At the top of the staircase, relinquishing his flowers and his mantles, he is received by six priests with locks matted with the blood of previous victims, their ears hanging in long strips where they have been cut as acts of penance. Led to the sacrificial stone, he is thrown on his back upon it. Five priests hold his arms and legs while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, dexterously opens his breast with the famous sacrificial knife, its wooden handle carved with the intertwined bodies of two serpents. Inserting his hand into the wound, he tears out the palpitating heart. Holding it first toward the setting sun, he casts it at the feet of the image of the god to whom the temple is dedicated.