20Flaying%20of%20Men%20for%20Xipe%20Totec%3A%20a%20fly%20brain%20experiment.%20%23TheFlyBrain&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fflaying-of-men%2F) [Threads](https://www.threads.net/intent/post?text=Tlacaxipehualiztli%3A%20The%20Aztec%20Flaying%20of%20Men%20for%20Xipe%20Totec%3A%20a%20fly%20brain%20experiment.%20%23TheFlyBrain%20https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fflaying-of-men%2F) [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fflaying-of-men%2F) ## Commission one Want the fly to do something else? 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[Commission an Experiment · $237](https://paranoidamerican.com/products/custom-fly-brain-experiment) ## More in Rituals & ceremonies [All 32](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/rituals-and-ceremonies/) - [![Aztec New Fire Ceremony: The Binding of the Years (Xiuhmolpilli): fly brain experiment scene](https://theflybrain.com/images/experiments/new-fire.jpg)0100**Aztec New Fire Ceremony: The Binding of the Years (Xiuhmolpilli)**](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/new-fire/) - [![The Moche Sacrifice Ceremony at Huaca de la Luna, Peru: fly brain experiment scene](https://theflybrain.com/images/experiments/moche-sacrifice.jpg)0101**The Moche Sacrifice Ceremony at Huaca de la Luna, Peru**](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/moche-sacrifice/) - [![Maya Royal Bloodletting at Yaxchilan: Lintels 24 and 25: fly brain experiment scene](https://theflybrain.com/images/experiments/maya-bloodletting.jpg)0102**Maya Royal Bloodletting at Yaxchilan: Lintels 24 and 25**](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/maya-bloodletting/) - [![The Maya Ballgame and the Beheading Relief at Chichen Itza: fly brain experiment scene](https://theflybrain.com/images/experiments/maya-ballgame.jpg)0103**The Maya Ballgame and the Beheading Relief at Chichen Itza**](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/maya-ballgame/) [Previous0098-toxcatl](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/toxcatl/) [Next0100-new-fire](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/new-fire/) --- Source: https://theflybrain.com/experiments/flaying-of-men/ · TheFlyBrain (theflybrain.com) · Site summary for language models: https://theflybrain.com/llms.txt