Hair Pomade of Clotted Blood?

The picture here is not that of a temple priest, it is that of a nobleman. However, the smooth (plastered-down) hair style could have been such as once worn by the priests.

One of the least believable, but oft repeated pre-conquest descriptions that is included in most books about the Mesoamerican world, is the fact that the priests of the pyramid-like temples smeared blood from human sacrifices into their hair as a control for "stray ends." This information is found in the Chronicles of Bernal Díaz del Castillo. (1956, p. 10, 1957, p. 21) No one even considers that this particular description may well be one of the major untruths of the Conquest.

What is blood? Whether from butchered animals or from butchered human beings, blood is a food source. It is a major food source, not for human consumption, as a general rule, but for flies and their offspring, the maggots.

No one has ever really considered the role that ordinary house flies would take if the hair of temple priests were actually plastered down with blood of "human sacrifices."

In an open air situation, near a large source of water like Lake Texcoco, or an open cenote of the Maya, it is very unlikely that this foray for a sure food source for their offspring would take very long. Within four (4) days, an ordinary house fly egg reaches its pre-pupal and pupal stages. So in less than a week, the maggot is a lively, moving entity in and about his food cache.

There does not even have to be a swarm of flies, just one or two carried up to the top of the pyramid/temple by an updraft. Even if one single fly laid its eggs in a priest's plastered down hair, there would be sufficient movement within the strands in just a few days. Maggots, being what they are, would not be sated with the supply of blood on the hair, but would soon attempt to investigate fresher sources under the living flesh of the scalp.

It would be odd if we were to believe anything but that which is written about the past. The gory, the primitive, the savage things are much more interesting for readers. It holds the attention span longer than dull prosaic common sense. Imagination can take wings with such nonsense and it usually does.